Nine To Noon for Monday 28 April 2025

09:05 Concerns over closure of one-of-a-kind psychotherapy day programme

For decades Segar House has helped people in Auckland experiencing self-harm, early life trauma, long-standing depression or chronic suicidality. It offers a publicly-funded, intensive psychotherapy day programme - the only one of its kind in the country. But under a change proposal from Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand the programme is set to be disestablished; its resources and staff "re-invested" elsewhere. The proposal cites low participant numbers, transport barriers to access and Covid having an impact on a revamp of the day programme. But Kyle MacDonald, a psychotherapist who worked at Segar House for a number of years, says the closure is short-sighted - the programme was always designed to be resource-intensive up front, to prevent people needing further therapy down the line. He joins Kathryn, along with a former patient who says the Segar House programme helped save her life.

09:20 Trump vs the Judiciary: is a constitutional crisis looming?

The Trump administration has been agressively challenging the judiciary in the United States since taking office in January. Just last week, US officials arrested a Wisconsin county judge and charged her with helping a man in her court evade immigration authorities. In another instance last month, a federal judge's order not to deport a group of Venezuelan men, was ignored by the administration. The President then went on to call for the impeachment of the judge who issued the order, describing him on social media as a "Radical Left Lunatic." Recently,  the Republican-led House voted to limit district court judges’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions. Some legal scholars in the United States are worried a constitutional crisis is looming , where the executive branch regards court orders as optional. Adam Liptak covers the Supreme Court for the New York Times - he is a graduate of Yale Law School, he practiced law for 14 years before joining The Times in 2002.

09:45 Europe correspondent Seamus Kearney

After farewell to the Pope, cardinals prepare for conclave, Trump and Zelensky hold face-to-face Vatican meeting, and Denmark & Greenland agree to boost ties amid Trump interest.

10:05 Former diplomat, Derek Leask, on his atlas of the New Zealand wars

Former career diplomat, Derek Leask, was drawn into the stories of the New Zealand Wars when he started to explore the lives of his great and great-great grandfathers, who were early settlers. Now he has used maps, sketches and prints to illustrate how the fighting unfolded in the mid nineteenth century in an atlas. Derek Leask speaks to Kathryn about his decade's long research that reveals a complex series of misunderstandings, skirmishes and negotiations, battles and wars that shaped the lives of Māori and Pākehā in Aotearoa .Atlas of the New Zealand Wars: Vol One -1834 to 1864 - Early Engagements to the Second Taranaki War is published by Auckland University Press.

10:35 Book review: Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata  

Melanie O'Loughlin of Lamplight Books in Auckland reviews Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata published by Granta 

10:45 Around the motu: Diane McCarthy in Whakatāne 

Diane discusses the latest events in Whakatāne including updates on the upcoming local elections, a 15-year-old has been raising awareness on Māori wards, and Air Chathams needs council support to continue it's only air service directly to Auckland.

Diane McCarthy is an Eastern Bay of Plenty Local Democracy Reporter with the Whakatāne Beacon.

11:05 Political commentators Gareth Hughes and Ben Thomas

Gareth Hughes is the Director of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa is a former Green MP and is no longer a member of any political party.

Ben Thomas is a former National government press secretary, a columnist and a director of public affairs firm Capital.

11:30 The award winning meat raised locally for urban consumption    

Conscious Valley has just won an outstanding food producer award for its lamb raised just outside the capital and solid direct to consumers. It's thick cut loin lamb chops were named the "dish" Hero Ingredient champion. The animals are raised on the Ōhāriu Valley farm of Hamish Best - an area that is actually a Wellington suburb. The local farming community is too small to export so he came up with the idea of supplying locally grown red meat for Wellingtonians to buy direct through a weekly market and supplied to local restaurants. Hamish Best talks to Kathryn about supplying great tasting meat from animals grazing on hill country pastures dusted by Wellington's salt laden winds.

11:45 Off the beaten track with Kennedy Warne 

A week ago, ex-cyclone Tam brought strong winds and rain to Northland, and also something else: strands of silk that floated in the air and became entangled on clothing and hair and any physical surface. The culprits were tiny spiders known as wolf spiders. Kennedy will also take us to Marion Island - one of a pair of islands known as the Prince Edward Islands - midway between Africa and Antarctica. There, introduced mice have recently developed a taste for the largest seabirds in the world: wandering albatrosses. And finally, as well as being lauded as a voice for the marginalised and downtrodden, a "pope for the poor," Pope Francis, was nature's pope, a voice for the Earth.