Rnz: Afternoons With Jesse Mulligan

This week the Government announced plans to build a Liquefied Natural Gas terminal in Taranaki. The facility - estimated to cost "north of $2bn" - will enable us to import gas from the rest of the world. Although according to the Electricity Authority that will come at a significant premium to domestically produced renewable energy and natural gas. The facility will be paid for by a levy on electricity users of $2 - $4 per megawatt hour. Author of the New Zealand Energy Substack Larry Blair chats to Jesse about it.

Dr Grant Morris joins Jesse to take a closer look at the cases that come out of The Employment Relations Authority and why they are often headline news stories.

Holly Bennett, the founder of Awhi Group, joins Jesse to talk about small businesses and why they become front and centre in an election year.

Time for sporting history and our guest this week has had a lifelong association with the sport of rowing, as a competitor, an elite coach and a high-performance leader. Judith Hamilton is currently Rowing New Zealand's General Manager of Performance, and there have been many highlights along the way - which we will soon find out about. Her contribution to rowing was also recognised in the New Year Honours, where she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to rowing.

It's time for group chat, our chance to talk about the fodder that might be filling up your chats, distracting you from chores or helping fill the silence in a lift. Film Critic Kate Rodger, Culture 101's Perlina Lau and Afternoons' Senior Producer Olivia Wilson chat to Jesse.

From countering invasive pink salmon in Norway, controlling feral cats in the Cayman Islands, to parachuting mice on the island of Guam, working out how to deal with invasive species is a worldwide issue. This week experts in this field have been in Auckland sharing their knowledge and expertise at the Island Invasives conference. Professor James Russell, organizer of the conference. chats to Jesse.

It's the story that has the whole world watching - the 84-year-old mother of 'America's Today' show host Savannah Guthrie was abducted from her home near Tucson Arizona in the early hours of the morning of February 1st. Since then, the family have had no contact with their mother. The FBI have said it's investigating alleged ransom notes received by multiple news outlets. Investigators said one note contained two deadlines that have since passed. Where is she and what has gone on? Olivia co-hosts the popular podcast 'True Crime Society', she chats to Jesse about the case.

The convicted murderer and terrorist who killed 51 worshippers in a Christchurch Mosque, Brenton Tarrant, is back in court attempting to overturn his guilty pleas so he can stand trial instead. This is a really fraught case for many of you and we've been inundated with messages from you asking why we are using Tarrant's name in our coverage. We decided it would be good to explain how such editorial decisions are made. Jane Patterson is one of RNZ's most senior journalists, she's our former Political Editor and is now RNZ's Director of Editorial Quality and Training. Jane chats to Jesse.

Where there's obsession, there's a story. There's more to the man in Singapore who has more than 13,000 Barbie dolls, or the New York City opera singer fixated on finding public toilets in the city. Journalist David Greene is fascinated by people who cling, lovingly and stubbornly, to a mission or a fixation, whether it's cats and hats or recipes carved into gravestones. That curiosity drives his podcast, David Greene Is Obsessed. He also confesses to some obsessions of his own. He recently helped take over his dying hometown newspaper, determined to keep local journalism alive fearing that when local news disappears, communities grow less engaged, power goes unchecked, and political divisions get worse.

Kelly Gibney joins Jesse to share this week's Easy Eats recipe, Korean inspired Bolognese.

It's time for Heading Off, our weekly travel segment, and today we're heading to Fiji. Holidays in Fiji could look very different depending on the kind of experience you want to have. Today we'll be leaving the comfort of the resorts and exploring life in Suva, the capital of Fiji. Jonty Crane is about to return to New Zealand after 6 months of volunteer work in Suva.

We're going to talk about redshirting now, which is when parents chose to delay when their child starts school, so they are at the older end of the class. For those of you wondering why it is called "redshirting" the name originates from American college sport, where a student athlete sits out of competition for one year to develop skills and retain eligibility, often wearing a red shirt. In New Zealand we don't collect data on the age children start school, but in Australia, statistics show the number of parents opting to delay has more than doubled since 2014. So, it is it a good idea, and what about holding kids back a year once they are actually at school? Parenting Place Senior coach Jenny Hale discusses with Jesse.

It'll come as no surprise that not all ham is created equal. It's a lunch box staple, for kids and adults alike, but is it actually good for us? And what cuts are better than others? To find out, Jesse chats to fourth generation 'Master of Meats' and deli meat specialist Wilhelm Zabern.

There has been a lot of noise around a possible Free Trade Agreement between New Zealand and India.  The National party is keen to get it approved, but NZ First leader Winston Peters has been very vocal in his opposition to any deal. Many claims have been bandied around by many politicians, but we wanted to know what's the actual agreement likely to look like? RNZ Senior Journalist Gaurav Sharma chats to Jesse.

Women around the world are choosing to give birth without doctors or midwives, guided instead by influencer stories that celebrate "free birth" as empowering and transformative. The Free Birth Society, F-B-S, is a multimillion-dollar business that often advocates for women to take "radical responsibility" for their own births. A year long investigation by Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne from The Guardian links the Free Birth Society to at least 48 cases of stillbirths, neonatal deaths and permanent injuries to mothers and their babies. Sirin Kale shares what their investigation uncovered for their podcast, The Birth Keepers.

Evie Ashton joins Jesse with her podcast picks: The Interesting Nuggets Podcast The Asian Madness Podcast Available wherever you get your podcasts!

Novelist Pip Adam joins Jesse to talk satire - and some good examples of it: A Few More Slices of Heaven (2025) Daniel Vernon Night Night Fawn by Jordy Rosenberg (One World Penguin Random House, 3 March 2026) Universality by Natasha Brown (Faber & Faber, 2025)

It's time for Mayoral minutes, our new segment where we speak with a local mayor about the challenges they're facing, how they're working to solve them and what makes their community special. Today we're heading to the Central Hawke's Bay District, from where Mayor Will Foley joins Jesse.

Could Wellington become New Zealand's culinary capital? It certainly seems the Government hopes so, after Minister Louise Upston announced the latest funding from the 'major events and tourism" package will include a plan to help re-establish Wellington as more than the home of politics and water woes. But how will do you actually make that happen? To discuss, we're joined now by veteran Welly restaurant reviewer David Burton.

The issue of cultural appropriation has been back in the news recently after an Australian brand called itself Aroha. That got us thinking about the process of naming your business. In the case of the activewear company called Aroha, the founder has admitted her research was "surface level" and since the backlash is now weighing up whether to keep using the word. The Hoka shoe brand is another high profile example of using te reo Maori words as a brand name. Hoka roughly translates from te reo Maori as "to fly". So we asked Johnson McKay from Maori owned consultancy Ira to join us to discuss.