95bFM: The Wednesday Wire with Paul Deady 10/12/08

The bFM WIRE Today: 12 - 2pm weekdays

For links toWindows Media Player & 128kbps Streams Go To:
http://www.95bfm.com/default,live.sm

1220 – Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson

First up we'll hear from the new minister of Labour (above) who I spoke to this morning. Just about all the unions here in Aotearoa are crying "arrogance", "undemocratic" and "sheesh" at the National-led government's decision to pass the 90-day probation bill under urgency, and have it in law before Christmas. The bill will allow businesses with fewer than 20 employees to instantly sack new employees in that first 90 days and remove the ability of employees to make a personal grievance claim. National says it'll give business the confidence to hire new staff in these troubled times, perversely by making it easier to fire them. The unions, the Greens, the Labour all say the law is a huge breach of good-faith employment practices and the decision to rush the legislation – which was not on the National's list of stuff they wanted to get done in the first 100 days – bodes badly for the future of this government.

1240 – Psychometric tests, Brenda Pilott PSA

More employment carry-on at 1240 when I'll be speaking to (above) about a whole nother thing. They're a bit concerned that psychometric testing is being overused, and also used for performance management which they're not designed for. They're citing anecdotal evidence so perhaps a grain of salt might be required, but having been incorrectly informed of my own personality after taking one of the tests, I can certainly vouch for their bullcrap quotient.

1300 – Asteroid Defense, Alan Gilmore Mt John Observatory

At one we'll hear from (above) about a plea made earlier this week to the UN by the International Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation. They want the governments of the world to get serious on the threat posed by Near Earth Objects (NEOs) and pour way more money into some kind of spaceguard system. Alan regularly looks for the chunks of rock in the sky that could kill us all and knows a thing or two about that likelihood.

1320 – Counterclockwise

Selwyn Manning's final counterclockwise of the year today at 1320 will be focusing on Human Rights, on this, the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights. He'll look at how the last government fared, how the new one might do, and what are the burning issues for international Human Rights – burning being the operative word, climate change anyone?

1340 – Book She Read

And Sally's in at 1340 for the final Book She Read for the year. Our erstwhile book lass will go through this years literary high and lowlights, make a few chrissie pressie suggestions and look at the trends shaping the book world into 2009 and beyond. Word up.

© Scoop Media