Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Pros and cons in the latest NZ Health Survey. 

Hazardous drinking rates have fallen from 20.4% in 2019 to 16.6% this year, and daily smoking rates have remained steady. 

However, the number of daily vapers has increased from 33,000 to 480,000 over the past eight years. 

Daily vaping has also increased more quickly in younger age groups, especially those aged 15-17 and 18-24 years. 

Asthma and Respiratory Foundation Chief Executive Letitia Harding told Kerre Woodham that the data they’re seeing correlates to when regulations were introduced. 

She says that the regulations rolled out quite slowly, and the Ministry of Health went about it wrong. 

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The hīkoi we were discussing last week has gone down the country through the weekend, rolls into Wellington City, and should arrive at Parliament around midday. Police say they don't expect any problems, certainly nothing like the descent into chaos we saw at the end of the last demonstration at Parliament. We'll see.  

So far, it seems hīkoi participants have abided by the organisers’ requests. There's all sorts of rules and regulations before you can join the hīkoi, and participants are following them thus far, adhering to the principles of peaceful protest. The police have been working with the organisers, and they told Mike Hosking this morning: so far so good. It does mean, of course, that a lot of police will be tied up at the hīkoi, and if they're there they're not out investigating crime. And they need to be nabbing criminals and hauling them before court and engaging in crime prevention if police Minister Mark Mitchell is to keep his job.  

Back in August of 2023, Mark Mitchell told us that if New Zealanders hadn't started to see a change in public safety within a year of his appointment as Police Minister he would resign – so how's he doing? Well, ram raids are down 61%. Foot patrols are up 30%, so that's got to be good news - a visible police presence does an awful lot to help prevent crime. Aggravated robbery is down 11%. Robbery, extortion and the like are down 6%. Serious assaults are down 3%. However, counting against him, common assaults didn't go down, and theft had increased 12%. So how does he think he's doing?  

“I just thought it was coming up 12 months and it was important for me, I did that to hold myself to account because we were in such a bad place as a country that the expectation is that whoever took over as Police Minister, it's a huge responsibility, you've got to show that your things are changing. Otherwise, I wasn't the right guy for the job or the right person for the job. So we are starting to see change.  

“Like I said, we've got a long way to go, but we're starting to see some trends moving in the right direction. And I want to say that's not attributable to me. I mean it's, it's the fact that, yes, I've got the, the privileged position of Minister so I can bring everyone together ... the Auckland CBD is a good example. We brought the Residence and Ratepayers groups together, the business associations, our social service providers, Māori Wardens, CPNZ, KO, MSD, police, St. John's, we've all come together, we've been aligned. I had my latest meeting on Friday and we're seeing real success. So I've been going around the country trying to pull that together and trying to get some real change and it's happening.”  

So how do you think he's doing? You know, just based on your community, your neighbourhood, your retail area, how do you think the Police Minister is doing? I think the stats speak for themselves. Of course, as he also said in the interview with Mike, you're never going to get rid of crime altogether. There is never going to be a day where the police wake up and log no crime, ever. That's just not the way human beings are. But in terms of your community, your neighbourhood, your shopping precinct, do you feel safer?  

I mean, certainly I no longer have a low-level sense of alert when I'm going into a mall and walking past a Michael Hill Jewellers store. You know, there had been so many and a number in our area had been hit, so when I was taking the kids to the mall – I wouldn't say I was fearful. I certainly didn't stop going. I wasn't fearful, but I was on alert. Anything that looked a little bit out of the ordinary and I was going to get out of there with those children before hell broke loose. So, I'm more relaxed I think. There isn't the posturing and the advertising and the visibility of gangs in my hood. A few red sneakers, but hey, they might just like the colour.  

There aren't the same sort of video footage from doorbells and street cameras of families taking little ones out to go robbing in the early hours of the morning. I haven't seen that being posted for quite some time. So yeah, I feel as though things are getting better and the stats would seem to indicate they are.  

Is that because a line has been drawn in the sand? Is that because the focus of the police has shifted slightly? I would certainly say the foot patrols would have helped. Is it an indication from police and indeed from the community? It was voters who said up with this we will not put. We could have gone one way, we went this way when it came to the polling booths. We don't want to see any more softly, softly. We would like to see a line in the sand when it comes to crime.  

There's a lot more to do. There's a lot more work to do around addictions, there's a lot more work to do around mental health because a lot of those are precursors to crime. The crime is not actually the problem, it's the addictions that are. But so far, if you were to mark Mark Mitchell, what would you give him a B plus? A minus? A very good start? 

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Foodstuffs North Island chief executive Chris Quin has confirmed that the company will appeal the decision by the Commerce Commission to block its proposed merger.

Speaking on Newstalk ZB this morning, Quin said the company’s advisers had been working their way through ComCom’s reason for the decision for the last few weeks.

“The biggest concern in the document seems to be about whether suppliers would be worse off as a result of the co-op merging between the North Island and South Island,” Quin said.

“Our internal teams have the view that we passed that legal test and that the proposition we put up should have been cleared.”

Foodstuffs will appeal the decision in the High Court and expects to have officially filed its appeal by November 21.

Quin reiterated Foodstuffs' position that the two regional co-operatives in the North and South Islands don’t compete with each other in any way. 

He said that if the co-operatives were merged it would make them “incredibly more efficient”. 

On the suggested impacts on suppliers that ComCom posited, Quin said he briefed hundreds of suppliers after the decision last month. 

“We get a lot of conversation with them almost every day on meeting with one or other and the advantages for suppliers would be dealing with one not two,” Quin said. 

“The possibility would be you could do a deal to be nationally ranged, so we see a number of advantages for suppliers.” 

He believed a merger would allow Foodstuffs to make prices much more competitive, ultimately benefiting consumers. 

Mary Devine, chief executive of Foodstuffs South Island, also said the merger woujld bring long-term benefits to customers and communities, citing increased efficiency and faster innovation. 

“Combining our operations allows us to streamline operations, reduce overheads and better invest in new technology and services that our customers want,” Devine said. 

“This isn’t just a merger - it’s an evolution to ensure we remain competitive and sustainable for the future.” 

The original decision 

Now that Foodstuffs has confirmed its appeal, the process will likely be a lengthy one. 

Foodstuffs North Island and Foodstuffs South Island operate some of New Zealand’s best-known supermarket banners – New World, Pak’nSave and Four Square – and while each retails only in its respective island, the companies already collaborate across various business areas, including marketing and home-brand purchasing. Their combined revenue was nearly $13 billion in the last fiscal year. 

In their application to the commission for clearance to merge, the parties essentially argued that they do not compete at either the retail or wholesale level and they would be more efficient and better equipped to drive down grocery prices as a single streamlined entity. 

However, the commission was not convinced the benefits of such an arrangement would flow to customers and moreover, its main concern was that a merger would reduce the number of buyers in the “upstream market” for grocery supply from three to two – this market is currently dominated by the two Foodstuffs entities and Woolworths NZ. 

In its decision, the commission noted that this reduction would be a structural change and would likely lessen competition in multiple acquisition and retail markets. It also emphasised that competition in the country’s highly concentrated grocery market was already weak. 

Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business and retail. 

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If I asked you how many demerit points you have right now, reckon you’d be able to tell me? 

If you could, then you’re better than most people. Because, unless you get enough demerits to have your licence suspended, then I think most people don’t care. 

And a study out today is telling us that we do need to care if we want to make the roads safer. 

The people behind the study are telling us that most of us won’t care until we have tougher penalties for speeding. And I’m with them. Because, if we keep on doing things the way we do, not much is going to change. 

Here’s the gist of what this study connected with the University of Canterbury is telling us. It's found that drivers ticketed for speeding are nearly three times more likely to be involved in a crash. 

And you know why that is, don’t you? It’s because the fines for speeding are so piddly that people just take their chances. 

The speed cameras don’t help, either. Because, if you get ticketed by a speed camera,  you don't even get the demerit points. Because it can be difficult to prove who was driving. 

So, while the speed cameras are useful, they're not going to do much in terms of slowing people down if, the only impact, is paying a piddly fine and still keeping your licence. 

Which is why I like the idea that these researchers are floating today. That if you get a speeding ticket and keep on speeding, you get a higher fine each time. 

I’d go a step further than that, though, and say that the fines themselves need to be way higher than what they are now. 

As one of the people involved in this study is pointing out today, it’s crazy that you can actually pay more for a parking fine than for a speeding fine. 

So rank up the fines each time someone is caught speeding - but sting people for a lot more than we do at the moment. 

The other idea that these experts are putting out there today is, essentially, means testing people when they get fined for speeding. 

Which might sound like a good idea. But it’s not.  

Because someone who speeds is just as much of a menace on the road whether they’re driving some sort of Flash Harry 4-wheel-drive or whether they’re driving a Demio or a clapped-out old Toyota. 

Besides which, when you drive too fast on the road you are breaking the law. So I think giving speeding fines to people on how rich they are, or otherwise, makes no sense. 

Not to mention the fact that it would be an absolute nightmare to run. 

Can you imagine getting pulled over by a cop? Getting some sort of ticket. Then having to go home and submit your income details and whatever else they’d need to determine what means you have to pay the fine. 

It might sound like a great idea when you’re writing your research paper at university and trying to “push the envelope” a bit. But it would be a disaster. 

Although, to be fair to Dr Darren Walton at the University of Canterbury, he hasn’t just plucked this idea out of thin air. He says, in Switzerland, speeding fines are scaled to wealth. 

But I don't see how that would encourage someone with plenty of money to slow down. They’d just go “pfft” and pay the fine. 

And I don’t buy this argument that speeding fines need to be “equitable”. That’s what the university guy is saying. You speed, you get caught, and you should pay exactly the same fine - whatever your financial situation. That’s what I think. 

But, if this research is telling us that drivers ticketed for speeding are nearly three times more likely than other drivers to be involved in a crash, then something does need to change. 

And I do like the idea of scaling-up the speeding fine system. So that, each time you get a ticket, you have to pay a higher fine. 

What do you think? 

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Crikey, when I suggested yesterday that it might be a good idea if you've never seen Parliament TV, you could always tune in and see the first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill.  

Crikey, I expected fireworks but not quite to the level that was on display yesterday. The House was temporarily suspended as the legislation was being voted on, after members of the Te Pati Māori performed a haka in front of the bill's author David Seymour. Gerry Brownlee cleared the public gallery, suspended the House, and once order was restored about 20 minutes later, Te Pati Māori's Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke was “named” for starting the haka with the speaker. Gerry Brownlee called her behaviour appalling, disrespectful, and grossly disorderly. Being “named” is one of the most serious punishments in Parliament. If you're named, you are suspended for 24 hours, and your pay is docked. Doesn't happen terribly often – former National Party MP Nick Smith was named three times in his parliamentary career, but apart from Smith, it really is a pretty rare punishment.  

Newstalk ZB's political commentator Barry Soper said the behaviour was the worst he's seen in 40 years of covering politics. Former Speaker of the House Sir Lockwood Smith said he too thought it was the worst he'd ever seen.  

“That would have to be as bad as I've ever seen. I guess, you know my feeling after it was just one of real sadness, you know? Real sadness to see Parliament treated that way. You know, you can't blame the Speaker – I don't think you can blame Gerry at all. I think in the end he had no choice but to suspend the House and let things settle down, have the gallery cleared. I think, you know, some of the rot has started a way back – the whole standard of the place has been lowered in, you know, recent years. And I think you know, this is just when, once you start letting things slip, it just, you know, another inch happens or another centimetre and so it goes on.” 

Well, the bill isn't going anywhere, but not until there's been six months of public submissions. ACT, National and NZ First agreed to support it to a first reading as part of the coalition negotiations – one of the dead rats they had to swallow to form a government. And look at the latest poll, the major parties have gained. Nationals up 3.9%, Labours up 1.2%, ACT and Te Pati Māori are both down. That says to me we don't like extremism, we don't like political opportunists making hay, we don't like people at the very extreme of politics. For the most part, we want a relatively quiet life. We just want to be able to send our kids to school and know they'll be educated. We want to be able to ensure that we can go shopping and not be mugged, that we can sleep safely in our own homes, that we can drive from point A to point B without falling down a pothole the size of a three-story skyscraper. We all want the opportunity to be able to work, look after ourselves and if the worst comes to the worst, fate deals this a cruel blow, there will be a safety net there. Oh, and it, you know, perhaps if we have an accident, there's a health system that can pick up the pieces there too.  

The extremism doesn't, for the most part, win votes. I've had David Seymour on here before and put to him that this whole Treaty Principles Bill was a huge part of campaigning and yet on voting day, on Election Day, ACT didn't get nearly the votes they thought they were going to get. National made it very clear they were not going to support the bill. They had to, in the end, form a government to first reading. They didn't want a bar of it. And neither do, I would argue, most New Zealanders of whatever ethnicity you might be.  

But come back to Lockwood Smith's point when it comes to Parliament, are MPs really role models and exemplars of behaviour we should all be seeking to emulate? Sir Lockwood Smith seemed to think so, that there's a standard within Parliament that needs to be set and maintained for the good of society. I don't think that's true. I think they are representatives of New Zealand and as such, they represent us. And we have become more tribal, less likely to debate an issue more entrenched in our beliefs, if you don't support me, you're against me. Less likely to listen and agree to disagree.  

What we saw in Parliament is pretty much what you see on social media every day. People yelling at each other, not listening, not debating, just taking a stance and sticking to it, and that's fair enough. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Everybody is entitled to put forward a proposition. You can hear the other side out and you can maintain your own position if that's what you wish to do.  You can change your mind if you wish. But David Seymour knew exactly what he was doing. ‘Oh, hey, I'm just putting it up there for discussion’. Oh, come on, it was political opportunism. He got exactly what he knew would happen. He's not stupid, he's many things, but he is not stupid.  

So all we saw in Parliament, I think, is a reflection of what we see just about every single day in social media, on the text machine. We've seen it over numerous different issues. I think this and if you don't think like me, there's no such thing as debate anymore. 

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You have woken up to the news that New Zealand businesses can now take meaningful action to drive down the gender pay gap. You need no longer wait for governments to legislate – the power is in your hands. The launch of an online calculator to help do so was announced yesterday by the Minister for Women, Nicola Gregg. The previous Labour government announced plans last year before the election to require public and private companies with more than 250 workers to publish a gender pay gap report. Earlier in the year, Acting Minister for Women Louise Upston said the Government was committed to addressing inequity in the workplace, but she said “we do not want to overburden businesses with unnecessary costs and regulations.   

So the Gender Pay Gap Toolkit was set up by working with businesses and organisations like Spark, ANZ, Tonkin + Taylor, to make sure it's user friendly and has a common methodology. It was also shaped and road tested, apparently, by many other organisations across the country, including Transpower, the Port of Auckland, Champions for Change, and Global Women. Although the pay gap has reduced steadily from 16.3% in 1998, its stuck at around 9 to 10% for the past decade, except for 2015/2016 when it hit 12%. So, it's come down a bit and now it's stabilised.  

My colleague Heather du Plessis-Allan had a hot take on why the gap remained stubbornly in place, which she shared with her audience last night. It's up to women, she says, not employers to fix the gender pay gap: 

“Here's my tip if you are a woman and you don't want to have a gender pay. Don't take maternity leave. Make the baby's father take the paternity leave and don't always be the one to stay home with the kids when the kids are sick, make the father stay at home with the kids when the kids are sick, because I think that is now part of our problem. We are literally, as women, a more unreliable workforce than men, because think about this: I mean this is brutal, but it's true, right? If you've got an equally qualified man and woman standing in front of you, let's say early 30s, married, but haven't had babies, are you going to hire the lady? Because I don't know about that.  

“I'd look at the lady and go oh, she hasn't had babies yet, so now she can have babies, now she's going to want take a year off for every single baby. Now, when the babies sick, got a bit of a cough, the woman's going stay at home. She's unreliable. The guy is more reliable. Guy gets the job. Right. I know that this is hard, and I know we want it all in the modern age, right. We want heaps of money, we want all the big jobs, and we also want to be the ones who stay at home and raise the babies when they come out. But life is tough, and choices are tough, and I suspect women are going to have to start helping themselves a little bit here by getting the dads to do the heavy lifting too, instead of just complaining that life ain't fair.” 

So she has a point. If you are going to take a couple of years out of the workforce to be the primary caregiver and you’re female, then you're going to have missed work opportunities, missed promotion opportunities, and that's just the way it is. If you're not around for two years, your employer can't gauge just how effective you are, how good at working you are.  

At the same time, we all know the first three years of a child's life are vitally important. Every single child psychologist will tell you that. If you're given $100,000 to put towards your child's education, stay at home for the first three years or employ a primary caregiver to do the same. It just has to be a person who can talk to the baby, speak to the baby, take it out, stimulate it, and it has to be a kind of one-on-one relationship. A best practice according to child psychologists. Not always able to do that, we all just muddle along the best we can. I was back at work when my daughter was six weeks old. I hired a nurse, a young trainee, a graduate nurse to look after her. Not ideal, but needs must. The money had to come in somehow. I tried to keep breastfeeding that first year and managed to do so pretty much, but it was a struggle.  

If you want to have children and many couples do, I think it's a lot easier these days to share the load. I mean, we've had a child sick at home and their parents have divided the time. Dad stayed home three days because he can work from home. Mum has stayed home the last two days to give him the best possible chance of recovery and to allow everybody to get the most important parts of their job done on the days they really have to go into the office. They've had to juggle it between them. It's not expected that the mum has to give up five days of working in the office to stay at home. I just don't think there is that expectation among young parents.  

I think there really should be a shared responsibility between men and women. Perhaps the mother has the first six months off, then the father has six months off, so that when you do have a man and a woman applying for a job, they're both 32, they both have the same level of qualifications for whatever job they're applying for, then an employer can look at them both and go. I know that at some point, if they want children, I'm going to lose that person for six months, be it the man, be it the woman. If there is an expectation that the man will take time off too, an expectation from within the family, from within the community, from within the workforce, that men are just as likely to take six months off as women are, that kind of evens the playing field. So I think Heather had a point: it's not always going to be possible for a woman to give birth and then skip back to work the next day, leaving the man literally to pick up the baby. But I think if there is an expectation that it will be equally shared between men and women, it will help level up the playing field. 

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Police have announced Operation Nickel, a nationwide operation focused on the enforcement of the Gangs Act 2024. What is the Gangs Act 2024? It's the specific piece of legislation that enforces the prohibition of the display of gang Insignia in public places. It provides for the issue of dispersal notices to stop gang members from gathering in public places, and it also makes provisions for non-consorting orders to prevent specified gang offenders from associating or communicating with each other for three years.  

Basically, it's to make life uncomfortable for the gangs who've had a pretty free ride of it over recent times. Paul Basham, National Controller for the operation, says the display of gang insignia in public places will not be tolerated. When the new laws come into effect, he says, the police will actively enforce any breaches. As part of the operation before the legislation came into effect, police engaged with gangs and community representatives about the requirements of the Gangs Act and what the police intended to do with the legislation. He said gangs are well aware that once this law comes into effect, they are not allowed to wear a gang patch in public. If they're sitting at home watching The Chase, fine. Pop your gang patch on and be the business.  

Police staff have spoken to gang leaders and made it clear that anyone breaching the new laws can expect enforcement action, he said, and if we come across anyone wearing gang insignia in public, we will not be taking the excuse of ignorance as a defence.  

He spoke to the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning and said he is confident the Gang Disruption Units are set up and ready to go.  

“You know, it's inevitable that we will be responding to reports of gangs breaking the law but you know, in addition to that, those units will be proactive, gathering intelligence, looking to work with other police units, and taking opportunities to sort of fulfil their mandate, which is in line with the purpose of the Act, which is to reduce the ability of gangs to operate and to cause fear and intimidation and disruption by the public.  

“So those units are really clear in terms of what the purpose is, and from the 21st of November they'll be into it, and I think too, you'll see them, you know, sharpening their tradecraft and their skills relative to the provisions of this legislation. And so we just see it as an awesome tool to allow us to continue the work that we do pretty much up and down the country every day anyway, in the way that we police the gangs.” 

So there were about 400 meetings up and down the country. As the police said, this is what we intend to do, this is what the legislation is. So fair dues. It doesn't mean though that if you see a person wearing a gang patch, you think, ‘crikey, they're breaking the law’ and you jump on your phone and you dial 111, that the police will be able to descend upon the offending individual, blues and twos at the go with the full weight of the law. There may be higher priorities for the police in that situation. Police Assistant Commissioner Basham says they will gather evidence allowing them to follow through with enforcement action at a later date.  

As I say, the gangs have had it pretty cruisy for some time now. That whole ‘let's work with them’ approach was tried but I don't think it was terribly successful, and I think enough time had passed to see that it wasn't actually working for the majority of us, for the rest of the community. Might have been working brilliantly for the gangs, went gangbusters, in fact, but for the rest of us, not so much. So now gangs are being told you want to live outside the community, you want to live outside the laws, you want to break the law to make a living, then expect that your life will be difficult. The community has decided enough is enough, and we don't want to see that anymore. We don't want the flaunting, and we don't want the swaggering, and we don't want the ‘we are sticking two fingers to you’ shoved in our face.   

Gangs argue that they're not all bad. That they provide a form of family for children and young people who have been failed by their own families. And in part that is true. You can only imagine how woeful the families are they've come from if they think that the gang is a good idea. They argue they do good work. Remember at Wellsford, north of Auckland, when the local Head Hunters had a charity motor bike ride and raised $2,500 and decided to donate the money to the local volunteer fire brigade? Yes, the fire brigade was advised to give the money back and there was harrumphing about that, but let's face it, they were just looking for a bit of PR. Which is a very cheap amount for good PR - $2500 is chump change for the Head Hunters. They could have donated the proceeds of a couple of baggies and be done with it.   

The Tribal Huk – remember them? Ngaruawahia? They were making and delivering sandwiches to socially deprived children at schools in the region long before the government was doing it. They also made headlines for their attempts to rid Ngaruawahia of methamphetamine which meant that the leader, Jamie Pink, came under fire during a confrontation in Ngaruawahia in 2016. The Huks ran a Christmas party for children. They gave money to schools for drug education. Good, good boys. No, not really. When a dispute arose within the gang, Jamie Pink, the leader, repeatedly smashed the blunt edge of a log splitting axe into the legs of his former mate so that the bones were sticking out of the skin on both knees. The man needed operations to insert screws and rods into his leg so he could walk again. And Punk Pink is currently serving seven years at His Majesty's Leisure.  

You've got the Mongrel Mob Kingdom. Remember them? Our frequent caller, PR woman, Louise. We haven’t heard from her in a while. She's been lying very low, probably because the Mongrel Mob kingpin turned out to be wolves in sheep's clothing. If you're going to be a gang, be a gang, be done with it. Sell your drugs, live your life – it's basically a pyramid scheme to the young ones who are thinking should I get a 9-5, which is really hard, and you have to get up five days a week, or should I go and sell drugs for the gangs? It's a pyramid scheme - only a few get really, really rich. If you're a grunt at the bottom, you get the abuse, you get the jail terms, you get very little money. You might get a few baubles or trinkets from the top guys and that's about it.  

It's a misogynist – if you're looking for diversity, equality, and inclusivity, you're going to struggle to find that in a gang. They don't seem to have places for women. You can work under them, but not in the way you might want to. Just be a gang, and be a crim and be done with it. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Or renounce the patch and the crime and come join us. It's not that bad. It really, really isn't.  

You don't have to join the gang, there are other options. But for God's sake, don't dress yourself up and pretend that you're decent people, providing an alternative to the wayward and the forlorn, that the patriarchal, oppressive government has failed to provide - that is total BS. 

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Is the electric vehicle market really dying?  

Nissan is axing over 9,000 jobs as sales slump in China and the US and Toyota has said that the California regulations around EVs and emissions are unworkable. 

EVs are being discounted by a third in Britain as manufacturers rush to meet their end-of-year sales targets.  

In New Zealand, October saw the second strongest month when it comes to car sales, but despite heavy discounting, EV sales have slid backwards. 

BYD NZ General Manager Warren Willmot told Kerre Woodham that globally, EV sales are actually up around 30% in September, with China contributing heavily to the market. 

He said that last month, 53% of all new cars in China had a plug, whether they’re plug-in hybrids or fully electric.  

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Take a look at your children, or your grandchildren if you have them, when they're at their most delicious – seven, eight, nine-year-olds, full of hopes and dreams, and starting to come into themselves properly. Their character’s forming, you see what they're good at, what they love doing, where their passions lie, supported and nurtured by families and communities who love them.  

Your kid's basic belief that life is good is informed by the love and the care that they've received from before they were even born. Before they were born, they were loved. While they were growing, they were loved. From the time they hit the outside world, they were wanted and loved. Their potential is limitless.  

Imagine those same 7-year-olds, but they grew up abused by the very people who should have been caring for them, or who were ripped from their families and put into the pastoral care of organisations that were supposed to act in loco parentis. Whose carers presented to the world as decent, good men and women who stood in front of their institutions, and they mouthed platitudes, and the community was grateful. Because these troubled children, these problem children are out of sight and out of mind and being given a good upbringing by the decent God-fearing and women who were doing God's work on earth.  

Hospitals and orphanages and schools and churches are the places that those who still have their innocence believe are places of comfort and of safety. For thousands of small, vulnerable Kiwi children, they were places of torture and abuse and places where their faith in humanity was broken. The children were broken. How the hell do you recover from that? Many don't, many haven't. Many survivors of abuse haven't lived long enough to hear the apology from the Government today.  

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith Care delivered its report to the Governor General back in July, 14 kilograms of paper and each piece held stories of the horrors that went on right within our communities – just about every community in the country. The apology is the first part of the official response, redress will be dealt with later. Some survivors have said an apology without compensation is worthless, and that successive governments have had plenty of time to work out a framework for compensation. And while a light has been shone into the dark corners where predators hide, and many of those predators have faced the glare of prosecution and conviction, have been held to account for some of the damage they've done, all survivors spoken to say the inquiry, the apology, the compensation are worthless if the abuse of society's most vulnerable is allowed to continue.  

Abuse survivor Jim Goodwin spoke to Early Edition and he's not confident that things will change: 

“How will they provide support for survivors and what will they do about preventing abuse in care in the future? That's what I'm worried about. Compensation is important, but it's only part of what survivors need. Survivors need to be able to access ongoing support, like counselling support, for their lives. That's quite difficult for a lot of survivors at the moment, so I hope that the government will change that, but compensation is only a part of it.” 

Absolutely. Jim's right: compensation is only a part of it. You hear of some exceptional individuals who are able to —I don't know how— find some purpose, find some meaning, find a lifeline, and make their way in the world. They can open up their hearts enough to trust one or two people, and they can find their way. So many cannot and have not. They're just too broken. Their parents have failed them, people in authority have failed them. People who said they could trust them, who knew how to groom small, vulnerable children desperate for love, desperate to belong, those predators knew what they were doing all right, they knew which ones to choose.  

So how on Earth do you recover from that? We've really got to ensure that where we can, the fundamental framework, where we can get in and see what's been done – we can't with families, we can't open the door of family homes and get in there, and put the torch on, and shine that light, and flush out those predators. We can in institutions and organisations. And we can't fail these children again because that's what they are. They might be adults now, but they are still the children that were broken by the very organisations that were meant to save them. 

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Now, there was news from over the weekend that the Government will be introducing legislation this year that will make stalking illegal with a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison.

The announcement came from the Justice Minister, Paul Goldsmith. It does seem incredible that stalking wasn't illegal before now, but there it is, it's on its way.

The offence will have a maximum penalty, as I said, of five years imprisonment and will capture patterns of behaviour being 3 specified acts occurring within a 12-month period.

There will be a list of behaviours that may amount to stalking and harassment, including the damaging of a reputation, recording or tracking and following, or loitering, as well as the use of technology and modern stalking methods. There'll be four other amendments made to support the new offence.

It will allow courts to make restraining orders and orders in relation to harmful digital communications when sentencing for the new offence. It's also adding sentencing to new stalking-related aggravating factors which recognise the particular harms associated with stalking behaviours and offending against a person who has a restraining order against the offender. So an ex-partner and the like. 

That a stalking and harassment conviction disqualifies the offender from holding a firearms licence – that seems sensible. Clarifying that the definition of a psychological violence in the Family Violence Act includes stalking - that will provide better recognition of the harms associated with stalking for those in a family relationship with their stalker.

Victims advocate Ruth Money says the legislation is a good move but does need to be refined. The list of behaviours that defined what constituted stalking needs to be future proofed, which is a good move.

When I had a stalker it was before social media. You had to put your back into it if you wanted to be a stalker back then. And it was much more clear cut.

 It was a lot easier for police to see you had a stalker if there were phone calls being made to your landline. If there was a footprint on the loo and the bathroom window had been jimmied open, if they had left traces of themselves in your bed. It was much easier to say this is a stalker. Much more clear cut, I think, for the police than the digital communications.

Ruth Money also says two instances in the year should be enough to activate the process, not three.

We don't have figures for New Zealand that I could find. I mean, there may well be, but I couldn't find them this morning. But in Australia, one in seven adult Australians have been stalked in their lifetime, one in five women, one in 15 men. About 3 to 4 percent  of women, 1 to 2 percent of men are victims of stalking every year, and it has a real impact.

The seemingly never-ending intrusions the social and financial toll, and that's probably why stalking victims report high rates of depression, anxiety and traumatic stress disorder, and in the very worst cases, of course, it ends in death.

Most stalking is perpetrated by people who are known to the victim, either as an acquaintance or an ex partner, with strangers responsible for about 20 to 25 percent of stalking, and apparently it usually starts because the person feels mistreated and they stalk to take revenge or write the wrong.

Or they stalk to start, or enact a relationship with the victim that does not exist, as happened with my stalker - saw me on telly, thought he knew me, was somebody with issues anyway and wanted to engage. And when I didn't engage, got increasingly angry.

In a small number of cases, stalking his sexual motivation and can sometimes be part of planning or preparation for a sexual assault. The thing in common is that they will not be ignored. They simply do not hear no. You know, if you say leave me alone, the relationship is over. They don't hear that, and so they will keep at you.

If they see you or you might engage with them at university or at work or you might be nice to them when they're having a rough day and they suddenly misinterpret, you know they will take that benign interaction and turn that into a much bigger story in which you and they are the stars. And they can't understand why you're not following the script. And they want to make you follow the script.

It is much, much easier these days to make people's life misery, all you need is a smartphone. And all you need to do really is have precious little to do with your time so you can appear at odd moments. It would be incredibly unsettling.

I can totally understand why so many people have been lobbying to get stalking seen as a serious crime. It is. As I say, I'm stunned it hasn't been seen as one before now. 

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A prison sentence of up to five years could soon be handed down to those convicted of stalking.

A new anti-stalking bill will be introduced to Parliament by the end of the year.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says it applies to patterns of behaviour -- specifically, three acts taking place within a 12 month period.

Goldsmith says there needs to be a threshold an offender will have to cross, and there needs to be a clear message that stalking won't be tolerated and will come with consequences.

Independent Victim Advocate Ruth Money joins Kerre Woodham with more. 

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I know for many people affirmative action programmes are a real sticking point. A new report in the New Zealand Medical Journal, has found that affirmative action programs at the University of Otago have however, significantly lifted Māori, Pacific, and rural enrolments over the last 30 years. Where they have failed is increasing the student numbers from poorer backgrounds.  

So people don't like them, but they do actually work. Māori made up 20% of enrolments at the university's medical school over the last four years, reaching parity with European and Asian enrolments for the first time. For a very long time, that wasn't the case. Ten years ago, 7.6% of new domestic medical students at Otago identified as Māori, 2.7% as Pasifika, so that shows up in the workforce in which only 3.4% are Māori, 1.8% Pasifika. However, after more robust affirmative action policies were implemented at our medical schools there was a big change. By 2016, Māori and Pasifika students entering Otago Medical School had increased by 179%. Māori were about 16% of domestic students, Pasifika about 5.6%, which is pretty much in line with how they're represented in the population.  

However, health profession courses at Otago are still dominated by students from wealthy backgrounds and top schools, despite rare efforts to recruit more people from poorer communities. So, if you're wealthy you're going to be fine if you want to be a doctor, you're going to be particularly fine if you're wealthy, comfortably middle class and Māori/Pasifika. Barack Obama famously said his two daughters, who have grown up in a privileged background, should not benefit from affirmative action programs when they are competing with students from poor white families.  

What's more important? Your ethnic identity or your background? It's easy to dismiss affirmative action as racist or lowering standards, but just remember that if you're a woman you have been able to benefit enormously from affirmative action in just about every sphere of society - law, engineering, medical school. There was a time when it was thought only men had the brains and the mettle to make it in medicine. Affirmative action opened the door to women and now it's no longer needed. Women can see it and know they can be it.  

Women now make up nearly 2/3 of all enrolments in health professional programs, up slightly from 1994. In fact, universities are starting to be concerned by the relative underrepresentation of young men in tertiary education and may well have to have a program encouraging young men to enrol at university in a number of courses. Places may well have to be kept for men in law school so that their profession is not flooded with women.  

When you look at people who have received scholarships, you cannot really go past Sir Peter Buck, and this was at a time when standards were phenomenally high for anybody entering the profession. He went to Te Aute College, the Māori secondary school, got a scholarship to Otago University, where he graduated in medicine. He was awarded so many degrees, from so many prestigious universities —Yale, Rochester, Hawaii— he received military medals for distinguished service in wars, he was an anthropologist, he worked in public health. This was a scholarship kid, he did okay.  

As did Māui Pōmare, which are from the young Māori Party who were a phenomenally talented group of young people and went on to equit themselves at the very highest level, with the very highest honours. Not every scholarship kid's going to be like that. Not everybody who is a recipient of affirmative action is going to be like that. Once you're in, you have to pass. And I don't know about you, but there are some incredibly clever, clever people who become doctors who probably shouldn't. They're smart, no doubt about that, they ace the exams. But when it comes to people? Not so much. Maybe they should go into pathology where they can just cut up dead things rather than deal with people one-on-one.  

In an ideal world, we'd all start the same, we’d all have the same opportunities, we'd all have the same choices. This is not an ideal world. So when it comes to affirmative action, I know ideally we'd all compete on the same level playing field, but as a woman, because I have seen so many of this gender benefit, to the point that we're now going to have to start thinking about offering affirmative action policies to young men, I can see its benefits.   

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Alarms are being raised over a shortfall in programmes aimed to lift medical school enrolment for under-served groups. 

A study in today's New Zealand Medical Journal has found Otago University's initiatives have lifted Māori, Pacific, and rural enrolments over the last 30 years. 

However, the number of students in health courses from poorer backgrounds hasn't actually increased. 

Otago University's Public Health Professor Peter Crampton told Kerre Woodham they shouldn't be missing out. 

He says efforts should be made to ensure everyone can make use of tertiary education opportunities. 

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Donald Trump is once again Commander in Chief, and now the 45th and 47th President of the United States. 

He becomes the first former president to return to the White House in more than 130 years and, at 78, the oldest man elected to America's highest office. 

Trump has beaten Kamala Harris in both the Electoral College and the popular vote. 

Republican pollster Dr Whit Ayres told Kerre Woodham that Harris was always on a bit of a hiding to nothing coming in after Biden’s messy exit.  

He says that she was effectively running for Biden’s second term, especially with her inability to articulate a clearly different direction for the administration. 

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Kiwis are being warned to prepare for a more challenging trade environment as Donald Trump returns to the White House. 

Trump has proposed a tariff of up to 20% on all imported goods, with China potentially receiving special treatment and a tariff of up to 60%.  

New Zealand exports about $8 billion worth of goods to the US every year, and tariffs could have a significant impact. 

Damien O’Connor was a Trade Minister during the Biden Administration, and told Kerre Woodham that any tariffs implemented by Trump as President, we simply have to live with.  

He says that if tariffs are slapped on in the US, then other exporters will simply shift their product to the other markets as well, so we may have to compete with them on price. 

“These tariffs will not help anyone across the globe, including the very people in the US who they think it’s designed to help.” 

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Speaking to Newstalk ZB’s Kerre Woodham this morning, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said the Government was confident it was “ready to go” in engaging with the incoming Trump Administration.

“We have got some serious connections with the incoming administration, that’s the key part here,” he said.

He mentioned New Zealand’s “very experienced Ambassador” in Washington who he said was there “to ensure if there was a change in the election results in America against what the media forecast, we’d be ready to go and we are.”

Peters is referencing NZ Ambassador to the US Rosemary Banks. She’s a senior New Zealand diplomat who served in the role between 2018 and 2022 (so during part of Donald Trump’s previous term), and was reappointed earlier this year after serving ambassador Bede Corry was announced as the new Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The Foreign Affairs Minister said the Government would take the next couple of months – prior to President Trump being sworn in again – to make reconnections.

He said a lot of work has previously gone into getting a free trade agreement with the United States when Trump was last President, between 2017 and 2021.

“We didn’t take the chance when it was all set to go. We cannot afford to make this mistake next time.”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon earlier this week admitted there was little political appetite in the US for such a deal and he didn’t see that changing.

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There's been much political play made around outside organisations having the potential to use violence on at risk kids. And really, it's entirely the fault of inexperienced politicians in the Coalition Government that Labour and Te Pati Māori have got any traction on this at all. The PMs ‘I know nothing, I know nothing’, when he was questioned about this yesterday on the Mike Hosking Breakfast, the refusal to answer questions on a leaked document, it just makes a vacuum which the opposition can fill with accusations of ‘violence’.  

In the leaked document, Children's Minister Karen Chhour warns the use of force and detention powers by Oranga Tamariki and third-party staff may be viewed as increasing the potential risk of abuse in custody, particularly in light of historic abuse experienced by children and young people in similar programs reported in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care report. You bet your bippy it was viewed as increasing the potential risk of abuse. Labour and Te Pati Māori were in their boots and all.  

However, this morning the Minister for Children clarified on the Mike Hosking Breakfast that restraints are standard operating procedure in any institution, and organisations needed to have those powers outside of the institutions, hence the need to amend the legislation.  

“Force can be used but only under very strict conditions, and we have regulations to protect that. I would be saying we would use restraints if a child was going to abscond or was going to hurt themselves or hurt somebody else. That already currently happens within certain facilities. The fact of the matter is, if we are going to give these kids a shot, if we are going to give these young people a chance, we have to have the ability to actually put a little bit of trust in them and be able to do things outside of the residence, but we also have to keep ourselves safe while doing that.” 

Right. So the explanation, as it was finally given, is that the legislation has to be amended because at the moment, and this happened under Labour as well, it happened under any administration, you are able to use restraints for the good of the individual to prevent harm happening to them, and for good of the staff and anybody else that might be in their way. So, if you're going to protect people from the young offender, protect the young offender from themselves, you can use restraint.  

That has been abused in the past, absolutely, but these children, these at-risk youth would not be there if they didn't already know exactly what violence looked like from a very early age. They have come from horribly dysfunctional homes. They've learnt that violence is the answer, that if there's a question, violence is the answer.  Not all of them, but many of them. Even with the use of restraints by staff, I would venture to suggest they're still safer there than some of their homes. Where restraint is not a word, they could either spell or act on.  

So if you are going to trust the young people to be able to go out into the community, to try and show them that there is another way of living and being, there has to be a safety net around them and around the people they encounter. To do that you need to amend legislation. I do not know what's so hard about that. What's so hard about explaining that? 

The coalition government got themselves in a complete tangle allowing Labour and Te Pati Māori headlines, allowed them to make political capital because of their own fumbling communications. I think most of us, we understand that if you want to be able to bring at-risk kids out into the community to work or to participate in community activities, there needs to be some measure by which they can be kept safe in the community can too. 

The use of restraints will be measured and monitored, and if it is abused then all hell breaks loose. Hopefully, the days that saw so many children's lives effectively destroyed under state care are gone because the light has been shone into the dark corners. It doesn't mean there will never ever need to be a use of restraint ever again, but it has to be monitored, it has to be seen. And I think that's what we've got here.  All that's going to happen is that the kids will be kept safe, the community will be kept safe within the institutions and outside of them. And if anybody oversteps the mark, by crikey, they will be barbecued, spit-roasted and that's the way it will be. 

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Tensions are high as America casts their votes, the nation deeply divided down partisan lines. 

Polling booths will begin to close within an hour, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump still neck in neck in all major polls. 

TVNZ and Newstalk ZB’s Jack Tame told Kerre Woodham that whoever wins, there will be tens of millions of Americans who are very happy, and tens of millions who are very unhappy with the result. 

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Unemployment has risen again. 

Latest figures from Stats NZ show the unemployment rate has reached 4.8% in the September quarter. 

That's up from 4.6% in the June quarter, and well up from 3.2% in the December 2021 quarter. 

NZ Herald Business Editor Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham that there was no question they would see people lose their jobs, but the fact that it came in lower than many forecasts is a good thing. 

He says that over the last 20 or 30 years, New Zealand has historically had an unemployment rate above 5%, so we are still below the historical average. 

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There’s plenty of nerves, with polling booths beginning to close in the next hour across the US. 

Candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have been neck-and-neck in all major polls, with a focus on key battleground states like Pennsylvania. 

CNN Correspondent Paula Newton told Kerre Woodham there's more uncertainty around the election this time. 

She says since last time was a Covid election, all the voting information is unreliable. 

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A math professor believes the Education Minister deserves kudos for their new maths programme. 

The Government's announced 2000 Year 7 and 8 students will take part in a programme aiming to boost math achievement over the first two terms of next year. 

Erica Stanford says it's designed to give more Kiwi kids confidence in mathematics. 

Massey University Distinguished Maths Professor Gaven Martin told Kerre Woodham that this plan can start to address many of the problems thy had.  

He says that while there may have been a fair bit of resistance, at the end of the day, they turned around and delivered something that’s beneficial for the whole country.  

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Now we've known for some time that New Zealand's once world class education system is no longer – that it is failing. And I really, really feel for the teachers. Education has been hijacked by ideologues who want children to share their world view and care little for the fact that our kids have no idea how to spell world or view. Our literacy is bad, our numeracy is even worse.  

According to international studies, we are now one of the least numerate countries in the developed world. In the 2019 Trends and International Maths and Science study, New Zealand's 9-year-olds, the Year 5s, ranked 40th out of 64 countries. Year 9s were even worse - their scores fell by the largest margin since the study began in 1994. Māori and Pasifika students ranked lowest of all.  

In 2021, a report published in New Zealand by the Royal Society of Mathematics Advisory Panel, which advised the Education Ministry, noted that 1/4 of preschoolers cannot count from 1-10. That's not on the ideological educators at the ministry, that's not on teachers, that is on parents. By Year 9, fewer than one tenth of students are working at their age-appropriate level. Massey University Distinguished Professor of Mathematics Gaven Martin described maths education in this country as a “goddamn mess”.  

Families with money or access to money or the desperation to find money from somewhere, anywhere, have been sending their kids to after school tutoring. The NumberWorks’nWords franchises and the Kip McGraths that you'll see around the country. One parent in a New Zealand Herald story from 2021 said if you have the money, the kids go to Kumon, which is a another one of those franchises, or NumberWorks, two to three times a week. It's like a form of wealth separation, he said, as only the wealthier families can afford it. And at around about $700 a term, they’re right. The wealthy families will do it, but they seldom talk about it. The other kids just languish in the school system and remain at the bottom of the class. And so the gap between the haves and the have-nots gets wider and wider and wider.  

Now the Government has announced a form of after school maths tuition, but actually in school, and free. They're starting with intermediate students in terms 1 and 2 next year – around 2000 Year 7 and 8 students who are behind in their learning will take part in an intensive support program to bring them up to the required curriculum level in maths. The trial will use small group tutoring and supervised online tuition for 30 minutes, up to four times a week for each child. Basically, your Kip McGraths, Your NumberWorks, and what have you. There will be $30 million for high quality curriculum aligned workbooks, teacher guidance and lesson plans to be provided into every primary and intermediate School, $20 million for professional development and structured maths for teachers as well as (hip hip hooray) getting the Teaching Council to agree to lift maths entry requirements for new teachers.  

Education Minister Erica Stanford spoke to Heather du Plessis-Allan last night, saying intensive tutoring is one of the best things you can do if you're behind in maths.  

“We know that all of the international evidence tells us that if you are really far behind, especially in mathematics, one of the best interventions you can do is intensive tutoring in small groups to get up to where you need to be. Because a lot of our students have missed big chunks of their learning and mathematics, and we are particularly targeting those in Year 7 and 8 who are not going to see all of the benefits of our amazing new curriculum and all of our new materials and they're going to go off into high school and, you know, not be where they need to be. So we've had reading interventions in the past, we've never had one for maths, and my intention is that we put this trial up, see what it does and then roll it out.” 

Yes, yes, yes, yes and more yes! We know the tutoring works. Anyone who has sent their child to one of the expensive but efficient after school tuition programs knows that it works. You've got that one-on-one – and I'm quite sure that our teachers, if they had one-on-one time sufficiently with kids who were falling behind, would be able to raise them up as well, but they simply do not have the time or the resources. Now they will.  

To be fair to the previous administration, they understood that education was failing our children, they were not getting the education they deserved. The gap between the haves and the have nots, those who could and those who couldn't, was getting wider and wider and wider. In fact, I think we managed to top one aspect of the Trends in Science and Maths by having the biggest gap between those who were succeeding and those who were not. The vast majority of parents cannot afford that kind of one-on-one tuition, but we had Labour tinkering with the curriculum and bringing into Te Ao Māori into maths and science, and it was all very localised and communities could kind of pick and choose how they wanted to teach, with no resources teachers were left floundering as well. They basically had to do the work of the many thousands of bureaucrats and the Ministry of Education and come up with a curriculum.  

As Professor Elizabeth Rata at Auckland University said, the draft of the new curriculum, as devised by Labour, was a national disgrace. It's a curriculum without content, it's an ideological manifesto. Children in the Far North should receive the same education as children in the far south. It should not be left to chance. And that's what happened. That's exactly what has been happening now. We've got an Education Minister who is a) passionate about giving our children what they deserve and b) has ideas about how to make it happen.  

It shouldn't be left to chance, as Professor Rata says, it shouldn't be left to teachers to come up with some kind of vague curriculum which they have precious little time to do. And it shouldn't be left to parents to find $700 a term to shore up the gaps in our education system. It shouldn't be that those who can and those who have are able to circumvent our education system and be better and do better, leaving the others languishing. That is not the way we make a better New Zealand. That is not the way we make a productive of New Zealand and that's not the way we make a New Zealand that gives every child the opportunity to fulfil their potential. 

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There is absolutely no doubt that healthy teeth are vital for a healthy life.  

Poor dental care can actually kill you. There's a small number of cases from the States they read about recently where an untreated tooth abscess led to an infection that spread to the brain, and a number of children died as a result of that.  

Even without catastrophising, bad teeth are miserable. It's painful, leads to other infections throughout the body, it's unsightly - robs people of self-confidence if their teeth are all over the place.  

But at $353 per visit to the dentist, on average, dental health is not a priority for many people. It can't be. If the money's not there, it's not there.  

A new report has found that New Zealand's dental system as it stands is costing billions of dollars a year in lost productivity and social impact.  

The report from Dental for All, who are a group of health professionals, unions and poverty campaigners, is another call to arms to make free dental care universal, with campaigners saying the cost of not acting is exceeding what it would cost to bring dental into the public health care system.   

The argument against has always been the cost of it. We've seen how much our public healthcare system costs, ballooning costs, that successive chief executives of Health New Zealand have been unable to manage - bringing dental health into that adds another couple of billion to the cost. But Dental for All, and their argument is a bit like the argument David Seymour put up for funding more drugs from Pharmac. He said, well, it's going to cost us less in the long run than allowing diseases to develop and take hold within the community, so if we can prevent them from occurring in the first place, saves us down the track. That's precisely what Dental for All are arguing.  

While there is free dental care up until the age of 18, the New Zealand Dental Association policy director, Doctor Robin Wyman, told the Mike Hosking Breakfast, they believe free dental care should continue into your mid- 20s.  

“It would make some sense if you look at the research to increase the free dental care scheme which goes up to 18 years old into the mid 20s. That's where we see quite a peak of acute admissions into hospital in that young adult group. We're not talking about fractures and things like that, we're talking about infections and things that need to be treated.  

Where do you draw the line, though? If you said free, what is it? Is it a check up? Is it a filling? Is it root canal work? Is it veneers? What is it?  

I think we talk about the essential dental care - so check-ups and fillings, tooth out if that needed to happen, maybe you would go to root canal treatment, particularly if you're talking about front teeth and those sorts of areas. We're not talking about cosmetic treatments like veneers and orthodontics in that sort of area.” 

Dental for All estimates the current system is costing $2.5 billion in lost productivity, $ 3.1 billion in lost life satisfaction, or lack of quality of life.  

Another $103 million was spent on sick days through poor dental health. However, as Doctor Wyman pointed out to Mike they were looking at the lower 22 percentile, so not New Zealanders overall.  

This has come up periodically. The Greens proposed universal dental care, funded with the wealth tax. Labour were looking at free dental care when they were tossing out ‘please vote for us’ during the election campaign - one of them was free dental care for under 30s, gradually increasing that to the population overall.  

It is hugely expensive and it only gets worse as you get older. As teeth start to age, the gaps start to form, they start to erode and that's when you need the expensive dental work done. The crowns, the root canal and the like. If you can get through 15 to 18 and you don't need the orthodontics, the next time the big expenses hit is around about 50 plus as your teeth start to age.  

There are people who travel overseas because it is less expensive to go to Thailand and get your teeth done, even with the airfares, even with the stay in the hotel, than it is to go to New Zealand dentists.  

If things go Pete Tong, however, you're not covered by ACC, so it could end up costing you more in the worst-case scenario.  

All very well and good to talk about let's pay for the costs upfront and then we don't have to pay for the lost productivity, the quality of life.  You can make up any number really when it says look at your lost quality of life, lost productivity.  I've no doubt that there are people living in misery because of the state of their mouth and it's leading to bigger problems further down the track that sees them hospitalised.  

But again, if the money is not there, it's not there, just as it's true of household accounts, it's true of government accounts.  

Do we have $2 billion right now to put into universal dental healthcare? Adding that to what we already can't pay for in the public health system.  

Some people are lucky. Some people are born with great teeth. Never have to worry really. Others are plagued from the time they're born with chalky teeth that give way, cause problems, end up with cavities, can't afford to treat them and it just gets worse and worse and worse.  

Is it a case of having to come up with the money so we save money down the track? Do you buy that having a universal dental healthcare system would save us money in the long run, or is it something that you just have to deal with yourself? Pray that your parents gifted you good teeth?  

Back in the olden days, like the 40s, 50s and 60s, women used to have their teeth taken out before they got married and fitted with dentures, so they didn't cost their husbands anything. Can you imagine? Perfectly healthy teeth being ripped out of the mouth of a 19-year-old recently engaged woman as a kind of dowry paid for by the bride's family. We don't want to get back to that now, do we?   

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It is becoming a fairly common story that debt is getting so big, people are burying their head in the sand rather than dealing with it. 

Money mentalist Lynda Moore tells Kerre Woodham debt is easier to ignore in the modern day, without red-letter hard reminders arriving in the mail. Without help and support, people can very easily get lost or trust the wrong people. 

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The interim report into the grounding of Interislander’s Aratere ferry has found the bridge crew didn't know how to turn off the autopilot function on a new steering control system.

A report by the Transport Accident Investigation Commission was published yesterday, setting out the facts and circumstances established to this point and its inquiry into the incident, which remains ongoing.

So, the interim report said the Aratere received a new steering control system in May 2024, that was a month prior to the incident, to work with the ship's autopilot and integrated bridge navigation system. The Aratere was pootlingalong and it was just past its second waypoint off Mabel Island when the autopilot was engaged at 9:26pm, putting the steering for the other teddy under autopilot control. About 30 seconds later, a master who was on board the ship to refamiliarize himself with the Aratere after some time away, pressed the turn execute button, intending to initiate the Mabel Island waypoint turn.

After seeing the Aratere was heading towards shore, the crew attempted to press the takeover button and turned the wheel hard to port, all to no effect. The bridge team was unaware that to transfer steering control from the autopilot to the central steering console, the new steering system required them to either set the same rudder command at both consoles, which makes sense, or hold down the takeover button for five seconds. You couldn't just press it, it had to be held down for five seconds.

So how did the crew not know that? Well, according to Interislander Executive General Manager Duncan Roy, who spoke to Heather du Plessis-Allan last night, you can't know what you can't know. 

“That's what I'm saying. We got a new piece of equipment and there was a very specific set of circumstances that meant that required a 5 second override. For the 83 crossings prior to this, the one press button worked. The day they arrived in Picton that day, they pressed the button once to take control. It was only when in this very particular set of circumstances where the rudder was out of sync with the steering wheel that you had to do a 5 second override. The bridge didn't know.

And are you telling me that whoever provided this equipment to Interislander told no one in Interislander that in the specific set of circumstances, you have to press the button for five seconds. Like literally nobody knew?

We are working with that provider right now and as TAIC said today a number of times it's a very complex part of the investigation.

Duncan, but nobody in Interislander knew you had to press it for 5 seconds?

Heather, if we'd known that you had to do it, we would have done it.

OK, well, it might have just been a communication problem, but I get it. Did somebody go get a coffee?

Yeah, we can put that to bed right now, the right number of people are on bridge doing their job professionally. No one left the bridge to get coffee.”

There we go - nobody left the bridge to get coffee, that was all just scurrilous scuttlebutt.

So, you can't know what you don't know, do you? I mean, I've got a new little oven in my kitchen and I couldn't make the elements go, so I hadn't bothered to read the instructions. Read the instructions, saw that there's a child lock was on, which you had to press and hold down for five seconds, funnily enough. And then it would come off and I could operate the elements. But I suppose you can't really Google when you're on the bridge of a ship, as it's heading towards shore, can you?

So, you can't know what you don't know. If you accept, and I do, the interim report, if the provider of the gear said oh, by the way, if your rudder is out of sync and this is happening, you can't just press the button once, it has to be held down and held down for five seconds. So, if they haven't told you that, you're not going to know.  

Immediately after the grounding, Interislander worked with the company that provided the new steering system to understand what had happened, and they've now issued new guidance on the use of the autopilot system and upgraded retraining of deck staff on the control system. So, fair enough. So far from what you've heard, the crew, Interislander (initially, of course), the bosses and then the captains, and then the crew weren't briefed properly by the provider, they weren't given every circumstance in what to do when that happens, that's now been rectified.

One part of me goes that is perfectly understandable, I totally get it. The other part of me, a little part of me is going nobody seems to brief anybody properly these days. You know the Transpower crew with the nuts and the bolts and having to redo roading because you've done something really stupid that somebody should have picked up along the way. There's a little part of me that goes is nobody briefed properly about anything anymore? Are the where are the men in their walk shorts and their walk socks and their highly polished shoes and their short sleeve shirts and their ties and their pocket protectors? Where are they? They wouldn't have let this happen. Measure twice, cut once. That have read through every semi colon of that manual, had it seared into their little grey consciousness, and when the ship started going and the crew were going yikes, what's happening?

Somebody sensible would have stepped forward and said on page 273 of this manual, you'll see that if you hold the button down for five seconds we'll be able to take control again. If you take it as a one off, it seems like a genuine accident. The provider didn't brief Interislander properly, the provider didn't brief the client properly. But if you're taking over some heavy machinery, like if you were working in the heavy machinery industry, either in construction or farming or what have you, are you always briefed properly or do you sometimes find yourself in the middle of a field or the middle of a ditch, thinking what the Dickens? Now what do I do? And you ring the provider and they’re like mate sorry I should have told you.

To me it seems a reasonable explanation, but not if it's happening all the time, all the everywhere. In this case, no real harm done. A bit of bowel damage happens when you run into land and you're a ship. Nobody hurt, everybody learned a valuable lesson. No real harm done but there could have been.

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Should single rooms be the norm in hospitals? 

Multi-patient rooms are the status quo for New Zealand hospitals, with up to five people staying in each room. 

New research argues that this breaches safety and ethical concerns, saying that single patient rooms should be the most basic standard of care. 

Researcher and author Dr Cindy Towns told Kerre Woodham that while it may seem counterintuitive for single rooms to be as economical as multi-patient rooms, poor care costs money. 

She says that having multiple people in one room can create more room for infection to spread, and the inability to manage the environment completely can exacerbate some conditions.  

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A community service sentence ends the saga of Philip Polkinghorne. 

The former Auckland eye surgeon has returned to the High Court in Auckland today – more than a month after he was acquitted of murdering his wife Pauline Hanna. 

He's been sentenced to 150 hours community work after admitting to a meth charge.  

The Front Page's Chelsea Daniels spoke to Kerre Woodham from the High Court at Auckland and says the possibility of a fine was discussed. 

She says Justice Graham Lang didn't believe a fine would be enough to hold Polkinghorne to account, given his “healthy” financial position. 

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When did parents stop wanting more for their kids? The figures out today are absolutely appalling and paint a grim future for thousands of young New Zealanders. People aged 16-24 who are on the main benefit can expect to stay there for 20.4 years. I suppose we'll take the good news where we find it – that's down from 21.3 years. But good Lord, what a miserable existence for so many young people and what a shocking waste of potential. Young beneficiaries are more likely to have lower skill levels, more casual employment arrangements and high level of employment in low paid industries.  

And what the Ministry of Social Development report didn't say, because it wasn't within their purview, was that there's an army of uneducated kids coming up on the horizon. In the past decade chronic truancy has doubled in secondary schools, nearly tripled in primary schools. Another report released this week reveals more than 80,000 students missed more than three weeks of school in Term 2 this year. And where the hell will the truants end up when they finally drift away from education altogether? On a benefit.  

Social Development Minister Louise Upston told the Mike Hosking Breakfast the Government is committed to getting young people into work: 

“When the labour market is tight young people are disproportionately affected, but the good news is when the economy turns, they also pick up employment more quickly. We need to ensure they spend less time on welfare, that they don't get stuck there, and that we get them on track with some training, with some education and definitely with some work opportunities. That's why we've set the target to reduce the number on Jobseeker benefit by 50,000 in six years, because we know work makes such a difference to people's lives.” 

It really does. So, the Government is doing what it can, community organisations are doing what they can, where are the parents in all of this? I get that life can be really, really tough, but then it always has been for a sector of the population. It was really tough for my dad, who was born in a depression work camp in a tent. He grew up in a state house and getting into a state house was like winning the lottery for his mum and dad. Getting out of the state house and into a home of his own was my dad's driving motivation. He used education to do it. He was determined that his own children would never grow up relying on the government for anything, and we didn't. Even when I was a single mum, I never took a benefit. I could work and so I did.  

Education has been seen for centuries as the ticket out of poverty, and out of misery, and out of a predetermined future. You might be doing it hard. You might feel the system failed you, you have little education, you have never worked, and you struggle from day-to-day, but surely you don't want the same for your kids? All you have to do is get them to school. They'll be safe there, they'll be educated there, they will get into the custom of getting up and going to work. They'll even be fed there. And I bet if you find it hard to put them on a bus or walk them to school, if you ring the school they'll have someone who can come and collect them. You might be struggling, you might think you're worthless, you might think life is hopeless, but do not let your legacy to your kids be the same miserable existence. Listen to Education Minister Erica Stanford, who was on the Mike Hosking Breakfast last week: 

“I've been very clear about the drivers of inequality, and it is poverty. In this country your means to determine your destiny. It is almost the one single factor that is the cause of that yawning gap, which is why when you turn up to school, we need to cloak you in that protective factor that is education.” 

That is what so many families for hundreds of years have seen education as – a protective cloak that means they do not have to live the same life as their parents. But then that is what parents wanted – you always want your kids to do better than you have done, to be better parents, to have more options to live better lives. When the hell did parents stop wanting more for their children? So yes, the figures are grim from the Ministry of Social Development. Young people aged 16 to 24 who are on a main benefit can expect to be there for 20 years. And we have more than 80,000 kids coming up over the horizon, unskilled, uneducated, unless we change our ways and we change them now. 

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It’s not just the Government who are taking a look at building consents. 

Hastings District Council has been looking into a more risk-based approach to building consents, aiming to bring the costs down for both building firms and consumers. 

Council CEO Nigel Bickle told Kerre Woodham that the current system was put in place with the 2004 Building Act in response to the significant damages and issues caused by leaky homes. 

He said that the system was always meant to be recalibrated. 

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I suppose I should have, but I had no idea that it takes, on average, 569 days for a home to be built and consented right now. Nearly two years for a home to be built and consented! A decent building company could throw up a house in three months, couldn't they? But no, because of the consenting process, 569 days in this country for a home to be built and consented. No wonder we have a shortage of homes and no wonder they're so expensive.

Now the Government wants to change that and yesterday announced plans to develop a new opt-in self-certification scheme for trusted building professionals and accredited businesses. The scheme, which is going to have to go through a robust consultation process, features two key pillars. The first: qualified building professionals, such as plumbers, drain layers, and builders will be able to self-certify their own work for low risk builds without the need for an inspection. This brings them in line with electricians and gas fitters who can already do this, and it's something the industry has been calling for, for years.

The second pillar, according to the Government, is that businesses with a proven track record, your Jennian Homes and your GJ Gardner’s and the like who build hundreds of near identical homes a year, will be able to go through a much more streamlined consent process. At the moment, a single-storey basic home might go through ten or more separate inspections. That's beyond double, triple, quadruple handling. It is clearly too many, says Chris Penk, and the cost benefit has become unbalanced. Penk said if we want to grow the economy, lift incomes, create jobs and build more affordable, quality homes, we need a construction sector that's firing on all cylinders.

So the next piece of the pie is constructing a new self-certification scheme for trusted building professionals and accredited businesses carrying out low risk building work. The Master Builders are welcoming the change. ACT says it's a step in the right direction, even Labour is cautiously supportive. All of them say the devil will be in the detail and let's see what the safety measures are. How's it going to work? Well, the spectre of leaky homes still haunt building regulations, still make people have an abundance of caution. How can the building industry restore confidence to the sector and prove that they are perfectly capable and able to self-certify?

It was interesting hearing the Building Surveyors Institute chap David Clifton, who was on with Mike Hosking this morning; he said electricians can self-certify, there are very rarely any problems with their work, very rarely, unlike builders, he said. So does giving an industry the ability to stand on its own two feet, does giving an industry the ability to monitor itself, build a better quality of workmen? If you know that your work's going to be checked, checked and checked again, does it make you more careless? Perhaps not intentionally. Why is it that sparkies can self-certify and do good work, whereas when you've got builders who are being checked and checked again, David Clifton said that's where you find the problems.

Is being self-determining and being able to stand on your own two feet, does it actually result in fewer mistakes because there's you and only you that is responsible for the work that's being delivered? If your work is being checked by three or four different people, where does the responsibility lie? Would self-certification actually be good for the industry? I'd be very interested to hear from you and if you have been in the process of building a new home or getting a new home built, has it been 569 days? Which just seems absolutely absurd. A good move as far as you're concerned? If you've even got grudging support from Labour, that would indicate to me that they're on the right track.

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The devil will be in the details when it comes to the Government’s new building consents scheme. 

The proposal would allow competent tradespeople to self-certify consents on low risk builds, and businesses with a track record on delivering bigger projects would be able to access streamlined consenting.  

Pete Wolfkamp, ZB’s Resident Builder, told Kerre Woodham that it makes sense that those doing roughly the same type of low risk project over and over again should be able to monitor their own standards.  

He says there are things any competent tradesperson should be able to know when it’s done right, so taking those out would free up inspectors for other projects.  

To mitigate any potential issues, Wolfkamp says contractors would have to move towards having insurance. 

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Almost four months to the day, on the 30th of June, headlines were trumpeting a police crackdown on boy racers. In Wellington, police issued 138 infringement notices, 19 vehicles were taken off the streets, five vehicles were seized by bailiffs because of unpaid fines, three were impounded, 11 were either pink or green stickered due to compliance issues, 420 people were breathalysed, one person was arrested, and a stolen Subaru was seized. From one boy racer gathering in Wellington.

On that same weekend in Canterbury, 171 infringement notices were issued, 33 vehicles were pink or green sticker due to safety issues, seven people arrested for disorderly behaviour, four people summoned for excess breath alcohol, one person had their license suspended, six vehicles were impounded. Four were seized by bailiffs for failing to pay fines.

And again, on the same weekend, Bay of Plenty police issued 163 infringement notices for vehicles impounded, 14 green stickers issued ordering vehicles off the road, three people arrested, seven summonsed for driving with excess breath alcohol, one person's license suspended.

So a big crackdown. Cut to this morning and one of the big stories of Labour weekend was a nasty gathering of boy racers in Wairarapa. Boy racers who hurled fireworks, bottles, and rocks at police on Sunday night are now facing a range of charges. The operation ended with violence when officers were confronted by a large and aggressive group on Waingawa Road near Masterton.

Masterton Mayor Gary Cafell is calling not just for the book to be thrown at anti-social boy racers, but its spectators too. He told Tim Beveridge yesterday that spectators are there, seemingly in support of those who are causing the anti-social behaviour, he said, I know they're creating a problem for police, maybe they need to be looked at as well because they're basically complicit in what's being done. And they are. I know that Mark Mitchell and Simeon Brown are trying to look at beefing up laws surrounding boy racers and maybe they will look at spectators as well, because without the spectators there wouldn't be the gatherings. It's basically a game of whack-a-mole.

You saw what happened in June - you get a large contingent of police officers who direct their efforts and their attention onto boy racers, and they go in there and they pick up law breakers. You cannot say that they're hassling legitimate car enthusiasts when you look at the excess breath alcohol, when you look at the violence, when you look at the failure to pay fines, when you look at the infringement notices, when you look at the non-compliance of the vehicles themselves.

There are always two schools of thought: ‘Ah, come on, we all did it. They're just young lads letting off a bit of steam. It's so bloody boring in these small towns and they love their cars and they spend a lot of money on their cars and they just want to show them off and we all grow out of it. I'm an old boy racer and I still love my cars.’ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then there's the other school of thought that they're dangerous oiks, they don't care anything about the safety of others, they don't care about the property rights of others, they don't care that we're trying to get some sleep, they should be hung, drawn and quartered in the town square, they should be shot.

And I think somewhere there's a happy medium in that. They're law breakers – you don't have a non-compliant car if you're a car enthusiast. You want to show off your car, you want to make sure that it's road worthy and that it's safe.

I've heard every excuse under the sun from boy racers. It's not fair. They (other people) should build us a burnout pad. Well, you spend enough on your cars, why don't you do it yourself? Why don't you pay to see just how good you are and go round a track? Got enough money for your cars, got enough money for the hideous RTDs that are littered all over the road after you've been there, you should have enough money for an entry fee to see just how good you are against real drivers.

We have a fine history of motor sport in this country. We also have a less salubrious history of entitled oiks who see it as some sort of game. Not too dangerous because they don't want to risk everything, gives them a bit of a thrill to go up against the cops. But I don't really know what the police can do. They can direct all their attentions and all their efforts over a weekend, and they can certainly get their arrests, and they can certainly disrupt them for a while, but again, like Whack-a mole, up they pop. Another district, another weekend.

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The Police Minister is signalling a law change to crack down on boy racers after a violent brawl in Wairarapa on Saturday. 

Videos of men smashing a car's windows and beating up its driver are circulating on social media.  

The boy racers also threw bottles, rocks, and fireworks at police, with several people now facing charges.  

Minister Mark Mitchell told Kerre Woodham he is working on legislation with the Ministers for Justice and Transport.  

He says they hope to progress changes to give police teeth to clamp down on boy racers before the end of the year. 

Mitchell is also praising motorists for the part they played in New Zealand's zero road-toll Labour Weekend. 

It's a new record for the period, with the previous lowest being in 2013 with one person dead and 109 injured.  

Mitchell says told Kerre that this remarkable feat is down to people driving safely, as well as the work of Police over the long weekend.   

He says full credit goes to the Police and the work they're doing, but also to motorists, who need some credit in the fact they've been careful over the long weekend. 

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If you want to racially abuse hospital staff and demand white only nurses, fine. We will draw a curtain around your bed, and you’ll lie there and wait. You need pain relief, assistance to go to the loo, have your sheets changed, have your blood pressure monitored - make sure it's not getting dangerously high. You lie there and you wait. You wait for a white nurse to come on duty. You might be waiting a while.

I don't know how this ugly racist who the poor people at Waitakere Hospital have had the misfortune to be dealing with defines “whites only” in his tortured little brain. Do they mean Pakeha New Zealanders? Although I'm sure they never refer to them as Pakeha. Would an Irish nurse with a pale complexion but without New Zealand citizenship do? If it was based on whites only, I wouldn't have had the operations I've had done in a timely fashion if I was waiting for someone with a pale face to turn up and do them. Nor would I have had the care and attention I've received in hospital if I had depended on white only nursing staff and hospital aides to provide it.

More than 30 staff at one of Waitākere Hospital wards took the unusual step of signing a cease work order in July, after a patient had reportedly abused them and made sexually suggestive comments over a period of six weeks. They shouldn't have had to put up with it for a minute, far less six weeks. It was only when they signed the cease work order that management actually did something about it, and told the patient he would be discharged, or they'd call on the police if he didn't stop what he was doing immediately. And guess what he did? He stopped. That's what bullies do. You front up to them, you face them off and they will back down.

Six weeks they had to put up with this. Health workforce leaders say Health New Zealand needs clear national guidelines for responding to racial discrimination against staff, saying it should not have required a cease work order to resolve the incident, and no it bloody should not. Nor should hospital management acquiesce to any patient’s demands about the ethnicity of hospital workers. Remember the Herald report earlier this month that revealed leaders at North Shore Hospital agreed to a patients request to have no Asian staff at their surgery? A decision which angered workers and was condemned by unions. These are not isolated incidents.

I can't imagine how ugly the abuse would have had to have been for the staff to take a stand, because they're abused every single day – which is incomprehensible. These are people trying to help you, trying to fix you, trying to give you comfort no matter if you've bought about your own misfortune or not. They, unlike some of the patients, leave judgement at the door and they are professional, they are caring, they are skilled, and they are human. They have a breaking point – six weeks of constant abuse, a barrage of racial abuse and sexually suggestive comments, you know what? They're going to draw a line too. They also come from all over the world, as do hospital staff in just about every healthcare system in the world. Hospitals are a beautiful meld of cultures and ethnicities, all working together to do their very best for you.

You want whites only? You won't find any hospital anywhere in the world that can offer you that, because the global health system would collapse without the very best from every country in the world working collaboratively.  

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More than 30 staff at Waitākere Hospital refused to care for a racially abusive patient in a bid to get hospital managers to defuse the situation. 

The male patient had asked for white-only staff, making racist and sexual remarks over a period of six weeks. 

Their drastic action prompted hospital managers to escalate their response and defuse the situation. 

New Zealand Nurses Organisation delegate Ben Basevi told Kerre Woodham he thinks management was out of touch, and didn’t come down to see what was happening when complaints started arising.  

He said that when they talked to staff about the situation, it was clear that nothing short of the cease work order was going to work. 

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Yesterday afternoon, a woman was taken to hospital in a critical condition after being seriously injured in an assault on board a bus broad daylight. Shortly before 6pm, police confirmed the person had died in the hospital – they said the victim was a passenger on the bus. They say nobody else is at risk at the moment, they know who the alleged offender is, but it's unsettling. This is not the norm, this is not what should be happening. You should be able to board a bus on a quiet Wednesday and get to your destination safely without being abused, without being spat at, without being assaulted, and without being stabbed until you die.  

There's something horribly aberrant about this. We've had a lot of good news recently, the Coalition Government has been talking tough on crime since they were campaigning to be elected, and then we've had the good news announcements of major criminal organisations being busted - Comanchero’s down south, Mongrel Mob in Opotiki. We've had the announcement of more cops on the beat, a visible sign of the police being around, which does so much to make people feel safe and does a lot to prevent crime. There are already about 30 officers working the beat in Auckland City. The total police force on the beat in Auckland will exceed 50, it’s expected to have exceeded 50 by the end of last month. Seventeen officers deployed in Wellington, in Christchurch an extra 10 tramping the footpaths, and by the end of the two-year roll out Coster said there would be 21 officers deployed in each of Auckland's three policing districts, making up 63 additional officers on the beat across the region.  

So that is great, these are good news stories that do make you feel better, but you cannot have a police officer on every bloody bus or every train. You can't even have a security guard on every bus or every train. Incidents like this happen, and then you get the New Zealand Crime and Victim Survey coming along, asking questions, do you feel safe? And you say no, I bloody don't. I don't feel safe when a person can be stabbed on a bus in broad daylight on a Wednesday.  

The sixth New Zealand Crime and Victim Survey that was released in June interviewed thousands of New Zealanders about their experience of crime, whether they reported it or did not report it. Although it should be noted they didn't talk to businesses, and a hell of a lot of crime affected business over the last few years. People said they felt unsafe, despite the fact that crime rates have remained steady over the last three or four years. All of the good news can be forgotten when something as random and as savage as this incident occurs.  

I think the idea of addressing the situations where crime occurs is a good one. If we're looking at families that are at risk, we need to focus on them. So, the Social Investment Agency, that is a good move. Investing in community programs that work is good. Investing in more rehab centres, drug and rehabilitation centres would be excellent. I still don't believe there are nearly enough facilities available for people who want to get help, for families who want loved ones to get help. The promised care in the community for those who are severely disordered, not there, and hasn't been there for a very, very long time. So you've got to look at the drivers of crime as well as crime itself.  

Great, we've got the Coalition Government talking tough on crime, actually making a difference when it comes to getting police on the beat, actually making a difference when it gets more police officers policing, rather than acting as social workers. When you've got drug rings being disrupted, all of this is good. This is feel good stuff, but it only takes one random incident and people are unsettled.  

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The Government is set to appoint a Crown Observer to Wellington City Council within weeks. The writing was on the wall really, wasn't it? It was whether they were going to go the whole hog with the Commissioner, a’ la Tauranga, or settle for an Observer, and that is what they've gone with.  

Local Government Minister Simeon Brown made the announcement yesterday and said he's written to Wellington City Council with draft terms of reference – he's given the Council ten working days to respond, as required under the law. The move follows months of wrangling over the Council's Long Term plan. They were looking to fund it through the sale of Wellington Airport shares, that sale is now not going ahead, and they're having to scratch around and find a whole lot of money to fund the goings on of the city. The planned sale of the shares, and it was one that was pushed by Mayor Tory Whanau, was scuttled at the last minute, following a vote by councillors earlier this month.  

Tory Whanau is resigned to the fact that there is an Observer coming in and she said, “I welcome the Minister's intention to bring in an observer”. She said the Minister has fairly pointed out examples where councillors had walked out of meetings and acknowledged the Council has some tough decisions ahead in the next few months. She also conceded that the Council must do better – but she does not accept there's been financial mismanagement at the Council surrounding water infrastructure investment, and she does not intend to cancel crucial plans for the city.  

Well, it may not be mismanagement, but there seems to be a little bit of financial incomprehension. Simeon Brown said the council has demonstrated an inability to understand the mechanisms it has available to manage the financial pressures it's facing. So, you don't know your arse from your elbow when it comes to budgeting, basically, to boil it down into simple language. This includes the Council choosing in its Long Term plan to use rates revenue to pay for its water infrastructure upfront, rather than appropriately using debt finance.  

Former Wellington Mayor Dame Kerry Prendergast spoke to the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning and says the person selected to be the Observer will have to have a specific skill set: 

KP: I think the Minister has made the right call and I am positive he didn't make that decision lightly. It is not easy for central government to step into local government. Local government’s responsible for its own decisions, and this is a centre-right government. I'm sure that he took lots of advice and it wasn't something that he came to an easy decision on, but I do think it's the right decision. And let's hope with the right person in there, and a council and mayor and management who are now listening, we're going to see the right response coming from them. 

MH: Would you want to be a Crown Observer? 

KP: I don't think that's the skill set they're looking for. They'll be looking for someone who is maybe an accountant/financial expert, someone who will be able to display the qualities I've just set out, that's the sort of person they'll be looking for. 

Yes, somebody who does know their arse from their elbow when it comes to a set of accounts. The Government's appointment of a Crown Observer at Wellington City Council has prompted concerns that other councils too could be in the firing line. The Opposition believes the bar for intervention is too low, and that Wellington is hardly the only council with bickering members and money struggles. Labour said many councils were struggling to fund their mandates, especially after the government changed the water legislation, and it pointed out the funding and financing tools for water infrastructure was still not available.  

Chris Hipkins said if Wellington is the threshold needed for an Observer, then he expected other councils around the country to also get interventions. He said, “I think the threshold for that kind of intervention needs to be quite high, my concern here is that if they're doing it for Wellington City Council, they could be doing it for other councils in relatively short order”.  

A couple of things on that, call me old fashioned, but I'd really like to have somebody who knew what they were doing in charge of the sums. And if Wellington have shown that they don't know how to manage sums, and if they have shown that they cannot take advice, because I'm presuming that the highly paid permanent staff members at Wellington City Council, the public service if you will, the ones who are not elected but appointed, surely they must know how to manage a set of sums? So how come they haven't been able to spell it out to the Council that this is what we need to do? You've got people who have been hired to do a job at the Council and presumably they know what they're doing. Councillors can come and go, and they will keep the cities and the towns operational and functional.  

So do councils not listen to the heads of department when they present their reports? Do they ignore the advice of, pretty well-paid, specialists in their field and just override their recommendations? How is it that we need an Observer to come in who knows about finance and knows about accounts, when you've got a chief executive, and you've got heads of departments who are already on staff being well paid? I would be all for it, having somebody who knew what they were doing, overseeing what the Council was doing, if there weren't supposed to already be people there, that ratepayers are paying for, to do precisely that. 

If I was elected to council, I'd say, what do you recommend we do first? How much money have we got to do all of these jobs? Where can we get money from without necessarily pinging the ratepayers? And I would assume that people who have been working for Council for ten years would have some answers. You know, why have a dog and bark yourself? You've got a chief executive, why do you have an Observer? What's the chief executive doing? I'm just interested because otherwise the whole concept of local democracy is flawed. If we can't manage to manage ourselves, then just appoint a highly trained CEO and let them get on with it. 

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Several thousands more offenders are likely to be captured under Three Strikes 2.0 following changes by Cabinet to toughen up the act. These changes, announced this morning, include halving the sentencing threshold for a first strike, and making it retrospective (controversial with lawmakers). That would capture several thousands of the 15,000-odd offenders with strikes to their name under Three Strikes 1.0.  

When it was repealed by Labour, who said it was harsh and punitive and unfair to Māori and Pasifika, you might have thought that anybody who had a first or second strike when it was repealed would see them wiped. No, under this legislation they haven't gone away, they're still there. Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee said the changes were in response to public feedback, saying her initial proposals were too soft, though as they say they're likely to irk the legal community, as making it retrospective raises new tensions with the Bill of Rights Act.  

So, the law is aimed at the worst violent and sexual offenders, imposing on them ever harsher sentences for repeated convictions for certain qualifying offences. Strike one would mean a normal sentence and a warning that the strikes now apply. Strike two means serving the full sentence with no parole. Strike three would mean serving the maximum sentence allowable for the offence, with no possibility of parole. It was introduced in 2010 under National (supported by ACT), repealed in 2022 under Labour, and the Coalition Government said that they would bring it back – and they have done so.  

Officials said the first iteration of Three Strikes was very popular, had all the right notes with voters, but didn't actually work, had no significant quantifiable benefits. They said there's no evidence that the Three Strikes law reduces offending or makes the public feel safer, but what it does do is negatively impact prisoner rehabilitation. Law Association Vice President Julie-Anne Kincaid spoke to the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning about her disappointment: 

“First of all, there's no evidence that this actually works in the way that people want to work. It's not a deterrence, unfortunately. What we want, all of us want less crime and less serious crime, but this is actually going to capture all sorts of people who shouldn't necessarily be there.  For example, sentencing is very nuanced and difficult, and some people might be sent to jail simply because they don't have a house in which they can do an electronically monitored sentence. It will lead to unfair and unjust outcomes.  

“Sentencing must be nuanced. There are so many factors in human beings that apply. We look first at the offence always in sentencing and the judge takes a starting point based on the offence and then they look at factors that are unique to that offender, and there's a balance that has to be performed with all sentences, and it's complex and that complexity might not always come across in a newspaper article which I think is where a lot of the people who see problems get their information.” 

Well, they do, and we do. When you see that a judge has given a discount for this, a discount for that, a discount for that, a discount for that, it does. Do you see nuance or do you see a judge being soft on crime? And how often do you give the discount? I'm all for giving a discount first time round: you had a terrible upbringing, absolutely appalling, unforgivable that you were raised in an environment like that, little choice but to join a gang because that was the neighbourhood, that was the security, that meant that you weren't going to be abused by your uncle and you commit a crime because you're part of the gang. Okay we understand that that's appalling and we're terribly sorry as a community that that happened to you.  

So now you go to jail and, if you can, take advantage of the rehabilitation programs that are there. But you can't come out and do it again and plead the same thing. You can't have a licence to commit crime for the rest of your life because of your appalling upbringing. You can understand why you do it, but you can't be excused for it because not everybody who has a shocking start in life does that. There's still an element of choice and free will in what you do.  

So ACT, who is the party that supported it when it was first introduced by the Key Government in 2010, is unapologetic and says Three Strikes sends a signal to violent offenders that New Zealanders won't tolerate repeated violent and sexual offending. According to ACT, the average Three Strikes offender has 75 convictions. So to even get within the realm of having Three strikes apply, you have to have 75 previous convictions, not just appearances in court, this is where you have been found guilty.  

Under the previous regime, only 24 people were sentenced to a third strike, so it's not being used willy nilly. The total number of people sentenced to a first, second, or third strike accounted for just 1% of the people sentenced in our courts. They were the worst of the worst. These offenders leave behind a long list of victims, some of whom will never recover from the trauma. So, I'm okay about that. 75 previous convictions for violent and sexual offending, I don't care about your rehab, I actually do feel safer. I don't care if prisoner rehabilitation is negatively effective, because after 75 convictions it's going to take a seismic shift within the individual, not a prison program, to rehabilitate them. I'm good. 

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Who doesn't love hosting a good party? Who hasn't enjoyed the buzz that comes from having people from all over the world heading into town intent on having a good time?

Even if you can't afford the price of the tickets to the Rugby World Cup, or through fee for Women's World Cup, or you haven't got a gin palace to head out on the water to get up, close and personal to the America's Cup racing, you can still share in the good times and the positive vibes that are generated when a marquee event is set up in New Zealand.

Attention, of course, is now turning to whether New Zealand can mount a defence of the America's Cup and New Zealand waters. Of course we can do it, we've done it before, it's whether there's a willingness to do it.

Former Prime Minister and patron of Emirates Team New Zealand Helen Clark says the case for public funding to host a future America's Cup is as strong as when her government was a significant financial backer. Clark's Labour-led coalition backed hosting the 2003 event in Auckland and sponsored the team in Valencia and San Francisco for the 32nd to 34th iterations of the America's Cup. She said it was all-round a hard economic case of what is good for New Zealand.

But right now, in this time, can we afford it? And really, when you crunch the numbers, could we even afford it back then?

The Government says it's open to a discussion about hosting the Cup in New Zealand, but any government support would need to be assessed against many other competing priorities in these tight economic times and demonstrate clear value for money and economic benefit.

When you have got the sort of infrastructure spending that we need, when you've got community groups that are crying out for funding, which has been cut or has been cut back, can you really make a case that hundreds of millions of dollars taxpayer dollars should go to a defence of the America’s Cup?

How you work out whether it will indeed be profitable depends on which report do you want to commission and which report you want to read. Helen Clark says Barcelona used the hosting of the cup as a catalyst for reviving its economy, and it's absolutely thrilled with the outcome of it. Five years from now, you'll probably read a report saying poor decision.

When we last defended the America’s Cup, it was extraordinary times. We're in the middle of lockdowns, open for business and then we were not. It was very odd times. And not nearly as many people as organisers had hoped made their way to New Zealand (who can blame them) for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and getting their boats redesigned and rebuilt and refurbed by skilled New Zealand Craftsman.

All of the cases made for hosting the America's Cup fell a bit short and a fell a bit flat. And if you look at other countries around the world too, they say it cost them an awful lot, a bit like hosting the Olympics.

Conversely, you look at the FIFA Women's World Cup that appears to have been a success, again depending on the reports you read, but it appears to have been a success both in terms of the profile of the sport, support of the sport and turning a buck.

In these times, where we've all been told and I've said and you know, that things are tough. Right now, most of us are dealing with the have to haves, not the nice to haves. We're trying to find money for the essentials, the necessaries of life. Not the frilly, gorgeous, good time of fun things of life.

Is now the right time to be saying hold it here, because Emirates team New Zealand won a lot of money? They have to have a lot of money. It's an expensive sport. These are expensive sailors. There are a lot of rich men who want the kudos of being the one that won the America’s Cup. They're willing to spend billions to do so. And they will pay any price.

And I think we've all grown up and got past the whole New Zealand sailors should simply sail for the love of their country. Remember the BlackHearts campaign? Just about tore ZB apart. So it costs and Emirates Team New Zealand will make whoever wants to host it pay through the nose for the privilege of doing so.

Is now the right time? Doesn't appear to be.

The only thing I'd say in its favour is that we've got all that infrastructure there at the Viaduct. It's not being used.

It would be at about 40 percent capacity, which is a damn shame. Everything was built and nobody came because of the extraordinary times.

So it would be nice to see that that investment could be used, could be capitalised upon. But right now I would say hosting a defence of the America’s Cup would be in the nice to have category, not in the is absolutely imperative that we do so category. 

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Former Prime Minister Helen Clark says it's politically viable for New Zealand to host the America's Cup as we've done it before, and if we don't step up, someone else will.

She says Kiwis love to see New Zealand doing well and winning – and says we know having the Cup at home comes with economic benefits.

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown says the hosting decision is in the hands of Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton.

AUT Sailing Professor and former New Zealand world champion sailor Mark Orams joined Kerre Woodham.

LISTENABOVE

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The Greens voted last night to swallow a dead rat. Even the vegans had to chew on a dead rat last night. Green Party delegates overwhelmingly decided to use the Waka Jumping law, which they hate, to eject Darleen Tana from Parliament if she decides not to quit first. Darleen Tana, the former Green MP, currently sits, useless as tits on a bull, as an independent and was the subject of a late night special general meeting zoom. All 185 party delegates present at the meeting reached consensus —I don't think they do anything so trad and bourgeois as vote— they reach consensus within the Green Party, to endorse using the legislation against Tana.   

Political reporters say that suggests the party is far more united on the issue than previously thought. There had been some hoohah about treatment of women and treatment of women of colour within the Greens, but it appears not. It appears they can all see that the reason that Darleen Tana is sitting there squatly in Parliament is because she's got nowhere else to go. She's not acting on a matter of principle, she's not acting on a matter of the higher moral ground the Greens are very fond of finding, she's just sitting there because she needs a gig and as to pay the bills.  

So the Greens have been historically vocal about their dislike for the same law they've now opted to use against Tana, but Green Party Co leader Chloe Swarbrick says everyone should be open to changing their minds when faced with issues like this.   

What do we expect our politicians to do? If a party is elected and you as a voter have listened to the campaign promises, and you've read through their policies, and you understand what it is that they intend to do when they get into power, do you then sit back and watch as they go and renege on every single promise and are not the party you voted for? You'd want to see politicians take a principled stand, wouldn't you?  

Do you expect them to stick to a party that has been disloyal to its voting base, or do you expect them to take a principled stand? Resign and sit as an independent in the House, being a burr under the saddle of the government, reminding them of the broken promises? I think we can all see with Darleen Tana that she needs a gig. She needs a job. She's not going to get one that pays that well. Sitting doing nothing in Parliament is paying her a hell of a lot more than she'll get doing anything else. She is not principled, but other MPs have been, and they should be allowed to do so. They should be allowed to sit in the house and remind a party that it's broken its promises to its voters, in my opinion. 

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We're going to open the show today with a chat on ACC, given that it's managed to go from a $911 million surplus to a $7.2 billion deficit in the year to June. That’s got to hurt.

ACC said, in it's just released annual report, that lower than expected rehabilitation performance contributed towards the deficit, and noted the cost of providing services and compensation to injured people increased by 16% over the year. That makes sense. The price of everything has gone up. The price of taxis has gone up to get people to their appointments, the price of scans, everything that you can apply to ACC for will have risen in price. You can understand that the deficit could be a whole lot worse.

If you are one of those people who have been on ACC and that is, as Mike pointed out this morning, 100% of the Kerre Woodham Mornings team, all two of us. We covered a lot of the costs ourselves. We didn't apply for everything that you're entitled to under ACC. I didn’t get a taxi or house cleaning, and we got extra treatment to aid our rehabilitation and recovery to make it that much faster, and we did that at our own expense and time. We made an investment in our own recovery. And that's partly because we can, there are some people who simply do not have that option, but partly because Helen and I saw it as a team effort – thank you very much, ACC, but we will do our very best to do what we can to get back to work. And I bet many of you are the same. How much have you actually claimed what you could have claimed? I bet the figure could be a whole lot worse, so put that down to the Kiwi attitude of fair play. You've done your bit, thanks very much and we'll do ours.

I did notice too that in the reporting on the story —perhaps they mentioned it in the report, and I haven't read the entire ACC report, I've only gone off the news coverage— when they said lower than expected rehabilitation performance contributed towards the deficit, they didn't make any mention of their failed $74 million restructure that removed personal case managers for nearly 12,500 clients, and then oh that's not working, reinstated them. Maybe they did, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. I didn't have time to read the whole report this morning, but surely the “lower than expected” rehab performance could in part be attributed to the fact that they tried a $74 million restructure of case managers that failed dismally, and now personal case managers have been reinstated.

A lawyer specialising in ACC law said the reversal was not a surprise because the agency had been warned the new system would fail. When it comes to the blowout, okay, “lower than expected” rehab performance – that's staff shortages in the health sector, that's holdups in the health sector that means you're delayed in getting treatment, you're delayed in getting to see somebody, and that can attribute towards the “lower than expected” rehab performance. Also, the reason why people are taking longer to get back to work. The average claimant who received weekly compensation for less than a year took 69.7 days to return to work at the beginning of the fiscal year. By the end of the year, that number had risen to 72.8 days. So the delays in the health sector could attribute to that.

And then the other issue that ACC faces is that two court judgements have increased the scope of what ACC covers and the breadth of who's entitled to this coverage. Think of the smashed babies that survive but are so badly damaged that they will never be able to work – ACC has to make an allowance for those babies for life. They will live and they will live well into their middle years, but they'll never work. There is no hope of recovery or rehabilitation for these poor children. They're also having to take into account victims of unreported childhood sexual offending who are unable to work as adults. So they have to make allowance for those people too. So the breadth of what it covers, the scope of what it covers, it could be a whole lot worse.

It's still claimed that this is the best system, that this form of social insurance is still the best system. Do you agree? Do you believe that ACC is still fit for purpose? I do. I think for all of those well publicised cases of those who rort it, remember the famous Auckland businessman who was found playing tennis on his very own tennis court, under flood lights, and he had been off work for ages and ages and was exposed on the cover of the Herald on Sunday or something. He had been rorting in the system for ages. For all of those that rort, there are very many who contribute towards their own recovery and towards their own costs. It could be a whole lot worse. It means we don't have lawyers suing and countersuing, which I think is a very, very good thing. And it does mean that we can be damaged, be fixed and go back to work.

On the whole, I think it's still working. And there are ebbs and flows in terms of making a profit, investing, putting money aside, getting a better return some years more than others. As far as I'm concerned there are problems with ACC – yes, the $74 million restructure that was a U-turn that led to nowhere, unfortunate, but there we go. We have to live with that, reconcile that into the books, learn from it, reinstate the case managers help people get back into work. As far as I'm concerned, I’m still happy to pay my levies, still happy to see ACC continue to provide the services and the treatments it does. 

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I remember about 25 years ago there was an absolute hoo-ha at the Grey Lynn Countdown, because staff there were speaking to one another in their own tongue in the common staff room. And there was a complaint from somebody who spoke English —that was the language they spoke, and they didn't speak any other languages— and they took great offence to people speaking in their mother tongue in the staff room. They said it made them feel uneasy, they didn't know what they were talking about, and you can imagine the brouhaha resulted - who was right? Who was wrong?  

Now, so many years later, a memo has been sent around Waikato Hospital asking nurses to speak English only when they're on the wards. Concerns have been raised about other languages being used by nurses and the exclusive use of English in all clinical settings is safer for treating people, according to the memo. And I quote, “each nurse is required by Nursing Council New Zealand to achieve competency both in the written and spoken language of English. Consistent use of one language reduces the possibility of missed care, misunderstanding of clinical requirements and enhances safe teamwork.”  

And I totally get that. I totally understand that where there are issues of clinical safety clear communication is utterly vital. There must be an unequivocal understanding between medical staff and patients around the treatment of patients. But when you're chatting to one another or to patients who might share your background and share your language, I really don't see where the problem is.  

It's a real lesson in humility, as many of you will know, to go to a country where English is not the lingua franca. Especially when words are your thing, where your way of expressing yourself, where your way of participating in the world is through language. All of a sudden you go to a place where there's another language spoken, you don't speak it, and you are reduced to a basic, basic level of conversation. Despite your very best efforts to learn a few words before you go, quite different when you get there, and you are reduced to absolutely fundamental basic communication. You can't explain yourself; you can't expound on your ideas; you can’t express nuance. It's incredibly frustrating and very, very good for your humility. And gives you, I think a deeper understanding of what it must be like to come to New Zealand, to set up your home here, to set up your life here, to work here and to have English as a second language.  

More credit to the people who do pass their English proficiency when they've come from somewhere else. Blimmin’ sure I wouldn't be able to pass my Mandarin proficiency or my Hindi. You know so much more than what you're communicating, and yet all the person hears on the other end is a basic one-dimensional other. So any chance you get to be you, to be all of the you rather than the basic you, I can understand why people would take that. Again, at no point should clinical safety be compromised. At no point should a patient's treatment be in any way misinterpreted because there is a lack of understanding, but if you have the time to talk to somebody in their own language, in their first language, wouldn't you take it?  

I mean, anybody who's lived overseas must know what that is like and the relief when you when you start to build upon the basic structural foundation of the language you're learning, to be able to offer more of yourself through words is immense. So to people have chosen to make their life in this country who have learned English at school, quite different to using it in day-to-day life, more credit to you. Where clinical safety is paramount, English must be spoken, but if you've got a bit of downtime, can you possibly blame somebody for wanting to be all that they can be through the expression of their own language? 

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Inflation is continuing to fall and interest rates are likely to follow suit. 

The inflation rate has dropped to 2.2 percent. 

It's the first time in more than three years it's returned to the Reserve Bank's 1-3% target range. 

The Herald's Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham the markets are now pricing in a 100% chance the Reserve Bank will cut the OCR at least 50 basis points next month. 

He says there's now serious talk about a 75 basis point cut, which normally only happens during major economic downturns like the Global Financial Crisis. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

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What’s the Government’s obsession with speeding things up?  

Today, it’s the queues at airport security that it wants to go faster - with Transport Minister Simeon Brown looking at bringing-in private operators to run airport security instead of the Civil Aviation Authority.   

As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t get through security on time and miss your flight, it’s your own fault. And I do not like the idea of private security outfits taking over.  

Instead, I think the Government should be focused on getting the Civil Aviation Authority to lift its game.  

Now this is done in some airports around the world. I’ve been reading about a scheme in the States. It’s also done in Australia, where private operators pretty much run all aviation security services. And Simeon Brown wants to find out if we should do the same thing here.  

But I don’t think the US and Australia are the best countries for us to mimic on this one because both countries have different standards on a lot of things because they are divided into states. With each state having their own rules and regs.  

We don't, which is why I think we need to stick with a standard operation right through the country, run by a single government agency.  

I went through San Francisco on my way to the UK back in May this year, and I see security services there are run by an outfit called Covenant Aviation Security.  

But I didn’t have any choice, and it doesn’t mean I have to like it.  

My main concerns about private operators taking over here is the risk of inconsistency in training, inconsistency in approach, and the variable quality control.  

I don’t like the fact that private operators don’t have the same access to the type of intel that gets shared between government agencies and not with private organisations and businesses.  

Nor should they, in my view.  

I like knowing that airport security is all part of the big government machine that kicks into gear when things hit the fan. For example - in times of emergency.

I know that private businesses and organisations are critical and also do great things in times of strife, but it’s not the same as a public agency, like the Civil Aviation Authority.

One of the unions that represents aviation security workers doesn’t like what the Government is proposing, either. And, before you get too excited, yes I can see through some of what it’s saying.

Especially, its concern that what the Government is proposing could mean job losses for the people involved. So, of course, a union is going to oppose anything where that’s possible.

But I’m with the National Union of Public Employees (or NUPE) when it says that privatising aviation security would be risky because the pay and conditions offered by private security firms would likely be inferior to what the Civil Aviation provides its workers. And so, you’d get less experienced people running security at the airports and there’d probably be higher staff turnover.

And I’m with the union when it says that allowing the airports to hire their own private aviation providers would lead to inconsistency across the country. Because it would allow airports to cut costs and set their own standards.

At the moment, the same rules and standards apply everywhere because the same outfit does it, and that’s how I think it should stay.

I’m at odds, though, with someone who knows a lot more about this than me. But I’m basing my position on my gut instinct.

Captain David Morgan is Air New Zealand’s chief pilot and operational integrity and safety officer - and he’s backing what the Government is looking at doing.  

He’s saying today: “We are not necessarily interested in delivering aviation security, but we are interested in the enablement of alternative providers for aviation security in New Zealand."

He says third-party aviation security providers are quite common everywhere else.

But even though Air New Zealand’s top pilot is telling me that I’ve got nothing to worry about if the Government does go-ahead with this, I still don’t like it.

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How’s that miserly $20-a-week tax cut looking now that we know the country’s budget deficit is $1.8 billion worse than expected?  

You might be one of the few people who are actually better-off by more than 20 bucks a week, but you’re in the minority.  

And there’s no doubt that there is egg all over the Government’s face on this one. But I told you so. And it wasn’t just me who told you so, but I’ll get to that.  

There will, no doubt, be people hitting back on this one —pointing out that ‘they’re not tax cuts, it’s tax “relief”— and that all the Government has done is shift the tax brackets.  

But yeah yeah. Either way, same diff, most of us have an extra $20 in the pocket and the country has a $12.9 billion deficit —$1.8 billion worse than expected— the largest annual deficit since the pandemic in 2020.  

Not quite as bad though as the deficits after the Global Financial Crisis in 2007 and 2008 and the Canterbury earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. The deficit blew-out to $18.4 after the quakes.  

Not that that’s saying much because we’ve still got a $12.9 billion deficit and, yet the big brains in Wellington are still defending their tax cuts to the hilt.  

Now, to be fair, the Government’s books show that while the deficit’s gone pear-shaped, the amount of money the government got in through the door was actually higher-than-expected in the past year.  

But that doesn’t alter the fact that the deficit’s got worse and the Government has thrown caution to the wind and has voluntarily reduced its income.  

Which I find weird for a government that says it’s bringing some business nous to the Beehive. Because in business —aside from containing costs— the number one thing when you’re in business is to try and increase revenue.      

As soon as National started talking about tax cuts —or tax relief— before last year’s election, I could see then it was something the country couldn’t afford. And there was no shortage of experts lining up, saying the same.  

There was the farcical idea of taxing foreign home buyers. But, even then, as soon as that idea was put to bed, National and its subsequent coalition partners still signed-up to the dream.  

If I was being generous, I’d say that it was just politics. You know, it’s just the way it’s always been. Politicians promising to put more money in people's pockets. And, as people always have, they blindly swallow all the cheap talk without asking how it’s going to be paid for.  

But I’m not feeling generous, and, anyway, that wasn’t the case. When all this tax cut talk started there was no shortage of people lining up to shoot it down. Even after the government was formed, the experts were still shooting it down.  

Let me take you back to April this year when Gareth Kiernan from Infometrics wrote about it in the firm’s regular newsletter. Gareth is Informetrics’ chief forecaster, and he wrote back in April: "The Government’s plans to fully deliver its promised tax cuts must be in doubt, as the economy falters and the fiscal position continues to get squeezed."  

He went on to say: “Forgoing another couple of billion dollars in revenue and increasing the deficit further might seem irresponsible. That conclusion becomes even more valid when one considers that National’s broader pre-election fiscal programme has led to change through the coalition negotiation process, with some estimates suggesting an additional shortfall in net revenue of about $1.5 billion.”  

He was right then, and his view is even more spot-on now – now that we know that the deficit is $1.8 billion worse than expected.  

The tax cuts were unaffordable and shouldn’t have happened, and the state of the Government’s books proves it. 

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How many reviews and reports do we need before we accept that we are nowhere near as good at emergency and disaster management as we think we are here in New Zealand?  

I reckon we’ll never admit it. But we should.  

In fact, we shouldn’t just admit that we’re not as good as we think - we should also be looking at some major structural change. Not just more of the tinkering around the edges that the Government is talking about today.  

We need to accept we’re pretty average; we need to accept that we’re a tiny country; we need to accept that, when it comes down to it, the military is the best outfit to be running our disaster response and we should be merging our civil defence and military defence functions.  

The Government has announced a big overhaul of emergency and disaster management after recent reports showed just how woeful things are in this department. Particularly after what happened during and after Cyclone Gabrielle last year.  

You might remember back in March this year when Mike Bush —who used to be the Police Commissioner— released his report on his review of the Civil Defence response to the cyclone.  

I remember being astounded when he came out and said that Civil Defence wasn’t prepared; it hadn’t planned for worst case scenarios; and that the national emergency management system was setting people up to fail.  

It was setting people up to fail.  

I was astounded because it seemed the country had learned nothing from the experiences during the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in Canterbury. It was no better prepared in 2023 than it was 12 years earlier.  

So the Government’s taken all that on board and is talking about changing things.  

As you’d expect, what the Government’s talking about is all high-level, strategic stuff. It’s saying things like: “We want to build an emergency management system that can continuously improve and become stronger over time”.  

Which is all great stuff, but the Government’s also warning that it might have the money to do it.  

So here’s what I reckon we should be doing: 

You know how after a disaster the army either turns up to help or people call for the army to be sent in? I think the army or our defence force (even though it’s way under-resourced in a lot of areas itself) should be doing the planning and the leading during times of disaster.  

I heard Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell on Newstalk ZB listing all the people involved in emergency management in this country. Which tells me there are just too many cooks in the kitchen.  

And that’s the nub of why we seem to be getting no better at disaster planning, disaster response, and disaster management.  

From my experience, there are a lot of moustaches involved. A lot of testosterone, and a lot of egos.  

You don’t get that in the military. There are hierarchies that people operate under in the defence force. In normal times and during times of disaster. The military has communication functions and capabilities that no local council is ever going to have.  

It does plan for worst case scenarios. It does all the things our disaster and emergency management people haven’t been doing and have been called-out for not doing it. Not just in Mike Bush’s report, but others as well.  

And that’s why I’m more convinced than ever that, instead of pouring more time and money into a standalone civil defence system —one the Government itself is saying today needs to improve, but is also saying that there might not be the money to do it— that’s why I think we should be merging our civil defence and military defence functions.  

Or, to put it another way: I think we should be bringing the army in well before disaster strikes. 

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Penalties could be on the cards for careless builders as the Government looks to strengthen professional requirements. 

It's eyeing key changes to the registration and licensing regimes, with a focus on lifting competence and accountability requirements; as well as improving Building Act consumer protections.

Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk confirms it's also looking into a new offence for deliberately hiding non-compliant building work in remote inspections. 

That would mean a $50,000 fine for individuals or $150,000 for businesses, should it become law. 

Kerre Woodham is joined by Master Builders Chief Executive Ankit Sharma to discuss further. 

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There's been a lot of good news on the home building front, you know, just for your average homeowner.  

The Government's plans to reform the building consent system to make it more affordable to build a new home – or a home. Jolly good news. The review of the building code to bring in a streamlined, risk-based consenting regime, as well as increasing the availability of construction materials, all good.  

There is no doubt we're paying through the nose to build homes here. The cost of building work consented per square metre for a standalone home in New Zealand in 2022 was $2591. In Australia it was $1743. So expensive. The total number of homes consented was in decline too. In the year to December 2023, 37,239 dwellings were consented, down from 49,538 the previous year. The government's proposed law changes, which will remove the need for building consents on homes under 60 square metres in certain areas —your granny flats— those changes have been welcomed by housing providers and also the opposition, so this is all good news, very good news.  

The Coalition government pitched the changes as a way to make it easier to build granny flats, tiny homes, and increase the supply of affordable housing. All well and good. My only concern when I heard the news was where are the checks and balances in terms of the quality of build? As Chris Penk put it, reforms around consenting homes and removing barriers to overseas building products will only succeed if we have qualified tradespeople doing the work, standing by it and being accountable if things go wrong. We've needed that for many, many years.  

When you look at the buck-passing around the leaky homes debacle that devastated the lives of so many New Zealanders, nobody was willing to take the blame, and I'm not saying the builders were at fault, but nobody was.  Nobody was held accountable. Ratepayers ended up having to fork out huge sums of money to try and remediate the worst disaster that they could possibly have. Sinking every cent they had and future funds that they were going to generate into a home that was unliveable. How do we ensure that the work done is done right, especially when you hear tales of undercutting and people coming in and doing a job for next to nothing because they've got friends and family and relatives, and they're all living together in one big house?  

This is the complaint made by your professional builders who pay the going rate, don't undercut, know what a job is worth, and charge accordingly. How do you protect consumers from that? In the first instance, I'd say buyer beware. Don't just go for the cheapest price. If something sounds too good to be true, then it is. But most of us know very little about structures and engineering and building. When you go into a home, you expect that it has been built to last, as many homes have. And in more recent times, many homes have not. How on earth do you check that a building has been done properly, that in an addition, an add-on has been done properly? The unconsented tat that I had to pick my way through when I was trying to find a house at the height of the market, was just horrific. Even though I don't know anything about building, you know that when something's dangling off the edge of a Cliff held together with a piece of four by two, chances are it hasn't been consented. Some of the building inspections showed that it hadn't been consented. Things had popped up on the floor plan out of the blue. And it all went so far back that there was no ability to be held accountable. You just had to buy it aware that you could be buying into a whole load of problems, and these were houses that were going for millions in Auckland.  

The Government says that it's going to crack down on dodgy builders. That, as Chris Penk says, all of these improvements will only work, will only benefit consumers ultimately if the building is of a professional quality. So the crackdown looks to lift the competence and accountability requirements for building professionals, improving consumer protection measures in the Building Act and ensuring regulators have the right powers to hold people to account. It really counts for nothing. All very well and good to have a potential fine of $50,000 for an individual builder and $150,000 for businesses to deter bad behaviour, but since when has it?  Some of these shonky builders that people employ, they haven't got $50K. You can whistle for your $50K. $150,000 for businesses to deter bad behaviour. Can I show you the Du Val group who have lost hundreds of millions and are now applying for legal aid? You're not going to get $150K out of them.  

So all well and good to lift the accountability requirements and the competency of building professionals but ultimately, we are all still going to be left just hoping and trusting that we've employed the right guys or girls. I've been very, very lucky with the renos I've done, amazing builders, but then they weren't the cheapest. They had integrity. They were jolly good at what they did. I presume they still are. The work lasted. They had absolute confidence, I had absolute confidence in them. That's what we need.  

Is that the norm? Or are there too many cowboys getting away with it? I'd really love to hear from the industry on this because only you will know a) if these reforms are going to improve things, and b) if these fines, this move to improve accountability and professionalism is going to actually work. I cannot see fines working in any way shape or form. The only way I can see this working is by having a barrier to entry into the profession. You know, having people who know what they're doing, who are proud of what they do, who stand by what they do. There are plenty of those in the building profession, we just need more of them. 

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There is a common trope that if prisons worked, we wouldn't need them. And that if prison was a deterrent, people wouldn't commit crime. If prison was about rehabilitation then people would serve their term and then they would not reoffend.  

There's something incredibly depressing about prisons and the waste of human potential they represent – even brand-spanking new prisons. I did a fundraiser for Shine charity at the Mt Eden Remand Prison before it was opened for prisoners – before it was open for business, if you will. Brand spanking new, nobody had been in there and it was still one of the most depressing places I have ever been in.  

I've always thought that investing in young people and families to try and prevent them going to prison in the first place would be far preferable to spending hundreds of thousands per person keeping them locked up. But prisons aren't just about rehab, and they're not just about deterrence. They're also there to keep people away from other people. To keep people from committing violent assaults and rapes and manslaughters. They're there to stop people taking what doesn't belong to them. If you’re locked up, you can't go out ram-raiding. They're there to act as a punishment for those who have committed a grievous offence against society and against individuals. If you take a life, you have to pay for that, and that means the deprivation of your liberty and being locked away from society as a punishment.  

Law and order is always an election issue, and it's always a hot topic. Former Justice Minister Andrew Little, former Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis, wanted to reduce the prison population by 30% when they formed a coalition government with NZ First. NZ First who, of course, are big law and order campaigners, stymied them in part during the first three years when they were coalition partners, but by 2023, the prison population under Labour had reduced by 24%. Under Labour, incarceration rates plummeted from 213 people per 100,000 in 2018, which was nearly the highest in the OECD (which is nothing to be proud of), to 149 per 100,000.  

Now, that would be great if there was a commensurate fall in crime, but there wasn't. Victims of crime increased by 12% as the prison population reduced, victims of crime went up. Labour's reforms were part of an overall goal on their part to reduce the prison population by 30% by 2033, but it achieved that ten years earlier, and perhaps that's where it went wrong. When there aren't the rehabilitation services there, when there isn't the support there, when there isn't the intensive kind of help needed to either habilitate people into society or rehabilitate them, depending on how long term their offending has been, then what are these people going to do?

We all know how incredibly hard it is to break bad habits. We know what we should do. Do we do it? No. So imagine having been born into a life like that and then being told at the age of 24 to change your ways. Incredibly difficult to do it, especially without that kind of support. So typical of Labour, good ideas, good intentions - just no ability to deliver. The support wasn't there, the help wasn't there, the intensive support needed to help people turn their lives around wasn't there.  

So sensing which way the wind was blowing in the lead up to the ‘23 election, Chris Hipkins dumped the prison reduction targets. But it was all far too little, far too late with the dumpster fire. National, ACT, NZ First took advantage of the fact that victims of crime had gone up, that people's perceptions of crime were that we were living in a state of lawlessness and capitalised on that in their get tough on crime messages throughout the ‘23 election.  

Now we have the release of the fast-track projects and that's shown the Department of Corrections wants the ability to expand high security Auckland prison. They don't want to do it right now; they don't even want to do it next week or next year. They just say that should they need to increase capacity, they want to be able to get cracking and do so, so that they don't have to go through the whole resource consent process. Opponents are up in arms. The Government’s being accused of establishing a dangerous mega prison for staff and inmates. Wrong. It's not establishing anything, it just wants the capacity to do so, which makes sense.  

What also makes sense is the investment in the Social Investment Agency, and that isn't getting nearly the same headlines as the Department of Corrections wanting the capacity. What is happening is the Social Investment Agency being re-established. Bill English set it up, Labour took it over and made it a wellbeing agency, and now it's being taken back more under the vision that Bill English had, which is to use data, analytics, and evidence to work out how to intervene in the lives of the most vulnerable in society, those who are the root of all problems, and working with the providers of social services to get the best result for these people so it's not wasted human potential yet again, but also reduce the burden on the taxpayer. That's the way Bill English was able to sell it to his cabinet colleagues. He's a good old dry conservative when he needs to be, it'll save us money in the long run. And it will.  

If you invest in the most complex, prevent them going into prison in the first place, it is going to save us a heck of a lot of money. So I have absolutely no problem with Department of Corrections saying can we just keep this in our back pocket if we need it? Can we have the capacity to increase the prison population if we have to? Nicola Willis believes passionately in the social investment agency - she worked with Bill English, she's an acolyte, she's a disciple. She knows the cause and she believes in it.  

So while you have money going into the social investment agency to try and prevent people from getting into the system, why don't we focus the headlines on that? Why don't we look at the good news instead of having screaming headlines generated by activists who are furious about something that hasn't happened, doesn't look like it’s happening in the near future, and may never happen. How about that? 

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We’ve got roads, we’ve got mines, we’ve got housing developments, we’ve got 22 renewable energy projects, we’ve got aquaculture farms, we’ve got a roof for Eden Park, you name it, it’s there and it's happening in a town near you, because projects are spread right across the country. And these are the first 149 projects selected by the government to be included in its Fast-track Approvals legislation.

When we say fast-track, a group advised the ministers in charge of the process, who deemed these 149 to have the most significant benefits out of the nearly 400 that applied.

Now they've been selected, they'll be listed in the legislation when it's reported back from the Environment Select Committee this month, then, once the legislation passes as it's expected to, the project developers can apply through the Environmental Protection Agency to have an expert panel assess their projects and apply any relevant conditions.

So fast-track in a bureaucratic kind of governmental kind of away. They've also got to find the money to fund the projects somewhere along the line as well — just because they've been listed doesn't mean a magic pot of money has appeared to fund these projects.

Many of them are from private contractors. Some of them are in Crown private partnerships, so they will have to find the money somewhere along the line.

So when we say Fast-tracking, they're not going to happen tomorrow. Typically, there have been naysayers, Forest and Bird say it's a dark day for democracy. The Greens go further - the Government's fast track list is another example of its reckless approach to the environment and disregard for due process, and the government is set to unleash environmental destruction across Aotearoa.

Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop on the Mike Hosking Breakfast, said if we want progress, we need to make it easier to build things: 

“Look, there are Luddites out there who don't want progress, but I think most reasonable New Zealanders accept that if we want a standard of living that is better than what we have now, if we want material comforts that other countries have that we don't have, if we want better healthcare, better education services, if we want a better standard of living and we want a more prosperous economy, we have to build things. You know, quarries are an important part of a modern-day economy, public transport and roads connect us to where we need to go, renewable energy is something - we've got an energy shortage right now, you know, we need more power in this country and we have a housing crisis so we need thousands more houses, and we have an infrastructure deficit that I think everyone knows about. So the only way to address those things is to get on and build stuff that addresses all of those deficits. And that requires fundamental planning reform. It's just too difficult to do things in this country. And I think most reasonable people actually know that. And that's why we have Fast-track and that's why we're cracking on with it.” 

Like. Yes, what he said.

Chris Bishop was kind of "how do people think things are going to happen"? We want a lifestyle we simply cannot afford. Every snail is sacred in this country and needs investment and protection, but you can't do that unless we are fundamentally viable as a country. We need to make things happen, he's quite right.

It's that ‘holier than thou’ kind of approach that you know no centimetre of land must be mined in this country, but other people can do it. Bugger the orangutan, let's save our snails. Forget about the little kids going down the mines in other countries, let's protect our own people and our own land.

It's got to come from somewhere, and if we can be self-sufficient, why would we not be? If we can do it economically, if we can do it viably, if we can do it in a way that ensures that we have continuity of supply.

He says we've got a housing crisis, so let's build houses, in a fundamental way, not pie in the sky let's build 100,000, where are they going to come from? Oh, I don't know. There is a plan. We have an energy supply crisis so let's build more. Yep, there's a thought and let's do it now rather than have a 10/15/20 year consenting process. You could hear the incredulity in his voice.

Like, where do these people think it's going to come from unless we get cracking? I'm kind of with him. How on earth do we think we are going to survive and thrive as a country without building stuff? And it's not all mines.

It's not well, as the Greens say it's just a Trojan horse, isn't it? They're putting in a few renewables (that would be 22), so they can get the mining underway. Well somebody has to mine. If we don't do it, we buy it from somewhere else, is that so much better?

I hate that aspect of the Greens holier-than-thou stance. We don't do it. Yeah, but we buy it from somewhere else. Let's get cracking. I mean, when we say fast-track too, as I outlined, it’s not going to be at the speed of light, let's face it. There is still a process to go through. There will still be curbs put on what developers can do, they still have to find the money. But at least it's a start, isn't it?

And at least there's a fundamental understanding on the part of government that things have to be done in this country, not pie-in-the-sky projects, not dream-time projects but actual real stuff. There's a plan. There's a process. Let's get on with it. 

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Real estate agents are among the businesses feeling more upbeat. 

The Herald's latest Mood of the Boardroom survey shows that business owners are more optimistic than pessimistic about their industries, as well as the local and global economy. 

Optimism varies across the different sectors, with the real estate industry topped the list with an average score of 4.33/5, a substantial jump from last year’s 2.60/5. 

Barfoot & Thompson managing director Peter Thompson told Kerre Woodham that what businesses needed was good news, and that’s what came out of today’s conference. 

He said that they’re already starting to see people come back to their auction rooms, and looking back at the last few months, they’ve seen a big uplift in the number of listings on the market and sales being made. 

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There was a headline in The Post: ‘Scathing survey results from teachers on NCEA level 1 roll out’. That was the headline. The story goes on: “A survey of teachers saw the vast majority indicate that the NCEA standards are poorly designed, changes have increased workloads, there's insufficient support from NZQA NCEA, and the provided exemplars often don't align with assessment specifications.”  

So legitimate concerns. Teachers have been dealing with massive changes of curriculum and it's no wonder that many of them have thrown in the towel. In fact, it's a wonder more of them haven't thrown in the towel. So, this government, the clear implication is, has stuffed up right? Scathing survey results from teachers on NCEA Level 1 rollout. That's very, very clear in the headline that the teachers are furious with this government, that is what the story implies. Education Minister Erica Stanford was on this morning talking to Heather du Plessis-Allan and she said no, the fault lies with the previous administration.  

“I get on very, very well with Chris Abercrombie and the PPTA. And to be fair to them, technically the grumblings that they're having at the moment is not with the curriculum, because there is no curriculum, it's with the NCEA changes to Level 1, and that is aimed at the previous government, and I agree wholeheartedly with them.  

“When I came into office last year I saw some results that showed that well over half of schools felt not prepared or only somewhat prepared for next year's Level 1. This is in November I saw this. And then I started fielding calls from principals and teachers saying we don't know what to teach next year because there are no subject learning outcomes, we don't have any exemplars.  

“So we had six weeks to scramble with the Subject Associations to write subject learning outcomes over Christmas — Associations did an amazing job— and push NZQA to get those exemplars ready, that weren't going to be ready till May. This was a disastrous rollout by the previous government of NCEA Level 1.” 

Who do we believe? I mean, there were massive changes to the curriculum under the previous administration, absolutely massive, and I do not blame teachers for being fed up. The coalition government said we are going to correct a lot of those changes, the curriculum that was being rolled out is going to be drawn back in and we're going to rewrite it and get back to the basics.  

There was very little guidance or support over the last six years, despite the huge numbers employed by the Ministry of Education. Remember the number of teachers employed by state schools rose by just over 5% from 2017 to 2022. In that same period, the number of full-time staff employed at the Ministry of Education rose by 55%. So the number of teachers actually at the coalface rose by 5%, the number of full-time staff at the Ministry of Education rose by 55%. There were 1700 more staff at the Ministry of Education than was employed in 2016, so they were undertaking huge projects. There was the building of classrooms, there was the new schools.  

Then there were the changes to the curriculum, and it was a seismic ideological change, incorporating Te ao Māori into mathematics and into science and there was all kinds of debate going on, ideological debate about the relevance. The Royal Academy of Mathematics was, I think, furious. Not just sad, but furious. Te ao Maori has its place they said, in maths? No, no, no. Maths is maths, it's its own language.  

So you have all of these people and the Ministry of Education, each with their own reckon and galloping along on their ideological stallion taking education in one direction. You had consultants up the ying yang, you had ten consulting firms that relied completely and utterly on the Ministry of Education for their funding, while they came up with their own reckons as well, they galloped off on their ideological stallions.  

In came the coalition government who went whoa, come on, Tonto. No, we're pulling you in, come back - herded all the ideological stallions back into the paddock and then said right, we're getting on Dobbin the old cart horse and we're going to trudge along the field, and we're going to plough basic maths, and basic science, and basic English into our kids, this is what they need to learn to get them up the international standards.  

And the teachers, they've been on the galloping horses. They've been going there and here and everywhere, and now they're back wondering what the hell was that? No wonder they need teacher only days. I hope the teacher only days involve lying on couches and having soothing compresses placed on their foreheads because they have been through a lot.  

It's only when you go back and look through the proposed curriculum that was being laid out, especially under Chris Hipkins, as Minister of Education and then when he was Prime Minister, they were extraordinary. And there simply wasn't any underpinning to them to allow the teachers to teach. So, they were given these ideological concepts and very much left to their own devices to come up with their own kind of underpinning to teach it. And now it's all changed again.  

If the teachers are confused, I'm not at all surprised.  I don't know how you make this better and ultimately. You know, and I know that it's the kids who are suffering because it's you and I who are paying for the extra classes after school. Paying through the nose, finding money you don't have to shore up gaps in the knowledge because it's not the teachers. The ideologues are the ones responsible for the mess that education is in. 

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Teachers say they are shocked with how new curriculum material is being rolled out.  

Changes to NCEA Level One are being put in place before changes to Level Two and Three come into force in four years.  

However, a scathing survey by the Post Primary Teachers Association shows the vast majority are dissatisfied with the new material.  

Union President Chris Abercrombie told Kerre Woodham that resources were late and not good enough, with many exemplars being poorly done. 

He said many teachers were worried about how this is going to impact students and their outcomes.  

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I am really not surprised to see more people signing up for health insurance, even though we're going through a cost of living crisis and the premiums are not cheap.  

Southern Cross is the country's largest private health insurer and they've seen eight years of growth in their membership, with almost one in five Kiwis on their books. A Kantar survey for Southern Cross from last month showed that cost of living was the top concern for 91% of respondents, but 84% were concerned about not having access to affordable health care. So yes, they're concerned that there's not a lot of disposable, what disposable they have they're putting into their health and their health care.  

Two thirds of those who responded said they had experienced a long-term impact to their physical and mental health from Covid-19. They were also very concerned about long wait times and the unavailability of health care professionals. Half of Southern Cross members made a claim on their health insurance in the latest year, up from a third prior to the pandemic in 2019.  

The cost of claims has also risen due to the high cost of everything and more claims for expensive procedures, and that means premiums have to go up to pay for this. It's a not-for-profit organisation, it's not there to make squillions for shareholders, it's there to put the money back into its membership. If it's costing more, then members have to pay more and that's the way it works. Southern Cross has been increasing premiums by 10-15% as policies come due, but they are expected to normalize back to around 6-6.5% next year as inflation is brought under control.  

I am so glad I have health insurance. I've had it for years and I've never needed it till the last few years, which is the way of it. When you are in your 20s, 30s, 40s, you generally don't need much more than a general checkup. If you're lucky to have been born with relatively good health, you don't need to spend a lot of money on your healthcare. Once you get into your 50s and 60s, then you start to see a little bit of wear and tear. And if you don't have healthcare, you will be waiting years for elective surgeries, things like knees and hips. If you've done them in because of hard physical labour, you will not get ACC paying for them, they'll just say wear and tear.  

Other things, like me with a constantly blocked nose which I thought was just a head cold, it's acute sinusitis. I would be forever getting head colds thinking it was just being prone to head colds. No, it's something that I need surgery for. It's not life threatening, it's really annoying, it means I have to take time off work. Those of you have listened for a while know when I've got it. In fact, Toni Street’s ear nose and throat surgeon diagnosed me over the wireless and said I needed to get in and see him. As it was, I'd already booked the surgery and I was lucky enough to be able to do that because of the premiums I've been paying for years and years and years.  

It does get more expensive but I will prioritise paying it, paying the premiums even as they rise, as long as I can because why live with this sort of thing if you don't have to? It's painful, it's uncomfortable, it takes me off work, and that could be the same for many non-life threatening ailments that many of us suffer. People with knees, hips, hernias, all of those sorts of things that are deemed not to be urgent, not to be critical, not to be acute but have a huge impact on people's day-to-day lives and their ability to work, their ability to be full members of the family, full members of the community. I am counting the hours till the operation next week as are my colleagues.  

I know that the premiums will only get more expensive, but I know I'm only going to need it more if I'm lucky enough to make it into my twilight years.   

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I reckon the Government’s argument in favour of increasing speed limits is looking more and more wobbly.

There’s no question that it’s going to happen, with Transport Minister Simeon Brown confirming at the weekend that faster speed limits will be all-go next year. 

But it seems to me that his case as to why it’s needed and why it’s a good idea, is starting to look pretty weak.

There’s an expert who is trying to sell an alternative idea which will probably have Simeon Brown laughing his head off. He’ll think it’s balmy. But I reckon it’s got some merit to it.

Simon Kingham is this expert. He’s a university academic and he used to be the Ministry of Transport’s chief science advisor. 

He’s saying that, instead of increasing the speed limits, the Government should be setting the same speed limit for every vehicle on the road.

That way, there wouldn’t be any need for cars to overtake trucks because - and for drivers to increase their risk of death or serious injury - because everyone would be doing the same speed.

This is his solution to an issue the outfit representing the trucking industry has highlighted. Which is the fact that when the speed limits go up next year it won't be for every vehicle on the road - and the maximum speed limit for trucks will stay what it is now. Which is 90 kph per hour.

So, cars will be going faster. And trucks won’t. And Professor Simon Kingham says, all that’s going to do, is encourage more drivers to overtake and more people will die, as a result.

He says if everyone was going the same speed - no need for any risky overtaking maneuvers.

And I think, on paper, he’s right. On paper, it sounds like a great idea. 

But, the reality is, people are idiots. They think the fast way is the only way. And, even if cars and trucks had the same speed limit, drivers would still gun it well into the hundreds.

Can you imagine, at the peak of summer, people being content to sit behind a truck all the way? Of course they wouldn’t. Because it’s all about getting there as soon as you can, isn’t it?

There’s none of this “life’s all about the journey” talk once kiwis get behind the wheel.

So, Simeon Brown’s not going to be liking what the professor is saying today about having the same 90 kph speed limit for every vehicle on the road.

I’m picking he’s also not going to be liking everything the trucking industry is saying today, either.

Because remember how he’s been banging on about how increasing speed limits is going to get us all going faster and it’s going to increase productivity blah blah blah.

But, when it comes to productivity, that won’t be the case at all.

Because, as the head of the outfit that represents the transport sector, Transporting NZ has confirmed the speed limit increases will have no direct impact on them because trucks will still be restricted to doing 90 kph.

But where Dom Kalasih does see benefits in cars being allowed to go faster, is that he says drivers will be able to pass trucks more quickly. Which he reckons will reduce the amount of time car drivers spend in risky situations.

He does concede, though, that if the cars are going faster past the trucks - then any supposed reduction in risk might be outweighed by the fact that drivers are going at higher speeds which, of course, increases the chance of something going wrong.

So, as far as I’m concerned, I see these increases in speed limits confirmed by the Government as a lose-lose.

I also think that this idea being floated by this academic today is a win-win, but only in la-la land.

And we’re not in la-la land.

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The Hastings youth council has made a successful bid to get voting rights.

Hastings District Council has narrowly voted in support of giving unelected youth councillors the ability to vote on council issues alongside other councillors at a committee level.

Their mayor thinks giving youth councillors voting rights will bolster their future opportunities.

Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst told Kerre Woodham this was thought through very carefully.

She says it'll encourage young people into local government, which isn't easy, because people definitely don't do it for the money.

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For the love of all that is holy - can we just introduce a capital gains tax and be done with it? 

I am so sick of it dominating the headlines. The issue is never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever going to go away, despite two Labour Prime Ministers ruling it out, despite Christopher Luxon ruling it out - it comes up. It's like a nagging child,“I want a capital gains tax. I want a capital gains tax, I want a capital gains tax, I want a capital gains tax”, and then in the end you give in.

This time it's because ANZ's Chief Executive, Antonia Watson, said in an interview yesterday that “the time has arrived for a capital gains tax”. Well, the time actually arrived with the Tax Working Group's recommendation in recent times, but nonetheless. She says look, there might be compliance costs introducing a tax, she also made it very clear she was opposed to any tax on unrealised gains, but she says a capital gains tax should be introduced and it should be introduced now. And her intervention adds another voice in a growing group of New Zealanders, influential and otherwise, who are calling for a capital gains or wealth tax. 

As I say, the issue really came to the fore when the tax working group, chaired by Sir Michael Cullen and convened by the Ardern government, recommended a CGT be introduced. But then NZ First dug in their toes and refused to budge, so Jacinda Ardern ruled it out and she didn't just rule it out, she said it would never happen on her watch as Prime Minister, and it didn't. Then Chris Hipkins became Prime Minister leading a Labour government, and he ruled it out too. But that was then, and this is now. Now he's singing a different song as he was to Ryan Bridge on Early Edition this morning” 

“I think what we've got to acknowledge is at the moment the New Zealand tax system is loaded against working people. Working people end up paying more tax because we're not taxing other forms of income as our other comparable countries do. There’s capital gains tax here in the UK, there's capital gains tax in Australia, and so many other countries, that there isn't in New Zealand and what does that mean? It means that salary and wage earners, the people who work hard every day for a living, end up paying a disproportionate share of the tax because we're not taxing other forms of income.” 

Oh, Chris Hipkins, champion of the working man. Where were you when you had a government that had a mandate to do anything at jolly well liked? Oh, that's right, you were there and you ruled it out. This is the same Chris Hipkins who had the best opportunity of any government since MMP was introduced to reform the tax system, he had a cabinet that was champing at the bit to reform the tax system. This is the Chris Hipkins who said no to a capital gains tax. David Parker resigned over the fact he said no to a capital gains tax, he resigned his portfolio - “untenable for me to continue”. Grant Robertson admitted he'd had to swallow a dead rat by standing by his Prime Minister when he wanted to introduce a capital gains tax. This is the Chris Hipkins who released a statement sayingI am confirming today that under a government I lead, there will be no wealth or capital gains tax after the election, end of story. 

So this is why you cannot have former Prime Ministers leading in opposition because they have absolutely no credibility when their statements from only a few months back come back to haunt them. His credibility on his capital gains tax is shot. Barbara Edmonds, get her up there talking about it, she's untainted. She doesn't have the ghost of Chris Hipkins from yesteryear, well, yestermonth, coming back to haunt her. Carmel Sepuloni. Hell, Jim, the guy who serves the drinks at 3.2, get him up there to say I think a capital gains tax would be fabulous. 

You cannot have Chris Hipkins calling for a capital gains tax, he has absolutely no credibility. But the issue is simply not going to go away. And I think sooner rather than later, we need to adopt. I even think Sir Michael Cullen's recommendations were not unreasonable. There will come a time where it will be introduced, and we need to do it credibly and not in a knee jerk reaction, and with the best interests of the entire country at heart. 

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Whatever happened to a ‘morning driver’ and a ‘thank you driver’ as you hopped on and off the bus? The violence and racial abuse of bus drivers and indeed their commuters, their passengers using public transport, has got so bad in recent times that the Bus and Coach Association is calling for more security officers to ride along on bus routes, for safety screens to be installed on buses, and now the Government is making offences against public transport workers an aggravating factor in sentencing. Along with the tougher sentences, the Government’s investing $15 million specifically for practical improvements to driver safety, like retrofitting the aforementioned safety screens and real time CCTV monitoring. 

Auckland Transport's general manager for safety said earlier this year that there's an ongoing trend of drivers being attacked that began in the last few years coming out of Covid. And it isn't just the drivers being attacked, there have been awful racially-motivated attacks on passengers as well, that have been well covered in the media. Bus and Coach Association CEO Delaney Myers spoke to the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning and agreed that the problems on public transport are definitely getting worse.  

“It's not just violence, you know, we've got threats, aggression and, in particular racial slurs going on and it's just unacceptable. No one should be abused in their workplace. It is getting worse. And look, we know many of these incidents involve people who are on the fringes of society with mental health and drug and alcohol issues. You know, for us, we're not seeing this as just a public transport problem, it's a complex societal issue. But you know the ramifications on us at the end of it and, you know, delivering public transport services significant and we do need more help to keep people safe. 

“It is unfortunate things have come to this because most of our passengers love engaging, you know, most of the drivers love engaging with the passengers, but we do need to keep them safe and a physical barrier is part of that, but it doesn't help stop the threats and the racial abuse or keep passengers safe. So really what we'd like to see in addition is increased personnel support on buses because we know that the presence of authority figures helps to moderate behaviour.” 

Auckland Transport has about 40 transport officers who are on the worst routes to provide safety and security for drivers, as well as diffusing situations when they occur. Security personnel have been hired by Otago Regional Council since December of last year to monitor the bus hub, to discourage incidents of disorder and threatening conduct, and in March of this year, services were extended to cover a targeted security presence on buses. 

Delaney Myers is right, though, it's a bigger issue than just disruptive commuters. It's a complex societal issue, but how on Earth did it get to this? We've always had drunks and aggressive bullies and people whose mental disorders take them down a violent path. Not everybody's does, some do, but they've always been in our communities. What made them able to become a huge problem rather than an aberrant individual that you saw perhaps once every couple of years? Is it letting them get away with it? If somebody is racially abusing or threatening a poor bus driver or fellow passenger, do other people step in? I can well understand why people might not given how vicious and unpredictable humans are today. Would you run the risk of stepping in to stop somebody racially abusing some poor young kid when it means you might not get home to your own? And is that is that how they've been able to take hold? 

These bad eggs, there is so much money being spent on them. They've caused so much pain and so much fear. When one schoolboy is racially attacked, he’s attacked purely and simply because of his race, because of how he looks, that's going to have a ripple effect throughout the entire community. How has that come to this? 

I know it's not on every bus route. I know that there are people who are perfectly able to get from point A to point B and have a very pleasant ride. It's not on every train route, but it's a big enough problem that it's increasingly difficult to get people wanting to be drivers. There's not only their long hours and the poor pay, but being spat at and abused and threatened by low lives, why would you? Well, you wouldn't, and that's why it's so difficult to get the drivers. How have we let it get to this? This isn't a brand-new phenomenon. As I say, drunks and people who behave badly have always been amongst us, but how have they been allowed to become such a problem? 

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The big corporations have already started ordering their staff back into the office, now the Government’s had enough too. Nicola Willis made the announcement yesterday. While carefully defined, working from home arrangements can benefit workers and employers, she said, if the pendulum swings too far in favour of working from home, there are downsides. And that's even before we consider the effects for the CBD retailers, restaurants and cafes.

She said there are good reasons why employees have traditionally been physically brought together for work. It allows for face-to-face conversation, the sharing of skills and experience, and relationship building. It supports younger and newer employees to observe, learn from and form connections with their more experienced colleagues. She said many good employers have been taking active steps to ensure their working from home policies are fit for purpose. Nicola Willis said its time at the government did the same. 

Damn straight. Conor Whitten from the Wellington Chamber of Commerce told the Mike Hosking Breakfast that the directive will indeed have a positive impact.  

“We do think that this has the real potential to make a difference for Wellington and it's important to recognise that at a time when public finances are pretty tight, it's something that really doesn't cost the government a cent. We all know it's been a hard time for businesses in Wellington, but particularly for retail and hospitality, working from home trends are definitely a very big part of that.

"And look, you're right, the numbers are a little bit hard to quantify but we will have those numbers because public sector CEOs will be required to report on it. But look it’s the ballpark figures, there are 28,000 public servants who still work in Wellington according to the Public Service Commission, if they're working from home and average of two days a week, that's more than 50,000 fewer potential customers for businesses in the CBD and in a city the size of Wellington, that makes a real impact. So if we get some of those people back in the city, not everyone's going to buy a coffee or go shopping or head out for a Friday drink, but tens of thousands more people in the city the size of Wellington, it’s going to make a real impact at a time when businesses are doing it tough.” 

So sure benefits, but I cannot imagine that workers are being ordered back to work simply to save Wellington's cafes. From the release, it would appear that the Government is simply looking for the public service bosses to be a little bit more aware of who's working from home and whether they're earning their keep or not. I find it incredible that, according to the press release, data is not currently being centrally collected by the Public Service Commission regarding the prevalence of working from home arrangements. So if you asked the Public Service Commission how many public servants are working from home, reading that line, you'd expect them to say, oh, I don't know. A few I suppose. 

If you're a boss, wouldn't you want to know how many of your team were actually working from home and how many were expected in the office? And if they were working from home, what are they doing there? Are they meeting KPI's? The people we talked to last week who either phoned in or texted in said that they had KPI's that they had to meet, that there was an expectation about what their role would be, that for some of them there was flexibility - they could look after a sick child or they could go for a long run if they're training for a marathon or something, and then the work would be done in the evening. There was no real need for them to work between 9 – 5 pm so long as the work got done.

But reading between the lines here, it would appear that many public service bosses have absolutely no idea who's at home, who's not, who's expected to be. And it's that sort of sloppy record keeping that I think the government's going after, and I think the taxpayer was getting sick of. If you go into any Public Service department and said how many of your people are working from home and what are they doing there, as a minister, I'd expect them to know. But the line in this press release says data is not currently being centrally collected by the Public Service Commission regarding the prevalence of working from home arrangements. Does that sound like a breach of business management 101? 

The bosses that we talked to last week said it can work. They were quite happy to have staff working from home. There were clear expectations of what they would do, they were regularly checked on – where there was a high level of trust, the arrangement worked. But when you've got somebody going “oh whatevs”, it's not going to work. People will extract the Michael if they think there are no controls on what they can do, or no checks and balances on what they do and how they do it. They also made the point that it doesn't mean there won't be any working from home arrangements, you can still negotiate to be able to have flexible working hours, hello Wellington civil service, but they are not an automatic entitlement. 

But you can't really blame the workers, if nobody's checking up on you, nobody cares, nobody has an expectation that you'll turn up in the office, nobody is requiring you to account for yourself, when you haven't been in the office for a week or so, why wouldn't you? 

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Last week, Kerre was fortunate to MC the New Zealand Citrus Growers conference in Gisborne/Tai Rawhiti. 

There were many fantastic stories about how the region and growers have bounced back after Cyclone Gabrielle. 

However, there was also a warning on the horizon about a real danger to the industry – one that we can all help keep a watch on and prevent from taking hold here. 

CEO of First Fresh NZ and Citrus NZ board member, Ian Albers joins Kerre Woodham to discuss the challenges facing the industry here in NZ. 

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It looks like there's going to be a referendum after all. 

Not the one that David Seymour wants, but a referendum on whether the four-year political term should be legislated. We've got three years at the moment. 

For years, people have been saying it's too short and now in National's coalition agreement with both ACT and NZ First, there are provisions to introduce legislation extending the political term. 

Yesterday, the Prime Minister said the issue could well be put to the electorate at the next election in a referendum. He said it's a commitment each party made to one another, and although work on legislation around a four-year term hadn't kicked off yet as there were other priorities right now, Christopher Luxon said it will come onto the radar fairly shortly. 

They wouldn't have to do that much work. 

I mean, it's been looked at time and time again by a number of parties of both hues. And I wouldn't have thought it would be that difficult to extend the term one year. 

For the record, New Zealand has one of the world's shortest parliamentary terms and it is commonly said and understood that governments spend the first of their three years acclimatising, second is getting down to business, third year at campaigning. Another actual year of hard work would be a bonus. 

I'm all for a four-year term. 

And in effect, because we voters like to be fair players, we give party’s six years, even if they've been a bit rubbish after the first three years. Only once since 1960 has a government failed to win a second term and that was the third Labour government led by Bill Rowling. 

Although you'd have to say it was touch and go whether the 6th Labour government would have got another term under Jacinda Ardern. Hard to know, but in October 2019, one year before the election, Labour was down 9.2% in the polls, National was up 6.5. At that poll, a year out from the election, the Greens could have kept Labour in power, but certainly Labour's false promises were coming home to roost, so we’ll never know along came Covid, the rest is history. 

So, a four-year term to me makes sense. 

One year to get used to it, two years of actually understanding the mechanics and the levers that need to be pushed and pulled to make stuff happen, fourth year campaigning. 

I would actually like to see too, the opposition parties, given a yearly report card. 

We can all measure what the Coalition Government has said, has promised. We're going to reduce the victims of crime by 30,000. We're going to make sure the potholes are fixed straight away, and these are our targets. So we can measure whatever government is in power, they've made promises, we can see that hasn't happened. What's going on here? 

I would love to see that with opposition parties too, because it still sticks in my craw when Chris Hipkins said, we weren't really ready to govern. 

Nine years in opposition and you're not ready to govern?   

Nine years of being paid by the taxpayer to do what? To do what? 

If you're not ready to govern, what in the name of all that is holy were you doing?   

All very well and good to say that you're trying to find a new leader, but you've still got people who are in charge of portfolios, who should be passionate about those portfolios, who should have spent those nine years, provided they were reelected, saying here this is what needs to be done. These are the priorities right now. This is what we can do, this is what we can't and I would love to see the opposition parties given a report card after every year to show that they are there for a reason that they are opposing, that they are doing the work that's required to keep the government of the day on its toes, held to account, and so that when the time comes, they are actually ready to govern. 

I don't think that's unreasonable. 

I'd really like to see an account of the work that they have done throughout the year paid for by the taxpayer. I don't think it's unreasonable to say, well, what value have we got for our money while you have been in Opposition. 

Not unreasonable.   

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A decision around extending political terms from three years to four may be put to voters in the next election. 

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the Government may put the matter to referendum in 2026. 

Luxon expressed confidence there is support for a four-year term across the House. 

University of Otago New Zealand Politics PhD candidate Michael Swanson tells Kerre Woodham a four-year term could change voter behaviour from keeping the current government in power to allow them time to implement their policies. 

The state of the opposition’s readiness to govern should be constant, so that when new parties are voted in there is no warm-up period whilst in power. 

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There's an old saying that justice delayed is justice denied. 

It's a legal maxim that means if legal redress to an injured party is available, but it's not forthcoming in a timely fashion, that's effectively the same as having no remedy at all. I don't think it's entirely true - a conviction and a prison term would bring some relief for victims of serious crime, but the stress of waiting years to see that justice delivered would be a heavy burden for the victim and their families. 

The Government's looking for feedback on ways to speed up the court process. Currently, people can choose a jury trial if they're charged with an offence that has a maximum penalty of two years or more in prison. The discussion document from the Government is requesting feedback on whether that threshold should be extended to three years or more, five years or more, or seven years or more. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith told Heather du Plessis-Allan last night how the changes might work: 

PG:There will be arguments around three years, five years or seven years. Seven years would be a big change, and it would certainly have a huge impact on the overall efficiency of the courts, but of course you’ve got to balance that against, you know, the ancient right. And so I think it would be an interesting discussion. I certainly think we should lift it, it's just a question of how far.  

HDPA:What kind of a crime we're talking about that carries seven years in jail?  

PG:Well, things like tax evasion and arson. 

HDPA:Indecent assault?   

PG:Yes, and so five years for thinking of things like aggravated assault and three years, it would be things like, you know, driving while disqualified or with excess breath alcohol.  

HDPA:I don't think you should go for a jury if you've just been pinged boozing behind the wheel, do you?  

PG:Well if you lift it to three years you'd exclude those and so yeah, I think that's a very reasonable starting point.  

That was Heather talking to Paul Goldsmith last night. Law Association Vice President Julie-Anne Kincade told Mike Hosking this morning that right now in the Auckland District Court, you'll get a jury trial faster than a judge-alone trial. And we need to be careful about using a “blunt tool” to try to solve the problem of the backlog within the courts. And certainly, there are improvements to the court process she outlined that have come into play just this year. Category 1 and 2 offences are heard in the district court before a judge alone. You don't have the choice of a jury trial. Category 3 offences that carry a maximum penalty of two or more years in prison, you do get the choice right now. Category 3 offences could include aggravated assault, threatening to kill, dangerous driving, or a third or more drunk driving conviction - that boozed behind the wheel one that Heather was talking about. So that's Category 3 where you do get the choice of judge-alone or jury. 

They are serious offences, but do we really need a jury of our peers to sit in judgment of those crimes? Shouldn't we save the jury trials for the most serious crimes, the ones that are heard in the High Court -the murder, the manslaughter, the rape, the aggravated robbery? Jury trials are vitally important, they date back to Athens. Chief Justice Sian Elias and her colleague in the Supreme Court, Justice McGrath, summed up the importance of the jury in the case of Siemer v Heron in 2012: 

"In exercising that function, jurors bring a diverse range of perspectives, personal experience and knowledge to bear in individual cases, which judges may lack. As fact finders, jurors determine which of the admissible evidence presented at trial is to be believed and acted upon. Juries ultimately decide whether the facts fit within a particular legal definition, according to community standards. In this way, they reflect the attitude of the community and their determination of guilt or innocence. The right to trial by jury is also generally seen as providing a safeguard against the arbitrary or oppressive enforcement of the law by the government."

They go on to say that in cases where they feel the government or the forces of government through the prosecutor and through the police are using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, then juries will acquit. They'll go no, this is oppressive, this is unfair, you've been way too heavy-handed. We, the community think this is wrong and it's a way for the community to say to the state you've overstepped the mark. So vitally important. 

But should juries be reserved for the big-ticket crimes? Intuitively, I think yes, you know it should be for the big-ticket ones. But we don't want judges clearing up the backlog in the courts by whipping through cases without due thought and process. I'm not saying they would, and they don't at the moment.  Judges seem to be a little bit too thoughtful, a little bit too considered for my liking from time to time. But if you're told right, judge-alone, get cracking, let's clear this backlog - wouldn't your subconscious say righto, bugger it, guilty, next case, please. That kind of pressure to clear the backlog may inform the decision you make. 

And it may not sound like a big deal, two years or more in prison, but by the time you take into account discounts and troubled backgrounds and the like, you'd probably only get nine months. But nine months in prison, you say it like it's nothing but what would nine months in prison do to you and me? It would be absolutely devastating if you were innocent. So intuitively, yes, save the juries for the big-ticket crimes, the High Court offences. At the same time, you don't want to see people sent to prison, even if it is just for a six-month term for a crime they didn't commit. 

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I am —and always have been— a huge believer in on-the-job training. 

When I left school, I wanted to be a journalist. But I didn’t go to polytech or university, I went and did a newspaper cadetship at the Otago Daily Times, in Dunedin. 1986 this was.  

And, even though day one was horrific, it was the best thing I could have done. Even though I turned up on day one thinking I was Christmas and went home that night feeling like Good Friday - despite that, I’m in no doubt that learning on-the-job was absolutely THE BEST way. 

The best way for me then, and the best way for anyone now. 

Which is why I’m loving the talk we’re hearing today from the Civil Contractors Association and the Motor Trade Association - who are both saying that we need more on-the-job training, more apprenticeships, and less theoretical stuff in the classrooms and lecture rooms. 

Let’s start with the civil contractors. We’re hearing today that if the Government is going to have any hope in hell of delivering the big infrastructure projects it’s promising to deliver, then the number ofextracivil engineering and construction workers that are going to be needed is the same as the number of people who live in Ashburton. 

So, percentage-wise, we need about 50% more people working in roading and civil construction. And the timeframe is pretty tight, with government officials saying it needs to happen within the next two-to-three years. 

So we’re in a bind. The Government —which is talking a big game on new roads and infrastructure— is in even more of a bind. 

You might have heard the civil construction guy talking to Mike Hosking a couple of hours ago about this. He was saying that it’s probably going to mean they have to bring-in more workers from overseas. 

Buthe also said that we need to be doing much more to train more of our own people. 

And that was when he said the magic words - apprenticeships and on-the-job training. 

Fraser May is his name - and he was saying to Mike that they want to see more money going into work-based training, because that’s the best way for people to learn the skills they need to build the roads and put water pipes under the ground. 

He said companies do on-the-job training under their steam, but he reckons the Government needs to come to the party and put apprenticeships and work-based training on more of a pedestal. 

And I couldn’t agree more. Call me old hat or old school, but there is no way someone who learns in a classroom can be as good as someone who learns on the job. So hallelujah for the civil constructors wanting to see more apprenticeships and less essay-writing. 

The other outfit extolling the virtues of apprenticeships and work-based learning today is the Motor Trade Association. In fact, it’s one of about 20 organisations involved in the automotive sector that want to see a return to new mechanics being taught on-the-job. 

Lee Marshall, who is the chief executive of the Motor Trade Association, was also on with Mike earlier. And he says that when it comes to training people to be mechanics and auto electricians, the education sector has done a hopeless job keeping up with the pace of changes in the likes of motor vehicle technologies.  

Which is meaning people are coming out of these polytech programmes not as work ready as they would be if they had learnt on the job doing something like an old-school apprenticeship. 

He says the technology we see in cars is changing at an exponential rate, and the education sector needs to keep up with that —or should have kept up with that— and it hasn’t. 

So these motor industry organisations have written a big document and sent it through to the Ministry of Education and the Tertiary Education Commission telling them they’ve dropped the ball. 

Not only that, they’re also demanding that the Government takes training for the automotive industry away from the polytechs and put it back in the hands of the automotive industry itself. 

And just like I do with the civil contractors, I couldn’t agree with the people in the automotive industry. 

Because there is nothing better than learning on-the-job. Nothing better. I know from my experience - on-the-job training keeps it real; it knocks you down a peg or two if you need to be knocked-down a peg or too. 

Like I said earlier, I thought I was the bees knees when I left school to become a cadet newspaper reporter. I’d been editor of the school newspaper, I’d been a debater, I thought I knew it all. And, chances are, if I’d gone and done a journalism course at a polytech or a university, they would’ve allowed me to keep thinking that I was Christmas. 

But I didn’t go to university or polytech. I learned the hard way. Which, as it turned out, was the best way. 

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New Zealand's economy has barely escaped another technical recession. 

New Stats NZ figures show our Gross Domestic Product contracted 0.2% in the three months to June. 

Its revised figures downgrade the March quarter to show the economy grew just 0.1%, not the 0.2% initially estimated. 

Herald Business Editor at Large Liam Dann told John McDonald that minimal growth kept us out of another technical recession but doesn't change reality. 

He says with a lot of migration gains and population growth, on a per capita basis we're still in a recession. 

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Who'd be a teacher?  Not many of us, apparently - the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand says half as many Kiwis are signing up to become teachers than there were in 2010, and the number of students graduating as teachers has dropped by more than a third. The Deputy Chief Executive Clive Jones said if you look at the number of domestic students enrolling in teacher training programmes for the first time, that's dropped by 51% between 2010 and 2023. We're simply not producing enough teachers to replenish the teaching workforce. He said teaching was not the attractive career prospect it once was. Those who'd chosen it felt undermined, undervalued and underpaid. 

But what about the holidays I hear you ask? Those teacher only days? The cushy 9-3 hours? Well, as anyone who has a teacher in the family knows, these are not long, lovely days of rest and relaxation, especially when the only constant in the education sector is change; changes to curriculum, changes to the way they teach, changes to the way children are evaluated and tested. Yes, it is annoying when schools close at the hint of a raindrop and yes, it causes eyebrows to raise when teacher only days happen on the last day before a public holiday, but anyone who has children or grandchildren in school, and anyone who has a teacher in the family knows that dedicated teachers are putting in the time and the nurturing and the professionalism that make our kids' lives better. 

At the school that my little ones go to they've had school discos, and movie and pizza nights, and art exhibitions, and sports competitions, and Matariki festivals, and school productions (the production ran over a week), and that's just in the last couple of months. And that's on top of the hours spent in the classroom. And these are the teachers who are ensuring that they’re a success, putting in their late nights away from their families and their friends to ensure the kids get an incredible experience at school, which is why they want to go to school. They're out of bed, leaping into their uniform, and they cannot wait to go to school, and that's because of their teachers. 

So what is it about teaching that used to be attractive and why is it no longer appealing? The kind of good news is that it's not a specifically New Zealand problem, in fact, very few of our problems are.  Secondary Principals Association President Vaughan Couillault says there is a global teaching shortage. 

“If you go into teacher training and you go on your first practicum, you know in the first half a day whether this bag is for you, and so it is a calling but also it's a global situation. So we're, we're pretty harsh in New Zealand looking at ourselves and going ‘good grief what’re we doing wrong?’ Actually, there's a global teacher shortage. I was talking to my offsider in Australia who does the same thing as me over there, they've got exactly the same conditions that we've got. I was talking to a guy in the UK recently, the teacher shortage in the UK is extreme, so it's a global phenomenon where people aren't going into teaching. It is becoming more challenging with regard to the non-curriculum based demands that are being placed on the school sector across the globe. It's a fantastic job.” 

Well, it is. It is a fantastic job. Any job is fantastic when you love it, when you love going to work, when you want to do the job, and you feel a calling to do it. And I would agree with Vaughan that it is in fact a calling. It's more than just turning up, going through the motions and getting a paycheck. It's a service job, and maybe that's the problem. Are young people no longer interested in service jobs like nursing, like teaching, like social work? Because they want to be the next big thing on TikTok? They want to do hair and makeup because that's much more glamorous than wiping snotty noses and taking children to the toilet who haven't yet been toilet trained or being dissed and disrespected by teenagers. There has to be something above and beyond the job to make you want to be a nurse, a social welfare worker, a police officer, a teacher, the traditional service jobs. 

Perhaps too, in the olden days like 2010, as a teacher you earned enough to pay the bills. These days, perhaps you don't. If you're a young teacher trying to look after a family, there would need to be another income coming in, and you certainly couldn't do it on one income – although I'm struggling to think of a job at the moment where you could just go just beyond one wage, especially living in the city. It might be okay if you are out of the main centres. 

Is it the pay that's putting people off? Is it the fact that teachers have to be all of the service jobs I mentioned? Not only do they have the duty of teaching, they also have to be police officers, social welfare workers and nurses, psychological counsellors. If they were just allowed to teach and do what they trained for, would that be sufficient to get people back into the job? Or those who've left the profession to encourage others into it? Generally teachers follow teachers, follow teachers. You know, if you have a mother or a father that was a teacher, somebody in the family tends to follow suit. Is that what is happening within your family? I would love to hear from those of you who do have some experience of teaching either with children at school or a teacher in the family. 

What is it that the profession needs to do to market itself as an attractive one for young people? Or are service jobs just not doing it for the kids anymore? They want the bright lights, they want a bit of fun, they want a bit of pizzazz, and teaching is not that. 

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Let's talk politics, specifically the latest Taxpayers Union Curia poll. It showed a firming up of support for the Coalition Government and the parties that make that up, but Labour leader Chris Hipkins has lost support as preferred Prime Minister and the party is languishing. The party vote changes were all within the margin of error in this latest poll, but the preferred prime minister stakes saw Chris Hipkins dropping 6.1 percentage points. 

When you compare the previous Taxpayers Union Curia poll, which was in July, two months prior, so comparing apples with apples, National was up 1.4% to 39. Labour was 25.9%, that was up 0.8, but 25.9% is nothing to crow about. The Greens finally saw some downward movement after all their goings on, they seemed to be absolutely Teflon coated, but finally saw some movement down 1.5 on 11%. ACT, 8.8% around about what they got on election night, NZ First, 6.8%. Te Pati Māori 5%, up 1.5. 

Now parties do have a hard time after a trouncing in a general election and they generally look to the to the leader as the sacrificial lamb. Get rid of the leader, sacrifice them to the political gods, we can start afresh and we haven't got the bad juju from the previous election. Look at National – they had five leaders in five years before settling on Christopher Luxon. Labour after the Helen Clark years saw Phil Goff, David Shearer, David Cunliffe, Andrew Little, then finally Jacinda Ardern. Andrew Little made the call to resign just seven weeks out from the 2017 election, and history will reflect that Little's call was one of New Zealand political leadership's gutsiest. Cunliffe, Shearer and Little all went when the polls fell too low for comfort, and that was around the 24 to 25% mark. 

So here we've got Labour sitting on 26%, that is dangerously close to the knives being sharpened. Again, I think the only thing that's saving him is what saved previous political leaders from both parties: the fact that there is no obvious choice to replace him. When the party's been decimated and all the pretenders to the throne have been turfed out of office, your options are few. Chris Hipkins, when I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago was all Chipper Chippy.   

“So you will be leader leading Labour into the next election against Christopher Luxon?” “Absolutely.” 

Yep, absolutely. He was confident on-air. He was confident off-air. Looking forward to it. Had a big think, have I got in in me? Yes I have. Didn't really get a chance to do what I wanted to do when I took over from Jacinda Ardern.  She said I can't do it, I said, well, I will, and I'll take us up to the election. Not really me, he said. It wasn't really my party. There was a lot of Sergeant Schultz, I see nothing, wasn't me, didn't do it. But he was there all the way through the last Labour administrations regime, he was there front and centre. So, he might not have been Prime Minister, but he certainly was a key figure in that administration. 

He may be the obvious choice at the moment, but is he ever going to be able to lead Labour back to victory? There is a strong core of electors who don't want a centre right Coalition Government. You know you've got a good block of Greens and Labour and Te Pati Māori, and then you've got the swinging voters, those in the middle, those who voted National last time but could be persuaded. Is Chris Hipkins the man to galvanise those voters or is he yesterday's man? Too much associated with the past, with the Covid years? There were some die hards who say they saved lives, who will think that by being there his reputations enhanced. I think the majority say no. When you look at him you see the Covid years, you see enormous waste of taxpayer money. 

When he said, oh yes, we want to borrow more and tax more, I almost fell off my chair. You seriously expect the electorate to trust you with more money? You have got to be kidding. So, 24-25% is when the previous Labour leaders have been goneburger, have been asked to look at other options within the job market, perhaps their talents could be better served elsewhere. Labour's on 26%. Is Chris Hipkins the man to lead Labour into the next election or does he need to make room for new ideas, fresh ideas, a new Labour leader?   

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Chris Hipkins’ falling popularity could spell trouble for his party. 

The Labour leader's slumped more than six points to 12.6% in the preferred prime minister stakes of the latest Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll. 

National leader and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has taken a hit of 1.8 points - but is still leaps and bounds ahead on 32.7%. 

All up, the coalition parties have tightened their grip on power by gaining a seat, while the Opposition has lost two. 

Newstalk ZB Political Editor Jason Walls told Kerre Woodham that while we aren’t a presidential system, much of a political party’s popularity is based on the leader. 

He said that if you have a leader doing this badly in terms of net favourability, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the party. 

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So the Government's 'Phones Away For The Day' regulations came into force in state schools and kura at the beginning of term two. Schools must ensure students do not use or access a phone while they're attending school, including during lunch time and breaks.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced the policy before the election last year and there were the typical naysayers saying that'll never work. How can you enforce it, the children need their phones to be able to contact their parents, it's going to put more pressure on teachers, and so on and so forth.

The ban was part of National's plan to eliminate distractions and lift achievement within schools. And the press release cited studies that were themselves cited in the 23 Global Education Monitoring report which showed banning mobile phones improved academic performance, especially for low-performing students, and the results of the ban are starting to come in.

We read about Mt Albert Grammar today saying that they're seeing really positive results within their school. Some Taranaki high schools were ahead of the game - they're already reaping the benefits from banning mobile phone use.

I've mentioned them before, but from the beginning of last year, Waitara High School students in years 9 to 12 had to put their phones in a magnetic pouch when they arrived at school.

And Waitara is an interesting case, because initially the ban was on phones for years 9 to 12. Year 13s, Darryl Warburton the principal said, could keep them - because after all, the year 13s can wear mufti, they can sign out without parent parental consent, they're transitioning to adulthood, it makes sense for them to keep their phones.

He said he was reluctant to ban a device that's so central to modern life, it was better to teach them how to use it responsibly. That was last year

However, not having phones had got rid of a significant distraction in class, and last year the academic results in years 9 to 12 were up 15 - 20 percent, and that is not insignificant.

The only year that didn't go up was year 13. So Darryl Warburton, being a bright guy and seeing the results went - you know what? Year 13s, you've got them banned too.

This year, with the total ban, senior academic performance has also increased and other schools are reporting much the same results. Education Minister Erica Stanford says the results so far are promising.

"Yeah, we're seeing it all over the country. I mean, there was a little bit of grumbling from especially kids like my daughter straight away, but actually we're seeing really positive results from all of the principals I teach to. And actually, interestingly, the kids as well. And the biggest difference this has, we know from research, is our low socioeconomic girls and their mental health and that's a massive win."

Massive win indeed. I found it quite amusing listening to the Secondary School Principals President Vaughan Couillault on the ban this morning.

"I still believe that vaping is a bigger issue than cell phone devices. However, I am always happy to take it on the chin and say the cell phone ban probably has added value to the work that we're doing on campus rather than distracting from it."

Talk about damn with faint praise. Spit it out Vaughan! It’s a good policy and let's introduce it for vaping now as well. To his credit he did say - yes it's probably making life a bit easier in the classroom, not out of the classroom, though and vaping is a bigger problem, but yes, okay, yes, it is working.

You might not like the party or the policy but if it's good for the kids, if it's improving their mental well-being, if it's improving their academic performance, if it's making life easier for teachers to teach, where's the harm?

So yes, as he says, when it comes to vaping, if you can introduce the ban on cell phones, if you can see positive results as a result of banning cell phone use during school hours, why not ban vaping? I just can't understand how it's not.

It was a known thing that you did not smoke at school. I mean, everyone talks about having a few fags behind the bike sheds. I don't think at Sacred Heart Girls College, Hamilton, there were even fags behind the bike sheds.

You just didn't smoke at school, so - how is how is vaping even a thing at school?

These days when I'm emceeing, I have to go through the health and safety in the event of a fire, and I say there is no smoking or vaping on the grounds and no vaping or smoking anywhere near the venue.

The only place you could probably find to vape or smoke are the Auckland Grammar girl’s toilets, that seems to be about the only place where you'll hear of people vaping. In the school loos? How is that even possible? How are they not banned?

And for people who say banning doesn't work, - well, you'd have to say that the cell phones which are ubiquitous, which everyone said would be incredibly difficult to police. Well, no, not really.

Vapes are smaller, they can be hidden on your person - and you can see the puffs coming out of the school loos. You know what's going on.

If Vaughan can grudgingly, through clenched teeth, concede that yes, perhaps the ban on cell phones has been a good thing in schools, then I can agree with Vaughan that he's right, that banning vaping would also be a very, very good thing to do.

Give the kids some boundaries, give them some rules and watch them actually enjoy having those boundaries, having those limits on what they can and cannot do and benefiting from them.

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ACT's leader says Government departments will have to prove race-based policies have value.

Cabinet is circulating a memo to agencies with the instruction to prioritise public services on the basis of need, rather than ethnic identity.

David Seymour says a discussion needs to be had.

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One of the emails that did come in for the Prime Minister caught my eye, and I thought, you know, this is not a silly idea. It might be. I think there's some merit and discussing it and I'd love to run it by you. 

It was from the Elephant Beetle Think Tank and a quick Google found that no such thing exists, probably a couple of people enjoying a glass of wine and having chats, but none the less... it questions why we still have intermediate schools. There are 116 intermediate schools that remain within the education system, and according to the Elephant Beetle Intermediate School plan, there would be huge cost savings without the fixed costs of operating intermediates, which can be diverted into the remaining school system. 

The operating budget for running the network of intermediates is big and there are massive savings to be had, potentially. The savings could be diverted into providing better outcomes in education, perhaps paying teachers more. Then take the land that the intermediate schools are on, which is generally in prime position in the middle of communities, in the middle of cities, in the middle of towns, and convert them into housing developments with 30% or so of the residences reserved for service workers like police, teachers, and nurses at subsidised prices and with better mortgage interest rates. As intermediate schools typically sit in the middle of established residential areas, there is little issue or a big strain on creating the infrastructure to do this. Create a mix of high and low rise housing, utilising the existing school halls etcetera as community centres and thereby creating a new utopia. 

Now obviously it's going to be more difficult than that, more expensive than that, but it's not a bad idea because what purpose do intermediate schools have? My daughter went to Ponsonby Intermediate and it was a very, very good school, but if the same teachers had been either at extended primary schools or at extended colleges... it was the people who made the education, it wasn't the fact that it was an intermediate school. 

You look back at the history of intermediate schools and they've been neither fish nor fowl. They were set up in 1922, initially to act as a kind of sorting gate to steer kids either into the trades or into academic courses. That's why you did the cooking and the metal work at intermediate. A study done on intermediates, ‘The New Zealand Intermediate School Experiment - Caught Between Two Schools’ was done by the Waikato Journal of Education and they said directors and Ministers of Education were unable to provide guidance for intermediate schools, thus, they found neither a clear nor consistent philosophy to justify their existence. Consequently, intermediate schools were left to develop in their own ways, in the hope that a role could somehow be found for them. 

When there was a review of the development and progress of New Zealand Intermediate schools in 1938, the author of the report said the cause for surprise is not that the schools should have lagged along the road, but that they should have gone so far since no one has ever known quite what they were doing. And the authors of the Waikato Journal Report say nearly 60 years later, the intermediates are still no closer to discovering and developing a clear educational philosophy and identity. 

And you would have to wonder, what is the point of them? You could easily, I would have thought, even with the pressure on school buildings, amalgamate them into either primary or secondary schools. And a lot of campuses are year 7 through to 13, and then you have all of that space freed up to do with as you wish, and all of that money freed up to do with as you wish. Now, presumably there are ideas against this, and I'd like to hear them because so far I've just heard the idea for and it doesn't sound like a bad one. But if the reason to keep them is just because they've always been there since 1922, I don't think that's a good enough reason.   

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The Prime Minister says he will bring the Opposition leader on board to hammer out a plan for infrastructure. 

The Government is promoting a message of bipartisanship as it sets its sights on designing a 30-year pipeline for delivering major projects. 

Christopher Luxon and his Transport, Infrastructure, and Housing Ministers visited New South Wales last month to learn from Australia's productivity. 

Newstalk ZB's Kerre Woodham pushed Luxon on why he didn't take Labour leader Chris Hipkins if he's trying to build consensus. 

He says they have already reached out to other parties to make it clear the coalition wants to work in a bipartisan way. 

When it comes to the coalition itself, Luxon insists he's leading a stable coalition, and works well with both partners. 

That's despite the controversial Treaty Principles Bill coming up in this week's Cabinet meeting, and a paper unveiling Act's David Seymour's proposed principles. 

Luxon's adamant he won't support the Bill past first reading and has admitted this was the issue that stalled coalition negotiations. 

Luxon told Kerre the three parties are very different. 

But he says he's very proud of the way he works with both Seymour and Winston Peters. 

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I could not have put it better than ACC Minister Matt Doocey did yesterday. He wants ACC to lift its own game before it starts raising levies. 

The Accident Compensation Corporation has just begun a one-month consultation on suggested rises of more than 7% on levies for motorists, and more than 4% for employers and earners. I mean everybody else is raising their rates, aren't they? So here goes ACC. They have motorcyclists, professional sports people and ballerinas, specifically in their sights. Ballerinas?! Dainty, little, tiny, wee things like them, I imagine it's a strenuous job, and if something goes wrong, if you're a ballerina, it would go wrong badly, but I wouldn't have thought there would be that many to make a drain on the Accident Compensation Corporation’s finances. But none the less, be warned ballerinas – you are in the ACC’s sights. 

To be fair, ACC has said it is just a consultation at this stage, and the proposal is part of a legislative requirement every three years, with cabinet making the final decision on whether levies are raised before December. Can you imagine any minister going ‘hmm, probably a bit unfair, let's see ACC improve its game before we lift the levies’.I cannot see any government organisation or minister going, ‘you know what? let's keep things the way they are’. Doocey says ACC has to make its own efforts to lift its poor financial performance, it has to increase its rehab rates, and it has to do a lot more around injury prevention before they can make a case for raising levies. And that is a fair call given ACC has just done a U-turn and reintroduced one-on-one case managers. They took them away as part of a $74 million restructure, despite the fact the agency had been warned that the new restructure was a dud. A complete dud that wouldn't work. 

And in fact, we had a caller a couple of weeks ago who said that they had been trying to talk to ACC about their particular rehabilitation, they said they were passed from pillar to post, from one person to the next. They had to explain everything from beginning to end every single time they phoned, and it was just a waste of everybody's time and incredibly frustrating. So one-on-one case managers have been reinstated. 

It's just another colossal waste of time and money. The rollout began in 2020 with some zingy person leading the restructure going‘hey, we're going to increase productivity. Yes, we are. We're going to save costs and you case managers, you're going to see a direct lift in your performance. We're going to improve your workloads’.  By 2022, running costs had doubled, there were no discernible benefits to clients, and there was little improvement to case backlogs with exhausted and overworked case managers dropping at their desks. So the agency's gone back after $74 million down the gurgler to one-on-one case management. 

Back to the proposed living increases, they are up for discussion, so let's discuss. Motorcyclists - the levy covers only around 28% of your costs to the ACC scheme. When things go wrong if you're a motorcyclist, things go wrong badly, so you're going to need a lot of rehab. So Matt Doocey asked do we lower the levy for lower powered bikes while increasing the cost for more powerful bikes? And I would really love to know what ballerinas are doing to stuff themselves up so much. 

Professional sportspeople - I thought you would have been well and truly covered with the medical system that surrounds you as part of your job and the fact that you would go private.  I mean when have you ever heard of any All Black going on the waiting list for a knee operation? They don't. They're in surgery the next day, so I would have that would have been part of your contract that your medical costs are covered. Interesting though, at the Kerre Woodham Morning Show, two out of two of us have been on ACC in the past year. Helen with her never ending shoulder fracture and then me with the smashed arm. But again, the ACC ended after I think it was about 6 physio visits. I've been paying for them ever since. I paid for my own acupuncture, I didn't need any taxis. But we have used it. 

It is a good system when it works. You know you take responsibility for your own recovery as well. You don't just lie there, lumpingly, and expect the taxpayer and the government to fix you. You do your own rehab and try and get yourself better. Everybody says,oh, it's the envy of the world, your ACC, it's just wonderful. Is it still? There's a $1 billion shortfall and you know a lot of that is the damaged babies that actually survive the brutal beatings, but they are left needing lifelong care, so a fund has been set aside for their lifelong needs, which sickens me.  

You cannot get blood out of a stone. I don't know how much more they expect us to pay for everything, for all of the everything. For the rates, for the insurance, for the ACC, for the food, for the doctor's visits, for the everything. You know, there comes a point where you just cannot pay any more. But is ACC serving you well? I can put up my hand and I can do that now and say it has, it has worked well, provided you do your bit too. It's got to be a 50/50 partnership, I think. But can they really justify asking for more in levies when they have just wasted $74 million on a failed restructure? I’m with Matt Doocey: lift your own game before you take money out of our pockets. 

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The number of New Zealanders with dementia is expected to double in the next 20 years, with social disadvantages playing a big role. 

Public Health Communication Centre's briefing reveals the risk of developing dementia is 60% higher for people living in the most deprived areas in New Zealand. 

Director of the Centre for Brain Research, Sir Richard Faull told Kerre Woodham that there are about 14 factors which, when addressed, reduce the risk of developing dementia. 

These factors, which include education quality, social isolation, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, uncorrected vision loss, and air quality, are often associated with poverty and deprivation. 

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It won't be a particularly good morning for the people of the central North Island. There was a sense of inevitability really, though, with the announcement that Winstone International will be closing its two mills near Ohakune. For months now, Winstone have been working on trying to find a way to keep the mills open in the face of declining commodity prices and astronomically high power prices. More than 200 workers are directly affected, but of course many, many more will feel the ripple effects of the mills closure. And this comes right on the heels of Ruapehu Alpine lifts troubles as well. It's a real double whammy for the region. The Tangiwai Sawmill and the Karioi Pulpmill have been a part of the central North Island community for more than 40 years. Generations have worked at the mills, but no more. 

Resources Minister Shane Jones was with Mike Hosking this morning on the Mike Hosking Breakfast and says the reason for the closure can be laid squarely at the feet of the electricity authority, and we need to make changes to the energy sector.  

“Look, it's up to you and I, as Kiwis and your listeners, do you want an economy where the price of power is internationally competitive to keep businesses functioning? Or do you want to disembowel your economy and turn it into an import model? I don't want that. Which is why Simeon Brown and I are signing off now the criteria and that criteria for the review of the power sector will involve structural separation, but look, mate, people have their had this nervousness, they've had this skittishness - don't touch the power system. We trusted the power system to deliver outcomes that boost international competitiveness and national security, they haven't so we have to change it, simple.” 

Well, it's not going to be that simple, is it? Changing it is not going to be that simple at all.  I'd be really interested to hear from other manufacturers or those involved in manufacturing and in business. Is it the fluctuating power prices? Can you point to the electricity authority if your business is really struggling and saying you, you as an entity are the reason that I may well go to the wall? There have been so many stresses put on business, put on manufacturers in particular, over the past four or five years.   

Is the fluctuating price of electricity the straw that's breaking many camel's backs, or is it just four or five years of really tough times? Is it international prices making you uncompetitive when compared with product from the rest of the world and the electricity authority is being used as the whipping boy? I love the way he says simple, he’s going to break up the electricity authority. Well no, it’s not going to be simple. And it's too late for Ohakune, far too late. When Shane Jones says it's the electricity market that's going to stuff our economy, I would have thought there was a bit more to it than that. For people having to pay high interest on business loans, the cost of living crisis, which means spending is reduced internationally competitive prices, other countries being able to outbid you, the high wages that you have to pay here compared to other countries, really the electricity component, I would have thought is just another big pressing, weighty issue coming into your office, not the only one.   

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As much as I hate the gangs profiting from misery and tying up police time with their internecine feuds, the late amendment to the gangs bill, banning people from wearing their gang patches in their own homes, seems ludicrous for the reasons that have been given. 

The Gangs Bill, as it was tabled in July at the Justice Select Committee, will give police the power to disperse gatherings and to ban patches in public. All good. But a clause added a few weeks ago allows the police to apply to the courts for a gang prohibition order for repeat offenders, meaning anyone convicted of wearing their patch in public three times in five years won't be allowed to wear the patch in their own home. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith told Mike Hosking this morning on the Mike Hosking Breakfast that he makes no apologies for giving police extra tools to deal with gang members. 

“What it's about is giving them, the police, that option to deal with what we think will be a small group of people who say, well, stuff you, I'm just gonna wear my patch and I'll pay my fine and I'll keep on doing it. And that would undermine the purpose of the bill and that's why we got that feedback during the Select Committee and so we're bringing in this extra tool to give the police extra powers to deal with that small number of repeat offenders.” 

Well, all very well and good, but there's a couple of things here. This amendment really should have been discussed at Select Committee so that organisations, experts, and the public could have their say. You can't just discuss a bill at Select Committee, everybody knows what's in it, everybody has their say, and then after it's been tabled go - oh, hang on, hang on. I've got an idea. You can't have a thought bubble and pop it in (although it appears you can). But I think it sets a precedent that other substantial changes and amendments can be made to bills without the public getting to have their say. 

An open letter from the Law Society to Goldsmith urged him to withdraw the amendment, calling it an unjustified limitation on the right to freedom of expression and not rationally connected to the stated purpose of the gang patch ban, which is to reduce public intimidation. And it is. I don't like seeing them on the streets, we share the streets, I'm very unlikely to visit a gang member's home and if they want to wear their patch at home and they're not doing anything unlawful, then I find it hard to see how that is going to impact anybody around us. 

Then there's the policing of the ban. Making rules that are unenforceable weakens the impact of legislation and laws. Are the police really going to go around peering in the windows of gang members, hauling them into cells if they spot them wearing their patch while sitting on the couch watching The Chase? They're not. And I think this is where Paul Goldsmith should have just come clean. Surely the purpose of the law is to give the police licence to niggle. How could any recidivist patch wearer relax in the comfort of their own home, dealing their drugs or polishing their firearms or whatever it is that they do, if they know that at any time of the day or night the police can turn up?Oy, oy, oy, understand that you're a recidivist patch wearer, just checking you're not wearing your patch, Sir. Ostensibly, it would be to check that the patch is still in the wardrobe in its dry-cleaning bag, waiting for the no patch order to be served, but really, it's so that the police can just turn up and make the gang members life misery. 

And that's fine, because if you're going to keep wearing your patch, then it's probably pretty likely that you're going to ignore other laws as well, but I don't know why they didn't just come clean on that. It's the Operation Raptor approach that the Australian police used, niggle, niggle, niggle. Every time one of the Aussie gang members went out in public what they were wearing, what they were driving, what they were riding, was just put through the ringer. And it was just constant niggle. And if that's what it's for, fine, I still think it should have been put through at the right time. You can't have a thought bubble and pop it into your Bill. If they forgot, then it should go through the process and do it properly. 

But to say we're giving the police powers to stop recidivist gang members from wearing patches in their own home, to me sounds silly. If you say we're giving the police powers to niggle the living daylights out of recidivist gang members, fine with that. 

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A reminder to construction workers to keep looking out for each other on World Suicide Prevention Day.  

MATES in Construction's recent survey finds 85% of workers reported good mental health last year, an improvement from previous years. 

But also last year, 80 workers died from suspected suicides, a jump from previous years. 

Dr Chris Bowden, MATES in Construction’s Academic Director, told Kerre Woodham the participants in their study group talked a lot about the bullying, harassment, aggression, and conflict that was common on job sites, as well as the ritual hazing that often comes with being a new member of the community. 

But on the plus side, he said, they heard that things are slowly changing in that culture, and people are starting to take safety and mental health and wellbeing a lot more seriously in the workplace. 

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This is one that has been discussed before and will no doubt be discussed again. Can pine forestry and livestock farming coexist in this country, or does one have to make way for the other? 

For the last decade, there have been major concerns about productive farmland, not only being converted into subdivisions, but being converted into forests. These concerns were ramped up in recent times with the previous administration’s One Billion Trees project. 

The area of land planted in trees is actually down from where it was two decades ago. New Zealand has about 12.1 million hectares in farmland. Another 1.7 million is in forestry, down from 2 million hectares in 2002, but reaching the 1 billion trees target by 2028 will require the planting of an estimated 43,000 hectares per year. 

Of course there's a distinction to make between the different sorts of forestry – plantation forestry is different from carbon forestry.   

Plantation trees will eventually be harvested. Carbon trees will never be harvested because the owners make enough through carbon credits alone. So what happens when a farmer sells their land for carbon farming or turns it over to plantation farming?   

It really does take a village to maintain a farm, to keep a farm alive. Dairy farms, beef farms, sheep farms require people and those living in rural communities are worried that as the trees advance the sharemilkers jobs will go, shearing jobs will go, along with the shepherds and the truck drivers and the families. The vets will go, the mechanics, the retailers, the schools. They'll become ghost towns filled with trees. 

Beef and Lamb NZ's sheep numbers fell 4.3% in the year to June. There was a 2.8 percent decrease in beef cattle numbers. And the lamb crop for spring 2025 is expected to fall nearly 5 percent. 

Now part of that is farmers reacting to the low prices they get for their stock. Some parts of the country it's drought, but the primary driver, according to Beef and Lamb, is land use change, as a result of the conversion of livestock farms to forestry. 

The Ministry for Primary Industries Todd McClay says the government is concerned in regards to excessive conversion of food-producing land to forest, however, he says it's also important that farmers retain choice over what they do with their land. 

Imagine you've slogged your guts out all your life, you and your husband, you and your wife. You have worked every hour God sent from sunup to sundown. Finally, after 40 years, the kids don't want the farm. They have gone off to university or they've gone overseas and they're living their best lives. The kids don't want to get into the farm. What do you? 

Imagine if the government said no, you cannot sell it to a nice fat cat overseas buyer who's going to put it all in trees because we need that land for you to produce food. No, you keep producing food until you collapse in the field. I mean, no government's going to do that. 

Farmers have every right to do what they wish with their land. I mean it really is under threat, that kind of productive land is under threat as we heard the other day from alternative energy sources, from subdivisions, from plantation forestry, from carbon forestry. 

It's like watching different armies advancing towards these poor farmers standing there going, bloody hell, what am I going to do? I'm not getting enough on the international market for my product. I love farming. I don't want to sit there and watch pine trees growing, that's not my life’s dream but what am I to do? What can we do? What makes it worth a farmer's while to keep their land in livestock? 

For those of you who have stock, who have beef, who have lamb, who have dairy, do you sometimes look at the trees and think imagine, I wouldn't have to do a bloody thing. 

I could sit on the porch, think my thoughts, never have to go out because it's raining and wet and cold, and the baby lambs are going to die unless they get some shelter. Never have to get up early again. Just acres and acres of pine trees. Do any farmers think bliss? 

And when it comes to the rural communities, how are you going? How are you surviving? Do you see yourself as under threat or are you regaining lost ground?

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A new white paper warns there will be a significant transition of sheep and beef farms into pine forestry unless current Government policies and economic signals are reconsidered. 

Called “Why Pines?”, the paper summarises the results of four recently completed research programmes, funded by Our Land and Water. 

The four research programmes used different techniques and perspectives, but all found a likely increase in pine plantations on land currently used for sheep and beef farming. 

White paper co-author and director of Our Land and Water, Dr Jenny Webster-Brown, said while the results “raise significant concerns”, they were not a prediction of an unavoidable future. 

Dr Jenny Webster-Brown joined Kerre Woodham. 

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Well, that's one way, isn't it, to deal with your problematic pupil attendance record – do away with attendance requirements altogether. 

Hagley College in Christchurch will allow some of its students to work from home two days a week, in a trial to believed to be a New Zealand first. The college is offering 20 NCEA Level 2 students the chance to do hybrid learning. There'll be 16 hours of math, science, and English, and they will be required to be at school three days a week for in person learning and two days will be online via scheduled video calls. Hagley representative Nathan Walsh said the school had tried to get students to attend the traditional five-day face to face education model, otherwise known as school, but they'd really struggled, especially when it came to getting kids back into the classroom who'd experienced mental or physical health issues, or children who had extracurricular activities they prioritised. Gaming, you know, that's an all-night thing —you're knackered by the time the morning rolls around— all sorts of other extracurricular activities that are best done in twilight or by dark of night. 

So the prospective hybrid learners would need to prove their ability to work independently when out of school, and caregivers had to be clear on their responsibility to support ongoing learning. It's a trial for now, but if it's successful, if students achieve well, and if they attend their classes, hybrid learning will be offered to pupils for NCEA levels 2 and 3 in 2026, at Hagley College. 

Now the old school amongst us may think this is a load of lefty tosh. But have a look at all the adults who claim to be just as productive working from home as they are in the office. There are so many people who have incorporated working from home as their working model. Students, especially the older students, see their parents working from home and think why not? Especially if they are part of that cohort who was told to stay home, who were kept out of classrooms for two years. If we have been told that you can learn just as well outside of the classroom, why wouldn't you give hybrid learning a go? 

And then there are the young people who have really struggled to get back into the rhythm of going to school. I remember a youngish mum ringing in, and she had a great big giant of a 16-year-old son who would not go to school some days. He saidI can do it in three hours, I can do what I need to learn in three hours. It's all a crock, most of it is just time wasting. I can get it done and still do my own thing.And he was too big for her to drag to school. He was too old for her to bribe, and she was at her wits end. Good family, an expectation that school was part of a young person's life, but she said he was right, he could do the learning in three hours and then do his own thing. 

So surely any learning is better than none if young people will not go to school. We've seen many who don’t want to go, can’t go, are too anxious to go, surely getting some learning into them is better than them dropping out altogether? 

My initial response was oh for God's sake, for the love of all that is Holy, there aren't many expectations on young people but going to school is one of them. But then you think about it and you know, going to work used to be an expectation. Not now. People will work from home, and if their employer’s reluctant for them to do so, they'll find another employer. You're a kid, you see Mum and Dad working from home, then you're going to want to do the same thing if it suits you better. 

And if you are one of those parents who has struggled to get their young person back into the classroom, would you welcome the opportunity for hybrid learning? We've heard from parents who have said, look, I negotiate with my child and say three days out of the week you’ve got to go, two days you can stay home. For some parents, I imagine this would be a blessing.   

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A Christchurch school hopes to address falling attendance rates by allowing some students to work from home two days a week. 

The trial will be run by Hagley College, who will be offering 20 students the opportunity to do “hybrid learning”. 

Students will attend 16 hours of the core subjects —maths, science, and English— a week, with three days of in-person learning, and two days of online learning. 

Tim O’Connor, Headmaster at Auckland Grammar, told Kerre Woodham that Hagley is entitled to make whatever decisions they see fit for their school community, but from his point of view, they need students attending school on a daily basis. 

He said there’s much to be learned from being in a physical classroom, such as socialisation skills, routines and scheduling, and the Socratic style of learning that occurs within a classroom environment.   

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It’s been nearly a year since the Government changed hands, and Opposition Leader Chris Hipkins is back with Kerre Woodham to answer the hard-hitting questions.  

Hipkins is pointing his finger at the coalition for slowing infrastructure down because of a lack of bipartisanship. 

Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop has been urging parties to work across the House to secure a solid building pipeline. 

But Labour leader Hipkins says it's the new Government which has been more partisan on infrastructure investment. 

He told Kerre Woodham the coalition put a whole lot of things on hold already underway after the election. 

Hipkins says many of those projects need to happen anyway, so when Labour regains power they won't stop things already started just because it wasn't their priority. 

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We're going a little bit back to the future today because the annual report card into the grocery industry came out yesterday, and we were overrun with health talk. So we'll go back to that report and look at the ramifications for the industry, for the suppliers, and for us, the consumers. 

So according to the report, we are paying higher prices, specials are confusing, and loyalty schemes aren't delivering overly significant rewards. Paying $10,500 for a glass container isn't really enough in terms of loyalty (if you're collecting the stickers from New World, you'll know what I mean). According to the ComCom’s first annual grocery report all major supermarkets experienced an increase in price cost margins, which means retail prices were increasing faster than the cost of the goods. Those wanting to enter the market are not finding it easy. Despite 150,000 members signing up to Costco by March, Costco still suffered a $20 million loss. Restrictive land covenants were hampering new entry for new players and existing ones. The Commission has already prosecuted Foodstuffs North Island for historical abuses, grabbing land and holding on to it so nobody else can build there. 

We also saw alternative grocery shopping places like Huckleberry shut down – that's been around forever and that's been placed into liquidation. Online retailer Supie failed, Bin Inn closed 5 stores, so it's tough, it's a tough market out there. And it's tough for Foodstuffs and Woolworths too, I'm sure. They've had to pay increased costs, and security guards, and thefts and the like, it has not been easy for them. They've had to look after their staff, who face relentless barrages of abuse, and probably this report card won't help. 

So, it's not an easy industry to be in right now. It's a much, much tougher one to get into if you want to. While the number of covenants around land had decreased, the Commission has expressed concern at the more than 100 properties currently owned by major retailers that are not being used for stores, with no immediate plans to put a supermarket there. The Commissioner said, well, yes, I suppose some of these properties could be used for car parks or storage, but they certainly included potential expansion sites when properties held for more than 20 years were considered. Sue Chetwin from the Grocery Action Group, told Ryan Bridge on Early Edition that the government needs to show its teeth if we want to see any significant change to the market.  

“All of the rules that they've put in place, all very well meaning, but have not worked. They have really just tinkered around the edge, so unless you make some structural change to encourage competition or to allow competition to happen, then we're just going to get more of the same.” 

Yeah, and that's the thing. There was a Commerce Commission report, there were some prosecutions, the duopoly of Foodstuffs and Woolworths were put on notice, and nothing happened. If anything, it's got slightly worse. So the government is interested in turning up the heat, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says he plans to seek advice on the sites currently being land banked, alongside broader regulatory reviews that could lead to potential change, including the Overseas Investment Act and the Fair Trading Act. 

What about the concerns of suppliers? We've looked at consumers and said, yep, you're paying more than you need to for food, even taking into account seasonal fluctuations, even taking into account everything's more expensive, what the report says is that the increase in price cost margins has given them a greater profit than they needed to have. The report says a monthly index of suppliers prices produced by Informetrics for Foodstuffs North Island and pumped out to the media —in fact it was referred to in the press release following the release of the ComCom report yesterday— has consistently failed to include the impact of so-called trade spend, the impact of rebates, discounts, and payments that run to billions of dollars annually on the prices supermarkets actually pay to their suppliers. The report stopped short of calling this lying, Business Desk said let's settle for embarrassing. 

So what does this all mean? We are a very small country. We're not even as big as most cities in the United States, so anybody who's interested in coming here from overseas has to know that they'll make a profit. Even if the government arranged for a prime piece of real estate in the middle of Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city, and earmarked it for an overseas player and said come, haere mai, haere mai, this land is yours, put your supermarket up there, fill your boots. I'm not entirely sure they'd make a profit. It’s a huge investment. It's a huge investment in building up relationships that cannot happen overnight with suppliers. It takes time, and the reason that Foodstuffs and Woolworths are so successful is that they are old companies. They're very old. Certainly with Foodstuffs when you trace their whakapa back, they are part of the landscape back to the 60s. So this has taken time to build, to get into this position of strength. And while there might be huge players overseas, they don't have that network of contacts, that history, that the others do here. It's got to be worth their while. They've got to know that they're going to make money if they up sticks and invest here. How likely is that?  

Is there any real likelihood of a third player? What's it going to take to get real competition? Is it going to take a coalition government that really doesn't like regulation? Are they going to have to swallow a dead mouse and say we'll have to regulate this industry because they're not doing it themselves?   

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A new recycling scheme has launched today. 

Developed by the Packaging Forum, it aims to capture and recycle the myriad of plastic and metal caps and lids that currently make their way to landfill. 

Approximately 16,000 tonnes of caps and lids are in circulation annually, the equivalent of approximately 900 trucks of waste. 

Collection boxes will be placed in supermarkets in Auckland, Christchurch, and Tauranga, with more to be added in coming weeks. 

Packaging Forum CEO Rob Langford told Kerre Woodham the metal lids will be sold to metal recyclers across the country, the money then going to the Lions Foundation’s KanTabs programme to support kids with cancer. 

The plastic, he said, will be prepackaged in Auckland before it’s shipped over to Australia for processing, with the aim of collecting enough that processing can be moved back to New Zealand. 

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There’s another option for those struggling to access a GP. 

General Practitioners Aotearoa have said the concept of a “family doctor” is dead as the sector is crushed by rising costs, shortages, and high demands. 

It can be difficult for people to get a consultation, with many clinics offering video calls instead of in-person consultations. 

Southern Cross Health Insurance offers free online GP consultations for its members, the information from the appointment then going to the person’s primary GP. 

Chief Medical Officer Dr Stephen Child joined Kerre Woodham to discuss the option and the struggles plaguing our crumbling health system. 

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I did want to have a look at the state of our primary healthcare – this is something we've looked at before, and I have absolutely no doubt that we will look at again. I do tend to agree with the GP advocacy group, General Practitioners Aotearoa, that the concept of the family doctor is dead. You're not going to get a Dr Finlay's Casebook again any time soon on the telly. You're not going to see a doctor who has not only looked after your primary health for much of your life, but also that of your family’s. These are the kinds of doctors that have gone the way of the moa. 

Where I would disagree with the GPA is that they said you wouldn't see the sort of queues for GPs that we saw in South Auckland, in Remuera. I would argue it's just as difficult for people in the blue chip suburbs to get in to see a GP as it is in the poorer areas. It's just the people with disposable incomes can have other options. 

A briefing given to Dr Shane Reti when he took over as Health Minister warned that New Zealand is at least 485 GPs short across the country. Remember trying to find the GP in Tokoroa? A GP was looking for somebody to take over the practice - all sorts of offers were put out there, nobody was interested. This number’s expected to grow to a shortage of between 750 and 1050 doctors in the next ten years. At least a quarter of a million Kiwis aren't enrolled with a practice. Many of them won't take on any new patients. 1,034,000 people said they struggled to access GP services because of cost in 2022/23, double the number of the previous year. And the impact of this of course is pressure on hospitals, emergency departments, specialist consultations and immunisation rates. Waiheke Island’s only afterhours medical clinic closed its doors yesterday; 24 practices and clinics in Canterbury, the Southern Region, Hawke’s Bay, and mid Central that provide after hours or urgent care experienced closures or reductions in hours in 2023 because there aren't enough GPs. 

There is a tiny bit of good news... in March, the Health Minister pointed to work beginning on setting up a third medical school and record numbers of GP registrars as green shoot, but added, “I understand there are other parts of retention and remuneration we need to collaborate on.” 

There is so much need everywhere, across every field, but GPs are in crisis. If a crisis can be something that continues for many, many years, because they have been saying for at least the past five years that they are struggling. Pre-Covid they were struggling. GPs were getting older, new doctors weren't training in the field, they were getting stressed and burnt out because they were seeing so many patients with so much need, and yet without them, they are such an important component of the country's overall health plan that you cannot have a healthy country without healthy GPs. Difficulty in accessing GPs results in pressure on EDs and poorer health outcomes once people do finally get treatment. 

I've been with the same GP practice for about 25 years. I don't see the same GP; I've had a succession of really lovely, fabulous GPs come and go. The last one I was absolutely fabulous, but she now only works mornings because she's trying to manage herself, and her family, and her practice, and it's all just overwhelming. It was three weeks before I could get in to see a GP. You expect to have to wait. If it's urgent, they do their best. If it's urgent, you try and get into an afterhours clinic, but you have to have the money to pay and there has to be an afterhours clinic open near you. 

So like I say, difficulty in accessing GPs no matter where you are in the country, but if you have money, if you have disposable income, you can get a result a lot more easily. Do we try and attract them from overseas? Do we try and attract young people, pay their student loans if they become a GP?  We've seen what happens when you try and attract somebody with money and all the add-ons and the bells and whistles to get to Tokoroa.  If they don't want to, they don't want to. Have the days of the family doctor gone the way of the moa? We just have to adapt to a new way, a new style of doing things.   

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The coalition government has announced the next three years of transport projects, and it should come as no real surprise there's nothing for speed bumps.  

Simeon Brown:We're cutting the funding for speed bumps. We're, in fact, I call it an infestation of speed bumps that we've seen across our roads, whilst potholes have been remaining unfilled. So actually I want to see that money going into filling potholes. Not making it inconvenient for, for motorists trying to get around. 

HDPA:Is it a zero? like it's a zero for the speed bumps? 

SB:That is correct, there's no further funding for speed bumps under this national land transport. The reality is, I think Kiwis are sick and tired of councils up and down this country simply trying to slow them down and cause congestion, rather than actually increase the efficiency of their local roading network. So that's the focus of this National Land Transport Programme. You know councils are road controlling authorities, they can still go and do other things on their roads, they just won't be receiving a subsidy from the government for that.  

So there you go, councils can still spend on speed bumps if that is their heart's desire, if that's what they believe ratepayers truly want – nothing from the government. That was Simeon Brown talking to Heather du Plessis Allan last night. And again, no real surprise that there's not a heck of a lot for cycleways either.  

“We campaigned on building and maintaining our roading network and reducing the amount of money going into cycleways. People voted for that and that's what we're delivering.” 

That was Simeon Brown talking to Mike Hosking this morning. 

So where will the $32.9 billion go? Well, you can see for yourself if you go to the NZTA's website. You’ll need a couple of clicks, it's not all laid out there for you, but a couple of clicks and you'll be there. But much of the money will build roads of national significance as already announced, and roads of regional significance. A good deal will go to pothole maintenance and repair. 

Now you would think if you listened to the Greens and to Labour's transport spokesman that there was nothing going towards the buses or the ferries, but there is: $6.4 billion, almost as much as they're spending on the roads of national significance, will go towards public transport. Well, almost as much as going into state highway improvements officially. But that is not enough for the Greens. I don't think anything would be enough for the Greens, I think they are a maw of wanton need. Julie Anne Genter said the money was well below the investment needed to sustain growth and cut emissions. 

$1 billion was announced for the rail network - Labour says that's not enough. Tangi Utikere says the investment is about $800 million lower than advertised. Labour's already put money towards the lower North Island rail investment package, they did so in last year's budget, and he says, in effect, Simeon Brown's re-announcing an announcement. Which, of course, other political parties never do. Remember the announcement of an announcement? Remember the infestation of that, along with the potholes? So, any transport plan from the coalition government was never going to please the Greens, never, ever, ever. I don't think any transport plan, even from Labour, pleased the Greens, ever, ever, ever. But Simeon Brown says they were elected to focus on roads and highways to make New Zealand's transport networks more efficient, to be able to get us from point A to point B in a more expeditious fashion, and that is what the coalition government is doing. 

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Ticket prices have increased exponentially over the years as retailers take advantage of dynamic pricing schemes. 

Otherwise known as surge pricing, dynamic pricing sets flexible prices that change depending on the demand. 

Many fans of Oasis wound up forking out double the advertised price of £148.50 (NZ$313.38) for the band’s reunion tour, spending £355.20 (NZ$749.58) instead. 

The UK Government has stepped in, announcing a probe into the surge pricing. 

Chris Schulz, Senior Investigative Journalist at Consumer NZ, told Kerre Woodham that we’ve seen prices go up and up since Covid, and ticket companies seem to be pushing how fast fans are willing to go to pay for those tickets. 

He said that with the outcry over Oasis tickets we might have found that line, and maybe this is the point where politicians are calling for regulation. 

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I wanted to start with something that always generates a lot of chat and that is the inevitability about raising the age of eligibility for superannuation and, to a lesser extent the introduction of a capital gains tax. National under Bill English came very, very close to getting the age lifted to 67.

It wouldn't have happened until 2040, but it would have happened. So John Key left and came Bill English and managed to get the age of eligibility for super lifted to 67 by 2040, not overnight - by 2040. However. As we know, along came the Labour NZ First Coalition government and they nixed that, and the age of eligibility remains at 65. Despite National and ACT pledging to lift the super age from 65 to 67 during the election campaign, along came NZ First again to form the coalition government and their stance is unequivocal.

The age of retirement will remain at 65 years, no ifs, no buts, no maybeys. You can retire at anytime you like, they mean, of course, the age at which you can get the Super. So as long as the coalition government has a New Zealand first component the age will remain at 65, where it has been since eligibility for super was raised progressively from 60 to 65 over a relatively short frame of time, 1992 to 2001. That's not a lot of time for people to adjust. At the moment, 70% of the OECD has a pension age of 65 or lower.

Countries are slowly increasing their pension age, but the majority are only moving the age up to 65 over the next four decades. New Zealand Super is critical to the majority of New Zealanders right now who don't have the benefit of a big KiwiSaver fund. If you've been working your whole life and you've been in KiwiSaver your whole life, your retirement will look a little bit different. But at the moment, a lot of New Zealanders have super and super only.

40% of people aged 65 and over have virtually no other income besides New Zealand Super, 20% have just a little bit more, so they are doing it tough. And the reason that the Super and capital gains tax is back in the news is because the outgoing Treasury head says changes are needed to fix the Crown's structural deficit.

We need to find new ways of generating revenue and cutting expenditure and that means a capital gains tax and a more efficient superannuation scheme. This is Dr Caralee McLiesh. She's leaving Treasury, and this is part of her exit interview. However, although it makes sense for the age to be raised, as we all live longer and we live more healthy lives, and as KiwiSaver funds become more of a buffer between poverty, at the moment if you're living just on your super, things are tough. If you have your Super and your KiwiSaver, life would look a little bit better. Former Reserve Bank economist Michael Reddell told Mike Hosking this morning he doubts that any government is bold enough to raise the retirement age and bring in a capital gains tax.

"Well, I mean, National has campaigned in the last two or three elections for very slowly raising the retirement age. NZ First is the block, they're in absolute no on this. Labour back in 2014 campaigned on it. I think almost everyone recognises, in policy circles, that it's good and sensible and necessary and overdue adjustment. What will enable someone finally to make the move, I'm not sure. Maybe it takes another crisis. Capital gains tax isone of those where there's sort of a lot more, you know, genuine difference of view as to whether it's fair and right and also whether it will raise much revenue. A lot of the capital gains in the last few years have been house price inflation, Chris Bishop tells us that his housing reforms are going to cut house prices so there might not be much revenue there."

Michael Reddell, former Reserve Bank economist, talking to Mike Hosking this morning. Of course, most policies that have been put forward looking at a capital gains tax would exempt the family home so house prices are neither here nor there, unless you have a portfolio of them. Labour, of course you'll remember, this is when we last had torrid discussions on a capital gains tax. They had the golden opportunity to introduce one when they were in power, but chose not to do so. There was a recommendation from the Tax Working Group set up by the Coalition Government to introduce a capital gains tax and Jacinda Ardern said no, as long as I'm leader, it's not going to happen. You won't see it while I am leader, it won't be introduced on my watch.

I believe in a capital gains tax, it's clear many New Zealanders do not. I am ruling out a capital gains tax under my leadership in the future. That's what Jacinda Ardern said at the time. Of course, NZ First had something to do with it but for years, Labour had campaigned on introducing a capital gains tax, for years and years, their own Tax Working Group said it was a good idea. And then they take ownership of ruling it out entirely, not just until we can get rid of Winston, but entirely. So under the leadership off goes Jacinda Ardern and in comes Chris Hipkins. So there were reformists within Labour who said right now's the time. We don't have to faff around with any other political parties. We don't have to make compromise or concession, now's the time to do it. No, said Chris Hipkins, we need to get elected. We need to get reelected because otherwise it's going to be stink in opposition. So he nixed it as well. It is hard to see when such an opportunity will come again in the near future. I agree. I think it would be very hard for a political party to introduce a capital gains tax now. But the upshot is New Zealand needs to spend less and make more money.

Just like our households - spend less, make more money if we want to fund the lifestyle we enjoy. And I just don't think enough people have grasped that yet, we still want all the bells and whistles, we want the cherry on top. We can barely afford the cake, far less the icing and the cherry on top. We have to make cuts somewhere. We have to get revenue from somewhere. Where is it going to be? Raising the age of eligibility for Super is probably a very, very good start. It's been talked about for years. It's been fiddled around with for years. Bill English came very close to getting it in but while NZ First has anything to do with anything, it will remain at 65. And we simply can't afford that, unless we raise taxes so that the people who are turning 65 in the next 10 years will effectively pay for that.

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Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop announced yesterday what National had promised all the way through the election campaign. The government's new National Infrastructure Agency will be established this year, unlocking access to more capital for infrastructure and strengthening the government's private finance and commercial capability. So, from the 1st of December, Crown Infrastructure Partners is going to be reimagined and repurposed into the National Infrastructure Agency. It will be charged with acting as the Crown's shop front to receive unsolicited proposals and to facilitate private sector investment in infrastructure, partner with agencies and in some cases, local governments on projects involving private finance, administer central government funds and continue the work that CIP is already doing. 

And it all sounds terribly dry, but it is actually wildly exciting. You know, to have a plan, to have a vision and more importantly, to welcome private partners to help get things moving. I cannot overemphasise how different that is from the previous administration. They believe that government could do it themselves. They had no real interest, this is a generalisation, but they had no real interest in partnering with private enterprise to do much. They believed that government knew best. With this announcement, we can see that the government is looking to the private sector to help get New Zealand cracking. They're open to the possibility that the private sector might actually have some good ideas and might actually be able to do it better and to deliver faster. And I think this is a very good thing. 

I suppose it depends on where you are ideologically. If you believe that big government is best, that government can do it better (I don't know how you could believe that given the evidence, but none the less there we go, pin the colours to the mast), if you believe that that government has the answer to everything then you will look with a somewhat caustic eye at the National Infrastructure Agency. But I truly believe this is a step in the right direction. 

At the moment, what we have now, the Crown Infrastructure Partner is directly responsible for overseeing 46 projects that have come from the Infrastructure Reference Group, and contracts with third parties, handling a total project value of $2.4 billion including $1.3 billon from the government. Previously it's handled the ultra-fast and rural broadband rollouts, rural mobile, marae digital connectivity and the public safety network, it’s also now managing the Cyclone Recovery program of work. Chris Bishop said the National Infrastructure Plan would provide a 30-year road map, setting out priorities for investment. So, this is the most important, then this, then this, then this. There'll be better management of existing assets, and they'll ensure value for money on new projects. 

Chris Bishop plans to seek support from all parties in Parliament via the business committee to hold an annual debate on the National Infrastructure Plan to show areas where parliamentary parties agree, where we don't, and where there is room to compromise in the best interests of New Zealanders. Which is all very well and good, again, that was another campaign promise, Christopher Luxon said they would try and get cross-party support for the big infrastructure projects. 

Rob Campbell's written a piece in the Herald saying that's very well and good if you share the same vision, but if you believe firmly that the environment is the most important, that the Treaty must be upheld and the principles of the Treaty must be followed all the way through any decision making, then you're not going to have the same vision as somebody who says, get that road and just plough through the graveyards, and plough through the tapu sites and off we go. So it's going to be difficult when you have people who with competing ideologies to come to a consensus. 

I don't think it should be that hard. If you have got, and we've seen the feeder groups that that will assess infrastructure projects, so we've got the infrastructure reference group and then onwards and upwards, we've got groups that will sift through all the infrastructure projects they prioritise them - present them to government... surely if you allow Labour say, as the biggest opposition party, to have some representatives on the Infrastructure Reference Group, you leave it to an independent panel to say this is the most important - we need to get cracking on this one first. Otherwise, you do get the voice who shrieks loudest will get the most money. We don't want pork barrel politics where you buy votes by getting infrastructure projects put into your electorate. We don't want that. We want massive infrastructure projects that are going to take years to build to be assessed in order of importance and for them to be started not today, but yesterday. And for them not to fall victim to the three-year parliamentary cycle. It's too expensive and too important. 

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You could hear yesterday the sadness and the contempt and the disbelief in Inspector Tony Wakelin’s voice: 

“Look, can I just say I thought that was disgusting. It really was. I mean, I saw some of the footage, it was filmed before emergency services arrived. There were close-ups of people deceased in the van and injured lying on the road. As I say, I thought it was horrible. As I said, a lot of my colleagues, that's not acceptable. You know, we should not be doing that, and I say to the people that are filming that, how would you feel if that was your family?” 

Inspector Wakelin is the Counties Manukau Road Policing Manager, and he was speaking yesterday after the horrific, horrific road accident that saw three Samoan workers killed and three of their mates injured as they were all heading to the airport to return to their homes after a season of work. 

I spoke yesterday about the courage and the selflessness of those first people on the scene whose first instinct was to go and help do what they could to offer succour and comfort to the injured and the dying, and how brave they were. That was their first instinct, how can I help? What can I do? I cannot begin to comprehend how other people's first instinct was to invade the privacy and degrade the dignity of the wounded and the dying and take out their mobile phones and film them. And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, to upload the images to social media. A deliberate act, long past the time when shock or adrenaline might have caused you to do something foolish. You take out your phone, you start filming, you don't know what's happening, but then later you do. You look at those images and you know what's on them and you upload them to a social media site. 

How have people become so desensitised? I don't watch a lot of this sort of stuff.  I don't have a TikTok account. On YouTube, I don't seek out tragic road accidents, people dying - that is not something I do, so I don't know how you would find this stuff. But clearly people are watching it and have they become so desensitised by the violence and by the violent pornography that they see on social media that they think somehow this is normal. This gross invasion of privacy, this complete and utter lack of empathy, this disregard for humanity is okay. 

How do you get to that point? How do you even teach people basic human decency when their first instinct is not to help, but to film the dying for TikTok?  I assume they get no financial gain from this. They're filming for what, their own viewing pleasure?  So other people can see it? To what point?  I think that's the problem with everyone thinking they can be citizen journalists these days and with social media platforms acting as media outlets, there are simply no boundaries. No rules. No code of conduct or ethics. Even if you didn't grow up with them, when you trained as a journalist you were inculcated with what was expected of you. And I know there are many, many, many problems with mainstream media today, many, I totally accept that, and mainstream media are paying for the mistakes they're making with declining audiences and declining revenues. But no journalist I know would ever have filmed that crash scene. Ever. And our online editors that we have here would never have put that footage online, even if they'd been instructed to, which I can't imagine in a million years. I know for a fact that the young people I worked with would have said no, there's no way we're putting that up. Even if a mistake had made and it had been posted and people had quite rightly complained, we would have been censured and punished as a media organisation. 

There are no such boundaries, rules, censure for the social media platforms. How have people become so desensitised, so lacking in empathy that they can think that this is okay? Does it begin with the stupid pranky, slapping the wall with your hand and then comforting a baby so it thinks it's been hurt. I mean, what? How do people think that's amusing? Do we get desensitised because we hear of so many horrific stories of children and babies and other humans being so violently abused in this country that we think somehow, it's just par for the course. I'll just film it. I cannot understand it. I would love any insight you may have. For the record, I don't watch any disasters overseas. If I see that there's a disaster I don't look. When they say warning, distressing content. I don't go in there. And I'm sorry I'm going to judge if you find watching people dying entertaining, there's something really wrong with you. 

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The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission's released a report showing how funding from the 2019 Wellbeing Budget has been spent. 

It shows 92% of the $1.9 billion has been spent or committed. 

There's around $163 million that is unspent, and almost $62 million was set aside for capital works. 

Chief Executive Karen Orsborn says they know there's a high degree of public interest in the funding, so they wanted to make that information available. 

She says 57% —1.1-billion— went to health, and $800 million went to other government agencies. 

Orsborn told Kerre Woodham that they’ve heard from people who have been using the services, as well as those in the sector, that the money has made a real difference. 

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Yesterday the Prime Minister announced what we all know to be true, that we have an energy security crisis. 

We seem to have been having them for a while now, every winter there are concerns about brownouts. The Electricity Authority put it into plain English on their website - winter sees the highest demand for electricity, obviously, also when it's unseasonably cold in autumn or spring, that can cause high demand periods. The winter peak capacity reflects the ability of the electricity system to meet high winter demand. So typically, solar doesn't produce electricity during peak demand periods in winter because it's dark. Wind generation, which is 10% of New Zealand's electricity generation capacity and growing, isn't reliable because, who knew, but cool temperatures bring low wind speeds. So solar is out, wind generation is out during winter. 

That leaves hydro, geothermal, and thermal generation to provide the bulk of electricity during high demand periods. Geothermal already runs at near full capacity, so only thermal and hydro can ramp up and down to meet the winter peaks. But when you have a perfect storm, as the Prime Minister called it yesterday, winter peak capacity and a dry year, when low rainfall sees the hydro lake levels fall below average for an extended period of time, hydropower can't ramp up. There's no water there, they can’t push the turbines. 

So then we have to burn coal. Coal use soared in 2021 to the highest in about 30 odd years. Then coal use plummeted in 2022, reflecting the vagaries of the weather and the fact that some more renewables were coming online. But while solar and wind can store some excess energy using batteries, that's limited to only a few hours' worth of electricity, and isn't enough to manage a situation where rainfall is below average for weeks to months. So there are all sorts of solutions being explored to try and make up for those dry years during winter. 

I mean it makes perfect sense, doesn't it? We've known about this for a very, very long time. We are dependent on rainfall during winter, we use more electricity during winter. If there is a dry year, we have to get the energy from somewhere, and right now our choices are coal, coal, and coal. So we are exploring the renewables, but why are we still exploring them when we've known for a very, very long time that people are concerned about climate change, that the world is moving to renewables. Why are we still exploring them? 

Chris Luxon says while we're exploring the renewables, we need to reverse the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration and take urgent steps to bring liquefied natural gas into the country to offset the energy shortages because our exporters need certainty, they need to know that the factories will keep running so they can sell our products, so we can make some money. Forgive me if this is all very 101 but this is what we need to know: we need to know that when we turn on the switch at the factory, the power will come on. And if we're concerned about burning coal, we need to have something to replace it. And we don't have anything secure yet, so the Prime Minister has said let's bring in liquefied natural gas, which other countries use to sort of level out electricity supply. So he's also looking at the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration being reversed. That's been in place since Labour came to power in 2018 outside of onshore Taranaki. 

The opposition parties, in a shocking revelation, are dead against the importation of liquefied natural gas, seeing it as just another fossil fuel. But we need certainty and security so what's their solution? There are a number of questions though. We may be open for exploration but would oil and gas companies want to come here? Especially if Labour goes ‘no, dead against it, we're not having a bar of it, fossil fuels are dead and gone’. So why would you come here, given the electoral cycle? Also, in 2012, Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company that came here to do a little bit of a looksie to see if they could make money out of exploiting oil and gas here, they pulled out. They got the license and the permit in 2010, they pulled out in 2012 because they said there weren't enough indicators for them to continue. All very well to reverse the ban, but would people come here? 

And on the renewables, when you have the four big generation and retail power companies recording their largest single year rise in earnings this year, what's that all about? If we are the majority shareholders, which we are, and we are in the middle of an energy security crisis, then why can't we push them into spending more of their money, more of their profits, into the renewables? Fast track it, get them cracking.   

This was along the lines of what Mike Hosking asked Christopher Luxon, the Prime Minister, when he was on this morning. 

“You know we’ll keep an eye on the level of profitability, but they also need confidence to invest because we want them, and I know they will, to spend huge amounts of capital on actually, you know, doubling that renewable electricity in geothermal, and wind, and solar, and all the stuff that needs to happen. So as I said, it is about making sure that we're giving people confidence, and that's what the announcement was about yesterday, was to say to many of those international investors who want to do the offshore engineering solution for LNG implementation, who want to do exploration for gas, who actually want to know that can go. A huge number of the projects that Chris Bishop’s looking at on the Fast Track Approvals are people want to do renewable projects, but actually, the consenting times insane. It's absolutely insane. So let's just change the rules, make it a year, extend the consents, all that good stuff.” 

 As a majority shareholder, and I know normally you wouldn't interfere in the running of a company, no, put those billions collectively of dollars of profits into renewables right now, and we'll make it easier as the government to fast track those projects you want in place. Chris Hipkins says there is already consented renewable electricity that could be built right now but these big gentailers are choosing not to build them because it's in their commercial interest to keep energy scarce and maximize profits, which would be economic sabotage if that is true. And you'd have to take that, anything I suppose, a politician says with a grain of salt, but if they are already consented, why aren't they being now? 

I have more questions than I have answers for you, so I am looking to you for the answers, those of you who know more than I! We know we have an energy security crisis. Chris Hipkins says that there are consents in place. We could get cracking if the gentailers want to. They have made squillions, so it's not like they're wondering where their next buck is coming from. They've made millions from us, we're the ones paying the price every single time for decisions made by these big companies and by governments. So get cracking with the renewables, government, do your work by fast tracking these already consented projects. They need to start. The gentailers need to start on those. Any that are still waiting for consents, we fast track them. Oil and gas exploration? Sure. reverse the ban, but is anybody interested in coming here? 

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It was interesting seeing the Governments backed down on the Fast-track Approvals Bill.

And that's the thing about being in government, isn't it? Well, really any position of authority. You will be criticized whatever you do. It's a truism that you cannot please all of the people all of the time, you just simply can't. So when the government announced it would introduce the Fast-track Approvals Bill that would give final sign off on infrastructure projects to just three ministers, without the usual consent process, there was squawking. Much squawking, far too much power invested in the hands of just three ministers. Some of it was genuine. Some of it came from people like the Auditor General, who were a little bit concerned and I've got a big crush on the Auditor General after his searing analysis of where the money went under the previous administration, so if he's got concerns, so have I. But there was also just political squawking from the usual suspects. But it was a lot of power invested in the hands of just three men. And as the AUT’s professor in the School of Future Environments John Tookey told Mike Hosking on the Mike Hosking Breakfast, had they gone ahead, it would have used up a lot of the Government's goodwill...   

"I suspected it was going to be an excessive investment in political capital that they might back away from, and sure enough that happened."

Exactly. So the Governments backtracked a little. The final decisions will be made by expert panels, which of course the government will stack with their own people, but they are also required to include environmental experts.

Now naturally, by pulling back a bit, there are concerns from those who are looking forward to absolutely getting cracking that now the process will not see any kind of improvement or speeding up. But, as Chris Bishop said, one of the troika of incredibly powerful ministers, there was a real risk that had they gone ahead, the ministers would have been likely to face legal challenges and judicial review proceedings.

That was far more likely to happen than if the decisions were made by expert panels and that is very, very true. There would have been those who were genuinely concerned about a political/particular project, others who are more like vexatious litigants, who would just oppose every development on purely political grounds and to get up the schnoz of the government to put grit into the bureaucratic process to slow it down still further. But there was also a nod to those who don't trust ministers of any hue, having that much power.

And I have to say, I was a little bit nervous about three ministers having that much power, having seen what happens when you are given a pot of gold, as happened with New Zealand First and where they spent that money

. Some of it according to you, was money well spent on really good projects. Others looked like, you scratch my back,I'll scratch yours. So there was a little bit of concern about three ministers having that much power. What's actually changed? Well, Ministers will still get the say over which projects will be put forward to be considered by the expert panel. Chris Bishop, it's true, will no longer have the final sign off. But as Claire Trevett says in the New Zealand Herald, if he doesn't like a project, it won't go anywhere, he's the gatekeeper.

So I guess if you are involved in trying to make things happen, to get things done, does this give you any concern, any pause for thought whatsoever?  As Claire Trevett says, if a project doesn't look suitable, it's not going to go anywhere. As Chris Bishop said had the three ministers stayed solely responsible for the decision making, you bet your bippy there would have been lawsuits up the ying yang and judicial reviews and time wasting, and in the end more time and more money would have been spent fighting the dissenters. And do we trust ministers to have that level of power. Not entirely sure yet, it sets a precedent.   

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Well, that was a bit of a shock wasn’t it.

It seems everyone was a bit taken aback to hear that assistant coach Leon MacDonald would be leaving the All Black’s group.

Less that 24 hours out from the All Blacks heading to South Africa for two Rugby Championship tests, New Zealand rugby confirmed MacDonald would not continue in the role.

Fronting the media, head coach Scott Razor Robertson outlined the reasons why the decision has been made.

He said there were differences around the philosophy on rugby, and how it's played, and they didn’t quite click in different aspects.

Razor added the went through a process, and got to this point, and they believed that Macdonald stepping away was the best thing for the All Black group.

Sounds pretty straight forward right – and refreshing to hear what sounds like a legitimate reason rather than a manufactured one. It just didn’t work.

People have been surprised by MacDonalds departure because they two have known each other for around 27 years. They have played and worked together before, but that doesn't necessarily mean it’s going to be plain sailing – especially when you step up into the biggest, most intense job in New Zealand rugby.

John Kirwan had this to say about the decision on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning ....
Incredible courage, I believe, on behalf of both of them if it's not working out, because the status quo would be probably stay there, finish the season. But you know for them to move on this quickly, I think it's the best thing for the team.

He’s right. Macdonald is a very good coach, one we will probably lose to an overseas team now – but it takes courage to acknowledge if a situation isn’t working, and integrity to the right thing for yourself and the team.

Of course we’re still keen to try and distil down what has happened here. The simple reason why this relationship hasn’t worked might just come down to the fact there are too many cooks in the kitchen. Do the All Blacks need 6 coaches? Graham Henry and Steven Hansen were able to run the All blacks successfully on 3 coaches.

There had been rumours that players were dealing with too many voices – this simplifies that somewhat.

Another suggestion is that it’s an adjustment to go from Head Coach to assistant coach. Coaches end up tripping over each other, there are mixed messages, or a coach is left feeling maligned.
But regardless of the intricacies of why they have come to this decision – it's hard not to be impressed by it. Good on them for not letting it fester. Good on them for being open and honest about the fact it didn’t work. It sounds like the two have departed on decent terms, and now it’s time to move on.

Will it have an impact on the All Blacks? I doubt it. They have dealt with much more difficult HR issues in the past, and I imagine they will be fully focused on facing South Africa.

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Yesterday the Prime Minister spoke at the Local Government NZ (LGNZ) conference, warning councils to restrain their spending to the basics or run the risk of having your hand forced by central government.   

Apparently, the remarks got a frosty reception – possibly because no one likes being told off and possibly because since Covid all some councils have been doing is going through their budgets line by line.   

Local Government Minister Simeon Brown backed up the Prime Ministers thoughts on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning.   

“The reality is, with an average 15% rate increase, our expectation is that councils get on with the work just like Government has had to do, go line by line, cut the waste, focus on the basics and ensure that they can pass those cost savings on to ratepayers at this cost of living crisis time. So, you know we're doing our part. We've also put in place Local Water Done Well, which gives councils far greater access financing for water infrastructure, that means they should be able to do that and reduce the cost burden on ratepayers.” 

Simeon Brown also said yesterday:“Council rates are increasing by around 15 per cent on average this year, which is more than four times the rate of inflation. This is unacceptable and councils must ensure they are doing everything they can to reduce pressure on ratepayers.”   

As difficult as it was to hear for some councils, it’s hard to argue with the sentiment, right?  Regardless of whether we’re tightening our belts after a global pandemic or not, we expect our councils to always be making sensible funding decisions. To focus on core council activities and maintain assets for the future.   

This week we also saw the released of a report into Local Government performance, that warned councils were not replacing ageing infrastructure to the extent they should be.  

Different councils around the country have different issues – but they have potential hefty rate rises in common and a need for central government to help fund infrastructure.   

If yesterday’s speech was anything to go by, then the time for handouts is over. Councils are about to negotiate their city deals with central government to line up funding, and this speech is a clear warning to some councils you might have to adjust your spending and your wish list.   

In regard to handing out cold hard cash to help councils, the Prime Minister made it very clear that the previous government might have taken that approach, but the party is over.   

Simeon Brown, inspired by the New South Wales model, has also floated the idea of putting in place a regulator, which regulates what price increases can be put on for non-core programmes that councils do. The aim of this is to maintain cost controls for councils, something which he believes we’re not currently seeing. Is this necessary? It feels a little too controlling – but you might feel your local council needs another layer of control.   

So, for cental government it’s all about rubbish, roads and water – and price caps.   

As a rate payer, this all sounds good – but we all have different ideas of what should be a core function of a council. Are libraries and sports fields and parks as important as rubbish, roads and water?  

What do you want to see your council spend money on? What are the priorities for you and what would you like dropped? 

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I’m not a perfect parent. I’ve learnt a lot on the job, but one thing I got right was making the call that I was not the right person to teach our children to drive – for both my sake, my children’s sake, and other drivers' sake.   

It’s got nothing to do with my driving ability.  It's to do with temperament and patience and bravery – all characteristics my partner and their father excels in.   

When your child gains their licence, you feel two conflicting emotions at once. Excitement over the fact your days as an Uber driver are coming to an end – even if your children had been good at getting around on buses, once they have their restricted license it does make life easier when they can drive themselves to an appointment, or pop to the supermarket to grab you a few things.   

The other emotion is utter terror that your child is being unleashed on the roads. Are they ready? Will they cope with multi lanes and peak hour traffic? Will they stay off their phones?   

And most importantly: do they realise they are not as good a driver as they think they are? Passing a test does not make you an expert – knowledge, time and experience are needed to work towards this. And even then, we’re not all experts!   

As a parent I know the stats: 18–24-year-olds have the highest rate of road deaths in New Zealand.   

They are nearly three times as likely to die in road crashes as 18–24-year-olds in Australia.   

And this terrifies me.   

The AA Research Foundation released some interesting research today.   

They have examined driver licence systems in different countries and have highlighted key differences with New Zealand. It identifies measures with beneficial outcomes for novice drivers that could strengthen New Zealand’s licensing system.  

There are 5 areas they would like the government to consider as they establish priorities for the next three years in its Road Safety Objectives Document due out later in the year.   

They suggest we should: 

1. Extend learner periodfrom 6 months to 12 months to give novice drivers more time to accumulate supervised driving experience and develop safer practices  

2. Mandatory supervised driving hours.Most Aussie and US states require 50-20 hours (including night hours) to be logged. A past Swedish study showed novice drivers with 120 hours of supervised driving experience were involved in 35% fewer crashes than those with 40-50 hours.    

3. Sit a Hazard Perception Testto enhance young drivers' abilities to anticipate and react to potential hazards. The tests are undertaken in a safe environment such as a simulator or using video clips.  

4. Zero blood alcohol concentration(BAC) limit until their full license. Currently this is only for those under the age of 20. 

5. And finally, tougher penalties for traffic offenses.The idea here would be that novice drivers start off with a lower threshold for demerit points, and any offences stay on their record for a longer time. The aim is this would serve as a deterrent against risky behaviours.  

While it has made life easier for us for our son to get his learners licence at 16 and his restricted 6 months later – all I want is for my kid to get home safely. If we can reduce these statistics by making changes to the licencing system, give young drivers the opportunity to gain more experience and knowledge, then why wouldn’t you?  

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The learners licensing system is under the spotlight, with calls for New Zealand to adopt Australia's stricter approach.

It comes after figures show young kiwis are responsible for a disproportionate number of road deaths. 

The AA wants to double the learners licence period, implement supervised driving hours, and have tougher penalties for young drivers. 

Road Safety Campaigner Greg Murphy told Francesca Rudkin that this is nothing new. 

He said that we’ve been accepting these statistics for decades and have done very little to move the needle. 

Murphy said that a lot of drivers aren’t prepared, and we can do much, much better and save a lot more lives through better preparedness. 

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