Matt Heath & Tyler Adams Afternoons

Five parrots have been removed from public view at a British wildlife park after they started swearing at customers. The foul-mouthed birds were split up after they launched a number of different expletives at visitors and staff just days after being donated to Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in eastern England. "It just went ballistic, they were all swearing," the venue's chief executive Steve Nichols...

Ring, the Amazon-owned home security business, introduced a flying camera on Thursday that may excite home-surveillance fans but is almost certain to rankle privacy advocates. The US$250 drone, called Ring Always Home Cam, is among a slew of products unveiled during Amazon's invitation-only online hardware event. The drone is small and light, with a high-definition camera, and it can automatically...

New Zealand Rugby insists it's committed to playing the Rugby Championship in full, despite serious concerns over the tournament end-date. SANZAAR released the six game schedule this morning, with the All Blacks playing Australia on December 12th. That would see the All Blacks still in managed quarantine for Christmas. NZR chief executive Mark Robinson told Simon and Phil they were working towards...

New Zealand Rugby faces a massive task to convince Australian Rugby and SANZAAR to reschedule their final game of the Rugby Championship or it's quarantine at Christmas for the All Blacks. SANZAAR has released the tournament schedule, which sees the final Bledisloe on December 12th, not the 5th as NZR wanted. It's thought commercial issues and player welfare worries from the other countries are pr...

Grant Robertson has been Minister of Finance for the last 3 years, and an MP for 12.  He's been front and centre over the past 8 months as we navigate the huge financial challenges of Covid-19 and was Simon and Phil's guest for this weeks Six and a Song.  They discussed his childhood, his entry into politics, his love of rugby, the controversial Rugby Championship schedule, and of course his favou...

Labour's finance spokesman Grant Robertson says that his sexuality has never been an issue while in Parliament. Joining Simon Barnett and Phil Gifford for Six and a Song, Robertson says that he was already out when he joined politics so it never proved an issue. While he is completely comfortable with his sexuality, Robertson says that the more prominence you get, the more people learn about you,...

Should you be able to take sick leave from work to care for a sick pet or one that's passed away?  We put the question out there to our listeners today and boy did the phone lines go crazy!  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For 18 months, residents of a village in Wales have been mystified as to why their broadband internet crashed every morning. Now engineers have finally identified the reason: A second-hand television that emitted a signal that interfered with the connection. A crack team of engineers-turned-detectives have become heroes in the village of Aberhosan after finally finding the source of the problem, a...

Gareth Abdinor is an Employment Lawyer and Partner with Malley & Co solicitors.  We have him on regularly to answer all your employment related questions.  Today we had some great questions on whether you can be made redundant during maternity leave, whether a company can delay commission payments because of Covid-19, and dealing with bullying allegations in the workplace.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnyst...

Nearly 1 in 1,500 people in Japan is now aged 100 or older, new data from the Japanese government shows. Figures from Japan's Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry show the number of centenarians went above 80,000 for the first time this year -- the 50th consecutive annual increase and the biggest rise to date. There were 80,450 people aged 100 and over as of Tuesday -- 9,176 more than last year -- w...

In a bit of good news, there will be new emojis in 2021 after all. The Unicode Consortium, a non-profit that oversees emoji standards and is responsible for new releases, announced the release of more than 200 emojis that will hit cell phones throughout next year in a limited "Emoji 13.1" release -- which means even more ways to convey the pain of this year. Unicode called it a "minor release" to...

For the first time in history, on 15 March 2020 the New Zealand government closed the country's borders.   What followed was a story unprecedented in almost every way imaginable.  During this time authour Paul Little spoke regularly with Finance Minister Grant Robertson, science communicator Siouxsie Wiles, Queenstown Mayor Jim Boult, funeral directors Francis and Kaiora Tipene, Student Volunteer...

National's health spokesman Dr Shane Reti has not denied that he has leadership ambitions. The Northland MP joined Simon Barnett and Phil Gifford for the weekly Six and a Song segment. While a few months ago Dr Reti was on the backbenches, he has rapidly moved up the ranks, taking over the party's health portfolio and becoming the most senior Maori MP on the party's list. His measured response to...

The Māori Party wants to ban schools from expelling any students under age 16. The party's radical education policy, released today, also asks for 25 per cent of the $17 billion education budget to be spent on "Maori models of delivery", and for all primary schools to teach half their content in te reo Māori by the end of this decade. Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, the chief executive of South T...

Phil Kingsley-Jones, the former manager of Jonah Lomu and the man famously credited with keeping the late All Blacks great from leaving rugby for league, has passed away. A family member of the 72-year-old Welshman confirmed to the Herald had been "recovering at home" after falling five months ago. Kingsley-Jones was Lomu's manager for 10 years until 2004 when the former All Black's wife Fiona too...

Covid-19 is still expected to take a significant toll on the economy, but that toll – according to The Treasury – is not as bad as expected. Treasury officials had expected tomorrow's GDP figure to reveal a 23.5 per cent drop over the period from when New Zealand first went into lockdown. But its updated numbers show it's now expecting that figure to be 16 per cent. Although better than expected,...

It's a game we play every Friday. You Da Man, the guys pick their favourite songs of the week and the audience picks their favourite. First to 3 votes takes it out. Si and Phil delivered two musical hits, but producer Tyler snuck in there with a beautifully slow song from the great CCR.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lorraine Downes has been a household name since 1983 when she won Miss Universe, and went from a teenager in Pakuranga to global and glamorous prominence.   She won season 2 of Dancing with the Stars, and is also an author, brand ambassador, and currently runs a successful consulting business.   A great pleasure to have her as our guest for this weeks Six and a Song.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.c...

A leading neuroscience educator says talking to your kids about distressing content will help more than trying to get them to forget it.  Parents are being warned about a distressing video circulating on social media, which appears to show a man dying by suicide. Internal Affairs, the Classification Office and Netsafe are strongly encouraging people not to view it -- and for parents to stop childr...

A leading economist says Labour's tax policy is a good start, but more will be needed to get ourselves out of our Covid-19 debt.  If elected, the party is promising a top tax rate of 39 percent on income above 180 thousand dollars - but no new tax on assets. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Talking robots that interact with older people could be introduced into care homes to help fight loneliness and mental ill health. Pepper, a "culturally competent robot," was tested on care home residents in Britain and Japan -- those who interacted with it for up to 18 hours over the course of two weeks "saw a significant improvement in their mental health," researchers found. Pepper was part of...

Gareth Abdinor is an employment lawyer and partner with Malley & Co solicitors.  We have him on regularly to answering your employment related questions.  His employment law knowledge is second to none, and always a great insight into the variety of issues we all come across in our jobs.  Questions today included posting personal views on social media if they could backfire on your employer, and b...

Assurances an election campaign promise to tackle high merchant service fees has been in the works for some time. Labour is pledging to regulate fees banks charge businesses for contactless payments like payWave. Small business spokesperson Stuart Nash says a discussion document was being prepared before COVID-19 hit - but the pandemic put the kibosh on the ability to consult New Zealanders. He to...

Today marks ten years since the magnitude 7.1 earthquake first struck the region.  Simon was in the region on that day, and the devastating February earthquake 5 months later.  He looked back on that incredibly tough time in Christchurch's history.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Best-selling author Tom Scott joins Si and Phil for this weeks Six and a Song and to talk about his new book on legendary New Zealand soldier Charles Upham 'Chasing Charlie' LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.