RNZ: Ideas

Duncan Green, the author of From Poverty to Power, speaks to Chris Laidlaw about his belief that active citizenship is the key to reversing the world's growing inequalities; UnionAID's Helen Wilson describes a project in Tamil Nadu, India that has seen some of the poorest of the poor setting up worker cooperatives; and Professor Stephen Howes, a former World Bank economist, reflects on what works and what doesn't when it comes to international aid. Produced by Jeremy Rose.

UAVs or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or drones as they’re commonly known, are suddenly everywhere. Conservationists and academics are using them to map our rivers; engineers surveyed the interior of the earthquake damaged Christchurch Cathedral with one; and then, of course, there's the military drones used to such lethal affect in Pakistan and Yemen. Ideas visits Palmerston North's Skycam UAV – New Zealand's leading manufacture of UAVs; talks to the interim president of the Association of Unmanned Operations – a union of US drone pilots; and Professor James Cavallaro tells us about the findings of a report he co-authored: 'Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians from US Drone Practices in Pakistan'.

The long history of African Americans seeking some form of redress for slavery. A look at reparations made to Maori to date and New Zealand's efforts placed in an international context.

How did a company that had spent more than a century supplying New Zealand homes with utilitarian tapware morph into a company exporting luxury showerheads to some of the world’s most exclusive hotels? Well that’s an interesting story but the story of how the son of a Samoan railway worker and a Maori woollen mill worker from Whanganui ended up heading that company is even more fascinating. Outgoing CEO of one of New Zealand's export success stories, Methven Tapware, Rick Fala talks about his life and journey. From the Ideas collection: Influential Kiwis talk about their Influences

In Ideas this week we hear about a new style of idealistic entrepreneurship that's taking off in Wellington and has people around the world sitting up and taking notice.

Human rights lawyer Tim McBride and former SIS officer turned academic Dr Rhys Ball talk to Chris Laidlaw about the pros and cons of the state spying on its citizens; and US journalist Will Potter, the author of Green is the New Red: An Insiders Account of a Social Movement Under Siege, tells Jeremy Rose about how an FBI agent's attempt to turn him into a snitch inspired him to watch the watchers.

New Zealand spends $15 billion a year on health - more than education, and transport and communications combined. So have we got our priorities right and should the public have more say in how the money is spent? We spend the hour exploring those and other questions.

Ideas talks to three explorers on the search for Utopia – Professor Eric Olin Wright, the president of the American Sociological Society and author of Envisioning Real Utopias; Professor Lyman Tower Sargent, one of the world’s leading scholars of utopian projects and co-author of Living in Utopia: New Zealand’s Intentional Communities; and John Milne, a 17-year veteran of the Ahu Ahu ohu, a state-sponsored commune on the Whanganui River. 

Ideas today explores the relationship between humanity and the natural world. Prominent South African environmentalist Marlene Laros, and the influential strategist from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, Sir Robert Watson, are in Wellington for The Valuing Nature Conference. Both of these keynote speakers join the programme.

Bridget Williams has published everything from The Oxford History of New Zealand and The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography to Judith Binney's Encircled Lands and the just-published Inequality: A New Zealand Crisis. It's a list of books that will have informed and influenced virtually everyone with an interest in New Zealand history and politics.

In the latest of our occasional Lived Philosophies series we take a look at the organics movement. Former Catholic priest and co-owner of Wellington's Commonsense Organics, Jim Kebbell, tells us about his road to organics experience; and Wairarapa farmers Jeremy Howden of Te Manaia Organics and Frank van Steensil of Wairarapa Eco Farms tell us about the challenges of growing food organically.

Wellingtonian Murdoch Stephens this week launched the Doing Our Bit Campaign, aimed at convincing New Zealanders of the need to double our refugee quota from the current 750 to 1500. Murdoch tells Chris about how stumbling across a stash of 1000 photos of Afghan refugees in an abandoned detention centre in Iran led him to the conclusion that New Zealand wasn't doing its bit. The photographs are part of a forthcoming exhibition at Pataka in Porirua. And Mary Mowbray, who came to New Zealand after surviving the Holocaust in hiding in Budapest, reflects on adapting to life in New Zealand and being one of the many Kiwis who volunteer to help out newly arrived refugees.

New Zealanders give billions of tax-deductible dollars to charities each year and businesses owned by charitable trusts generate millions of dollars of tax free profits. As a result, hundreds of millions of dollars that would otherwise go into the consolidated fund are diverted to charities.

Ideas explores the arguments for and against euthanasia with: Dr Rodney Syme, the author of A Good Death: An Argument for Voluntary Euthanasia; Dr Sinead Donnelly a palliative care specialist who says euthanasia "puts the soul of medicine on trial"; and Carole Sweney, the president of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society of New Zealand. Produced by Jeremy Rose.

In the latest of our occasional series where we focus on a country and its people we take a look at Myanmar. Chris Laidlaw speaks to Victoria University lecturer in international relations David Capie; and Jeremy Rose talks to Phil Robertson a co-author of the Human Rights Watch report All You Can Do Is Pray which implicated Burmese authorities in crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, and Maung Zarni a long-time democracy activist and a research fellow of the London School of Economics.