Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

If you’ve got solar panels on the roof, you’ll be loving the blue skies. 

And a solar energy advocate is saying today that those of us who don’t should be getting financial support from the Government. 

Mike Casey says New Zealand is one of the few western countries that doesn’t provide subsidies for solar energy. He says, in Australia, people can get subsidies to convert to solar and - guess what - more of them have. Way more.  

I think this is brilliant thinking - but not necessarily a brilliant idea. Because, if we could do all that magic wand stuff - which we can’t - but if we could, I’d say yep - Government subsidies for anyone and everyone. 

But there’s no magic wand and so we can’t. So I reckon there should be Government support to get solar into all new builds. 

I was talking to someone who, as they put it, went down the solar panel rabbit hole - in that they looked into it. But they just came to the same conclusion that I think most of us have - and still do - and that’s that the numbers just don’t stack up.

You can spend the money getting the panels on the roof, but it’ll take you years before the savings in electricity costs justify the spend. 

But getting more and more people onto solar energy is a much more realistic way for the Government - and I’m not just talking about the current Government, but all Governments - it’s a much more realistic way of trying to get those power costs down. 

Because what other options are there? The Government of the day can thump the table and tell the power companies to stop ripping us off. 

But that’s rarely worked with the supermarkets. So as if thumping the table is going to work with the power companies. 

The other option up the Government’s sleeve is restructuring the electricity market. But when do you think we’re going to see that happen? 

I was reading a history of New Zealand’s electricity reforms back in the 80s and 90s and it took about four years for those reforms to happen. So any changes the Government wants to make to the current electricity market is going to take a fair amount of time, isn’t it? 

So, if it wants to, the Government can do that. But I think it needs to be looking for some quick-wins at the same time. And subsidised solar conversion would be a quick win. Because, like anything in life, if you focus on the things you can actually influence - then that’s when you start to make progress. 

And providing taxpayer support to get solar power happening more widely, then that would be something the Government could make happen as soon as it wanted to. 

There are about two million occupied homes in New Zealand and around 60,000 of them have solar panels.  

It took New Zealand more than seven years to get 30,000 houses with solar. The other 30,000 took three years. And so now we’ve got 60,000. Which is about 3 percent of houses connected to the national grid. 

Compare that to Australia, which heavily subsidised solar, simplified the installation process, and invested in workforce training for installers and the general figure is about 35 percent (compared to our 3 percent). 

In many neighbourhoods in Australia, though, 50 percent of houses have solar panels. In some, as many as 80 percent. Thanks to government subsidies. 

Which our Government could bring in today, if it wanted to.  

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You'll have your own way of describing this crazy situation where we’ve got KiwiRail telling the Christchurch City Council that it has to close a 1.5 kilometre stretch of cycleway for two years, because the cycleway needs some safety improvements.

KiwiRail reckons the Heathcote Express cycleway, which is near a railway crossing, is so dangerous that a death or serious injury could happen there once every 1,000 years. Yep, once every 1,000 years.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that any death or injury —no matter how infrequent— is acceptable in any way. And KiwiRail says the section of railway that the cycleway crosses is the busiest section of the South Island rail network, with about 35 trains using it each day.

The cycleway opened less than a year ago and the locals seem to love it. 

In fact, some local school kids turned up at the city council this week to tell councillors how important it is and how worried they are about this section of the cycleway being closed for two years while the safety upgrades are made to the railway crossing.

Here’s an idea of why they’re so worried about not being able to use the cycleway for two years and being forced onto a road busy with trucks going to and from the port at Lyttelton.

“We would need to bike on the highway. Port Hills Road is 60km. Lots of trucks, underpasses, and it’s scary and dodgy. It’s very dangerous crossing the Lyttleton offramp.”

And you’ve got to say, the possibility of something bad happening once every 1,000 years surely has to put it at the lower end of things. And certainly not a priority.

And this is the key thing here. I certainly don’t think it’s worth forcing cyclists off a safe cycleway for two years and onto a stretch of road that these school kids and other people who use the cycleway everyday say is a way more dangerous way for them to get to school and work.

Now I’m not saying get rid of health and safety, because that old Kiwi “she’ll be right approach” is not something I’m in favour of. 

But surely this type of crazy directive from KiwiRail shows how all the brilliant changes that have been made to keep people safer can be tarnished by another consequence of the health and safety laws.

Whether it’s an unintended consequence, who knows, but the layperson’s term for this consequence is “backside covering”.

That's all KiwiRail is doing here, because it knows that, whenever this once in 1,000 years death or injury might happen, it will be in the firing line. That’s the only conclusion you can come to.

But that’s what health and safety has become. Backside covering.

The other thing about this too is the safety upgrade being forced by KiwiRail is going to cost ratepayers $6.5 million.

I remember the last time I was in a managerial job, and I had to make my team go to a health and safety briefing. And the so-called expert started banging on about a “cable strategy”.

And I couldn’t help myself - because the old BS detector was going off left, right and centre. So I put my hand up and asked what this “cable strategy” was that they were going on about.

Turns out it was a documented plan on how to handle things like computer cables and other cords, so that they didn’t create a risk of people falling over.

That was the point when I realised that health and safety was becoming an industry.

And that’s how I’m feeling about KiwiRail’s plan to force the Christchurch City Council this 1.5 kilometre section of the Heathcote Express cycleway for two years.

It's also another example of how health and safety is out of control in this country.

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Today on Politics Friday, John MacDonald was joined by National’s Vanessa Weenink and Labour’s Reuben Davidson to dig into some of the biggest political stories of the week. 

Christchurch City Council is pushing back against the closure of a cycleway at Heathcote, KiwiRail ordering upgrades due to a one in one-thousand-year risk. Is this really acceptable?  

Is New Zealand capable of having an open and calm conversation about the Treaty Principles Bill?  

Why does it seem as though only the “well off” students are making it into medical school? 

And this week’s US Election saw Donald Trump election President – how will these next four years play out? 

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I think I’m going to trust my gut instinct more often.  

Because yesterday, I didn’t like the idea of it, but my gut was telling me that Donald Trump was going to win the presidential election.  

And because I’m going to listen to my gut instinct more often, today I’m going to tell you that —even if we don't like it— we need to calm the farm a bit with all the hyperbole being thrown around.   

Because even though things are a little bit different this time around, did the world fall apart last time Trump was president? It didn’t.  

He’s another one of those people who you know is just making stuff up —and you know they’re a nasty piece of work— but somehow people fall for them. And enough people have fallen for Donald Trump. Again.    

But even though I felt he was going to take it out, I was still blown away with how the numbers looked from the start.  

Because you know what it’s like with elections and how the early stages of counting can skew things quite a bit – which is what I was thinking when I kept refreshing the screen on the phone following the results yesterday afternoon.  

But those Electoral College numbers just kept piling up for Trump. But, unlike last time he won, I wasn’t in the least bit surprised.  

There are some aspects that did surprise me. Example: the move in support from black voters —especially African American men— from Democrat to Republican.  

But even then, that shouldn’t really be a surprise when you consider how Trump campaigned. Where he just kept asking voters the rhetorical question: are you better off now than you were four years ago?   

And that’s a question that’s relevant to anyone from any cultural background. And it seems, for enough of them, the answer to that question was “no”. No, we’re not better off.  

And that, it seems, is what it came down to for the Americans who not only voted Trump back in as president but who also put the Republicans in charge of the Senate.   

Which is bringing some dire warnings today. Which I think would be very easy for me —or for anyone— to jump on board with. Because I think for a lot of people their default position is anti-Trump. Even though I think he’s a horrible person, I’m not going to switch to default.  

When I watched him making his big victory speech, I did wonder how many of his cronies who were on that stage with him will still be with him in four years time. There will be some casualties, we know that.  

And he made it very clear that America is going to be his first priority. In fact, he said that.  

But, on the basis that the world didn’t fall to bits last time he was president, I’m not buying into the hysteria. I could be proven wrong, but that’s my gut instinct.     

Unlike political commentator Matthew Hooton who is putting a very dire warning in the NZ Herald today, under the headline: “America entering most dangerous period since 1861”.  

He’s saying today: “The world enters its most dangerous period since World War II, with Trump threatening to abandon Ukraine, withdraw the US’s security in Europe which will encourage Russia’s Vladimir Putin to expand his ambitions westward, launch a global trade war and collapse the World Trade Organisation.”  

Matthew Hooton goes on to say: “Trump has also promised to jail his political opponents. He made similar threats in 2016 that he did not act upon, but back then his circle included at least some people who could be relied upon to keep his most extreme tendencies in check.  

“There are no such people around him this time. Nor is he constrained by the need to worry about re-election.  

“Barred from standing for re-election in 2028, the danger is he will seek to hold on to power by other means.”  

And Matthew Hooton concludes by saying: “The US enters its most dangerous period since 1861, the start of the Civil War.”  

I’m not buying into that. What about you?  

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The legendary Miriam Margolyes is back in Christchurch, joining John MacDonald in studio for a chat. 

She’s one of a few famous names taking part in the Isaac Theatre Royal Variety Gala show next week, popping into the city early to don a habit and play a nun in ‘Holy Days’. 

Margolyes discussed all that was on her mind, her career, the importance of reading books, and how much it means to be back in the garden city.  

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Historic. Knife edge. Too close to call. That’s what they’re all saying about today’s presidential election in the States.

What you never see though, splashed across the screens on CNN and Sky News and BBC, is “gut instinct”.

My gut tells me that it’s going to be Donald Trump. And, this is the great thing about gut instinct, it doesn't really matter whether you’re wrong or right - it’s just how you feel about something.

And I’ve got this feeling that Trump is going to take it out.

And the reason I feel that way can be summed-up in one word: change.

When it comes to elections, people love change. The media loves change. But voters, especially, love change.

And you’ve got to give Trump credit for doing something Kamala Harris hasn’t done - and that is to do a much better job of selling the idea of change. Trump still represents change. Just like he did back in 2016. He still does now.

I think no one would disagree that Joe Biden stepping aside and letting Kamala Harris run for president was a no-brainer, it just took Joe a while to come ‘round to the idea.

But that is where the change started and stopped for the Democrats. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

From a distance —and this is the danger when you judge politicians from a distance— but, from where I sit, Harris wins hands down.

But I don’t think she deserves to be the next president. And I am confident that enough Americans will feel the same way and that’s why I think enough of them will give their vote to Donald Trump and he will be the next president.

When she did that first TV debate after she took over as the Democrats candidate from Joe Biden, I watched that and thought she had it in the bag.

When Trump came up with all that nonsense about immigrants eating people’s dogs and cats, I thought she handled all that beautifully. And I thought he had blown it – not just with the dogs and cats stuff but all the rambling.

And the rambling hasn’t stopped, of course. The stuff that comes out of his mouth is nonsense half the time - if not most of the time. But, if there’s one thing going for Trump —certainly in the eyes of American voters— it’s that he oozes change.

You know he’s going to shake things up. You know he’s going to say what he really thinks. You know that he’s all talk about loving Puerto Ricans and all that nonsense about protecting women and making America great again.

It’s all nonsense. It’s all awful. But compare that to Kamala Harris —and put it through the filter of voters loving change— and he wins hands down.

Ever since that TV debate —where she was the obvious stand-out— I’ve found her talk of change hollow, to say the least.

As someone said to me last night when she was on the TV news saying it’s time for change and time to do things differently and it’s time to end the division - someone else who was watching said to me ‘hasn’t she been part of this so-called problem over the past 10 years?’

And, for me, it’s got to the point where I think the majority of American voters will be thinking the same thing.

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Labour is lamenting the Treaty Principles Bill even seeing the light of day.  

David Seymour's controversial bill will be introduced in Parliament tomorrow.  

Labour Leader Chris Hipkins says if implemented it would throw away years of legal precedent.  

He told John MacDonald that National allowing the bill to get this far is irresponsible.  

Hipkins says Labour wouldn't introduce anything it wasn't interested in taking further.  

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The plan to give “use of force” powers to the people running the Government’s new boot camps for young criminals is getting a bit of attention today. Or military academies as the Prime Minister was calling them this morning.

The Children’s Minister has got this idea that, if you’re involved in running a boot camp, you should have the same powers as the police and you should be allowed to use force.

The Prime Minister, though, doesn't seem to be so keen.

He’s going to stand up next week and issue a formal apology for the abuse that happened to kids in care in New Zealand over the years and he knows that giving “use of force” powers to the boot camp people could see history repeat itself.

Which raises the philosophical discussion about what these camps or academies are all about.

Or what they’re going to be about once the appropriate legislation has been passed that enables them to be set up and run as the Government wants them to run.

Because, as you’ll know, there’s a boot camp trial up and running and the Prime Minister’s been there and seems to have been impressed by what he saw.

He was talking this morning about kids helping out with landscaping and concreting work, and being busy learning about job interviews and writing CVs.

But remember that, because the relevant legislation hasn’t been passed yet, no one can be sent there or forced to go there yet. At the moment, it’s just kids who have volunteered who are doing the programme.

So, if they’ve put their hand up to be sent there, chances are they’re going to be the kids who will impress the Prime Minister because, if they want to be there, they obviously want to do something different with their lives. So, of course, they’re going to be motivated to help with stuff and want to find out what it takes to get a job.

It’s going to be a completely different story when you get kids being sent there by the courts.

And it’s at that point that the Children’s Minister wants people there who, effectively, will have the same powers as the Police and who will be able to use force to keep these kids under control.  

But I can see why the Prime Minister’s a bit antsy about that. Because the last thing he wants to do is to give the green light for something that could lead to more abuse.

But if you can’t use force at a boot camp, then how does that make it any different to the facilities we already have for young criminals?

These are the youth justice facilities that Oranga Tamariki currently runs. OT is also running the boot camps. But if the boot camps aren’t any different than what we have at the moment —in terms of discipline— then why would you bother with them?

I don’t know if the Prime Minister has been to a youth justice facility, but I have. These are the places our worst young criminals currently go to and the one I went to was pretty much like a prison. A god awful, depressing place.

But they don't work. Yes, they keep these kids locked up, but I seem to recall that the re-offending rate is about 75%. That’s what makes them so depressing. Because for a lot of these kids, they do their time in youth justice and then graduate to adult prisons.

Which is why the Government wants the boot camps.

The question is: how tough should these places be? And what powers should the people running them have?

For example: I’ve got no problem with force being used if someone is endangering themselves or endangering others.

But should they be allowed to use force if one of these kids is refusing to get out of bed?

Because, while I think “use of force” probably sounds exactly like the thing you’d expect at a boot camp for bad kids, I think it could be another abuse in care disaster waiting to happen.

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From today, the police don’t intend to respond to every mental health callout. But I don’t think we’re going to see any major difference. I’ll tell you why shortly,. And it’s based on an experience I had on Friday night.

So if you’re worried about the police saying “not our department” if you call up, as of today, about someone having a mental health issue - don’t panic.

But you know the background to this and what’s led to today’s change with the threshold for transporting mental health patients increasing; there’ll be fewer visits to mental health clinics; and police handovers to mental health staff will be shorter than what they have been.

So 11 percent. That’s a key stat. Before today, 11 percent of police work involved mental health call-outs. And, as Chris Cahill from the Police Association was saying on Newstalk ZB today, whenever the cops are called-out to one of these jobs - it can keep them away from doing other police work for hours.

He says, on average, a mental health callout keeps police tied-up for three hours - sometimes as long as five or six hours.

So Chris Cahill is pleased about these changes coming into force today. One thing he isn’t happy about, though, is that it’s being forced by the police. As he said this morning, Health NZ hasn’t come to the party itself on this one.

He says police will still turn up if people are at-risk of harming themselves or harming someone else but, if nothing changes, police will still be swamped by mental health callouts and the health system needs to “step up” and look after these people.

The reason the police get so involved is that police officers are the only people who have the power to contain people and they can be invaluable in situations where someone is mentally distressed.

Chris Cahill, though, says the experience overseas where police have pulled back from mental health callouts, he says patients have ended up getting the treatment they need sooner.

Now I don’t know about that. Because I haven’t been able to find anything to support that online today.

And remember it is Chris Cahill’s job to represent police officers who are at the coalface when it comes to mental health callouts and who know full-well how these callouts impact their ability to deal with genuine criminal activity.

Because that’s been the argument the police have made all along. That, just because someone is in a state of mental despair, it doesn’t mean they’re a criminal. Which makes perfect sense.

But, as we know, sometimes a person can be more inclined to commit criminal behaviour than they usually would because of their mental distress.

Which is why the police have, in recent years, become the default responders in situations like these.

That, if someone is a threat to either their own safety or someone else’s safety, then call the cops.

Which is the situation I found myself in on Friday. It was about 5:30pm and I was in the centre of town.

I saw this guy who looked like he was crossing the road one minute, then walking back onto the footpath, and going around in circles, then trying to cross the road again. And drivers were tooting at him and there were a couple of people watching him.

And I went up to them and said ‘is that guy ok?’. Now - one weird thing - was the number of people who seemed prepared just to watch what was going on. There were people standing on the balconies of their apartments looking down at the street. Another guy was closer to the action. And he was who I spoke to initially.

Then the guy himself - who was pretty dazed - came up towards me and I tried to have a word with him. But he wasn’t making much sense. He was wearing a bike helmet and I could see a bike nearby but he said he hadn’t fallen off. But he just wasn’t making much sense.

And he tried to walk off in the opposite direction of where his bike was. So a few young guys who were staying at the backpackers across the road and I got him to stop and have a sit down on the footpath. And I knew I had to call for help. And, at that point, I thought we were dealing potentially with someone who diabetic or something like that, so called St John’s.

I went through the rigmarole of describing what was going on and the ambo operator got me to ask the guy if he was on any medication. So I did, and he said something about “mental health” - but that was about it. So I passed that on and the operator said they’d logged the job and asked us to stay with this guy.

Not that long after that a cop car turned up. And, as soon as the cops got out, it was clear they knew what had been going on and they said that the ambo people were snowed under and they’d asked the police to deal with it.

So they had a chat with the guy, found some prescription stuff in his bag, they seemed to think that he hadn’t taken his meds and they put him in the back of the police car to take him to hospital to get checked out.

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I didn’t go to university and there’s a bit of a dad joke that I trot out about that now and again. I say that I’m a student of life, in no rush to graduate.  

So maybe I’m coming at this with a biased view of the world, but I agree with this academic at the University of Canterbury who is saying today that universities have just become factories that pump out people with degrees. And he wants them to become elite institutions again.  

What’s more, he’s saying that because universities are so focused on getting people in the door and giving them a qualification, it’s meant that there are people at university who shouldn’t be.  

And how does he know that? Or why does he think that?  

It’s because of the number of students at university that, he says, are illiterate. In fact, he reckons it’s got so bad that it’s reached “a crisis level”.  

Mike Grimshaw is his name. He’s an Associate Professor of Sociology at Canterbury. And, as well as saying today that universities need to get all elite on it again, he’s also pointing the finger at the education system. Primary schools, in particular.  

Which he says are failing to create what he calls a reading and writing culture because they have become more interested in technology than education.  

This is how he’s describing it today. He’s saying that schools, and society in general, have “swallowed the technological Kool Aid without actually valuing education.”  

So that’s where his finger is pointing.  

He says many students "appear to be functionally illiterate - going on the incoherence of their written work. Compulsory writing or critical thinking courses do not seem to help as they can pass these and still regularly submit incoherent work.”   

So I get what he’s saying about the school system failing kids so that, by the time they reach university, their reading and writing isn’t what it should be.  

But I’m also going to point the finger at employers, because the fact that people have to have a university degree just to get a foot in the door at a lot of outfits is something I’ve been hot on for a long time. I think it’s crazy.  

And it’s not just because I didn’t go to university, it’s not just because I learned how to be a journalist on the job at a local newspaper.  

It’s because a university degree doesn’t make someone better suited for a job.  

If someone’s a real nosey type, who won’t take “no” for an answer and who isn’t scared to knock on someone’s door to see if they want to talk, but doesn't have piece of paper from a university, they will be a way better journalist than someone who went to university, got a degree but is too scared to talk to people.  

I’m sure you can think of jobs or professions where natural inclination or natural skill way outshines the benefit of a university degree. But, for some reason, a lot of employers these days don’t want to know you if you haven’t got a qualification.  

When it comes to university, my view is that there should only be two reasons for someone to go. The first is if you absolutely have to because of the career you want - so that’s things like law, engineering, medicine.  

The other reason is if you really want to. And that’s probably the key bit here, because, if you really want to go to university, chances are you’re not going to be illiterate.  

Universities these days are full of people who don’t really want to be at university but they think they have to if they want to get a job, and they’ll be the ones who Mike Grimshaw at UC is talking about today.   

And that’s why employers have to take some of the blame here. Employers who know full well that someone could do the job for them just as well —with or without a university degree— but, for some reason, they’re only interested in talking to the people with the degree and the framed photo on the wall.   

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A beloved Kiwi writer and actor will be featuring in the upcoming Theatre Royal Variety Gala. 

Richard O’Brien, the mind behind The Rocky Horror Picture Show, will be taking the stage as they celebrate a decade since the theatre reopening after the Christchurch quakes.  

Richard joined John MacDonald for a chat about the Gala, his new production, and his journey since the creation of his iconic show. 

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Today on Politics Friday, John MacDonald was joined by National’s Vanessa Weenink and Labour’s Tracey McLellan for a chat about the latest political happenings. 

The agenda today had a bit of a health skew, as they discussed whether it might be time for a user-pays approach to health and if single-patient hospital rooms are the way of the future. 

And, who do they think will be the President of the United States this time next week – and who’s Tracey’s scarecrows American connection? 

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It’s Gumboot Friday tomorrow and the guy behind it, Mike King, seems to have put his foot in it. Although, I’m a little bit torn on this one.   

So what’s happened is we’ve got this charity fashion show being held in Dunedin to raise money for suicide prevention and mental health awareness. And, like most events, the organisers wanted to serve alcohol as part of the hospitality offering for guests.  

The police, though, weren’t too fussed about that and they opposed the application for a special alcohol licence. They did that because they don’t think it’s appropriate to serve grog at an event that is all about trying to raise awareness and reduce suicide rates, and the reason behind that is the growing evidence linking people drinking and taking their lives.  

So yesterday, Mike King tells Newstalk ZB that alcohol isn't a problem for people with mental illness. It is a lifejacket.  

Now here's where I'm torn.  

Mike King is a guy who not only works tirelessly to raise awareness of mental health issues and raise money —with things like Gumboot Friday— but he’s also someone who has been there and done that.   

Unlike some of the experts, he’s been there himself. And I know he’s right when he says that people turn to alcohol when they’re in mental distress, in fact, even people who you wouldn’t consider to be on the edge turn to alcohol.   

If you say you’ve had a bad day, people will invariably tell you to have a drink.  

So, of course, people turn to alcohol. But the scary bit is all this research coming through that shows how people can actually decide to take their own life – but only do it after they’ve been drinking.  

Whenever I read or hear about that it terrifies me, because we all know people can think they’re capable of all sorts of things once they’ve got a few drinks on board.  

So the link between alcohol and suicide makes perfect sense.  

Which is why we’ve got Otago University health professor Rose Crossin poo-pooing Mike King’s comments today. She says alcohol can give you temporary relief from your problems, but it can also be a depressant and it can make your problems seem worse. And I’m not going to argue with that, either.  

But I’m not going to crucify Mike King because I believe him when he says that alcohol is a lifejacket for people with mental illness. And if he thinks that alcohol does actually stop people taking their lives, then who am I to argue with him?  

But given he is the face of Gumboot Friday, a charity which, remember, received $24 million in government support this year. And given that a lot of people probably consider him to be the most credible mental health advocate in the country, should he have said what he said yesterday?  

My answer to that is “no”. He didn’t need to. We know he used alcohol and drugs to get him through. We know he knows what he’s on about.   

And even though I know full well that alcohol gets a lot of people through their personal nightmares - it didn’t need saying. So I think he was right and he was wrong.  

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If I say to you “30 kph speed limit area”, chances are you can think of one. I can think of one straight away - on the southern end of Colombo Street in Christchurch.

You’re cruising along at 50 kph and then —bang— it drops down to 30. No schools on that stretch of Colombo.

There’s a school on one of the side streets, but it goes down to 30 —and it’s permanent— and then it’s back up to 50 by the time you get up to Thorrington School. Where you would think there would be a 30 kph limit.

Someone was telling me this morning about another one like that on Gloucester Street between Linwood Ave and Woodham Road. Again – no schools, no kindys, but still 30 kph. All the time.

So there are two examples where I think the Government’s doing the right thing getting rid of these 24/7 30 kph zones. But I think it’s going too far, because I actually think there is a place for them.

And this is what’s covered in these guidelines for local councils, because it’s the local councils that are responsible for all the signage in their areas.

So the Government is going to ditch the permanent 30 kph zones but the speed limit around schools will be allowed to drop down to 30 kph, but only during morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up times, and I reckon that will be a complete waste of time and effort.

Not to mention money, either. Because if there isn’t already one of those flashing signs outside a school which can show different speed limits at different times, then one of those is going to have to be installed, as well.

But I don’t give two hoots about the money side of it.

What bothers me is the fact that if we have different speed limits outside schools at different times of the day, you know what’s going to happen, don’t you?

Drivers are just going to go 50 kph all the time. And why’s that? They’ll go 50 all the time because they are creatures of habit. We’re all creatures of habit.

And, if we’re told that we can drive 50 kph past a school pretty much 23-hours-a-day - then that’s what we’ll do during the 60 minutes when these 30 kph limits will supposedly be in place.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, that doesn’t stack up because most of the time when kids are arriving at school and leaving for the day, traffic is close to a standstill because of all the parents who insist they have to drive right up to the gate to pick up their kids.

And you might be right in some cases, but from what I see, that is for a very short window of time.

If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t need the kids out there in the mornings and the afternoons doing the lollipop patrols, would we?

But we do have them, because most drivers are bozos. I’m a bozo. You’re a bozo. I’ll put my hand up right now and admit that I’ve driven past school crossings sometimes in ways that, afterwards, I’ve felt terrible about.

And generally, it’s all about speed.

I was reading some comments by the head of the Board of Trustees at Linwood Ave School. She was saying that returning speed limits back to 50 kph is going to be a backwards step, and I agree with her.

I gather the speed limit outside Linwood Ave School went down to 30 kph earlier this year. She was saying it hasn’t necessarily slowed-down traffic, but she sees it as a start.

And that’s a key thing here too. It can take as long as seven years to change behaviours, which says to me that we need to give these permanent 30 kph speed limits outside schools more time to bed in.

Just because the traffic isn’t any slower today outside Linwood Ave School, for example, than it was before the permanent speed limit went down - that doesn’t mean it’s failed. That doesn’t mean it should be done away with. It just means we need to give it more time.

Because I bet you that if the Government stuck with it, we would see people driving slower around schools - eventually. And what would be wrong with that?

There'd be nothing wrong with that.

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When I heard that a campervan park is going to be up and running in central Christchurch, near Latimer Square —possibly in time for this summer— my first thought was that I’m glad I haven’t spent more than $500,000 buying an apartment around there.

Not even the developer’s reassurances that campervan people aren’t “yahoo types” made me feel any more excited about it.

In fact, I think it’s the last place we want to see something like this. And I’m pointing the finger squarely at the council for giving this development resource consent.

Because just after I saw at the weekend that the council has failed to achieve its target of having 20,000 people living in the central city by this year, it’s gone and given out consent for a campervan park.

It’s not as if people who have bought apartments in the city aren’t having enough trouble as it is, finding more and more of the apartments around them being hired out as Airbnb accommodation.

If someone’s moved into the centre of town on the sell-job that they’re going to be living in this community of people all wanting to embrace the downtown lifestyle - they’re going to be feeling somewhat short changed, aren't they?

Especially people living near Lattier Square who are finding out today that there’s going to be a campervan park next door or down the road.

So the gist is the Christchurch City Council has given consent for this park with space for up to 25 campervans on Gloucester Street – where the Stonehurst Hotel used to be. That came down after the earthquakes, there was also a hostel there and a small campground back in the day.

The thing is though, that was then, and this is now.

And since the earthquakes, there’s been this big effort to get more people living in the centre of town.

The council set itself the target of having 20,000 people living in the CBD by this year. We found out over the weekend that hasn’t happened, and it’s pushed out the deadline another four years to 2028.

In the meantime, it’s giving the green light for this thing - where people will be able to take their campervans and stay for up to four weeks.

My opposition to it is based on a couple of things.

The first one is gut instinct or gut reaction. I just don’t buy this idea that just because you drive a campervan, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to be a pain in the backside to someone at some point.

Just because you’re a member of the motorhome association, it’s not going to make you any less self-entitled when you cruise into town. And, despite what the developer behind this project is saying today, there is no guarantee that someone driving a campervan is going to give two hoots about the people living there.  

So that’s my gut instinct telling me it’s a bad idea.

The other reason I’m opposed to it is that it flies completely in the face of what the council’s supposed to be hellbent on achieving for Christchurch.

It wants people living in the centre of town. It wants people opening their eyes and realising that the quarter acre section isn’t the be-all and end-all, and that you can have a pretty decent life living in an apartment and making the most of what the central city has to offer.

And a campervan park is completely at odds with the vision it’s been trying to sell since the quakes.

Talk about left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

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“There for the grace of God goes I.” 

We generally say it when something bad and we know that it could just as easily happen to us, and anyone who is a parent should say that whenever they hear nightmare stories about kids being abused by their parents or caregivers.  

I say that not just as a by-stander looking on. I say that as someone with three kids —all grown up now— but someone who has raised three kids and I know just as well as the next parent how much that can drive you to despair at times.

Which is why it is so important to remember that it’s not just the no-hopers who end up with Oranga Tamariki knocking on the door.

The child welfare agency’s clientele runs the full range of society, including those so-called respectable middle-class and upper-class families.

And I’m willing to bet that the reason some of them are in strife with OT is that they just can't cope. Or, more to the point, don’t know how to cope.

And until we realise that just banging-on about OT being useless isn't the only route we should be going down, then nothing’s going to change.

I am not saying we shouldn’t be criticising OT when they get things wrong. Which is what the Chief Ombudsman is doing —again— after what he says was “a series of failures” which meant Oranga Tamariki didn’t do what it should’ve done when it received multiple complaints about pre-school and primary school-aged kids being abused by their mother’s partner.

Peter Boshier is slamming OT, saying it even had photographic evidence of abuse but didn’t do enough to ascertain what was going on and, as a result, left the kids in serious risk.

So it’s only right that the Ombudsman calls them out like this. But, even if OT turned itself into a gold-plated example of a child welfare agency, that still wouldn’t be enough.

Because I’m willing to bet that some of these people who end up being investigated by Oranga Tamariki —not all of them— but I bet some of them, only come to OT’s attention because they just don’t know how to cope. Especially when it comes to coping with a crying baby.

Which is what Dame Lesley Max, who runs the Great Potentials Foundation, is talking about when she says we should be teaching kids about parenthood when they're at school.

Of course, chances are your so-called “family values” people would be dead against teaching kids how to be parents at high school, you know: “Aww, that’ll just encourage them to go out and get pregnant.” All that nonsense.

But I agree with Dame Lesley, why aren’t we teaching kids how to do what is the most important job in the world?

Maths and science isn’t going to help you in the middle of the night, when you’ve got a baby that’s been crying all day and all night and you’re at the end of your tether.  

Geography isn’t going to help you then, nor are media studies, yet that’s what we do. And we wonder why most of us are nowhere near ready to be parents.  

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John MacDonald was joined by National’s Hamish Campbell and Labour’s Reuben Davidson for Politics Friday.  

On the agenda today was yet another case of Oranga Tamariki failing to act on information pertaining to child welfare – is it time to start parenting courses to help with the stress of raising children?  

A petition has launched, looking at banning the private sale and use of fireworks. Has their time in the publics' hands come and gone?

And the Government is considering performance-based pay for public sector bosses – does this idea have merit? 

LISTEN ABOVE 

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I feel really uncomfortable about the idea of public sector bosses getting performance pay.  

Not that the Government is going to care too much about that, because it’s confirmed that, from the middle of next year, that’s what’s going to be happening.  

It’s unclear to me at this stage whether it’s going to mean the heads of all our government departments are going to have some of their salaries earmarked in a category which is known in the HR game as “at-risk”. Which means some of your pay you’re not guaranteed to get unless you meet certain performance measures.  

The big-hitting chief executives in the private sector have these “at-risk” clauses. People like the head of ANZ, Antonia Watson, who fronted up to a parliamentary select committee yesterday and was asked how much she gets paid. And she told them it’s around $2 million a year.  

I’m more than happy for her and all her other private sector chief executive colleagues to be getting bonuses and extra pay for doing what’s required of them and doing it well, but I’m certainly not happy for the people in charge of social welfare, education, health —all of the essential public services— getting bonuses.  

And the reason for that is that public services can’t be pigeonholed like private operations can.  

If a private business is losing money on something, they can pull the pin. Easy. You can’t be so knee jerk when you’re running a public service.  

Because, generally, when a private business is losing money on something it’s because there’s less or no demand for what they provide. So you stop doing it.  

If you’re running the social welfare department, though, or health, you lose money hand over fist, but you can’t do much about it because —despite the fact you're chewing through the money— demand is always going to be through the roof.  

It’s the complete opposite of what happens in the private sector.  

The Government’s bringing back performance pay for public sector bosses after the former government got rid of it back in 2018.  

Chris Hipkins was the State Services Minister back then, and he got rid of the performance pay and bonuses because he wanted to put a bit of a handbrake on the pay pockets for the heads of government departments, which seemed to just be going up and up and up at the time.  

And I remember before then, you had politicians saying that performance pay was needed to make sure the public sector could attract the best people to run all the government departments.  

What they meant, of course, was that they needed to compete with the private sector and so they had to offer the same kinds of sweeteners.  

But I think we can agree that that hasn't necessarily been the best thing, and that someone who is a brilliant private sector chief executive doesn't necessarily make a brilliant public sector chief executive. And vice versa.  

Where I see problems with performance pay in the public sector is it will create tension and division. In fact, it will be worse than that. It will mean we see less genuine leadership in our government departments and more government puppets running the show.  

I’m not saying that a government department or agency should be run independently from the wants and expectations of the government of the day, it would be naïve to even suggest that.  

But if you’ve got the head of a government department being told that they’ll get a bonus if they do this or do that, or achieve this or achieve that, then their sole focus is going to be on pleasing the Minister.  

They’re not going to advocate on behalf of the people who work for them, they're not going to rock the boat. They’re not going to be the type of leader that I think we need in the public sector.  

They’ll be even more “yes people” types than they are at the moment because they’ll know that, if they aren’t, the bonus won’t be coming. 

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After saying just the other week that I don’t agree with central Government taking over local councils when things go pear-shaped, I’ve changed my tune. Slightly. And I’ve got an idea to run past you. 

First, though, can you imagine what it must feel like being a mayor and getting the phone call from the Beehive saying ‘you’re doing a pretty cruddy job so we’re sending someone in to sort you out’?

It happened in Christchurch a few years back when the Government-of-the-day wasn’t happy with the time it was taking the council to process consent applications.

It happened more recently in Christchurch too when there was all that kerfuffle over housing intensifications laws.

And then way before all of that, of course, there was the time that the government didn’t like the way Environment Canterbury was doing things and so stepped-in, gave all the councillors the boot, and put commissioners in to run the place.

And, yesterday, it was Wellington mayor Tory Whanau’s turn to get the phone call. Which was hardly surprising and, from the coverage I’ve seen, she seems to have been relatively gracious about it all.

But there was one thing she was adamant about - she’s not going to resign, after what is clearly a vote of no confidence from the Government.

The thing is, though, when you have no other option and you’ve got the Local Government Minister on the other end of the line spelling out what’s going to happen, you’re hardly going to make a clown of  yourself and start chaining yourself to the front of the building in protest or locking the doors so the Minister’s enforcer can’t get in the place.

Because we know, don’t we, from experience that when a Government sends someone into a council, that person is there to enforce what the Government-of-the-day wants. 

It was the enforcer who was sent to Christchurch to sort out the council over the consenting and the housing density stuff.

And it was the enforcer who was sent-in to sort out Environment Canterbury back in the day.

But I don’t think it needs to be this way. Because, when you get a Government intervening like it has here in Canterbury in the past, and the way it is in Wellington now, it does make a mockery of local Government, doesn’t it?

So I reckon the solution is to identify problems or issues before they become a crisis. Which councils themselves are never going to do. Because everyone likes to think they’re on top of things and you’re never going to get a council putting its hand up and saying‘ we’re a bit of a basket case, we’ve cocked things up here’.

Which is why we need another set of eyes and ears involved. And we already have a model here in New Zealand that I think could easily be replicated in local Government.

We have the Education Review Office which sends out inspectors to keep an eye on what’s happening in schools to make sure they’re doing what they should be doing.

And I reckon the same thing should happen with local councils. So, instead of the Crown observer only being sent-in when things are hitting the fan, the Government should have a team of observers who would go around all councils on a regular basis.

Do you think all that strife at the Gore council between the mayor and the chief executive might have been avoided or might have been sorted out sooner if there was more of an external microscope being run over the place? I do.

Do you think we might be more reassured that the councillors around the council table are actually the ones making the decisions and not the council staff, if someone from outside was doing a regular check on things? I do.

Do you think the shambles we’re seeing now in Wellington might have been avoided if we had this kind of external observation going on? I do.

So the way I’d see it running would be very similar to the way school inspectors do their job. There’d be a checklist or a criteria that councils could be assessed against. So at school, for example, the inspectors might go in and see how well the kids are going with reading or maths.

The council inspectors or observers could go in and check how well council meetings are being run; how much independent decision-making is going on around the council table; how they’re going with their 10-year budgets - which has been the big sticking point for Wellington. 

And then, if they found that a council wasn’t up to scratch, the government could decide whether to give councils a few tips or whether it needed to go full noise and send someone in to bang heads together.

But, even if they did send someone in to get things under control, it would be at a point where the councils had already been called-out, been given the opportunity to fix things, and retained some sense of self-direction or self-management.

Because, the way things are at the moment, it’s no action, no action, no action and then - bang - the Government going all knee-jerk on it and sending the Crown observer in. There’s got to be a better way.

And I think doing regular council inspections or assessments would be that better way. 

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Labour Leader Chris Hipkins joined John MacDonald for their regular catchup. 

On today’s agenda: 

Andrew Bayly is in hot water for his “offensive comments” during a Ministerial visit – what are his party’s thoughts on the situation? Is it time to have central government reporting on local councils to mitigate the chances of what’s happening in Wellington? And, has David Seymour hit the bullseye with his new school lunch plan? 

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Sometimes you just have to resort to cliches, because there are times when there’s just no other way to say it. Or no better way to say it.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over-and-over and expecting different results.

That’s how I feel about the Government strengthening its Three Strikes law to make it easier to keep repeat offenders in prison for longer.

Which means that instead of 3 Strikes kicking-in after someone’s first sentence of two years or more, they’re going to be in the running if their first sentence is just one year or more.

So, if someone commits a crime with punishments longer than one year (the first time around) and then goes on to commit two more crimes and gets sentences of two years or more for each of them - the third time, the judge has to give out the maximum sentence. No discounts.

Until now, the 3 Strikes was only going to kick-in after someone committed their first crime that had a sentence of two years or more. Now it’s going to kick in if their first crime gets a sentence of just one year, or more.

And the reason I think it’s insanity is the same reason that Julie-Anne Kincade thinks it’s insane. She’s a King’s Counsel and Vice-President of the Law Association, and here’s what she had to say to Mike about this a couple of hours ago:

She says there's no evidence that Three Strikes works in the way that people think it will work. She says it doesn't deter people, and some people might be sent to jail just because they don't have a house where they can serve home detention.

Julie-Anne Kincade is also concerned these changes to the Three Strikes laws could men negative outcomes for innocent people too.

"I'm also very concerned about the lack of parole. Parole is an incentive for good behaviour and it incentivises people to engage with psychologists and take programmes. To understand their trigger points.  

"Under this regime, the most serious offenders won't be allowed any parole. They won't be given any rehabilitation and then they'll be chucked out on the street without the strong support that parole system gives people to make sure they transition back into our society. This is actually going to achieve exactly the opposite of what they want to achieve."

If the aim is to reduce violent crime then the Government is barking up the wrong tree with this one. Because if it didn’t work the last time we had it —which was between 2010 and 2021— do you really think it’s going to work now? Of course it’s not.

And the reason it didn’t work last time we had it is because laws like this don’t take into account other factors like mental health, intellectual disability, the age of the offenders, and any addictions they might have.

The same thing happened in California after they brought in a Three Strikes law in 1994. In fact, it saw so many more people end up in prison that it nearly bankrupted the state. They, eventually, saw the light and got rid of it. 

Not here in New Zealand, though. The fact it failed last time obviously isn’t a concern for the Government - which is only doing what it’s doing to keep the crowds on the sidelines happy.

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You can call me a nerd, if you want to. But I reckon there is nothing like the performance of walking down to your local polling booth on voting day and casting your vote.

The way we do every three years when we’re electing a Government. In the general election.

There’s no confusion. It’s well-publicised. You can do early voting, if you want to or need to. But we all know, don’t we, that when we wake up on a particular Saturday morning every three years - we know it’s voting day.

Not so straightforward, though, when it comes to voting for our local council. Which, let’s face it, actually has more sway over our daily lives than central Government.

And I think we need to merge the general election with local body elections, which I’ll get to shortly.

But, for some reason, in the spirit of trying to make it easier for us to vote in our local elections, we’ve actually made it more difficult.

And this is something Local Government New Zealand wants to try and sort out. It wants to get more of our voting in the elections for our local councils.

I reckon the pitiful voter turnout - compared to general elections - largely comes down to the fact that you can pretty much vote when you want in local body elections. Well, within a voting period. But you can do it when it suits you.

If you compare voter turnout for the general election with local body elections, it's very clear.

Turnout at last year’s general election was 78.2 percent. Turnout in the most recent local body elections two years ago was 40 percent nationally.

And the reason for that is simple, in my view.

The voting papers for the local body elections arrive in the mail. They sit on the kitchen bench. Every time we walk past them we think, ‘ooh, must get those away’.

But for most people, the only time the papers leave the bench is when they’verealisedit’s all too late and they chuck them in the recycling bin.

And then, for the next three years, they complain about how hopeless their local council is and, you know, “can you believe how our rates have gone up under these clowns?”

So Local Government New Zealand, here’s what needs to happen to make sure more people vote in your local body elections.

For starters, council elections should happen at the same time as general elections.

And there’s a very good reason for this. Not just because it makes sense doing it at the same time.

The reason is, how many times have we heard that councils have had to pull the pin on something - let’s use cycleways as an example - because there’s been a change in Government or a change in Government policy and the money they thought they were getting from Wellington isn’t happening anymore.

If local body elections were held at the same time as general elections, things would be more in sync, wouldn’t they?

And the other big change that’s needed - is we need to get rid of postal voting.

Because, as I say, the papers arrive in the mail but most of us end up throwing them in the bin. Because we just don’t get around to it. Unless you’re a nerd, like me. And unless you love elections.

But for normal people, the voting papers just gather dust - and then it’s too late.

So instead of postal voting in local body elections, I reckon there should be a voting day where you have to turn up at your local polling booth - unless you need to do an early vote - and I reckon that should happen on the same day as the general election.

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What’s the thing you hear people say time-and-time again about the way we seemed to just get on with the job of building infrastructure back in, say, the 1970s?

What’s the most common thing you hear people say about that?

They say “our forebears had the foresight”. And that’s what I hope Christchurch city councillors have when they decide whether or not to press-on with the controversial Wings to Wheels cycleway on Harewood Rd.

Because,believe it or not, it’s back on the table after costs have skyrocketed and the government money that was originally going to be coming to help pay for it has been pulled.

The overall gist is that if the council wants to go further with this particular cycleway project, it’s going to have to come up with about an extra $10 million over and above what’s already been spent and what’s left in the budget.

So far, the council has spent $6.2 million on the project without any shovels hitting the ground and it’s only got $18.5 million left in the budget. And there’s a gap of about $10 million. 

Nevertheless, I hope our councillors have this “foresight” that people like to credit past leaders with. 

And I hope they have the fortitude to say, ‘you know what, this is going to cost a truckload more money than we thought we’d have to spend and it’s a truckload more money than we want to spend - but we’re going to do it, for the generations to come’.

That’s what I hope they do. 

You might remember that it was back in 2019 when the council came up with the plan for the 4.5 kilometre cycleway on Harewood Rd. 

The cost back then was expected to be $19 million, with half of the money coming from the Government, through NZTA. 

Naturally, costs went up. Initially, they went up to $22.7 million and now it’s expected to cost $28.5 million all up.

So the council has just put out a range of options to be considered, which range from pressing-on and spending millions more than they expected to putting the thing on hold indefinitely.

And, in the middle of those two extremes, there are other options. Such as building a shorter cycleway - which would still cost about $20 million. 

The council is also suggesting that, instead of going for what we like to call the “over-engineered” options, it could just paint lines on the road and put in traffic lights at three intersections.

But that option would still cost $10.5 million, anyway. So why would you bother with that half-hearted measure?

I’ve often said ‘what’s wrong with a few white lines?’. But if you’re going to spend $10 million, you may as well spend $28 million. There are some other cheaper alternatives too.  

I see councillor Victoria Henstock is saying that she’s pleased to see there are several options on the table, because she’s been opposed to the Harewood rd cycleway from the get-go.

But this is where she’s wrong. She’s saying today: “This is a sensible approach. We cannot keep pouring money into projects that we cannot afford and are not wanted by the local community, as they keep telling me.”

And that’s the problem right there. When you get politicians who are only interested in what the people in the here-and-now think. And, in particular, the people in the here-and-now who complain.

Because, of course, Councillor Henstock is going to hear from people who are anti the cycleway.

She’s not going to hear from the people who, in 10 years time, are going to think this cycleway is absolutely brilliant.

The people who, in 10 years time, will be saying ‘wasn't it great that our city leaders had the foresight to bite the bullet; they had the fortitude to spend the extra money, and make sure we can ride our bikes safely”.

That’s what I hope people will be able to say. And that’s why, instead of tinkering around the edges and coming up with some sort of half-hearted alternatives that will still cost a lot of money, I hope the council doesn’t give in. And I hope it presses-on, as planned. And certainlydoesn't pull the plug altogether.

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A blow to South Canterbury as Timaru's Smithfield meat-works is confirmed to be closing. 

The entire nearly 140-year-old site will close by December's end. 

Alliance Group's told staff they'll be offered re-deployment at its other processing plants, where possible. 

Waimakariri MP Matt Doocey told John MacDonald that he's gutted.  

He says it'll impact many families and be felt by the wider community. 

Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb says it will have a knock-on effect for the city. 

He says the loss of 500 jobs means 500-less incomes being spent, which local businesses will feel. 

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Here’s my perception of ACC: some people get ACC pay-outs at the drop of a hat and others have to fight, for what can be years.  

And it’s the fighting bit that seems to be biting ACC on the backside, with the news that it’s gone from having a $900 million surplus last year to a $7.2 billion deficit this year.   

It’s saying one of the reasons for that is that the courts are coming out with rulings telling it to pay people more money than it wanted to in the first place. Which, if that is the case, tells me that the ACC model is broken. It needs a re-think.   

I would hate us to be without ACC. But, when you have it saying that it’s losing money hand-over-fist because the courts are disagreeing with some of its decisions, then it needs a good looking-at. It is broken.   

I’ve got a mate who stuffed his shoulder doing his job. He was a painter for years from when he left school, and his shoulder packed a sad after years and years of painting.  

If you’ve ever done a bit of painting, you’ll know how doing it day-in, day-out must mess around with your body. Your shoulder. Your neck.   

So this guy had a genuine work injury, but it seemed like he had to fight for his shoulder operation for yonks. And I’m pretty sure that was after ACC had already paid out for his other shoulder. It was nuts.  

Eventually, after a huge battle, ACC agreed to cover it.  

So he’s an example of one end of the ACC spectrum. And he’s not the most extreme example I’ve heard of someone who has been battling ACC for about four years.  

What happened there is she fell from her deck, hit her back on a railway sleeper in the garden, hasn’t been able to work since and, since then, she’s been battling ACC to prove that the back injury wasn’t something that existed before she had her accident.  

And she has been fighting and fighting and fighting. She used to be a full-time midwife but now spends her days in bed or in a wheelchair, and, by the sound of it, it seems battling ACC has become her life.  

This particular case is still going on. But, if this person is eventually successful and does manage to prove that ACC is in the wrong, then it will be another example of the types of cases that ACC is partly blaming for its $7.2 billion deficit.   

It’s saying that court rulings are being handed down in favour of the people wanting more compensation or wanting, at least, some compensation.  

Then you get the other examples where ACC money flows like a tap.  

An example I’ve got is when one of the kids came off their bike at the adventure park, in Christchurch. He was checked over by the patrol staff there and they thought he might have been concussed and said we should take him to after-hours, just in case.  

I did that and they checked him out and they said ‘no concussion’. But just as I was about to pay, the person behind the counter asked if we’d like them to clean up some of his scratches.   

Which made sense to me. Since we were there.  

So they did that and then they said, because they’d cleaned up the scratches, the whole thing would be covered by ACC and we didn’t have to pay anything.  

Which seemed to me like a rort. I wasn’t sure who was rorting who, but there was no need for ACC to cover it. But that’s what happened.  

ACC boss Megan Main says it’s a bit of a balancing act for them, when it comes to the level of ACC support people get.  

Quite often, though, that's where the trouble starts.  

Either way, what we're seeing is proof that the ACC model —while better than nothing— is coming unstuck and needs an overhaul.  

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Christchurch's mayor is keeping mum about seeking re-election. 

First time mayor Phil Mauger took the reins in 2022 after narrowly beating former health boss David Meates. 

City Councillor Sara Templeton has announced her bid for mayor a year out from local body elections. 

Mauger wouldn’t confirm to John MacDonald whether he's decided to run. 

He says there's a lot going on, so he'll worry about it after Christmas. 

They also discussed his interview with Jack Tame on Q&A and if he really believes his comments about not breaking promises to ratepayers. 

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The highest court in the land is too big for its boots.  

That’s what the guy who runs the New Zealand Initiative think tank is saying today. Roger Partridge is his name - he’s also a lawyer and King’s Counsel.  

And he says the Supreme Court needs to be reined-in because he thinks it’s trying to re-write the laws made by Parliament.   

One of the examples he’s giving to support his argument is the Court ruling two years ago that the voting age of 18 discriminates against younger people. That’s not the Supreme Court’s job, he says.  

But I disagree. Because I think the Supreme Court should be free to decide for itself whether it’s going to consider a particular case, and the judges at the Supreme Court should be free to decide and say what they like after they’ve considered those cases.  

The alternative is the Supreme Court being given restrictions and barriers and not having the freedom the highest court in the land should have. And when I describe it as the highest court in the land - that’s exactly what it is.  

It is the court of last resort, for want of a better term. And it has been since 2004, when it was formed to replace the option of New Zealanders taking their cases to the Privy Council in London.  

One of the reasons given for setting-up our own Supreme Court 20 years ago was that having something based here in New Zealand would be fairer than expecting people who wanted to go to a court of last resort to have to go to London and the Privy Council.  

So, the argument was that it would be fairer for people who couldn’t even entertain the idea of appealing something through the Privy Council because of the expense. And let’s face it, running back to the mother country because you weren’t happy with how your case was handled here in the colonies is pretty old hat.  

But where Roger Partridge from the New Zealand Initiative is coming from today is that he thinks the Supreme Court has gone beyond the job it was given 20 years ago.  

He’s saying that the court is over-reaching and seems to have given itself the power to re-write legislation it does not like. And he wants Parliament to tell the court to get back into its box. Or to get back into its lane and to make decisions based on the law, without criticising the law.  

If you want to think about it this way, it seems to me that what Roger Partridge is concerned about is the Supreme Court here ending up like the Supreme Court in the United States, which does seem to have quite a bit of sway over federal and state laws.  

There was the case two years ago of the Supreme Court in America overruling the decision back in 1973 that abortion is a fundamental human right – the Roe v Wade case. It has had a lot of people there talking about whether the Supreme Court is having way too much influence, and I see there are people in the States right now calling for it to be reined in. 

Like Roger Partridge from the New Zealand Initiative is doing today in relation to our Supreme Court. 

So let’s take one of the cases that he says shows how the Court has got too big for its boots and why he thinks it shows that the court needs to be reined in: the Supreme Court’s ruling on whether the voting age should be 18.  

Roger Partridge says that what the court did there was it looked at the argument from the outfit that wants to lower the voting age —this is the “Make It 16” crew— and he’s saying that it didn’t just consider the argument from a lawful perspective - but it also considered how social values might have changed since the passing of the Electoral Act in 1993, which sets the voting age at 18. And since the passing of the Local Electoral Act in 2001, which does the same. It says the voting age is 18.  

And he says that’s not the Supreme Court’s job. It is the politicians —or it is Parliament— who should decide whether this particular law —or any law for that matter— is still consistent with society’s values.  

Now, if you agree with him, then let me ask you this. Does that mean you also think judges in our other courts shouldn’t pay attention to society’s views on ram raids —for example— and shouldn’t consider how much we’ve had a gutsful of ram raids when a ram raider fronts up in court?  

Answer me that.   

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I think we need to get over ourselves here in New Zealand when it comes to foreign investment.

And it looks like we’re going to have to get over ourselves - whether we want to or not - with the Government’s plan to make it easier for foreign investors to buy New Zealand companies and properties.

The way I’d describe it is that, at the moment, the Government thinks we treat overseas investors as if they’re going through customs - and we’re all suspicious about their motivations for coming here.

Whereas it thinks we should be more like the duty free shop, putting down the welcome mat and selling New Zealand to overseas investors. You know, give them a bit more of the glad eye and less of the raised eyebrow.

And I’m all for that. Because modern New Zealand was built on overseas investment.

I’m not saying it’s been perfect. But I agree with the Government’s plan to open the doors more to foreign investors.

Because the alternative is to keep languishing, blindly pressing-on under our own steam, convincing ourselves that we’re a country that can do without foreign money.And anyone who thinks that is dreaming.

So we had two announcements about this at the weekend. The first came on Saturday when Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced that the coalition government had agreed to change the laws around foreign investment, saying the way we’re doing it at the moment is the worst in the world.

That, out of 38 countries, we come last in terms of being open to investment from overseas.

He says the Government wants to reverse the idea that investors need to convince the Government why they should be allowed to invest here; and change it to us telling investors why they should be coming.So more encouragement and less policing.

Oliver Hartwich, who’s a foreign investment expert with the New Zealand Initiative think tank, thinks we shouldn’t just be making it easier for investors to spend money on businesses here. He thinks we should be going the whole hog and making it easier for them to buy houses here too.

And wouldn’t you know it, Winston Peters - who’s always been anti foreigners buying houses here - says he’d be open to changing his position if the right investors came along.

So, after David Seymour announced on Saturday that the Government plans to loosen the rules around foreign investment, Winston Peters made his big announcement that NZ First wants to see a $100 billion Future Find set-up, to ensure we have the money for all the big infrastructure projects that need doing.

The money would have to come from overseas. Which is why he said this morning that he might not be so hard-line on foreigners buying houses here, if it means getting the type of investment he wants.

I thought it was kind of weird that Winston Peters said this morning that he hadn’t seen anything before David Seymour announced the changes to the foreign investment rules on Saturday. But, nevertheless, they seem to be on the same page. And I’m with them on this one.

I think we have no choice but to make it easier for foreign investors to buy New Zealand companies and properties. For the simple reason that we’re a tiny outfit and we’re dreaming if we think we can do it all on our own.

And because, if we don’t attract these investors, they’ll go somewhere else. Somewhere else that doesn’t put up as many barriers as we do.

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There are a lot of weird things in the world, but one of the weirdest would have to be the international drivers licence.  

You know, you’re licensed to drive in one country, but a little bit of paper lets you drive in any country. It doesn’t matter that you know next to nothing about the road rules or the driving conditions.  

But tell that to the Government which obviously doesn’t find international licences as weird as I do.  

I find them weird. I don't like them. And, before you accuse me of being a hypocrite - I’ll admit that I am a hypocrite because I’ve used them before when I’ve gone overseas.  

But ever since I got my first international licence, I’ve thought that it’s crazy that you can drive anywhere without being tested or trained on local rules and driving conditions. Which is why I think the Government’s latest move to reduce waiting times for practical driving tests is just crazy. 

It’s going to extend the period someone from overseas can drive on an international licence in New Zealand from 12 months to 18 months to try and reduce the waiting times for practical driving tests because the average wait time is over a month.  

Apparently, the way things have been, the demand from international drivers wanting to get their New Zealand licence has been going through the roof.  

Transport Minister Simeon Brown says there are tens of thousands of international drivers wanting to get their New Zealand licences. Or licence conversions, as they’re known. Which has meant that the queues and waiting times have been getting longer. 

So the Government wants to take some of the international drivers out of the queue so local drivers can do their practical tests sooner.   

Simeon Brown says they’re hiring more trainers and testers. But they still need to do more, and this is one. But I think it’s a terrible idea and I’m not alone.  

Someone who is a testing officer got in touch to say they think it’s a crazy idea too.  

This person says, from what they see, international drivers wanting to convert their licences to New Zealand licences are failing their practical driving tests —on average— six times, before they pass.  

This person says that, instead of letting them drive here on international licences longer, the Government should be doing the opposite and limiting them to three months maximum before they have to convert to a New Zealand licence.   

That would do nothing to fix the problem the Government’s trying to fix but I don’t care about that.  

Because what should be the priority here? Helping people get their licences quicker or keeping people safe on the road?  

That’s a no-brainer question. The priority has to be keeping people safe on the road.   

And that isn’t going to happen by letting international drivers get off a plane, get behind the wheel of a vehicle and cruise around the place for six months longer than they’re allowed to now before being tested.  

I’m not anti international drivers. As I said at the start, I’ve held international licences before. I’ve taken advantage of something that I actually think is crazy.  

But I am definitely anti anything that is going to mean untested drivers driving on our roads longer than they do now.  

I don't care how long it takes people to get their licence if the alternative is what the Government has come up with today. 

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Labour leader Chris Hipkins claims the Government's failure to compensate for the nurses’ pay rise has driven Health New Zealand's budget blowout.  

The agency's finances jumped from an expected half-a-billion dollar surplus to a $1.4 billion deficit in April.  

It's now expected to blow out to $1.76 billion.  

Chris Hipkins told John MacDonald that there's a mix of issues in the system, but under-funding's definitely playing a role in the deficits.   

He says nurses won their pay equity claim after a hard-fought battle and the Government hasn't provided the funds to pay for it, adding more financial pressure.  

The crackdown on dodgy builders however, is getting Hipkins’ support.  

The Government's looking at changes to registration and licensing regimes, with a focus on lifting competence and accountability requirements. 

Larger fines could also be on the cards for workers hiding non-compliant work during inspections. 

Hipkins says the regulatory systems for builders aren't as good as they should be. 

He says a more streamlined regime with harsher penalties for the cowboys of the industry is great. 

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I think we need to see the New Zealand Navy ship sinking as a wake-up call. Not the sinking itself, but what it’s going to mean for our Navy and our wider defence force.   

The fact that we’re probably going to lose a truckload of money because of the ship being under-insured isn’t an issue for me and I wasn’t overly surprised when Finance Minister Nicola Wilis confirmed it yesterday. Because can you imagine the premiums versus the likelihood of a sinking? So I think the insurance thing is a bit of a red herring.  

But any of the Navy people I’ve heard quoted in the news since the weekend haven’t been too shy to say that the loss of the Manawanui is going to be a major blow for our Navy. And I’m saying today that the Navy’s loss needs to be our wake-up call.  

We need to start investing more in our defence force. And the reason I think that is that when you run a military or a defence force you do it with precision and planning. And you can only do that when you have certainty and the financial backing to run the outfit with confidence. Not on a wing and prayer, as we do at the moment.     

The thing is: when it comes to government spending, you never hear people demanding more money to be spent on our military. People demand more money for health and hospitals. They demand more money for schools and education. They demand more money for life-saving drugs. But you never hear them demanding more money for the military.  

Except for a few old military types who I’ve always thought have been living in the past a bit. Reliving the glory days and who can’t really get over the fact that the world has moved on, and New Zealand isn’t the player we used to be on the military front.  

But I’m coming around to their way of thinking. I think the time has come where we do need to demand that more money be invested in our military. Which I never thought I would hear myself say. But I think that’s because I’m like most people - the military is kind-of out of mind, out of sight.  

And the only time I really think about it is when we get an air force plane breaking down on the tarmac somewhere or, like at the weekend, we get a navy ship sinking.  

Not that that happens every day. My understanding is that the Manawanui going down after hitting that reef on Saturday was the first time we’ve lost a Navy ship since World War 2.  

Nevertheless, I think the time has come for some serious soul searching about the future of New Zealand’s military force. Which is kind of happening. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says a major strategic review is on the way.  

The broader question though is what we think the future of our military should be and whether we think more needs to go into it. More investment.  

I don't think we have any choice.  

Our planes are not reliable. We’re now down a ship. Not to mention the Navy ships that are sitting idle, unable to be used because the Navy doesn’t have the crews to run them. That’s because people are leaving the Navy for jobs elsewhere.  

The housing provided to our military personnel is cruddy. Black mould. Sick soldiers. Sick kids. Back in May, a military advocate —who is married to a soldier— said her goal was to show New Zealand just how horrendous conditions are for serving military personnel.  

So you add all that up, and you get a defence force that we can either keep running down. Or we can invest more in the people we —and the world— relies on to keep the peace.  

The time has come for us to invest more in our defence force. Because. the way it’s going, it will reach the point where it’s no use to anyone.  

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The Government's fast track legislation is shaping up to be a real cluster. Especially, in Greater Christchurch.

I think some of the projects it wants to get going here sooner rather than later are making its new legislation more ram-raid than fast track. 

So it's released details of 149 projects that will be included in the Bill which, it says, is being done to help rebuild the economy, sort out the housing crisis, improve energy security, and do something about the state of our infrastructure. 

But, here in Canterbury, it's going head-to-head with the Selwyn and Waimakariri councils over the construction of nearly 8,000 houses which these two councils have been trying to block for years. 

The reason they don't want them is that they don't think they can cope with the kind of rapid expansion these developments would lead to. And I agree. 

I think it's reckless and all part of this "get stuff done" mentality that can sound great, but that's about it. 

I think what we're seeing here is the Government going all "you can't stop progress" on it and not considering the wider implications. And they are riding roughshod over the concerns of two of our local councils. 

In Selwyn, for example, under the new fast track bill, a development by the Carter Group in Rolleston West would see 4,200 more homes built across four suburbs. 

Which would mean more than 12,000 new residents fast-tracked into Rolleston - which is already New Zealand's fastest-growing town.

That's on the basis of there being 4,200 extra houses, and an average of just under three people per house in Selwyn at the moment. That happens - and the population of Rolleston would increase by 41 percent. 

As Selwyn councillor Sophie McInnes is saying today, that would be "explosive growth".

She says, think about how many schools they would need in the area - where Rolleston College is already a capacity with 1,800 students. You bring another 12,000 people into the area and you're going to need more schools, aren't you?

What about health facilities? I don't see any new medical centres or a hospital on the Government's list of things to do. 

As Selwyn councillor Sophie McInnes is saying, they want Rolleston to grow at its own pace. In a sustainable way. 

For the local economy to grow and create local jobs, so they don't get these new developments popping up where people sleep at night and then leave in the morning to go to work and school in the city. 

And then there's Waimakariri. Where the Carter Group wants to build 850 houses and a commercial centre at Ohoka but the council's been against it - for the same reason as Selwyn has been opposed to the developments there - because of concerns about unsustainable growth. 

The difference is, though, that the Ohoka development includes a school and/or a retirement home. 

But, last year, independent commissioners decided not to give consent for the project because they didn't think it would fit with Ohoka's existing rural nature, and because there's a lack of local jobs and a lack of public transport. 

They said at the time, "Families with secondary school students, sporting interests and those working in Rangiora, Kaiapoi or Christchurch will travel to meet their day-to-day needs."

So, basically, the decision not to give the Ohoka project consent was for similar reasons as to why the Selwyn council doesn't want that massive 4,200 house development. 

These areas can't cope with that kind of growth and it would just turn them into dormitories. 

But, oh no, the developers with their noses out of joint have run to the Government and have said "pick us, pick us" and the Government has decided "yep, you're on the list".

And I think it is very short-sighted. I think the Government is being reckless. And I think it will do nothing to change the minds of people who think this whole fast track thing is the Government riding roughshod just to please its mates. 

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Today on Politics Friday, John MacDonald was joined by National’s Vanessa Weenink and Labour’s Tracey McLellan to discuss the biggest political stories of the week. 

On today's agenda was Health NZ’s nearly $1 billion deficit – how does the Government get them out of this hole? Are private-public partnerships the answer?  

Is it time to stop people building homes in 'dumb places' as the insurance council has this week asked?  

And will we start to see a conversation across all parties around the retirement age? 

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I don’t know whether Mary Richardson is a martyr or a mug. But, I tell you what, the acting chief executive at Christchurch City Council has shown outstanding leadership, not just outstanding leadership - she’s also shown outstanding political nous with this $100,000 pay cut.

She demanded it because of the financial pressures the council and ratepayers are dealing with, which I believe has gone down very well with staff. Not just because of that, but also because, generally people at the council like her, which is quite an achievement for someone working in senior management anywhere.

But there’s going to be a sting in the tail for everyone working at the council and the rest of us who use council services that’ll get to.

Mary Richardson has been acting chief executive since former council boss Dawn Baxendale quit suddenly late last year, and all along she’s made it clear that she’s not interested in the job full-time and would only be there until the council appoints a new person.

But they haven’t been able to, thirty-seven people applied for the job. It came down to a shortlist of three but Councilors didn’t think any of the candidates were what or who they wanted and so they went to Mary Richardson and said “How ‘bout it? Want the job.”

Mayor Phil Mauger obviously did a good job because she agreed to take it on but has told the council she doesn’t want to do a full five-year term and has agreed she’ll stick around until June 2026.

Her other provision was that she be paid $100,000 less than the money Dawn Baxendale was on. Ireckon most people in her position would milk it for what they could, I’ll be honest, I would.

If I was Mary Richardson and I had Phil Mauger come to me saying they bombed-out in the recruitment process and would you please take the job, I’d be saying “I’ll do it - but I want to be paid at least as much as the last chief executive". In fact, I’d probably push my luck a bit because if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Not that Mary Richardson is denying herself too much, because she’ll still be on a salary of $450,000 which is still a good wicket by anyone’s means.

But here’s the sting in the tail I mentioned earlier and here’s why I think she has shown outstanding leadership and outstanding political nous. It has been made very clear that local councils up and down the country are on notice from the Government to cut costs.

Time-and-time again, the Prime Minister and the Local Government Minister have said councils need to look and learn from what’s been happening in government departments and agencies. Councils need to do the same and live within their means.

Mary Richardson has obviously heard that, then she’s put a stake in the ground starting with what she herself gets paid as head honcho. It’s not an act of goodwill, it’s a statement of intent, a statement much more powerful than any new vision and mission statements that might have been trotted out by the 37 people who thought they should be chief executive.

By insisting on a $100,000 pay cut, Mary Richardson has signalled a period of austerity at the Christchurch City Council. Ifshe has any of her people coming to her between now and mid-2026 saying they want to pay their staff more, what do you think her attitude is going to be? When the chief executive takes a $100,000 pay cut, what does that say to the rest of the organization? It says forget about pay rises.

When Mary Richardson has people saying they can’t do things any differently or more cheaply because it’s all been tried before - she has given herself license to demand that they try again. That’s what happens when the person at the top takes a $100,000 pay cut.

When someone says they need more staff - No sorry, that’s what happens when the person at the top takes a $100,000 pay cut. When the person at the top takes a $100,000 pay cut explicitly because the council and ratepayers are under financial pressures, that makes it very clear that you and I can’t just keep on demanding more of this and more of that from the council.

So while Mary Richardson will be admired today and respected, inside and outside the city council for taking a significant pay cut, we need to see it for what it really is .What it really is, is the beginning of significant belt-tightening at the Christchurch City Council.

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I think the hospitality outfits trying to shut down the Arts Centre’s plans to have more food trucks on-site need to pull their heads in.  

Annabelle Turley from the Central City Business Association has made the bold demand that the council pull its funding from the Arts Centre if the food truck thing goes ahead. 

This all goes back to the city council not providing as much ratepayer funding in its 10-year budget as the Arts Centre had asked for. And so the Arts Centre accepted that and got on with the job of working out what it could do to generate more revenue itself.  

So it came up with a plan to get more food trucks on site. The idea being that it would bring more people into the arts centre and get people spending more.  

Which I think is a great approach. A great attitude. Because the Arts Centre could still be banging on about not getting adequate support from the council. But it’s not. Instead, it’s showing some entrepreneurial spirit and working out how to bring more money in the door itself by having more food trucks there. As many as 25, potentially operating up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week.   

Which has upset the hospitality businesses in town no end. They say the Arts Centre is going to compete head-on with their businesses with all these extra food trucks.  

Which I think is nonsense. And here’s why.  

If I’m planning to have a nice meal at, King of Snake say, just by the Bridge of Remembrance, do you think the food trucks at the Arts Centre are going to put me off doing that? Of course they’re not.  

If I’m in the mood for King of Snake’s Natural Oysters with Nashi Pear and a Black Pepper Vinaigrette; or if I’m in the mood for their Wild Venison Carpaccio with Chilli Black Bean Dressing - do you really think I’m going to cancel at the last minute and go for a wiener sausage from the back of a truck at the Arts Centre instead?  

Of course I’m not. But tell that to the hospo operators in town.  

Annabelle Turley from the central city business association says —instead of dozens of food trucks— they’d be happy if the number of food trucks at the Arts Centre was more along the lines of Little High Food Court. Which, by the way, would have to be the coolest food court in the world.  

But, to be honest with you, I think Annabelle’s argument is a bit all over the place. She says that Little High is the model the Arts Centre should be using, with just eight food outlets.  

She says the Arts Centre is being hypocritical because it’s always banged on about how it’s an important heritage site but now wants to cheapen it with extra food trucks.  

She says, because central city businesses pay rates, they are effectively subsidising the Arts centre to set-up in competition with them.  

And this is the one that really sticks in my claw. Because, ever since the earthquakes, a truckload of ratepayer money has gone into supporting these central city businesses. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.  

I haven’t been able to put my hands on a figure, but millions and millions have been spent. The council and its agencies have done all sorts of things over the years to get people back into the central city so that these businesses that are complaining about the arts centre have a better chance of getting customers through the door and surviving.  

Then there’s all the ratepayer money that’s gone into things like central city security patrols to make the place more inviting.  

Yet these hospitality businesses and the central city business association have the gall to tell the council to pull its meagre funding for the Arts Centre, on the basis of some wishy-washy argument that a few dozen food trucks are going to put them out of business. 

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Christchurch's Mayor isn't swayed either way on a clash between city hospitality and food trucks.  

The Arts Centre Trust is applying for up to 33 food trucks to operate on the site.  

The Central Business Association says that's unfair, given businesses subsidise the centre and commercial rates are higher than residential. 

Mayor Phil Mauger told John MacDonald he sees both sides.  

He says with the museum closed the Centre will want to get money, but 7 days a week is a big shift. 

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Stop building houses in dumb places.  

That’s the message the Insurance Council is giving the Government.  

That bit about “dumb places” isn’t me paraphrasing, by the way. They’re not my words. They’re the exact words the Insurance Council is using after the Government confirmed that changes to the Resource Management Act are one of the 43 things in its final quarterly action plan for the rest of the year.  

And when I heard that, the first dumb place I thought of was New Brighton, in Christchurch. In fact, pretty much anywhere along that eastern coastline, but especially New Brighton and South Brighton.  

Because I can’t understand for the life of me why the city council has allowed building just to keep on keeping on in those areas when it knows that up to $14 billion worth of properties in Christchurch and Banks Peninsula could be at-risk from sea-level rise.   

We learned about that figure in October last year when the council made a submission to parliament’s environment select committee, which is leading an inquiry into climate adaptation.  

So, the Christchurch council says on one hand there are truckloads of areas that could be inundated because of sea level rise —about $14 billion worth of property— but, on the other hand, says yep, you can build that new house you want to build at Southshore. Or tells developers they can build apartments at New Brighton.  

And it’s just nuts.  

You’d think we would have learned not to do this years ago after the quakes.    

Because remember all the head scratching that went on back in 2011 after the big earthquake about why the council had historically allowed building to happen in certain parts of town? Parts of town where things really went pear-shaped after the quakes.  

But it’s coastal suburbs like New Brighton, South New Brighton and Southshore where there’s been a lot of talk about inundation because of how the coastal land dropped after the earthquakes.  

It seems to have been something the Christchurch City Council has preferred to pussy-foot around over. Increasingly so, as time has gone on.  

I remember speaking to Dr Bronwyn Hayward from the University of Canterbury, who has written some of the reports that have come out from the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, and I asked her if she could understand why we’re still putting houses in New Brighton and South Brighton.  

She said she couldn’t understand it at all. Especially, when you consider that the council itself knows that there’s $14 billion worth of properties at risk of being inundated.  

On top of that $14 billion, the council also reckons road and water infrastructure worth about $3.2 billion is at risk of being taken out because of sea level change.  

But, despite that, the consents department will probably dish out approval for more building in those areas today. 

I remember meeting a guy who came around to do a TradeMe pick-up a couple of years ago. He’d moved down from the North Island with his family, and they were building a new house in New Brighton. He was really excited about it and I just didn’t know what to say to him. So I said nothing.  

But what I wanted to say was: “Why the hell are you doing that? Don’t you know it’s going to be underwater at some point?”  

And we know it is, because the city council has told us. The same city council telling people it's ok to build there. 

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I’m glad I’m not a teacher today.

If I’m honest, I’m glad I’m not a teacher every day. Couldn’t do it.

But I’m especially glad after this ham-fisted announcement by Associate Education Minister David Seymour that, if schools want to have teacher-only days, they’re going to have to have them outside term time.

Which is essentially telling the teachers that if they want to have any sort of professional development or training, they need to do it during their own time. They have to chew up some of their annual leave or other leave entitlement to do it.

Can you imagine any other employer trying to get away with that? “Oh yeah, looks like a great course, Shona. But you’ll have to do it during your holidays.” As if that would happen.

But that’s what David Seymour wants principals to tell their staff. And what makes this approach by the Government so ham-fisted, is that they’re only doing it for the people screaming on the sidelines.

The people who like to bang-on about teachers having 10 weeks holiday a year. The people who bang-on ignorantly about teachers only working from 9 ‘til 3.

They’re also doing it to grease up to all the parents who like to whinge about teacher-only days.

I’ve been there, done that when it comes to dealing with the inconvenience that teacher-only days can be. Just like everyone else, I’ve been a bit cynical at times about teacher-only days being held on the first day of term or the last day of term.

But, deep down, I’ve known that they are held for very good reasons.

Like everyone else —especially when our kids were young— it meant that we had to juggle things a bit on teacher-only days. And —because I’ve been there, done that— I think I’m qualified to say that, sometimes, parents can be the biggest bunch of whingers when it comes to school.

I can’t remember specific examples, but I bet, at times, I whinged with the best of them when our kids were at school. Some parents are more inclined than others to whinge - but we’re all pretty good at it.

And this is what the Government is responding to with this directive to schools to not have teacher-only days during term time.

And what makes the Government’s approach on this even more ham-fisted, is that it’s doing this at the same time as it’s telling teachers that there are a whole lot of changes on the way, a new maths curriculum —all of that— and, at the same time, they’re telling teachers to forget about having teacher-only days during term time.

But did someone not tell David Seymour that these teacher-only days are when the teachers are going to get their heads around all these changes the Government wants happening from Term 1 next year?

Oh that doesn’t matter. Sod the teachers as long as we’re getting brownie points from voters who, when it comes down to it, don’t know a thing about teacher-only days but “goddam it if I have to get someone to look after the kids after school because of another blimmin’ teacher-only day”.

I see this is being described as “a kick in the guts” for under-pressure staff.

Peter Thorne is the acting principal of Belmont Primary School on Auckland’s North Shore and he’s saying that it’s a kick in the guts because teacher-only days are the opportunity for teachers to get-together and focus on their professional needs and the needs of their students.

And what’s the problem with that?

What this is, is an assault on teachers. And they have every right to feel that way, especially, when the Government is dressing this up as part of the solution to the problem we have with truancy.

Do you really think that the odd teacher-only day now and then is getting kids into the habit of wagging school? It’s absolute nonsense.

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Today on Canterbury Mornings, John MacDonald was joined by Duncan Webb and Nicola Grigg for Politics Friday.

On the agenda: how does National defend what has been labelled an attack on teachers with changes to teacher-only days? Was the Government too ambitious with its plans for the Dunedin hospital? How will this impact medical students in Otago?

And the Selwyn Mayor says his district will be bigger than Dunedin in ten years, and with Christchurch’s population set to boom - is our infrastructure up to the growth expected? 

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When you look around Greater Christchurch, do you look around and think “oh, we could handle another 100-or-so thousand people living here”? 

Do you think to yourself “our roads aren’t clogged up, our schools aren’t overcrowded, we’ve got plenty of houses”? Do you think that? 

Or does it feel to you like we’re just getting by with what we’ve got, with the population we’ve got? 

I think we’re just getting by and, if we don’t wake up, we’re going to be another Auckland before we know it.  

There are a couple of things today that have got me thinking about this. The first is this report from the Infrastructure Commission which pretty much says —when it comes to infrastructure— we kind of know what we need to do, and we just need to do it. 

And one of the key issues it identifies is population growth and how we’re going to deal with it. 

The other thing that’s got me thinking about how disorganised we are for having a truckload more people living here is what Selwyn mayor Sam Broughton is saying today about population growth in his area. He’s saying that, in 10 years time, the population of Selwyn will be bigger than the population of Dunedin. 

Dunedin’s population by the way is currently about 130,000. And Sam Broughton thinks there’ll be more people than that living in Selwyn in 10 years time. 

Rolleston, especially, is going nuts. As of last year, the population of Rolleston was 29,600. Almost triple what it was in 2013. As for the population of the wider Selwyn district - as of last year, it was 81,300, which was a 5.2% increase on the year before. 

Compare that to the whole country’s population growth over the same period - which was 2.1%. So nationally, 2.1% population growth. In Selwyn, 5.2%. And these are the numbers that have prompted Sam Broughton to say that, 10 years from now, there’ll be more people living in Selwyn than Dunedin. 

And it’s not just Selwyn. It seems to me that the whole of Greater Christchurch is going nuts - or not far away from going nuts, anyway. 

Let’s look at Christchurch city’s population. At the moment —according to the Christchurch City Council website— the population in the city is 396,200 – that’s as of June last year. 

After the earthquakes, the numbers went down by about 21,000 people. But things have bounced back - in fact, they had bounced back by 2017. And, it seems to me, that there’s no shortage of people wanting to come here from around the country. 

The universities —Lincoln and UC— are going off big time, which is such a change from how things were after the quakes. 

And, as for population growth in Christchurch, the numbers in terms of projections seem to vary a bit but there’s no doubt the city is going to have more people —not less— in the future. Numbers I’ve seen this morning say the population of Christchurch could be as high as 445,000 in 10 years time, and well over half a million in about 15 years time. 

So, a lot of variables, but there’s going to be more people here in a pretty short time. 

Are we ready for that? I don’t think we are. At least when you consider how things are at the moment. 

We’ve got someone here at work who says it can take her 45 minutes to get from where we are on Armagh Street by the Margaret Mahy playground - it can take her 45 minutes in the evenings to get from here to Brougham Street. And then she’s got the drive to Rolleston from there. 

I don’t think we’re ready when you consider the likes of Cashmere High School making its zone smaller and smaller in recent years because it’s struggling to cope with the number of kids living in its enrolment area. 

I don’t think we’re ready when you consider that we still don’t have properly functioning infrastructure like the fire-damaged wastewater plant and that organics plant that’s been making life miserable for people in the East. 

The traffic on Brougham Street. Do you reckon that piece of road is ready to cope with gazillions more people coming in from Rolleston? If Sam Broughton is right and therearemore people living in Selwyn than Dunedin in 10 years time - then we’re going to need some pretty serious changes there, aren’t we? 

Especially when you consider that stat that was thrown around at the time of the big stadium debate, that 50% of the people who currently live in Selwyn travel into Christchurch everyday for work, school and other things. 

So I don’t think we are ready and we need to wake up.  

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What about all the weasel words we’ve been hearing from the Government about Andrew Coster? Who’s stepping down from the job of Police Commissioner to head the Government’s new Social Investment Agency.  

He’s leaving the police force a bit earlier than expected. He was due to stand down in April and, if I was a suspicious person, I’d see this as a win-win for him and the Government. Because, despite all the platitudes coming from the Beehive, the Government is going to be delighted that he’s moving on. But, unlike the Government, I'm not going to be so kind. 

Coster himself is describing the move as going from the bottom of the cliff in the police force to the top of the cliff running this new government agency, which is all about investing in people and supporting people to try and help them avoid getting into a life of crime in the first place. 

And I think “Cuddles Coster” —as some people like to refer to him as— is the perfect person to run this new agency. He’s been a lawyer, he was 2IC at the Ministry of Justice for a couple of years, he’s been a cop and, since 2020, he’s been commissioner. 

So he knows how the justice system works. He’s seen and understands some of the things that lead people into crime, he’s worked for a government minister, and he’s felt the heat when things haven’t gone right. 

So, hands down, he’s the best person for the new job.    

But, listening to Police Minister Mark Mitchell and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, you would think they reckon he’s the best person to be Police Commissioner, as well. 

Let’s start with the Prime Minister. Here’s what he said yesterday about Andrew Coster:“He has done a really good job. Since we came to power, we made a really clear set of expectations, and laid that out really clearly. He has done an exceptionally good job.” 

The PM got a bit brassed-off when reporters reminded him that his predecessor Simon Bridges had described Andrew Coster once as a “wokester”, but Luxon wasn’t having a bar of that. 

And then there’s Mark Mitchell, who’s saying that the only reason he gave Coster a hard time was because the commissioner was working for a wishy-washy government back when Labour was in charge. 

But we all know that thereason they’re being so uncharacteristically kind about Andrew Coster is that, even though he’s leaving the Police, he’s still going to be working for them. And you can’t bag one of your honchos in public, because, if you did, you might get slapped with some HR legal action. And why would you make anything other than glowing comments about someone who’s still going to be working for you. 

In this new role Coster will still report to a government minister. Instead of Mark Mitchell it’ll be Nicola Willis, who is the Minister for Social Investment. But let me say what the Government isn’t saying. When it comes to Andrew Coster’s performance as Police Commissioner, I can’t let him away with the shambolic way he handled the anti-vax, anti-everything protest at Parliament back in February/March 2022. 

That was when we all started to learn about “policing by consent”, which Andrew Coster was big on. Which, in a nutshell, is about the police working in a way that encourages people to co-operate with them - instead of waving the big stick at them. 

Andrew Coster’s leadership of the police response to the Parliamentary protest two years ago was a shambles. There were all the shallow threats about seizing all the vehicles that were clogging up the streets. 

“If you don’t move those vehicles, we’re going to move them. We mean it. We mean it. Aww…maybe we don’t mean it.”  

What it meant is that by the time the Police did finally flush out the muppets who reckoned they were there for a genuine protest, the battle was lost. 

His policing by consent was in tatters and it was the beginning of the end for Andrew Coster. 

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Labour still isn't ruling a capital gains tax in or out, following comments from the boss of our biggest bank. 

ANZ CEO Antonia Watson says while she isn't jumping for joy about the prospect of a capital gains tax, the time has come to for a tax on realised gains. 

Labour's Carmel Sepuloni told John MacDonald that Watson is just another example, of a prominent figure who's now open to the idea. 

She says she Labour hasn't made any decision either way but is reviewing its progressive tax policy. 

The Deputy Labour Leader joined John MacDonald for a chat in place of Chris Hipkins, talking about Andrew Coster’s change in jobs, abusing public transport workers becoming an aggravating factor, and the potential for a capital gains tax. 

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I don’t know where Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis get this idea from that you can only do a hard day’s work if you’re physically in the office or on the premises, as opposed to working remotely from home. 

Because, from my experience, there is a hell of a lot of time wasted in a lot of workplaces. 

Nevertheless, the Prime Minister and the Public Service Minister are giving government workers a rev-up and telling them to get their act together, get out of the tracksuit pants, have a shower, put their work clothes on and ditch this working from home nonsense. 

With Nicola Willis saying that working from home is not an entitlement, it is a privilege only to be granted when bosses are satisfied that it isn’t having an impact on productivity and performance. 

If there’s just one thing I can agree with the government on, it’s that there can be a lot of confusion at workplaces sometimes as to who is and who isn’t working on-site. Pretty much ever since this working from home thing became a thing during COVID. 

You know: “Oh I’m looking for Dave, but he’s not at his desk." 

“Oh nah - he’s working from home this week.” 

“No one told me.” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah - his line manager up north approved it after the last lockdown and he’s just been doing it every second week ever since.” 

So I agree with the Government that there can be quite a bit of confusion as to where people are sometimes. But, overall, I think it's dreaming if it thinks that waving the big finger and telling people to get back to the office is going to make them any more productive. 

Because, generally, it doesn’t matter where we are - we all waste time. Including, when we’re at the office. 

I bet there were truckloads of office workers who turned up to work at the usual time today, dumped their bag, maybe put their lunchbox in the fridge in the staffroom, said gidday to a few people, and then walked out the door again to get a coffee. 

They would've been back by about 9:30, gone through a few emails - and there would've been dozens of emails because they would've been CC'd into pretty much everything. 

Then they would've grabbed a snack bar and mandarin from the lunchbox in the fridge in the staffroom to take to their 10 o’clock meeting. 

The 10 o'clock meeting wouldn't have started at 10 because of a few stragglers (there’s always a few stragglers) and the Zoom connection to the crew in Wellington would have frozen. "Can you say a few words Steve, we’re just trying to get a connection." 

But they would've sat through it looking busy, nodding their head, when they were actually just writing down lists of what they need to get done around the house at the weekend.  

And it would've been the same right through the day. And they’ll go home tonight and tell anyone who will listen how frantic their day has been; how it was all meetings, meetings, meetings and how they’ll do a bit of work for a few hours after dinner just so they’re set up to get stuff done tomorrow. 

And they’ll go back in the morning and do the same thing all over again. 

More productive? Pfft.  

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ECAN regional council chair Peter Scott has to go. 

You’ll remember the fuss earlier this year when he admitted to Newstalk ZB that he’d been farming illegally on his South Canterbury property without the appropriate consents. 

And how, after that blunder, he disappeared for a while - ECAN spent $66,000 on a 10-week investigation - and then he was back again. All G. 

Well, not “all G” actually, because it’s now been revealed that he’s been hooning it in the car the council - or ratepayers - provide him as part of the job. 

And I actually think this is way-worse than the consenting bungle he confessed to. 

So how about this? Since January, Peter Scott has broken the speed limit in his regional council ratepayer-funded vehicle 678 times - at speeds of up to 157 kph.  

I’ve done the numbers and this equates to at least 75 times a month, or twice-a-day, seven days a week. 

Now these aren’t infringements. From what’s been reported so far about this, it’s unclear whether any of these did result in Peter Scott getting tickets. 

But I think it's safe to assume that, because he was still using the vehicle up until the end of last week - when he handed it back - I think it’s safe to assume that he didn’t get any speeding tickets. 

But he gave it a good go. Breaking the speed limit at least twice-a–day, seven days a week since January this year. 

These were all recorded on the GPS system ECAN has on all its vehicles so it can make sure people who use their vehicles aren’t speeding. 

And, as far as I’m concerned, he has to go. For two reasons. 

First reason: can you imagine any staff member getting away with this level of speeding in an ECAN vehicle? 

They wouldn’t. But, as long as Peter Scott remains chairman and a councillor, anyone working for ECAN has every right to tell their bosses to sod off if they try to take them to task for breaking the speed limit in a council vehicle. 

The other reason Peter Scott has to go, is that he isn’t just the chair of ECAN - he’s also the chair of the Canterbury Regional Transport Committee. 

And this is where things really start to drip with hypocrisy. Because, if you thought it was hypocritical enough for the chair of the regional council to be farming without the proper consents, get a load of this. 

The Canterbury Regional Transport Committee is an entity that involves all councils in the Canterbury region - including ECAN - and NZTA. And the number one job of the regional transport committee is to implement the Canterbury Regional Transport Plan. 

So Peter Scott is in charge of that committee. And that committee has to make sure that all the councils and NZTA are singing from the same song sheet when it comes to transport and roads. 

Now this plan has three key objectives. One of them, which is particularly relevant to Peter Scott speeding in his council car, is to reduce deaths and serious injuries on Canterbury roads by 40 percent by 2031. 

Previously, Peter Scott - who chairs this committee - has said: "Canterbury embraces the Government's moves to reduce the road toll.” 

This is the guy who, since January this year, broke the speed limit in his regional council ratepayer-funded vehicle 678 times, at speeds of up to 157 kph. 

This guy, who chairs the regional transport committee which says “poor decision-making by drivers is leading to deaths and serious injuries on our transport network", is a complete hypocrite when it comes to road safety.. 

He’s the guy who has overall responsibility for implementing a plan to reduce deaths and serious injuries on Canterbury roads by 40 percent over the next seven years. Yet, when it comes to his own driving, he’s actually part of the problem that his committee is trying to fix. 

For me, this is the major reason why Peter Scott has to go. He has apologised, handed back his council car and says he will do a defensive driving course.  

But, in my opinion, he’s a hypocrite whose goose is cooked. 

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World-renowned illusionist and 'International Magician of the Year', Cosentino, is bringing his spectacular new live show Decennium to Christchurch in November.

Decennium is a 90-minute stage spectacular, which was written, produced, and choreographed by Cosentino. He'll perform his most death-defying escapes that will thrill your senses, his greatest mind-boggling stage illusions and cutting-edge street magic that twists your view of reality.

He spoke to John MacDonald on Canterbury Mornings about how magic taught him to read at age 12.

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It seems to me that the Christchurch City Council has really got it in for the Arts Centre. 

For starters, when the Arts Centre asked for $20 million in council support over the next 10 years, the council said “yeah, nah” and gave it just under $6 million instead. 

Now, it wants to sting the Arts Centre $18,000 for increasing the number of food trucks operating there.  

The council says the charge is for “added stress” on its transport network that will be caused by the extra food trucks rolling into town, which is out-and-out nonsense as far as I’m concerned.  

And the council needs to be told to pull its head in and stop trying to punish the Arts Centre for doing exactly what the council wants to happen, which is attract more people to the central city. 

It’s especially bad when you consider how hypocritical all this is – I’ll get to that in a second. But here’s what’s happened: 

The Arts Centre decided that, since the council wasn’t going to give it the extra funding it says it needs, it started to think about how it could generate some extra income itself. And it decided to get more food trucks on site, the idea being that it would bring more people into the Arts Centre and get people spending more. A win-win, you would think.  

So good on the Arts Centre for not sitting around whinging and getting on with the job itself of trying to bring in some extra money. 

Of course, if it wanted to have more food trucks it needed to get resource consent. So it went to the council, wanting consent to have up to 33 food trucks there. The council wasn’t fussed with that and so, between them, they agreed it would be cool to have up to 25 food trucks. 

So compromise reached: more food trucks, more people, more money spent. Brilliant. 

Until the council got back in touch and told the Arts Centre that, because there’d be more food trucks rolling into town, that would put “added stress” on its transport network. And because of that added stress, it would be billing the Arts Centre $18,000.   

But here’s what makes it even worse. Here’s where the hypocrisy comes into it.  

Do you remember a couple of years ago —nearly three years ago now it was— and the Destiny Church was running those anti-vax protests in the centre of town? They called themselves the Freedom and Rights Coalition and they had those protest marches in November and December 2021, and January and February 2022. 

They got quite feral at times. And the problem the city council had with them was that it wasn’t notified beforehand. Which other protest organisers do, apparently. 

And so, because of that, the council hit the Freedom and Rights Coalition and the Destiny Church with a $50,000 bill for doing traffic management during these protests. 

Which is fine, but, at the last minute, the council backed down and told this outfit to forget about the $50,000 bill and ripped up the invoices. 

And this is what really riles me about what the council’s doing to the Arts Centre. It wants to charge the Arts Centre $18,000 for showing some initiative and trying to get more people going there and spending more with more food trucks. The council’s quite happy to effectively fine an outfit for doing something positive, when it’s the same outfit that told the Freedom and Rights Coalition that they didn't have to pay their $50,000 bill. 

The hypocrisy is staggering. And the council needs to get on the phone to the Arts Centre, apologise for its hypocrisy, give it credit for trying to get more going on in the centre of town, and tell it to forget about paying this stupid bill. 

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With nearly every Comanchero gang member in this country facing criminal charges, is this the beginning of the end for this Australian outfit’s New Zealand operation? 

They set-up shop here six years ago and have been helped enormously by Australia’s 501 deportation programme, but it’s not as if the gang’s been operating here just to give these guys something to do once they get off the plane from Sydney. 

Have no doubt, the Comancheros are here because they see it as a great place to make money. If they didn’t, they wouldn't be investing so much into their operation. 

It’s not a club. It’s a business. The question now, though, is whether the fall-out from this three-year operation by the police is going to make it too difficult for the Comancheros to do business here. 

When it comes to a start-up business, the Comancheros have wasted no time getting their share of the drug trade here. Especially, when you consider that they didn’t arrive en masse - it was a small, but influential group that arrived here first when the 501 deportations started. 

But, in just six years, they’ve more than given the other gangs a run for their money. One report I saw this morning said the Comancheros had created a “radical shift in the criminal underworld”. 

Nothing demonstrates that more than what the police are saying about the gang getting this former US marine into the country last year to give gang members training in combat drills and military tactics. 

So there they were —allegedly, of course— these gang members all dressed up in combat-style clothing with full face and body paint. Camouflage and everything. 

They were, apparently, using plastic bullets and real firearms in this training. The police are describing what went on as military-style camps. The purpose of them was to make sure the gang had the capability to take on wars and continue doing their hits. 

So they’ve rounded up next to every member in the country and thrown charges at them relating to importing and selling drugs, running what they’re saying was a pretty elaborate money laundering scheme, and running these military training camps run by a former US marine. 

Now there’s no doubt the Police have done a brilliant job. 

It’s taken them three years and, as we know, these kinds of operations are dangerous. They are dangerous, painstaking and they take time, so congratulations to the Police. But I reckon they’re going to have to keep the foot on the pedal if they think this is going to have a long-lasting impact on the Comancheros. 

In fact, I don’t think —long-term— that this is going to change much when it comes to this particular gang. 

And the reason I say that is because the Comancheros aren’t just some hokey kiwi gang. And let’s be honest, compared to the Comancheros, our other gangs are pretty hokey. 

But what the Comancheros have over all the other gangs here, are two things: money —and lots of it— and international connections. Head office is in Australia, where they’ve been causing strife for decades, and their international drug network is said to be second-to-none. If you can put it that way. 

So this sting by the police, while it’s absolutely brilliant, I think it is just going to be a blip for the Comancheros, and I don’t think this is the beginning of the end for them here in New Zealand. 

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Nothing brings out the redneck in me as much as a judge handing out a concurrent prison sentence. 

You know the situation. A person’s found guilty on, say, two charges —let’s say they get two-year sentences for each— but they don’t go to prison for two years plus two years (four years), instead, they serve the sentences concurrently. Meaning they’re serving both sentences at the same time. 

It’s something the Government is turning its attention to with these tougher sentencing laws it’s cracking on with, but I don’t think it’s going far enough. 

It’s introducing legislation to deliver the tougher sentences it promised prior to the election. Paul Goldsmith, the Justice Minister, says the changes are going to mean criminals will “face real consequences for crime and victims are prioritised”, saying there has been a trend in recent years where courts have handed-out fewer and shorter prison sentences. 

Stupidly, he’s saying that the legislation changes will help ensure there will be 20,000 fewer victims of crime within five years and that serious repeat offending by young people will be down by 15 percent. 

I say stupidly because the Government has no idea whether that will happen or not. It might be its target. But, anyway, they’re a couple of outcomes the Government thinks we will see as a result of these tougher sentences. 

And it’s all the stuff that people have been talking about and the politicians have been banging-on about for a while: the legislation is going to put limits on sentencing discounts judges can apply. 

It’s going to mean harsher penalties for anyone involved in crimes against sole-charge workers or at places where people live and work. So that’s your dairies, where the family lives out the back or upstairs. 

Young people who commit crimes over and over again can forget about sentence discounts because of their age or because they say “sorry”. 

But the one that I’m most interested in, is what the new legislation is going to do about concurrent sentencing. Which I think is a good start, but I also think the Government should be doing more, going further on this one. 

As it stands at the moment, through this new legislation, the Government is going to encourage judges to hand out cumulative sentences for crimes committed by people on bail, in custody or on parole - instead of concurrent sentences. 

So if they’re in custody and commit a crime in prison, that’ll get added to the time they’re already serving. If they’re on bail and commit more than one crime and they’re sent back to prison, they’ll serve time for each crime. Not concurrently. The same if they’re on parole.  

And, as far as I’m concerned, these are all good things. I don't necessarily think that this will stop these people from re-offending, because I’ve never bought the argument that tougher sentences stop people from offending. 

Because, most of the time, their heads aren’t screwed on properly, anyway. And thinking about the punishment they might get if they’re caught is probably the last thing they’re thinking about at the time. 

But these changes are great for victims of crime and their sense of justice. But, as I said earlier, I don’t think the Government is going far enough. 

I think we need to pretty much do away with concurrent sentences for all crimes. For all criminals. Because how can anyone think it is fair and reasonable to send someone away for the least amount of time? 

Which is what happens when someone serves their sentences concurrently. They’ve done multiple crimes, they’ve been found guilty on each of them, there is a punishment for each crime, but —in real terms— they are punished as if they’ve only committed one crime. 

And I reckon that if the Government was really serious, it would be doing away with concurrent sentences altogether. 

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The Christchurch City Council has learned nothing from the cathedral debacle. 

Because it’s now going to spend $19.5 million over the next four years, so that work can start on repairing and restoring the old provincial chambers building in the centre of town.  

$19.5 million. Nearly twice as much ratepayer money as what was going to go into the cathedral. To get things started on a repair job which is expected to cost around $200 million.  

I get it. It's got history. It's very relevant in terms of the history of Canterbury. It’s a beautiful building. No arguments from me on those fronts. 

But, as far as I’m concerned, the council shouldn't be pouring money into what could turn out to be a rinse and repeat of the cathedral debacle.  

The building itself dates back to 1858 and is the only purpose-built provincial government building that still exists in New Zealand.  

It was originally built to be the headquarters of what was known back then as the Canterbury Provincial Government. But when the provincial government was disestablished in 1876, it was used as offices for various government departments.  

Eventually, the Christchurch City Council became responsible for it. Pre-earthquakes, it was a popular spot for weddings and functions. But that all came to a stop and it’s just sat there since 2011. 

But in the Council’s new 10-year plan, it’s going to spend $500,000 in the next 12 months; $4.5 million the year after that; another $4.5 million the year after that; and $10 million the year after that. 

So, over four years, that’s $19.5 million. And the purpose of that spend is so that work can start. So that work can start on something that’s expected to cost 10-times that. 

When is the council going to learn not to throw millions of dollars at something that has next to zero certainty of getting finished? 

Because $19.5 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the money that’s going to be needed. Somewhere in the ballpark of another $180 million is going to be needed. 

But, just like happened with the cathedral, money’s going to be chipped-in here and chipped-in there on some sort of wing and a prayer that the rest of it will come from somewhere. 

Now, to be fair, there’s possibly a greater likelihood of the Government helping out on this one. But it won’t be to the tune of $180 million. 

Finance Minister Nicola Willis justified the Government’s decision not to bail-out the cathedral reinstatement because it considered the cathedral not to be owned by the public and that its public use was limited because it is a private, religious space. 

You might also recall her saying a few weeks back that the Canterbury Museum redevelopment - which is also underway and also short of all the money needed - might be more likely to get government support because it is a place used by the general public. 

Nevertheless, here we go again, with the city council pouring ratepayer money into a project that could very well end up lingering. Just like the cathedral. 

It's especially bad when you consider how tight it was with funding for the Arts Centre. Which is actually up and running and open for business. And is actually making a contribution to the city economically. 

The Arts Centre wanted $20 million in council support over the next 10 years. But it only got $6 million. 

And instead, the Council’s going to pour $19.5 million into getting repairs underway on the old provincial chambers building with what, seems to be, no idea where the rest of the money is going to come from. 

It is a ludicrous and irresponsible way to spend ratepayer money. 

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I’m glad I’m not working in the health system. Not that I’d be much use if I was, I’ve never been that great with blood. 

But the reason I’m glad I’m not a doctor or a nurse or a GP or a specialist, is the big stick that’s being pointed at all those people by the Government with its new targets. 

If I was starting a shift on a ward somewhere right now, I’d be thinking ‘here we go again’. Another government treating health as if it’s a factory. And only doing it to look good for the people on the sidelines, not the ones in there doing the doing. 

And it’s not just this government, governments have done it for years. Tinkering with waiting lists. Promising big spend-ups but not delivering. Labour’s done it, National’s done it, now the coalition’s doing it. 

And the reason they do it is because they think we are sucked-in by all this serious-face, performance indicator stuff. When all it does is set us up for disappointment and makes the people who do all the amazing work in our health system feel like they’re nothing more than political puppets. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for trying to do things better. And I’m all for trying to be as successful as you can be in something, but knowing what's expected of you and how it’s going to be measured is just part of it. 

The ones demanding the performance also need to ask the ones responsible for delivery what they need to make it happen. Something the doctors and nurses and GPs and specialists aren’t being asked by this government and haven’t been asked by any government – all they’re told is ‘do better, do better’. 

And today they’re being told that 90 percent of cancer patients have to start getting treatment within a month; that 95 percent of kids have to be fully immunised by the time they’re two; that 95 percent of people who turn up to an emergency department have to be treated, discharged or transferred somewhere else within six hours; and that 95 percent of people can’t be left waiting longer than four months for elective surgery. 

Which all sounds brilliant. It all looks good on paper, but there’s no more money coming to make it happen.  

But Health Minister Shane Reti seems to think that’s not going to be too much of a problem. The likes of the nurses union, though, disagrees - saying the health system is just being set-up for failure. Again. And I agree. 

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This is not the first time I’ve said this, but we are the people’s republic of pushovers, aren’t we? The way we give overseas visitors free ACC cover. 

Even more so when you consider the news that ACC wants to increase its levies by two or three times the rate of inflation over the next three years because it's taking longer and costing more for people to recover from their injuries. 

It's got a massive hole in its budget and your levies are going up, mine are going up, but your mate from the States who comes here and hurts themselves doing something gets free cover. And it has to stop. 

Especially, when you consider that there are only two countries that do the same for us: Australia and the UK. 

But, you know, the argument against making people from overseas pay their way more will probably be similar to the argument against increasing the international visitor levy. That, if you make tourists pay for their own treatment if they injure themselves, they won’t come here. Which is just nonsense. 

ACC Minister Matt Doocey is trotting-out the Government’s usual line about expecting ACC to “look at existing costs within the scheme to ensure that any levy increase is absolutely justified before final decisions are made. 

“The Government's expectation has been made clear to ACC that it must deliver greater value for the funds it receives. I am monitoring this very closely and will be ensuring ACC is improving its financial performance." 

Which ACC is already doing. It’s been cutting staff numbers. Back in May, it announced plans to cut more than 300 jobs – about 10 percent of its workforce. 

So ACC is already doing the cost-cutting the Government wants, but it also wants to charge more in levies. 

And my view is that if those of us who live here in New Zealand are going to have to pay more, then we should have a re-think about how generous we are when it comes to people who don’t live here. 

And I think we need to back ourselves and make visitors pay their way more. 

The two approaches I think we could use are either effectively charging non-residents at the door when they need treatment. So they break a leg, head to the emergency department and, once they’ve got the plaster on and they’re ready to leave, they get the credit card out. Or we make it mandatory for anyone visiting New Zealand to have travel insurance. Because it isn’t at the moment. 

If you’ve been overseas yourself, I bet you haven’t gone without travel insurance. That’s because we kind of expect or assume, don’t we, that if we need medical care while we’re away, it’s not going to be on the house. Unless it’s Australia or the UK that we’re visiting. 

When I went to the UK three months ago, I still took out travel insurance. But I know that if I had had an accident while I was there, my insurance company would have made me take as much free stuff as possible before paying for anything. 

And the same for people coming here from overseas. If they’ve got travel insurance, do you think their insurers will say “we'll pay for everything”? Of course not. They’ll say, ‘take the free stuff then come back to us if you need more’. 

And that free stuff is what you and I pay for. And what ACC wants us to pay even more for. 

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If someone is 10 years old, they aren't legally allowed to smoke. They aren’t legally allowed to drink alcohol, and they’re not really allowed to have their own Facebook page, but they can be held criminally responsible for violent crimes such as murder or manslaughter. 

And the new Chief Children’s Commissioner, Dr Claire Achmad, says that’s crazy and wants the minimum age of criminal responsibility to be raised from 10 to 14. 

And my head agrees with her, but my heart doesn’t. 

So the Children's Commissioner is saying today that, when a child commits a crime, it means they are struggling and they should be helped —not punished— and she wants to see changes in how we deal with these kids. 

A surprising thing is the Prime Minister’s response to this call for change, but I’ll get to that. 

It’s not as if the Chief Children’s commissioner is a lone voice in all of this. Last year, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child said New Zealand should raise the age of criminality to 14. 

It said that our approach focuses too much on the offence and not the fact that these offenders are young kids and, because they’re kids, they should be treated differently. 

The year before that —in 2022— the then children’s commissioner called for the age to be lifted to, at least, 14, but preferably 15 or 16. 

So this has been building momentum. 

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith doesn’t appear to be in favour of any change - saying that special provisions are made for criminal kids. The Prime Minister's door seems to be slightly ajar, not completely closed, to the idea. 

He said yesterday that the Government would need to have “a proper consideration; a proper discussion” before making any moves to change the minimum age. 

He went on to say: “We have real challenges in serious youth offending. Again, it comes down to quite a relatively small group, but certainly the age of some of those young offenders have got younger and younger over time.” 

And he said while raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility isn't a priority right now, “we’re open for doing whatever it takes, and we’re open for considering lots of new, bold, brave ideas”. 

Maybe the “bold and brave” part of that would be taking on the risk of a public backlash. Because there’s no shortage of people who think, whatever someone’s age, they should face the full consequences of their actions. 

And I know that, if one of these ratbags we’re talking about was to commit a serious crime that affected me, I’d want the book thrown at them. 

Maybe I’m underestimating myself there. And this is what I’m getting at when I say my heart tells me that the age of criminality shouldn’t be raised from 10 to 14. 

Whereas my head tells me that what the Chief Children’s Commissioner is saying today makes perfect sense. 

Why would you take something like the old ‘lock ‘em up and throw away the key’ approach when you’re dealing with someone so young and someone, you would like to think, has a greater chance of being rehabilitated and changing their ways than someone older? 

In my head, it makes perfect sense not to lump 10-year-olds in with older crims and treat them the same. 

That’s what the Chief Children’s Commissioner is saying today, and she says there’s evidence to prove that we’re doing things wrong. 

Dr Achmad says it’s out-of-step with what science tells us about brain development in young people and it’s out-of-step with New Zealand’s international obligations and duties under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

She says: “When a child criminally offends, it means that they are struggling; that their needs aren’t being met in one or more ways.” 

She says we can still hold these kids to account without punishing them. 

As I say, I’m torn. Because what she’s saying makes sense. But, in my heart of hearts, I can’t agree with what she’s calling for.  

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John MacDonald was joined by Chris Hipkins for their regular catchup. 

Labour's leader is siding with the Prime Minister in being open to exploring a social media ban for kids. 

Australia's Government's examining banning under-16 year olds from using sites like Instagram, Facebook, and X. 

Christopher Luxon has said he's looking into the policy. 

Chris Hipkins told John MacDonald that he's on the same page, but this shouldn't be seen as a silver bullet as kids ultimately find ways around such things. 

He says there also needs to be a good focus on educating kids to be safe online. 

Hipkins also says the electricity sector needs more regulation as two central North Island mills have given final confirmation they'll close. 

Winstone Pulp is blaming high energy prices for shutting down its Ohakune mills, with the loss of 230 jobs. 

Chris Hipkins says the new Government's done away with a consumer advocacy group for electricity users, but intervention is needed. 

He says there's clear evidence the market is failing because people are paying too much and electricity company profits are making far too big a profit – evidence the Government should do more. 

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At last, Selwyn mayor Sam Broughton has come up with an idea that I actually agree with. 

There was his push recently for the speed limit on the Southern Motorway to be bumped up to 120 kph, just because people are driving that fast anyway. 

That wasn’t his finest hour. 

But this idea he’s pushing today - that new road tolls need to be created and higher fuel taxes are needed because of a lack of government funding for roading projects in our neck of the woods - I think it’s a winner. 

In fact, as far as higher fuel taxes are concerned, I don’t think it should be limited to Selwyn. I’d be all-for a Canterbury regional fuel tax to raise money for roads and transport here. Money that isn’t coming from the Government. 

Which is why Sam Broughton is speaking out today. He’s saying if we want better roads, and the money isn’t coming from Wellington, then we need to get some skin in the game. 

So it’s yes from me for a regional fuel tax. And it’s a yes from me for new road tolls. And I'd start with the Southern Motorway - which is in Sam’s area. I’d also be in favour of a toll on the Northern Motorway. 

Both of them very good roads, and both worth paying extra to use. 

This practical thinking we’re seeing from Sam Broughton is a far better and more realistic response to the Government prioritising the North Island over the South Island in its roading and transport funding announcement last week, than what we’re seeing and hearing from other Canterbury local body politicians. 

They’ve been banging-on about how unfair it all is. Sam Broughton, though, is saying ‘yep, it probably is. But we can either decide to keep whining about it or we can come up with some solutions ourselves’. 

They’re not his actual words, but that’s effectively what he’s saying with this talk of higher fuel taxes and road tolls in his area: take control. And I like it. 

Because if you just go on like Peter Scott, who is the chairman of Environment Canterbury —he’s saying ‘ooh it’s not fair and we just want our fair share’— if you keep banging on like that, that’s all it is - banging on. 

He’s throwing all sorts of percentages around - Canterbury makes up 12 percent of the country’s population, and our roads make up 16 percent of the total roading network, but we’re only getting five to eight percent of the funding. Wah wah wah. 

Wellington hears that kind of response and thinks ‘yeah and?’ 

Sam Broughton, though, he’s telling it like it is. 

He’s telling people in Selwyn that, if they want the improvements and changes to the roads that they think are needed, then we need to find a way of doing it that doesn’t rely on the Government and doesn’t mean rates going up and up and up. 

Which they already are in Selwyn. Over the next three years, on average, there’s going to be a 48 percent increase. And, without as much government money coming as it had hoped, the Selwyn council reckons that could go over the 50 percent increase mark. 

If you’re not convinced that a regional fuel tax for Canterbury is a good idea. Maybe this might convince you. Back in 2018, ECAN did the numbers and estimated that a regional fuel tax here —at say 10 cents a litre— could bring-in an additional $100 million for regional roading projects. 

This was just a couple of months after Auckland got its regional fuel tax. Which is history now, but I think it would be a winner here. 

If you think of those numbers ECAN did back in 2018. A regional fuel tax —providing the money was spent here— would have brought-in $600 million by now. Do you still think Sam Broughton is dreaming? I don’t think he is at all. 

I don’t think he’s dreaming, either, with this call for more toll roads. And I’d be more than happy to pay a toll to use the Southern Motorway and the Northern Motorway in and out of Christchurch. 

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It might happen. It might not.

What I’m talking about, is the way some people seem to think they have to jump to the defence of the super rich whenever anyone mentions the idea of a wealth tax.

Which one of our country’s wealthiest people is actually advocating for today. This is Bruce Plested, who was a co-founder of the Mainfreight transport business and who’s done very well out of it.

And, while he’s not claiming to be speaking on behalf of all the mega-wealthy people in New Zealand, he is saying today that he would have no problem paying more tax.

Mainfreight is currently valued at about $7.3 billion on the New Zealand Stock Exchange. Bruce Plested still has a 14 percent stake in the company. So he’s done alright.

At the same time, Labour leader Chris Hipkins is saying that the party is thinking about including a capital gains tax in its tax policy - which could include taxing the increased value in people's houses, even when they're not being sold.

Which I think is nuts. I’ve got no problem with the idea of a wealth tax - I think that would be much fairer.

The reason why I’m against capital gains taxes, is that capital gain is, generally, the only way ahead for most of us - financially.

Maybe the gains we’re going to get out of property, for example, won’t quite be on the scale they have been in recent years. But why should we be taxed on that? Let alone the capital gain we get on properties we aren’t even selling.

Even talking about that possibility, Chris Hipkins is holding up a sign saying “don’t vote for us”. Because, what I’ve learned over the years, is even people on the left will avoid paying taxes if they can.

What’s more - as we see with the likes of council rates - just because your house increases in value, it doesn’t mean you can afford to pay more rates.

Just like with this idea Labour’s got. Just because your house increases in value, it doesn’t mean you could afford to pay capital gains tax. And then what would happen if, down the track, the market went backwards and you lost some or all of the capital gain you’d previously been taxed on? Tax refund anyone? I don’t think so.

So I think it’s very easy to pull holes in Labour’s potential capital gains tax idea.

A wealth tax, though, is a different story. Because, anyone wealthy enough to be on the list of targets for a wealth tax, wouldn’t be impacted as much as the rest of us if we were pinged with a capital gains tax.

But those who jump to the defence of the super rich whenever anyone mentions wealth taxes won’t agree with me. They’ll say what the Revenue Minister is saying, that a wealth tax would drive the super rich out of the country.

Someone who does agree with me, though, is Max Rashbrooke - who is an expert in inequality.

He says the facts of the matter are, that when a super wealthy person threatens to pull their money out if a wealth tax is brought in, it’s generally what he describes as “a hollow threat”.

He’s a researcher at Victoria University, in Wellington, and he says New Zealand lets wealthy people off very lightly when it comes to paying tax.

Unlike me, though, he’s in favour of a capital gains tax as well as a wealth tax. Where I’m just in favour of a wealth tax.

He says: "Capital gains tax is just so standard virtually everywhere else in the developed world. It's just part of the furniture. It's totally normal. It is bizarre that we don't have one."

On the wealth tax, Max Rashbrooke says what he would do is he’d have a wealth tax and put the money into a Kiwisaver scheme for kids which, he says, would genuinely build wealth for everyone. Not just for a select few - as he puts it.

I wouldn’t go for that. I’d put the money from a wealth tax into all the things the government pretty much can’t afford to do right now, because it’s not bringing enough money in the door from taxes.

This cost-cutting that we’re seeing now in the public sector - that’s just politics. We’re not going to suddenly be able to afford more infrastructure and more hospitals, or more of anything the taxpayer pays for. Because there just isn’t enough money. And it’s only going to get worse as the population ages.

So something has to be done. More tax is needed. And, as far as I’m concerned, the answer is to tax the super wealthy more - through a wealth tax. Instead of hitting us all with a capital gains tax.

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National’s Matt Doocey and Labour’s Reuben Davidson joined John MacDonald this week for Politics Friday. 

They discussed Hagley College’s idea to trial a flexible model, with students working from home two days a week – how does this fit in with the Government’s plans for attendance? 

Will increasing the visitor levy be the answer to funding issues, or will it be a silver bullet to the tourism industry? 

Does the Government support the Mayor’s letter, asking them to crack down on pokie machine jackpots and add limits to machines in Christchurch? 

Plus, what really happened with Matt Doocey’s interview mixup on the Mike Hosking Breakfast? 

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The Commerce Commission says the big supermarket operators are still creaming it. 

They’re not making the changes the Commission wanted them to make. Their profits are still too high and the Commission is talking tough, saying it would like to be able to fine them up to $10 million if they keep ripping people off and ignoring what the Commission wants. 

But I don’t think that $10 million fines would make the least bit of difference. Because we’re talking here about a sector worth $25 billion, do you really think they’re going to worry about the risk of a $10 million fine? 

Of course they’re not. They’d just be like the garden shops that open up shop on public holidays. It’s against the rules. They know they might be fined, but they run the risk, anyway because they make way more than enough to cover any potential fine and then some.  

And the supermarket companies are the same. They haven’t worried about the Commerce Commision up until now —which has been demanding all sorts of changes on behalf of us consumers— and they won’t be any more worried about the Commerce Commission today than they were before it came out with its latest assessment of the supermarket sector. 

These companies know they have it over us. What’s more, can you imagine how long it would take to actually prove a case of price-gouging or whatever against these outfits? 

And while that was all going on, they’d just keep hiking up the prices and “ripping us off” - as the Commission put it yesterday. 

Actually, it was the Commerce Commission’s grocery commissioner, Pierre van Heerden, who said that. It’s him doing the tough talking. Which is about time because, until now, he’s been all ‘measured tones’ on it. But yesterday, he put his serious face on. And good on him. 

But it’s going to take a lot more than him putting on his serious face for the supermarket operators to pay any attention. 

On paper anyway, it is an absolute rort that the prices we pay at the supermarket have been going up at a faster rate than increases in what the supermarkets pay their suppliers. That’s the nub of what the Commerce Commission is saying. 

Which makes a complete joke of the lines supermarkets like to use about “passing on the savings to you”. 

As far as the Commerce Commission and the Grocery Commissioner are concerned, the supermarkets haven’t been doing that at all. They’ve been screwing their suppliers —getting their prices down— but they certainly haven’t been passing them on. 

Where I’m torn in all this is that I know supermarkets are businesses. They have to make profits to survive. They’re not charities. 

Even though they provide some of the essentials of life, they’re not charities. They exist to make money and they’re doing that. 

For a long time now, owning a local supermarket has been seen as a licence to make money. It’s not easy. And I know with the likes of Foodstuffs, at least, you can’t just walk in and take over a supermarket. Even if you’ve got the money to buy one, you have to do your time working in a supermarket - getting a real understanding of how they work. 

Nevertheless, people have made good livings out of it. But it’s only in recent years that us customers have looked up and thought, hold on a minute, when it seems that we go through the checkout and it gets more expensive every time. 

So yes, a supermarket is a business which needs to be profitable. And yes, I’m torn when it comes to punishing businesses for being successful. For being profitable. 

But when a business does that in an underhanded way - that’s where I draw the line. And, like the Commerce Commission and the Grocery Commissioner, I think supermarkets have been underhanded, especially when you consider the fact that the prices we pay at the check-out have been going up at a faster rate than increases in what the supermarkets pay their suppliers. 

That’s underhanded, and good on the grocery commissioner for calling them out. 

But I don’t think the supermarket companies will care and I certainly don’t think the threat of $10 million fines will make any difference, either. 

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Monty Python star Eric Idle is making his way to Christchurch in his one man musical. 

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, Live!is a nostalgic reflection on his love comedy, music, life, and what he calls “Mock and Roll”, a blend of comedy and music. 

He joined John MacDonald live from Los Angeles to discuss the show that will be hitting the city on the 28thof October at the Isaac Theatre Royal. 

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A report into the viability of Christchurch hosting the Commonwealth Games took 14 hours to write, after it was requested in January. 

The report, commissioned by Mayor Phil Mauger, from Council and Christchurch NZ recommended Christchurch avoid holding a standalone event. 

Newstalk ZB has revealed it cost just over $1000 for staff time. 

Mauger told John MacDonald the report was a big job for Christchurch NZ, which didn't need rushing. 

He says the city wasn't trying to host the Games sometime in the next year, so they just fitted it when they could. 

Mauger joined John MacDonald in studio for their regular catchup, giving his thoughts on the Games’ report, high rises in the CBD, and his request the Government does more to address the pokie machine harm in Christchurch. 

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It is time for Christchurch to get real. 

To get real and accept that we will never host the Commonwealth Games. Never host them on our own, and not even bother trying to be part of any national bid to host them in the future. 

I’ve never shared Mayor Phil Mauger’s dream of getting the Games here again. His idea is based purely and simply on his rose-tinted memories of the ‘74 games here in Christchurch. 

But that was a different time, and I imagine he’s not enjoying reading this new report that has just been delivered by the city council’s tourism and economic development agency, ChristchurchNZ. 

To sum it up, the report says: We don’t know what it would cost to host the Games in Christchurch —but it would be a truckload. And there are other events we should be trying to get here instead— which would be cheaper and have much more of an economic impact. 

All this has ever been, is a pipedream of mayor Phil Mauger's. And good on ChristchurchNZ for coming to the conclusion that it has: that we need to move on. 

The reason, by the way, that I think we need to ditch the Games outright —as in hosting them ourselves and hosting them with other cities around the country— is because I think the Commonwealth Games will be history sooner rather than later. 

And I’m more than prepared to listen to the experts, which is what I’m hoping the council will do. 

It’s also what I need to do if ChristchurchNZ tells me that this idea I’ve got of getting Oasis over here to be the first band to perform at the new stadium when it opens in 2026 is a dud. 

For me, I probably just want to re-live my 20s. And Phil Mauger wants to re-live the time when he was a kid and watched the QE2 stadium being built across the road from his place, and his youthful memories of that golden age in Christchurch’s history. 

But we all have to move on. 

We also have to remember that Christchurch was left with a lot of debt after the ‘74 games, which wasn’t cleared until the Government chipped in with some money ahead of the 1990 Games in Auckland. Because that would’ve been a bad look if it hadn’t. 

So ‘74 wasn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. Just like the Commonwealth Games aren’t what some people still crack them up to be. 

Especially when we now know that there are other events that could cost way less and deliver more bang for buck. 

An example ChristchurchNZ talks about in its report is the opportunity for Christchurch to host the International Masters Games in 2030. They say this is a ‘live’ opportunity for us to host an international multi-sport, multi-day event - which could pump nearly $12 million into the local economy over a 10-day period. 

This is the stuff we need to focus on getting here. Not other nonsense, like the Commonwealth Games. 

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Let’s get this clear from the start: Transport Minister Simeon Brown is no knight in shining armour coming to the rescue of motorists up and down the country. 

He’s not doing anything special or spectacular with this announcement that the Government wants to spend a record amount of money on our roads and transport. 

$32.9 billion over the next three years. And, to be fair, it’s mostly roads. $5.5 billion on pothole repairs 

Funding for walkways and cycleways has been halved and there’s going to be no taxpayer money going into speed bumps. Not that that will stop local councils from pouring money into speed bumps, but there’ll be no government money available for speed bumps. 

But, like I say, before you go falling at Simeon’s feet or getting on the blower to the Vatican wanting him canonised, let’s see this announcement for what it is: it’s a no-brainer. 

Because, despite the hefty price tag, if the Government hadn’t decided to spend this kind of money all its talk about committing big-time to infrastructure would have started to sound pretty hollow, pretty quickly. 

The other reason why it needed to allocate a record amount of money to roading and transport —aside from it being a government that’s big on roads and big on infrastructure, in general— is that, when it comes down to it, it had no option. 

It could have decided not to make such a big commitment, but that would have been nuts because our roading network is in desperate need of investment. 

Tell that to the Opposition, though. Labour’s transport spokesperson Tangi Utikere is saying that the focus on big new roads is hypocritical for a government promising to cut costs. If that’s the best criticism you can offer, mate, you might need to think a bit harder. 

The Greens aren’t impressed, either. They want more money for —you guessed it— cycleways and public transport. 

I see that NZTA’s chief executive Nicole Rosie is saying that it will be "challenging to deliver everything within the confines of our budgeted funding". But she says they are "up for the challenge". 

But her group general manager of transport services, Brett Gliddon, is sounding a bit more upbeat. Here’s what he’s saying: 

“Not having sustainable funding over recent years has really impacted our ability to do things in an efficient way and design a pipeline so that construction companies can invest in plant and people to get efficiency. 

“So what we're hoping with this new amount of money is contractors will get a pipeline of work into the future, they'll invest in people and better ways of doing things. So that's the hope.” 

Well hey Brett, you better have been listening to the Transport Minister because it’s not going to be enough for you to just hope the roading contractors do things differently. 

Because, even though Simeon Brown is confident that NZTA can deliver all these projects on time and within budget, it’s going to depend on them putting the screws on the outfits that actually do the work, as well. 

Nevertheless, this is a plan the Government had no options other than going with. 

Yes, it’s big money, but it’s also back-to-basics. Because, when it comes to roading, we’ve become pretty average at the basics. And the basics are what we have to get much better at. 

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Life’s all about choices. And we need to make some.

Outgoing Treasury boss Dr Caralee McLiesh says cutting costs here and there, like the Government is doing at the moment, isn’t going to be enough to really get the country's finances in order.

And she reckons one of the things we need to do is make changes to the government superannuation scheme.

I agree with her. Because we are dreaming if we reckon we can just keep on keeping on, paying out the pension to people just because they reach a certain age.

Which is where we get to the choice we need to make. Because doing nothing isn’t an option.

The two options we do have is, either, raising the retirement age; or means-testing for the pension.

I’m no doubt that, at some stage, we have to start means-testing for the pension.

I’ll tell you why I’m in favour of means testing and why I’m not in favour of raising the retirement age.

The fact is, no matter how active we think we are or how active we try to be, age catches up with every one of us. It happens to everyone.

And some people have careers and they work in jobs that can be almost impossible to do by the age of 65. Some people even struggle by the time they’re 60. Painters. Builders. Most tradies, really.

Others might have jobs that aren’t all that physical, but age still catches up with them and the idea of working beyond 65 is just not on their radar.

What I’m saying is that everyone ages and expecting everyone to work past 65 just isn’t realistic. Because age catches up with all of us. There’s no variable.

What is variable, though, are our financial positions. Some people are loaded. Some people are hard up. Some people are somewhere in between. So it’s crazy that, when it comes to the pension, we treat everyone the same.

The loaded people get the pension, and it’s beer money. The hard up people get the pension, and it’s their lifeline. So their lives are completely different, in terms of what they can and can’t afford, but we pay them all the pension.

And we can’t keep doing that.

The other strong argument in favour of means-testing the government pension arrives in our letterbox at home on a semi-regular basis.

Our kids are all at university in Dunedin and Wellington but a lot of their mail still turns up at home, some from their Kiwisaver providers.

So, here they are - not all that long out of school in the grand scheme of things - and they’ve got Kiwisaver accounts.

Maybe some of that money will get chewed up on home deposits down the track. But, the point is, thanks to Kiwisaver they are saving for retirement at an age when most of us probably never even thought about it.

And these are the generations who, I reckon, won’t even have an expectation that anything other than what they save themselves and what their employers contribute through Kiwisaver, will be what they will have by the time they get to retirement age.

But, if you're already in your 60s, chances are you’re of the thinking that you’ve paid your taxes, you’ve done your bit, and that you deserve every cent of the pension. Which is an argument I struggle with. Because we all pay our taxes but we don’t necessarily use all the services that our tax money goes into.

But, somehow, the pension is different. And there is this sense of entitlement that, even if you don’t need it, you should still get it.

Which needs to stop. Because we can’t afford it anymore.

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If you drive a petrol vehicle, how’s that $20-a-week tax cut looking now that the Government wants to sting you with road user charges? 

I’m being a bit facetious. Because I actually think road user charges are much fairer than fuel taxes. Because, when you use a road, it makes no difference whether you drive an old dunger or something more modern - you’re still using it. 

Because with road user charges, you pay depending on how many kilometres you drive, instead of how much fuel you buy. 

And if you’ve got the most fuel-efficient vehicle on the market, why should you effectively pay less to use the same road as someone who can only afford an old gas guzzler? 

You shouldn’t. Which is why the Government wants owners of petrol vehicles to pay their way the same way drivers of diesel vehicles and EVs do right now - through road user charges. Which would be much fairer than a fuel tax. 

Just like we pay the same amount for things like Netflix, whether we watch it on a cruddy old TV or the latest high-definition TV. 

That’s what this is. User pays for our roads. And a much fairer version of user pays than what we have at the moment. Which means, if you drive a petrol vehicle, you pay a fuel tax. And, if you drive a diesel or an electric vehicle - you pay road user charges. 

Before you think I’m getting too carried away, there is a caveat on my support for what the Government wants to do. 

And I think this is where the people who have been screaming blue murder since the Transport Minister announced his plan are coming from. They’re saying there’s no way they’re going to pay road user charges, as well as fuel taxes. 

And fair enough too. There is no way the Government could justify stinging us for both. So that’s the only caveat on me saying ‘yep, go for it’. 

There’s another thing too. How realistic is all this? 

For starters, Simeon Brown reckons he can have road user charges for petrol vehicles in place by 2027. Which, of course, is after the next election. So get ready for this to be an election issue in a couple of years’ time. 

And, while this all looks good on paper - well, I think so anyway. While this all looks good on paper, there are other unanswered questions. 

Will owners of petrol vehicles even bother paying these new road user charges? You can guarantee there will be some who won’t. Who knows how many. 

How is the Government going to make sure whether people are paying them or not That’s the $3.5 million question the Government doesn’t have an answer to yet. There are 3.5 million petrol vehicles in New Zealand at the moment. Which is about three-quarters of all vehicles on the road. 

And the big question: the Government has already talked about a 12 percent increase in petrol taxes in 2027 —the same year these new RUCs come into force— so what’s happening on that front? 

The closest thing to an answer to that question can be found in the media statement the Transport Minister put out yesterday. 

Simeon Brown says: “We are transitioning the light vehicle fleet to road user charges, and away from fuel tax, by as early as 2027. 

"Transitioning to road user charges will ensure that all road users are contributing fairly to the upkeep of our roads, regardless of the vehicle they drive.”  

So “transitioning away from fuel tax” is all he’s saying about that. And, for me, that’s the crucial bit. 

Because, even though I think road user charges are a much fairer way of paying to use our country’s roads, it would be nothing short of a rort for the Government to charge us a petrol tax and road user charges.  

Perhaps we can take comfort in the fact that with vehicles becoming more fuel-efficient, shifting to road user charges will mean the Government will get more revenue than what it’s getting now under the current way of doing things. And, on that basis, it will be more-than-happy to ditch the taxes outright. 

But I’m happy to put that question aside for now. I’m happy to give the Government the benefit of the doubt. And I’m happy to say that, at this stage, I’m right behind the idea. 

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This week on Politics Friday, Labour’s Megan Woods and National’s Matt Doocey joined John to dig into some of the biggest political stories of the week. 

On the agenda was the proposed road user charges system – will it work? Is it fair? Can National and Labour agree on an infrastructure plan to ensure things get finished? And is importing LNG a longterm solution? What does the former Energy Minister make of National’s plans? 

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I love the Government’s thinking on infrastructure planning. 

It wants us to have a 30-year plan for big projects that politicians, generally, wouldn’t be able to muck around with. Which, of course, would give us all a lot of certainty. 

It would also give the people who invest their own money in infrastructure certainty, as well. 

So a great idea. Because we are seeing right now how hopeless we have become at long-term infrastructure planning, and the consequences seem to be coming at us left, right and centre. 

The inter-island ferries, electricity infrastructure, the state of our roads. The band-aid approach has got us in this mess. 

Not to mention all the political pipedreams and political interference. So, why wouldn’t you try and get a long-term plan that everyone pretty much signs up to? It’s a no-brainer.  

And, to try and make it happen, the Government is setting-up a new National Infrastructure Agency. 

Where I see it coming unstuck, though, is getting the politicians to agree on a 30-year plan. 

Even on the day it was announced, we had Labour complaining that they weren’t given enough warning or weren’t consulted enough before the Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop told the world about it yesterday. 

And the Green Party’s Infrastructure spokesperson Julie Anne Genter is saying a 30-year-plan is great - as long as it puts the environment front right and centre. 

So, chances are, we’ll have all the parties sitting in a room trying to agree and we’ll have National wanting more motorways, Labour wanting more trains and the Greens wanting more cycleways. 

This is where I see the Government’s idea coming unstuck. Which shouldn’t be the case because, in other countries, politicians have managed to do what Chris Bishop wants to do. 

Across the ditch in New South Wales, they set-up Infrastructure New South Wales 13 years ago. 

Back in 2011, the then-state government decided long-term infrastructure projects were too important to be left to the whims of the political cycle, and it seems to have served them well. 

Since being set-up, Infrastructure New South Wales has helped deliver projects such as the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, planning of WestConnex and traffic management around Sydney Airport and Port Botany. 

It’s also been involved heavily in the new metro system in Sydney which opened the other week - and people seem to be raving about it. 

And I suspect the plans by the government here to set-up a National Infrastructure Agency follows Chris Bishop’s recent trip to Australia with the Prime Minister, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Resources Minister Shane Jones. 

But I don’t think Chris Bishop is going to get what he wants. 

Because —even though it’s been done in other countries— I have zero faith that our politicians can agree on this. 

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Finance Minister Nicola Willis is visiting Christchurch today and joined John MacDonald in studio to give her thoughts on a few topics. 

They discussed National's infrastructure 30-year plan. Is she confident of getting cross party support? 

What were her true thoughts when she was approached about putting more money into the Christchurch Cathedral, and will there be any money in future for it? 

And what about the Canterbury Museum, which is currently 15 million dollars short in funding? 

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It’s not quite as fast as Selwyn mayor Sam Broughton wants it. But the Government’s thinking about raising the speed limit on the Southern Motorway between Rolleston and Christchurch to 110 kph per hour - which would be the highest speed limit in the South Island. 

Mayor Broughton reckons it should be 120, the Government thinks 110 is more like it, and I think it should stay at 100. 

The mayor’s argument in favour of increasing the speed limit seems to be along the lines of ‘people are already driving that fast now, so that’s what the speed limit should be’. 

Which is a bit like saying, ‘some people are murderers, so let’s make murder legal’. 

I know, slight exaggeration, but that’s why the mayor of Selwyn wants to see the speed limit lifted - because people are driving fast, anyway. 

Transport Minister Simeon Brown, though, reckons it’s all about productivity. It’s about getting stuff done. 

Here’s what he has to say about that: “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy. This proposal supports that outcome by reducing travel times and increasing efficiency on this key South Island freight route. 

“The Christchurch Southern Motorway has reduced congestion, and improved safety and travel time reliability. 

“We know how critical this connection is for motorists and freight operators, and we’re committed to ensuring that this state highway enables people to get to where they want to go, quickly and safely.” 

Which all sounds great, Simeon. But how much quicker do you think increasing the speed limit is going to make things? By my calculations, if you compare a 100 kph speed limit with a 110 kph limit —and if you drive at those speeds— the faster speed takes just over a minute off your travel time. 

Is that really worth it? I don't think so at all. Especially when we know that the faster a vehicle goes, the messier things get when they crash. 

The other thing that makes this such a daft idea is the fact that it was only three months ago when the Government pulled the plug on a $90 million upgrade of Brougham Street, which would have to be one of the most congested and dangerous roads in the city. 

It was due to be underway by the end of the year and would have meant there’d be an overbridge for pedestrians and cyclists, lanes for car-pooling and buses and motorbikes, and a shared pedestrian-cycle path. 

But because that’s not happening, this “critical connection for motorists and freight operators” that Simeon Brown is going on about, will continue to come to a standstill as soon as it hits Brougham Street. 

So, if this speed limit change goes ahead, you’ll be screaming up the Southern Motorway from Rolleston, you’ll get to Brougham Street and then you’ll be going nowhere fast. 

You’ll get there a minute quicker. But so what? 

The other question this raises, is if it’s good enough for the Government to be thinking about raising the speed limit on the Southern Motorway, should it be doing the same on the Northern Motorway? 

Here’s why Simeon Brown thinks the Southern Motorway is ripe for faster driving. He says “the Southern Motorway was built to a high safety standard and has delivered strong safety benefits for people travelling in and out of Christchurch. 

He says that the Southern Motorway has “safety features that greatly reduce the risk of death or serious injury in a crash, including two lanes in each direction, flexible median barrier between opposing lanes, and a smooth alignment that offers good forward visibility for drivers.” 

So, even though I’m against this idea of increasing the speed limit on the southern motorway - if the Government ends up doing it, then they might as well do it on the northern, as well. 

Because if it reckons the southern is safe enough for faster driving. Then the northern must be too, right? 

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John was joined by Labour Leader Chris Hipkins on the show today for their regular catch up.

John was keen to find out where Labour stands really on oil and gas exploration in New Zealand - if they get back into power will they honour any contracts in place? Does Hipkins agree with the proposed speed limit change on the Southern Motorway, given the Road To Zero campaign it supported? And is it time for a Super City Council in Canterbury in his view? 

Labour's leader is encouraging councils to take a closer look at their governance structure. 

Some councils in the lower South Island have voted this week to continue discussions on creating unitary authorities. 

Chris Hipkins told Canterbury Mornings it's a good thing to talk about amalgamation in the context of improving local government services. 

He says it's a conversation local councils should have with many councils in New Zealand relative to its size. 

Hipkins says if you were to design a local government system on a blank piece of paper you wouldn't design the one we have. 

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Sometimes, no matter how much of a greenie you might think you are, you just have to get real. 

Tell that to the likes of the Labour Party, though, which is saying the moves announced by the Government to try and make sure we have enough electricity to keep the heaters and lights on, and the factories operating, show that it is “giving up on climate change”. Which is nonsense. 

Greenpeace New Zealand is taking it a step further and accusing the Government of “outright climate denial”. Again, nonsense. 

And, whether I like it or not, I’m looking at what the Government has announced to deal with, what it’s now calling the energy crisis and, I’ll be honest with you, I’m finding it hard to argue with. 

I feel like I should be arguing against it. But I can’t. Because I think, in the face of reality, the Government is doing what it has to do. 

And, instead of giving up on climate change —like Labour is saying— the Government is giving up on a pipedream. A pipedream that New Zealand would only be using renewable energy by 2030, in six years' time. 

That was the target we had - up until yesterday. 

But, as you might have heard the Prime Minister say, that was nothing more than a slogan on a bumper sticker, and so it’s gone. Oil and gas exploration are back. The Government also wants to see more gas imported to help generate more power. 

But before we get too excited, neither of those are going to fix things overnight. 

In relation to the importation of liquified natural gas - the first thing the Government has to do is remove the barriers which stop gas being imported. So that’s the paperwork side of it and they will take some time. 

Then there's all the logistics of getting the gas here. 

So the power bills aren’t going to suddenly start coming down. Not this year, anyway. 

As for the other piece in the puzzle —getting oil and gas exploration up and running again off the New Zealand coast— that’s a slow burner too. 

In fact, it’s such a slow burner that I don’t think we will ever see it happening. Because governments change and, if Labour is true to its word, it will put the ban back in place whenever it ends up in government again. 

Not that that will be a problem for National. Because, even if it goes nowhere, it will still be able to crow that it tried to do something. 

Even the Prime Minister acknowledges that we’ve got a bit of making-up to do when it comes to giving foreign oil and gas companies confidence that New Zealand is somewhere they should think about coming back to, after Labour pulled the plug on exploration. 

So what the Government is doing is a mix of practicalities and politics. It’s being practical in terms of paving the way for liquified natural gas to be imported so we can generate the electricity we need, for the time being. 

And it’s being political with the removal of the oil and gas exploration ban because, as I say, even with the ban lifted - I don’t think we’ll see it happening again. 

But —as any politician will tell you— sometimes, being seen to do something, is just as important as whether it works or not. 

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I think the Government’s done a John Key. 

You know - float an idea, wait for the noise, and change the thing people are making the most noise about. 

Which is exactly what’s happened with the new Fast Track legislation for large-scale infrastructure and mining projects. 

Some are saying the Government’s 'backed-down' with its decision to let an independent panel of experts decide whether a big infrastructure or mining project gets the big tick. Call it what you want. But the Government’s done the right thing, in my book. 

Because, if it hadn’t, this legislation would have been anything but 'fast track'.  

Because, initially, the plan was to let three Government ministers decide whether new projects would get the go-ahead. But a lot of people didn’t like the idea of politicians making decisions about stuff they might not have any idea about. 

Or politicians making decisions about proposed projects and not taking everything into account. 

For example, there have been concerns  since the legislation was first-proposed that the Government would prioritise the economic benefits of a project or a development over any environmental impacts, for example. 

That’s less likely now. Not that it still doesn’t have a political fight on its hands. The Greens still aren’t fussed about it. Nor are any of the Opposition parties. 

The Green Party’s environment spokesperson, Lan Pham, says the changes the Government has made to the legislation is just “tinkering and shallow re-packaging” that fails to address environmental concerns.   

Labour had its own fast-tracking law back when it wanted to get on with projects after COVID. That legislation’s now history. And I see its environment spokesperson is saying that letting the independent panel make the final decisions is a 'small win'. But Labour doesn’t think the Government’s gone far enough to ensure the environment is protected.  

So the plan now is to have an independent panel of experts make the decision, including iwi representatives. 

When I heard iwi were going to be involved, I thought the Government might have been opening a can of worms for itself. Time will tell on that front. 

I see already, though, that the head of a Wellington iwi - which led a hikoi to Parliament over the legislation - is saying today that the Government has done the right thing taking politicians out of the decision-making. 

Helmut Modlik is chief executive of Te Runanga o Toa Rangatira. He says he’s very pleased.  

He’s saying: "I actually want to acknowledge them for listening. I was of the view and still am that they're trying to enable quicker and more cost-effective delivery of the built environment changes that we need. 

"And, in the first instance, the balance wasn't quite right. We spoke, the nation spoke and they listened. So yeah, I want to acknowledge them for that." 

RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop denies that it’s about politics. He just wants to get on with stuff and says the Government realised that sticking with its original plan to give Government ministers final approval for these big projects was going to be more trouble than it was worth. 

The Government knows that there would have been no hope in hell of charging-on if it had stuck with the original plan of letting Chris Bishop, Energy Minister Simeon Brown and Resources Minister Shane Jones decide whether a development or a project gets the green light. 

Because, if it didn’t make the change it announced yesterday, the Government would have spent more time in court than actually “getting stuff done”, as the Prime Minister likes to say.   

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If you’ve heard all the talk over the past 24 hours about the Government making more changes to the Resource Management Act and you’ve thought ‘oh boring, nothing to do with me’, think again.

Because there’s one aspect that has potential to make a difference for anyone and everyone in the country. Which includes you.

I don’t think it’s going to be enough on its own. Because, if you don’t need cheaper power bills, then you’re shouting drinks tonight.

So I think a lot more than what the Government is proposing to do with the Resource Management Act is needed. But I’ll get to that.

What happened yesterday, is the Government announced more changes it wants to make to the RMA - the Resource Management Act - which is the legislation that sets out all the rules and requirements in place to protect the natural environment.

To make sure we don’t go all “get stuff done” and “you can’t stop progress” on it, and then look up and realise that we’ve stuffed the environment while we’re doing it. I know some people will argue that we’ve still managed to stuff the environment. But that’s what the RMA is all about.

In essence, it lays out all the hoops people and organisations and companies have to jump through before they can do things like set-up a new power station.

And this is the aspect of the changes announced yesterday that is most relevant to the here-and-now.

The here-and-now where wholesale electricity prices in New Zealand are seven-times higher than what they were three years ago.

Which is why we’ve seen some big manufacturing plants either closing down completely or putting things on hold for a bit until the power prices start to come down a bit. And the Government’s talking about interim fixes, such as importing more liquefied natural gas.

They’ll do that. And they’ll keep putting the heat on the four big electricity generation companies. Which not only generate the power, they also sell it to us. So this is Meridian, Contact, Genesis and Mercury.

But the more power there is, the lower their profits. Simple as that. Which is why I think the Government’s plan only goes part of the way towards giving a more sustainable electricity system and market.

What I think needs to happen, is the control these four big companies have over things needs to change.

And the most straightforward way of doing that, is changing the way things are structured - and separating power generation from power retailing. That’s why people refer to these companies as GenTailers - they make the electricity and they sell it.

I don’t see things changing all that much until we rip-up the current structure and tell Meridian, Contact, Genesis and Mercury that they’ll make the power, and other companies will sell it to us.

That way, they could only charge what the market is willing to pay. Instead of the other way ‘round, as it is now.

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Today on Politics Friday John was joined by National's Vanessa Weenink and Labour's Duncan Webb in studio.

Is New Zealand in an energy crisis, and will the RMA changes help get more power into our grid at a better price?

Why is National supporting the treaty bill to a certain point, even though they have no plans at all to support it past the first reading?

And does central government really have a right to tell local councils what to spend their money on?

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Today Kiwi iconic band Zed release their first album in 20 years, Future Memory.

Formed at Cashmere High School, the Canterbury band will celebrate with a launch party in Akaroa today.

Bassist Ben Campbell joined John to talk about the album, their history and the pressure their fame brought the young group 20 years ago. 

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If we thought the last government was a bunch of control freaks, the current one’s just as bad, isn’t it? 

That's what I’m thinking with all this talk from the Prime Minister, telling local councils that ratepayers are sick of white elephants, that they need to focus on the basics like collecting the rubbish, fixing the pipes and filling-in potholes, and to stop blowing money on fantasy projects. 

The thing for me is that —even though there are a truckload of things I see the Christchurch City Council doing, for example, that I question big-time in terms of blowing ratepayer money— I don’t think it is the place of central government to tell them to pull their heads in. 

That’s our job. If we want to, we can turn up at council meetings and do one of those deputation things. Where you get a few minutes to say your piece to all the councillors around the council table. 

And the ultimate way we can make it very clear whether we approve of the way they’re running things, or not, comes every three years at the local body elections. Which is exactly what the central government politicians tell us if we don’t like what they’re doing. 

I remember Christopher Luxon himself saying, not that long ago, that if the Government’s fast track legislation led to some sort of environmental disaster, then people could punish them for it at the next election. 

But when it comes to local government the Government’s attitude is very different. And yesterday, the Prime Minister told local councils that when it comes to spending money - the party is over. 

Here’s a little bit of what Christopher Luxon said to councils yesterday: 

“Ratepayers expect local government to do the basics and to do the basics brilliantly. Pick up the rubbish. Fix the pipes. Fill in potholes. And more generally, maintain local assets quickly, carefully, and cost effectively. 

“But nothing in life is free, and ratepayers expect to pay for it in exchange. But what they don’t expect to pay for is the laundry-list of distractions and experiments that are plaguing council balance sheets across the country. 

“Ratepayers are sick of the white elephants and non-delivery. So, my challenge to all of you is to rein-in the fantasies and to get back to delivering the basics brilliantly.” 

Which, from the reports I’ve seen, generally went down like a cup of the old proverbial with the mayors and councillors in the room. 

And it wasn’t all just talk and bluster either. The Prime Minister also announced what the Government wants to try and do to get councils under control. 

It’s looking into performance benchmarks for local councils. It’s looking at how councils might be stopped from spending money on what the Government considers to be “nice-to-haves”. 

It’s going to look at transparency and accountability rules to make it easier for councillors to request information from council staff. And it wants to reform the code of conduct process to balance councillors’ freedom of speech rights with what it calls “politicised” code of conduct investigations. 

But, even though I agree that local councils need to up their game, I don’t like the Government poking its nose in like this. 

For a government that banged-on pre-election about keeping things under local control, it’s not really walking the talk, is it? 

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John MacDonald was joined in studio by Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger for their regular catch up. 

What did he make of the Prime Minister’s comments on council spending? The work on the Christ Church Cathedral has been indefinitely paused, will it receive any more ratepayer money? And, does he support the idea of LIV Golf making its way to Christchurch? 

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Remember Bishop Victoria Matthews? Who wanted to pull down the Christchurch cathedral after the earthquakes? Reckon she’s thinking “told you so” now that the reinstatement is officially on ice? 

Bet she is. And if she isn’t, she should be. 

Because let’s be realistic. On ice, whatever you want to call it, the cathedral will never be finished. Never. For the simple reason that, as time goes on, the cost of fixing it will go up and public support will go down. They are two certainties. In fact, they are the only certainties. 

If you’re a supporter of the reinstatement, you will probably think ‘oh that will never happen’. That the people of Christchurch will always have the cathedral in their hearts. That it’s, you know, ‘the symbol of Christchurch’. 

Well, not so, actually. Whatever support there is for spending tens of millions of dollars reinstating the cathedral will never be stronger than it is right now. 

Because, as younger generations come through, they won’t have the same connection to it. They’ll probably have no connection to it. And what that will mean is the cathedral’s restoration or reinstatement will lose its social licence. 

In its simplest form, social licence is public acceptance or support of an activity - especially when there’s big money involved. 

And the cathedral has had enough social licence —or public or community support— up until now, because it’s relevant to people of a particular age. Or particular generations. And as time goes on, that will diminish. There is nothing more certain. 

When I watched the news on TV last night, there was an image of what the church itself wanted to build in place of the cathedral after the earthquakes, and I actually felt quite angry. 

I surprised myself, sitting in front of the TV watching it. Because, even though I’d washed my hands of the cathedral before yesterday —when the company running the reinstatement and the church announced that they were pulling the plug, for now— I was reminded of what could have been, if people hadn’t poked their noses into it. 

There were images of the demolition work actually starting. And there was one of those architectural animations showing what a new, replacement cathedral would have looked like. 

If only the church had been allowed to do what it wanted to do in the first place, we would probably have a cathedral by now and we would definitely know what was happening with the Square which, at the moment —let’s face it— is the dead centre of town in more ways than one. 

If only all these heritage people realised that heritage isn’t just about buildings. It’s about history. 

And a new, replacement cathedral would have been just as historically significant as the old one. Because, whether we like to think it or not, the earthquakes are just a blip in our city’s history. Or they will be as time goes on. 

An awful blip, but just a blip. And a new cathedral wouldn’t have trampled all over the city’s heritage, it would have been part of our heritage. Part of our history. 

If you want to get all fancy on it, it would have told Christchurch’s earthquake "story" just as much as a reinstated cathedral would have. 

But now, we’ve got a broken-down cathedral that I don’t see ever being finished. Because we’ve got generations coming through that will have no connection at all to it, and who will think that the idea of spending tens of millions of dollars fixing it up is just nuts. 

Some people have thought that all along. And a lot more will in the years to come, while the reinstatement people and the church blindly press-on, holding out their hand for money. 

When will they learn? 

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An award-winning Christchurch band is in the lineup for the 2025 Selwyn Sounds. 

The Narcs’ Andy Dickson joined John MacDonald for a chat about the music scene in the 80’s, and what it was like to perform with some of the biggest names in the industry like Elton John and Queen. 

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With some ideas, they sound better than they actually are. 

Which is how I’m feeling about this idea that Christchurch should do what Auckland has just done and ban supermarkets and bottle stores from selling alcohol after 9 o’clock at night. 

I don’t think it’s a good idea. Because I just don’t think it would make people buy less alcohol, they’d just buy it at different times if they couldn’t buy it after 9 o’clock. 

And what about people who do buy alcohol at night and don’t cause any problems? Why should they be punished? So that’s where I’m at on this. 

As an aside, I can’t actually remember the last time I bought alcohol after 9pm. 

I buy alcohol just like a lot of other people, but I cannot remember buying it late at night from the supermarket or a bottle store. 

Nevertheless, even though I probably wouldn’t personally be affected by a 9pm shutdown of booze sales in shops and supermarkets, I still can’t support the call that’s coming today from community board leader Paul McMahon. 

Paul is the chairperson of the Waitai-Coastal-Burwood-Linwood Community Board, in Christchurch. 

Now I’m not saying he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, because, as well as being a community board member, he works in alcohol harm prevention. He’s a local advocate for alcohol reform. 

He says about 75 percent of alcohol is purchased from off-licence premises. And he says, from his experience, most harm comes from alcohol purchased after 9pm - and, the later it gets, the worse it gets. 

Now I would say that, generally, that’s the case with all alcohol consumption. 

What’s that saying? “Nothing good ever happens after midnight”? It might even be earlier. But you get what I mean, the later people drink, the more likely they are to find themselves in trouble. 

And so what Paul McMahon is saying today is that nothing good ever happens after 9pm, which is when he wants bottle stores and supermarkets to have to stop selling the beers and the wines and RTDs and the spirits. 

On a practical level, I reckon most supermarkets in Christchurch are closed by 9 or 10, anyway. So why bother with a one-hour ban for the ones that stay open later than 9? 

Christchurch city councillor Sam MacDonald is saying that he doesn’t think anything needs to be done with bars and restaurants, because he thinks they’re doing a pretty good job of keeping people under control, but he’s open to looking at tighter restrictions on off-licence alcohol sales. 

The thing is though, is what is it exactly we’re trying to find an answer to? If it’s an answer to the problem of people drinking way more than they should and causing problems for themselves and trouble for other people, then I don’t think reducing the hours when bottle stores and supermarkets can sell alcohol is the answer. 

Because, if people are going to get off their trolleys, they’ll do it. Irrespective of when the bottle store closes. 

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I don’t like the idea of the Government dangling $72 million in front of the cops and saying to them: “You’ll get this if you test the number of drivers we want you to test for drugs and alcohol.” 

You might think it’s great that the police are being told what’s expected of them and that some of their funding depends on it. But I don’t. 

Don’t get me wrong. There are some great things about this announcement yesterday by the Transport Minister that the Government is cracking down on drunk and stoned drivers.. 

As someone who thinks we should have a zero alcohol limit for drivers, anything to try and catch the clowns who drive drunk is a good thing in my book. 

And the move to roadside testing of drivers for drugs can’t come quick enough. Especially, when you consider the carnage that has been caused by drivers high on drugs. 

Here’s a stat that proves it: In 2022 alone, 112 people died in crashes where drugs were involved. That was about 30 percent of all road deaths that year. 

So yesterday, Simeon Brown announced that the Government is going to be putting $20 million into a new roadside drug testing regime. This will happen once legislation is passed that will allow police to more easily test drivers for drugs. 

The bill is going through the select committee process and submissions are due to close shortly.  

The way the legislation is drafted at the moment, anyone who is pulled over and tests positive for drugs won’t be allowed to drive for 12 hours. Samples will be sent off to the laboratory for more sophisticated testing and, if they come back positive as well, the driver will get a fine and demerit points. 

The stoners aren’t happy. Or should I say that the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (also known as NORML) aren’t happy. Because they aren’t convinced that the technology used in roadside drug testing is accurate enough. 

Green MP Julie-Anne Genter is someone else who has reservations. She says there’s a chance that people who use cannabis legally for pain relief, for example, could get done.    

Either way, I think it’s a good thing. And once the legislation is passed, the Government will give the cops the green light and will be expecting them to do 50,000 roadside drug tests a year. 

As for thealcohol testing, the Government’s increasing the breath-testing target from 3 million tests to 3.3 million tests per year, and it wants 65 percent of alcohol breath tests to be done at your typical high-risk times for people driving drunk. 

He says the police have been a bit haphazard in recent years with breath-testing drivers and wants a more consistent approach. 

So yes, it’s great there’s going to be more roadside testing for drunk drivers and it’s brilliant there’s going to be testing for drugged-up drivers, as well. 

But, as I said before, I don’t like this “performance” element the Government is attaching to the funding for what it’s calling its Road Policing Investment Programme. 

It’s telling the police that they’ll only get $72 million of the funding if they meet the Government's target of 3.3 million roadside alcohol tests a year and 50,000 roadside drug tests a year. 

I don’t like it because, even though 65 percent of the tests are to be done at high-risk times, we’ll have the cops either scrambling to do the other 35 percent at times and in places where it becomes nothing more than a box-ticking exercise; or they won’t do other worthwhile stuff because they’ll be busy meeting the target so they can get their funding. 

I think it’s a very slippery slope. Because what’s to stop the Government doing the same thing with other elements of police funding? Nothing. 

And, while we know the Prime Minister is all about KPIs and quarterly plans, patrolling roads and fighting crime never fits into beautifully-crafted gantt charts and spreadsheets. And I imagine there’ll be plenty of cops who find this carrot-and-stick approach the Government is taking somewhat offensive. 

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If you don’t like the idea of Saudi Arabia putting money into sport, then tell anyone you know who supports Manchester City to burn their shirt. 

If you don’t like the idea of Saudi Arabia putting money into sport, then tell anyone you know who’s right into Formula 1 that they should be ashamed of themselves. 

If you don’t like the idea of Saudi Arabia putting money into sport, then you’ll be with New Zealand golfing legend Sir Bob Charles who doesn’t want a bar of the LIV Golf Tour coming to Christchurch.  

The golf tour which is funded by Saudi Arabia. And which has been accused of using sport to cover up Saudi Arabia's appalling human rights record. 

Amnesty International says the Saudis are still executing people; they discriminate against women; they treat migrants poorly; they punish and even kill people for being anything other than heterosexual. 

But they’re also investing like there’s no tomorrow in sport. Football, Formula 1 motor racing, horse racing, cricket, boxing, tennis, wrestling, mixed martial arts, eSports and golf.    

Which is how LIV Golf came about - as an alternative to the staid and traditional PGA Golf Tour. It’s been a disruptor. Just like the Indian Premier Cricket League. 

And, as well as being accused of sportswashing —or trying to use sport as a distraction from the way Saudi Arabia treats people— it’s also put noses out of joint by signing mega million-dollar deals with the sport's stars. 

And it could be coming to Christchurch as early as next year. 

The understanding is that LIV Golf has its eyes on either the Clearwater or Shirley courses. It already has an event in Adelaide which, apparently, went off big time when it was held there earlier this year. 

Nearly a hundred thousand people turned up. And I’m no golf expert but, talking to people who know a thing-or-two about golf, they say that LIV Golf is a bit like a cross between golf and the rugby sevens. 

Because of the way that it’s all about the experience for the spectators. A bit like SailGP, actually, too. An experience for the spectators as much as it is a sporting event. 

With LIV Golf they have music out on the greens. I gather, too, that the crowds are allowed to get closer to the action. So it’s all about putting on a great time for the people who turn up. 

And like SailGP, for example, it probably gets your non-golfing types going along as much as your golfing types. 

But local golfing legend, Sir Bob Charles —who lives in Christchurch— doesn’t want a bar of it. 

He says he wants nothing to do with it because of the way it has divided the sport. 

Here’s what he’s been saying to the NZ Herald: “I hope they’re not playing at either of my golf courses. I don’t endorse LIV Golf in any way. In fact, quite the opposite. I want nothing to do with it. I wouldn’t walk across the street to watch.”  

But it seems there are a truckload of people who do cross the road to watch. I base that on the turn-out to events LIV has already held. 

I mentioned Adeliade earlier - that’s the closest the tour has come to New Zealand. So far, anyway. My understanding is that it wants to have an event in New Zealand that it could run either before or after the one in Adeliade. 

There’s been interest from other parts of Australia but LIV Golf doesn’t want to have another event on that side of the Tasman, and New Zealand is its preference. Which is why some of its people have visited Christchurch to check the place out. 

LIV Golf has proved hugely popular with younger people, in particular. 

In Adelaide, there was partying well into the night. Here’s an idea of how much of a party it was - they sold nearly 120-thousand beers. And it was brilliant for tourism, with 40 percent of people travelling to Adelaide from elsewhere. 

So yes, I’m not into Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. Which is putting it mildly. But I think, just by the sheer level of its involvement in global sport, that the horse has already bolted and we shouldn't be turning our back on LIV Golf heading to Christchurch. 

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Today on Newstalk ZB Canterbury Mornings John MacDonald was joined by Labour Leader Chris Hipkins for their regular chat. 

He asked his feelings about the ACT party wanting to sanction those who get pregnant while on the benefit, how will that impact families? 

Does he support lifting the ban on genetic engineering? And why is crime still going up under National? 

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When you drive the Southern Motorway between Rolleston and Christchurch, how fast do you go? 

According to the mayor of Selwyn, Sam Broughton, chances are you go faster than 100 kph. Which is why he thinks the speed limit on that piece of road should be lifted to 120 kph. 

An idea which I think is ridiculous. 

I’m thinking it probably has something to do with the come-to-Jesus moment I had about speed limits when I was travelling around the South Island last summer. When I realised that doing 80 kph on a 100 kph is, actually, quite enjoyable. And safer. 

I used to be all-for getting back to the old 50 kph and 100 kph. Not so much now. 

Where this idea of the Selwyn mayor's has come from, is the work the Government’s doing at the  moment reviewing speed limits around the country. 

Quite rightly, it’s got its sights set on some of the non-sensical speed limit changes that have popped-up around the place recently. 

And some of the speed limits you see are nuts. Case in point: Colombo Street, in Christchurch, heading towards the Cashmere Hills. It reduces for a very short stretch because of a nearby school - which isn’t even on Colombo Street. 

Then you go a bit further up the road to where there is a school on Colombo Street, but there’s no speed reduction! 

So Transport Minister Simeon Brown has sent around a document to local councils asking for their feedback. 

And what the councils are being asked to do is give advice on highways they think should have a speed limit of 120 kph instead of 100. 

And Selwyn’s Sam Broughton has told the Government that that beautiful stretch of motorway from Rolleston to Brougham Street should have a speed limit of 120, because a lot of drivers are travelling faster than 100, anyway. 

Which is an interesting way of justifying it. ‘Oh look, they're breaking the rule so let’s change it.’ 

He says in his letter to the Transport Minister: “Whether it is for general traffic, direct public transport services, or moving freight, council considers increasing the speed limit of the motorway between Rolleston and Brougham St will assist in improving efficiency and connectivity while still being safe.” 

And he goes on to say: “This is reflected in generally higher average speeds above 100 kms per hour we already observe along the motorway.” 

So that’s the bit where he’s saying people break the rules anyway, so let’s change them. 

Since the Southern Motorway opened in 2020, five people have been seriously injured in crashes. There have been no fatal accidents. 

And the number of vehicles using the motorway is just going to increase. In 2021, there were 21,000 vehicles on the motorway daily. This is expected to jump to 33,000 by 2040. 

I’m not the only one who thinks it's a stupid idea to increase the speed limit. Transport expert Professor Simon Kingham —from the University of Canterbury— feels the same. Which, you might say, he would anyway, because Simon’s not big on speed. 

He’s probably not that big on vehicles, full stop, to be fair. But I agree with him on this one. 

Because he and I only see one outcome from increasing the speed limit to 120 kph on the Southern Motorway. More crashes and more severe crashes. 

Because if it’s 100 now and the Selwyn council is noticing that a lot of people are going faster than that, what do you think they’ll do if it’s 120? They’ll go even faster, won’t they? 

I remember a few weeks back, we were talking about restricting the engine size for young or new drivers, and there was no shortage of people saying you can drive a Demio or any one of those shopping basket cars upwards of 150 kph. 

So if you increase the speed limit on the Southern Motorway, as the mayor of Selwyn thinks we should, then I think we can pretty safely assume that there’ll be a lot of drivers quite happy to nudge it up to 130 kph. And that could be disastrous. 

Which is why it’s a “no” from me. 

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Look out dole bludgers, we’re coming after ya. 

That’s the Government’s message to beneficiaries who are being warned that, if they abuse the system, there’ll be limits on what they can spend their benefit money on. 

This is all part of the new traffic light system for people on the Jobseeker benefit. Some might say it’s a traffic light system with a green arrow to the right. 

Which is what the Opposition parties are getting at, anyway. Saying that all the Government’s doing here is a bit of good-old-fashioned beneficiary bashing. 

The Government, though, is saying ‘oh nah nah nah, it’s not like that at all. All we’re doing is sticking up for hardworking taxpayers who provide the money for the benefits.' 

And I’m with the Government. Because all it’s doing is setting-out some expectations and what will happen if people don’t meet those expectations. 

It’s not beneficiary bashing. If it was beneficiary bashing, the Prime Minister and the Social Development Minister would have come out yesterday and said something like ‘anyone on a benefit is a no-hoper bludging off the system’. 

That would be beneficiary bashing. 

But the Government didn't say that at all. It’s being claimed by politicians on the left that that’s what the Government is implying. But I don’t buy that for a minute. 

What are some of the other words being thrown around about this? 

“The Government is waging a war on the poor”. That’s what the Green Party is saying. But I’m sorry Greens, I think you’re talking nonsense there. I don’t see it that way, at all. 

Yes, the National, ACT and NZ First parties probably don’t have as much time for beneficiaries as the parties on the left do. But they’re not waging war on the poor. 

Maybe I’m sympathetic to what the Government is doing because I’ve never actually been on a benefit myself before. That could change some day, of course. Because none of us really know how our lives might change down the track. 

But, even though I don’t have experience of what it’s like to be a beneficiary, I imagine that —if I was— I’d follow the rules, knowing that a benefit is a mixture of being a right and a privilege. 

And I can’t imagine myself willingly ripping off the system. Or claiming the dole —or Jobseeker benefit, as it’s known— and not doing anything to try and find a job. 

That’s because I have a good understanding of expectations. Just like those of us who have a paid job, we know about expectations. 

Example: I know that if I didn’t bother turning up to work every morning, I’d be out the door. I know that if I overstay my welcome in a car park, there’s a pretty good chance of a ticket waiting for me when I get back to the car. 

I understand expectations and consequences. 

And why shouldn’t it be the same for people on benefits? That’s what the Government is doing with the Jobseeker benefit. It’s setting out its expectation of people and the consequences if they don’t meet those expectations. 

The thing I mentioned before about the Government putting limits on what beneficiaries can spend their benefit money on, that’s one of the sanctions the Government is going to use to penalise people who don’t do things like actively look for work. 

They’ll have a card that half their benefit money will go onto, and they’ll only be able to use it to buy essential items. Which I actually think is a reasonable way to penalise someone because it wouldn’t be taking money away from a family, for example. From kids. 

So if you had a set of parents —or one of them— on the dole, and they repeatedly failed to meet the new requirements, then their kids wouldn’t be punished. They wouldn’t miss out on essentials because there’d be less money coming into the house. 

There’d just be limits on what half of the benefit money could be spent on. People will probably find a way of working around that because that’s what us people tend to do, don’t they? 

Nevertheless, I think it’s a much more humane approach than cutting benefits. 

Of course, if we’re totally honest, we’ll know that the Government isn’t doing this in the interests of the beneficiaries themselves. It’ll say it is. And I haven’t seen anything from the Government about how much money this will save the taxpayer, for example. It’s probably got no idea. Nevertheless, it’s good optics for a centre-right government. 

But it isn’t beneficiary bashing. 

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Can you believe the audacity of the Christchurch Cathedral Reinstatement Project asking the Government for another $60 million?

Quite rightly Finance Minister Nicola Willis has said no and the Anglican Cathedral is now likely to be mothballed.

Which leaves us with the question: what do we do now with Cathedral Square?

There are two options, as I see it. We could leave it to linger as it has since the earthquakes. And keep tip-toeing around waiting for the cathedral to be finished. Which, let's face it, could be another 20 years away.

Or we could forget about what might or might not happen with the cathedral and just get on with redeveloping it. Fixing it up. Bringing the Square back to life. And that’s the option that gets my vote.

Because I think we should stop being hamstrung by the cathedral and get on with the job of making the Square somewhere people go again.

And top of my list, is getting a road going through there. Re-connecting Colombo Street and getting the area back to what it used to be in terms of vibe and energy.

I know that flies completely in the face of what all the urban development people say we should be doing in places like the Square. But what we need in the Square is people. And, in some respects, for the next wee while, anyway - we’re going to have to pretty much force people to go back there. And the best way of doing that, in my opinion, is sticking a road back in.

So we’d have Colombo Street going through the Square, and we’d have bus stops there. I know we’ve already got the new-ish Bus Interchange but I reckon buses going into the Square and having bus stops there would bring people into the area.

Because, if I think about how I want the Square to be in 10 or 20 years time, I want there to be restaurants; I want it to be the place for the kinds of events and activities that don’t need all the space of Hagley Park.

But we are dreaming if we expect hospitality operators to set-up shop in the Square the way it is at the moment. They’re the ones who have skin in the game, who take the risk, who put it on the line.

So the city needs to do its bit, and make the Square a place full of people again.

One of the barriers, at the moment, to having decent-sized events there is the way the Square sits at different levels in some parts - with little stairs. So, as well as bringing traffic back-in, I want to see it levelled-out and I want to see a lot more greenery there.

I’m not just talking trees - I’m talking about grass.

Because people don’t stop and put a blanket down and have lunch on grey tiles, do they?

People are attracted to green spaces. Something the Square hasn’t been for years.

Putting a road back in, levelling it out and making it greener wouldn’t necessarily come cheap. It would still be a decent amount of money. But the time for waiting for the cathedral to be finished is over.

I had a look at the weekend. And, if we wanted to keep the door open for the cathedral to be worked on over the next 20 years or whatever - the road couldn’t just run straight to link up Colombo Street, from where it stops on either side of the Square.

In fact, back in the day when there was traffic in the Square, the road curved around the front of the cathedral anyway. So I reckon we should do the same - but curve it out even wider to leave enough space for the footprint of the reinstatement work.

That way, the option would always be there for the work to crank up again. If that ever happens.

And by doing all this, not only would we have people going into the Square again, the cathedral would also become more of a curiosity than an impediment.

Because I know people bang-on about finishing the cathedral being important because it would be symbolic of a city’s recovery from a terrible natural disaster. But I think that, now things have dragged-on for so long with nothing else happening in the Square, it has become just a big advertisement for lack of progress.

It doesn’t say that we have triumphed over adversity - as much of the rest of the central city does. It just says that adversity has been the winner. And that won’t change, until we get over this idea that nothing can happen until the cathedral is finished.

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Come back 3 Waters - all is forgiven. 

You might be thinking that, now the Government has told councils they’re going to have to borrow truckloads of money to sort out their water infrastructure problems. Which could impact their credit ratings, increase their overall borrowing costs and increase rates. 

So yeah - that’s how I’m feeling. Because I’m now of the firm belief that it would be way better having the state owning and operating and paying for water infrastructure in this country. 

Because I think the increased debt that is going to be coming our way at a local level will only mean one thing - higher costs and higher rates.   

Just in case you need reminding, 3 Waters was Labour’s policy for reforming waste, stormwater and drinking water services right around the country. 

It fell over after people got fixated on the part of the policy that talked about co-governance with Māori. And, suddenly, it became a race issue instead of an infrastructure issue. So Labour tried to re-brand it, tweak it, but a lot of people still weren’t buying it. So, it went nowhere. 

At around the same time, National was promising an alternative that it was calling “Local Water Done Well”. That was as much detail as it gave out pre-election but that word “local” was enough for most people to think it sounded like a much better way of doing things. 

And that was what councils like Christchurch were banging-on about too. And I fell for the talk - initially, anyway. But I’m actually thinking now that this obsession with the “local” bit is going to be something we are going to come to regret. 

The bit that I initially got all fixated on was the amount of money the Labour government was offering to pay Christchurch in exchange for its water infrastructure. 

It was $120 million in exchange for $8 billion of water infrastructure assets. Not that I actually think of underground pipes and things as assets. Because, for me, an asset is something you can make money from. 

But I fell for all that and I was more than happy to tell the Labour government where to go with its miserly offer. 

But then we found out how cruddy the water infrastructure in Christchurch actually is. Because, remember after the earthquakes, we all assumed —or we were all led to believe— that everything under the ground was being replaced and it was going to be gold-plated blah blah blah. 

Which wasn’t and isn’t the case at all. As we discovered earlier this year, things under the ground in Christchurch aren’t so rosy and 38-million litres of water is leaking out of the pipes every day. 

Not as bad as Wellington, where 60-million litres is going down the drain every day. But it’s not great either and it shows just how much of a repair job is still needed. 

Now, under the approach Labour wanted to take, the Government would have owned the water assets —after paying a bargain-basement price— and it would have been responsible for fixing things. And paying for it. 

But, because we got all obsessed with locals owning and running water infrastructure, we’re now in the situation where the realities of ownership are hitting home, and councils are being told to borrow truckloads of money to pay for what needs to be done. 

And the money is going to come from what’s called the Local Government Funding Agency, which is 20 percent owned by the Government and 80 percent owned by 30 local councils. 

So the councils are going to borrow the money from the funding agency. The benefit of doing that, is that the lending rate is going to be much lower than it would be if they had to borrow from elsewhere. 

The thing is, though, tell that to the credit rating agencies which look at local councils and decide what their credit rating is depending on their debt levels, revenue streams —all of that— and they set a credit rating which then determines how much councils have to pay for other borrowing. 

So council costs are actually going to go up under this plan of the Government’s and, you know what that means, rates increases are going to keep on keeping-on. Because the councils are going to have to pay for it somehow. Or correction - we’re going to pay for it. 

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When you think of military-style academies for young offenders, is the military part of it with a capital M or a small m? 

Because the Government’s in the firing line after confirming that there are no military personnel on-site at the trial academy which started-up last week, and that there’ll be no military personnel there on an ongoing basis. 

Which, in my mind, makes it a military academy with a small m. Or a nill-itary academy. There’s no way you can say it’s military-style if no one from the military is there. 

The Government, though, is saying that the defence force has had back-office involvement in planning things. But that’s a bit like me having a chat to a mate who’s a chef and then inviting you over for dinner and saying ‘welcome to my restaurant’. 

You’d be the first to say, ‘hold on mate, this isn’t a restaurant because it’s just you and no kitchen or waiting staff. And the last time I checked, you weren’t a chef’. 

And if I said to you ‘oh no, no, no…I’ve got a mate who’s a chef and he’s been heavily involved in planning things for tonight and given me a few pointers so, yes, welcome to my restaurant’ If I said that, you’d laugh at me. 

And this is the same. You can’t say you’re setting up a military-style boot camp —or a military-style academy— and then, when it comes to opening up - you have a bunch of social workers running the show with no military there at all. 

Because that’s what’s happening. Oranga Tamariki is in charge of the bootcamp. 

We know why that is, of course. Because, after all the big talk, the Government was told in no uncertain terms by the Defence Force that it wasn’t interested in looking after and sorting out young criminals. 

Possibly because it had had a gutsful of patrolling managed isolation quarantine hotels during the pandemic. 

Corrections were the same. They weren't interested. And so Oranga Tamariki was the next cab off the rank. Well, they were the only cab on the rank, to be fair. 

But, whatever the reasons why the military aren’t involved, we have our much-hyped military-style academy with no military personnel on the ground. That’s despite Police Minister Mark Mitchell earlier claiming there would be a heavy defence involvement in the boot camp. 

Mitchell said 30 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel were actively supporting the programme, ranging from “back-office” policy work through to delivering it “on the front line”. 

But that isn’t the case at all. With the Minister for ChildrenKaren Chhour saying “there will be no New Zealand Defence Force staff working directly with the young people on the pilot”. 

So it’s not a boot camp. I even think it’s stretching it to call it a military-style academy. 

It was late 2022, when National announced the boot camp plan, calling them “Young Offender Military Academies”. It said the academies would be run by the Ministry of Justice and Defence Force. 

Not surprisingly —and I can see why— Labour is going full noise and accusing the Government of misleading the public. 

Labour’s children’s spokeswoman Willow-Jean Prime is saying it just looks like window dressing and the Government misled the public. 

But, even though I think the military should be involved on the frontline for the boot camp to be what was promised, I don’t think the Government has intentionally misled the public. 

I think what’s happened is it was a half-baked idea thrown out there at a time when ramraids were going through the roof and when Mark Mitchell sounded like he had a police radio scanner next to the bed and, every time he heard them heading off to a ram raid call-out, he’d put out a media release. 

And, with all that going on, National announced the boot camp or military-style academy idea before actually talking to the defence force about it. 

So, in a way, National misled itself in terms of the practicalities of what it wanted to do. 

So I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt in that respect. 

But, if these academies are going to live up to expectations, then I’m in no doubt that the military needs to be more involved than just giving backroom advice. 

And, if the Government can’t get the defence force excited about the idea and willing to be part of it, then it needs to come clean, admit that it was a half-baked idea and stop calling it a military-style academy. 

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So the guy running the hospital system says it could go broke within just a few months and we’re going to just keep on doing things the way we have forever, are we? 

That would be nuts. Which is why I think we’d be much better off if we just required people to have health insurance. 

The public system which Dr Lester Levy —who is the Commissioner appointed by the Government to run Health NZ instead of the Board— says its spending $1.4 billion more than it should. 

His job is to get on top of that and get the place running as the Government wants it to be running by Christmas. Which is a pipedream, especially if anyone thinks that amount of money can be saved, services can be maintained —if not improved— and that we can do it under the current funding model. 

Which is where Singapore comes into the conversation, and where I think we should be looking for a solution for this health funding mess. Because what other solutions are there? I can’t think of any. You might, but I can’t. 

Former politician Richard Prebble has written an interesting piece in the NZ Herald today, where he says that maybe Singapore has the best approach when it comes to paying for healthcare. 

Over there, everyone pretty much pays universal health insurance. They have a scheme which is mandatory for all citizens and permanent residents which provides cover for life, for hospital bills and outpatient treatments. 

As well as that, they have a compulsory medical savings scheme which people can use on other healthcare expenses for their families. 

So think KiwiSaver, but it’s a health fund instead of a retirement fund, that comes out of your wage or your salary and you can call on it when you need it. And just like KiwiSaver, employers are required to top it up, as well. 

And what this approach means is that the Government in Singapore doesn’t have to spend as much of its budget on the health system, unlike us here in New Zealand, where health is the biggest single item in the Government’s annual budget. 

Percentage-wise: in Singapore, the Government or taxpayers cover just a quarter of healthcare costs. The rest are covered through these insurance schemes they have operating over there. 

In New Zealand, it’s around 85 percent. 

In his NZ Herald article today, Richard Prebble reckons politicians here wouldn’t have the guts to push for the same thing here. But I say, why not? 

Unless you can come up with a better solution, I think compulsory health insurance is the only solution. 

The only solution if we don’t want to keep hearing the talk we’ve been hearing from the Health NZ Commissioner in the past 24 hours. 

Talk like this from Dr Levy: ““For us, this is not a marathon, it’s a sprint. We have to move really quickly to secure our financial position as quickly as possible in order to overcome this particular cash-flow issue that is hanging over us.” 

And he’s got the job of sorting this out before Christmas. Which, in dollar terms, means somehow cutting spending by tens of millions of dollars per month. 

How on earth do you do that without cutting services and making people wait longer for treatment? 

The answer to that, is you can’t. It’s impossible. 

Which is why I’m saying that, if the model is broken —as it very clearly is— then we need to do things differently. And, for me, compulsory medical insurance is the answer. It could be done through existing medical insurance outfits - or it could be a government-run scheme like they have in Singapore. 

But, either way, we have to get over this idea of doing things the way we’ve always done them if we are really serious about sustainably funding health services in this country. 

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They used to be called school inspectors, these days it’s the Education Review Office and the Government is planning a shake-up, promising that we’re going to know more about what schools are getting right and what they aren’t. 

And, when you listen to what the Prime Minister and Education Minister Erica Stanford have been saying, there’s going to be a much bigger focus on results. Which I get. But which I also think is very risky. 

I also think it’s pandering to parents who turn everything into a competition, even with their own kids. Because what the Government is doing could take us back to the times when kids were labelled bright or thick from a very young age. 

And I know the Government will say ‘oh no, no, no’ we’re going to look at the results these kids are getting and if they need extra help, we’ll be sending extra resourcing in so they can get over any hurdles and catch up with everyone else. 

Which is how a middle-aged politician thinks. Because middle-aged politicians are like me —and you, maybe— we’ve had life experience and we know that, just because you’re not as good at maths as some of the other kids in your class at primary school, it doesn’t mean you’re stupid. It doesn’t mean you’re a no-hoper and that you should stop trying. 

But tell that to an eight-year-old. Or a nine-year-old or a 10-year-old. And this is the stumbling block I have with all this extra testing of primary school kids that the Government plans to do. 

Don’t get me wrong, when our kids were going through school, of course I wanted to know if there were things they might have been struggling with. And, if you’re a parent, you’ll know that sometimes it can be very easy to get sucked into obsessing over every little thing. 

I’ll be honest with you. When I think back to some of the things I got fixated on when it came to our kids going through school - in hindsight, it was ridiculous. 

Which is why I would tell parents with young kids now to take a bit of a chill pill and not agonise over everything. Because, what I’ve come to realise over the years and through personal experience —both as someone who went to school and as a parent who’s had three kids go through school— is that school is just a stepping stone. 

And marks, when it comes down to it, don’t mean much in the bigger scheme of things, especially, when a kid’s at primary school. 

I’ve come to the realisation that school doesn’t define a person. It doesn’t decide whether they’re going to make a go of life or not. 

But the Government feels a little bit differently about it than I do. Which is why it’s doing the changes with the curriculum but also making these major changes at the Education Review Office. 

It wants the review office to focus more on the basics. 

I was on a school board in Christchurch for six years and, during that time, we had a visit from the school inspectors. They’re done every few years. 

And it was almost like it was back when I was a kid - when I remember the old school inspectors turning up and the teachers suddenly being very friendly and putting on a real show. 

These days, though, they look at more than just what’s going on in the classroom and in the playground - there’s a whole lot of data for them to trawl through. And it’s this data that the Government wants the Education Review Office —or the school inspectors— to pay more attention to. 

But I don’t judge a school just on the basics. Reading, writing, maths. Those things. 

I judge a school on the type of people it turns out. I judge a school on the citizens that walk out the gate each day. I judge a school on the way you feel when you go there for an event. I judge a school on whether you get the sense it’s just going through the motions or actually walks all the talk in the brochures and on the website. 

That’s what I judge a school on. 

And, maybe, one day, the Government will be able to point to better marks in this and better marks in that. But that won’t tell me a thing about how well-prepared these kids are for life, and all the things that life throws at us. 

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If you ever needed proof that local councils are great at throwing other people's money around, here it is.

Because, even though the reinstatement work on the Anglican cathedral in Cathedral Square could come to a standstill in just a matter of weeks because of money problems, the Christchurch City Council is handing over $7 million. Which beggars belief, doesn’t it?

This is the second payment to make up the $10 million the council pledged back in 2017. The council paid $3 million last December and this $7 million makes up the balance.

Apparently, as it’s being reported today, this $7 million was on the proviso of certain conditions being met. We don’t know what they are. But, even if they have been met, these are provisos that were agreed on seven years ago, at a time when the project wasn’t at such risk of falling over. Like it is now. It could be just weeks away from happening.

That’s why I’m finding the council’s position that it’s going to press-on and hand over the $7 million as “a sign of good faith”, hard to accept. For a couple of reasons.

First: the council is borrowing to pay the money to the cathedral project and is levying ratepayers to repay the loan. So, as soon as the money goes to the church, we’re paying interest.

The second reason: is I feel as if the reinstatement project is holding the city to ransom over the money problems they’re dealing with.

Somewhere around $100 million has been spent so far. But the job is bigger than first thought and, it was revealed in April, the project needed to find an extra $114 million - taking the overall cost to $248 million.

To the church’s credit, in June it agreed to scale-back on some of the work which reduced the funding gap from $114 million to between $75 million and $85 million.

But here’s why I feel we’re being held to ransom. Back in April, the project people said that, if the first $30 million of that $114 million couldn’t be found by September - next month - then work would stop completely and the cathedral would be mothballed indefinitely.

So the Council, in its wisdom, thinks that by handing over the $7 million now, it will go some way towards them getting the $30 million they need by next month to keep going.

Which - if the council was correct - would mean that, in the four months since the money crisis was revealed in April, the project has managed to raise $23 million.

I would be astounded if they’ve managed to do that. Absolutely astounded.

What’s more, the church and the reinstatement people are refusing to say whether or not they have actually managed to find extra money from somewhere and, if they have, how much,

Even council staff acknowledge the risk. In a report for concillors they say: "There is a risk that the granted funds will not allow for the completion of the cathedral reinstatement project.”

They say deferring the payment - which is what they should do - would give the council more certainty. But they also say that, if the council doesn’t hand over the money, it could lead to a loss of momentum and the work stopping.

The Government has already put $25 million into the cathedral, and it’s being asked to provide more taxpayer money.

That’s yet to be considered by Cabinet but Winston Peters has already said that he’d support the Government giving more money to prevent the reinstatement being mothballed.

But remember, he’s not the Finance Minister - and we know how Finance Minister Nicola Willis doesn’t like cost blow-outs.

And it’s not as if Winston Peters is negotiating a coalition agreement where he could make more Cathedral funding one of his non-negotiables. So don’t bet the house on that one happening.

Another reason why I feel like the cathedral people are holding us to ransom over this, is the way in which they’ve been so secretive about the finances right up until the last minute.

And it's not just me saying they’ve been all closed shop. I remember city councillors saying at various points that they had expected - or they would like - a bit more transparency on the finances.

But despite all that, they’re giving over $7 million even though they’ve got no idea whether the project will continue beyond next month or not.

And I think that’s nuts.

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Today on Politics Friday, John was joined in studio by Labour's Megan Woods and National's Hamish Campbell. On today’s agenda: 

Why, despite multiple reports, are children in New Zealand still being abused and losing their lives? Is it time for a cross-party commitment to ending this? 

What can be done about the drinking culture in New Zealand, is it time to look at either increasing prices or raising the drinking age again? 

Plus, they discuss the allegations of bullying towards Karen Chourr in Parliament.   

LISTEN ABOVE 

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You might be thinking the revelation that at-risk kids in New Zealand are no safer than they were three years ago, when a 5-year-old boy was beaten, burned and murdered by his carer, has nothing to do with you. But think again. 

Where this has all come from, is a report by the Independent Children's Monitor as to whether the care system in this country has improved since Malachi Subecz died after being abused for months by his “carer”, Michaela Barriball. 

She’s in prison. When she was sent away, she was told it would be for, at least, 17 years. 

And when that Malachi's story emerged, there was a lot of the tut-tutting and ‘this can’t happen again” talk. But it has happened again. More kids have been injured, more kids have been killed. 

The Chief Children's Commissioner Claire Achmad said on Newstalk ZB this morning that an urgent response is needed, But based on past performance and experience, I don't think that will happen. 

Because, if we were really serious, we would have done something before now. 

We would have done something before this report came out, telling us that at-risk kids are no safer than they were when Malachi was murdered. No safer, despite all the reports and the words and the reassurances that things will change and the serious faces. No safer. 

And one of the reasons for that, is the so-called care and protection system in this country. 

After Malachi was murdered, a review was done and it came up with 14 recommendations to try and improve things and make kids safer. Guess how many of them have been acted on? One. The other 13 are gathering dust. 

If I was to summarise what those recommendations were, a lot of them were about getting all the different government departments and agencies working better together, sharing information, and making sure kids like Malachi don’t fall between the cracks. 

And let’s face it, that was never going to happen. 

I don’t know if you’ve had experience of how government departments work —I have— and the last thing they do is share information and co-operate with other government departments. They protect their patches and their budgets and all they care about is jumping when the government minister in charge of them says jump. 

In recent years they've been banging-on about this thing they call an “all of government response”. Probably one time that actually came close to working was during COVID, rest of the time: if it’s not their department, it’s not their department. 

Which is why I have very little faith that our care and protection system is going to get any better than it is now. Where we have, as the Chief Children's Commissioner said this morning, one child on average dying every five weeks from homicide. 

But the system isn’t the only problem. You and I - we have to up our game too. 

Because we treat care and protection of at-risk kids the same way we treat pretty much everything else in this country. We get someone in to do it, we contract it out. Out of mind, out of sight. 

You know: “We’re too busy dealing with our own stuff. We don’t have time to sort out deadbeat parents and caregivers.” That’s the attitude, isn’t it? 

But if we keep on having that attitude - that it’s up to the State to sort it; and if the State continues to completely fail these poor little kids; then we can write as many reports with as many recommendations as we like, but nothing is going to change. 

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How would you feel about rubbish from all over New Zealand and maybe even overseas being dumped in the South Island? 

That’s what could be happening with this new waste-to-energy plant that is planned for South Canterbury. And I would be dead against it. 

Fine, if burning rubbish to create energy is a good thing and can be done without munting the environment, go for it. But there’s no way I would be wanting rubbish from the North Island and overseas being brought here. 

Why? Well, for starters, I don’t want the Canterbury region to be the rest of the country, and the world’s dumping ground. There are enough stories already about countries which accept our recycling waste saying ‘stop, no more’. 

I’ve got other reasons too, which I’ll get to. 

So Glenavy —on State Highway One, not far from Waimate— that’s the site where an outfit, with a majority shareholder from China, wants to build this plant which would burn rubbish in a giant furnace and convert it to energy. 

These plants are in other countries around the world, and they’re seen as a good alternative to landfill rubbish dumps. Instead of sticking rubbish in the ground, you burn it up and make power. 

How they work is the burning of the rubbish creates steam which runs the turbines to make power, and whenever power comes up for discussion, waste-to-energy plants pretty much always gets a mention because some people see them as a better option than some of the other electricity generation alternatives that get talked about, such as using ocean currents. 

What’s happened though is a few months back, the Overseas Investment Office provided advice to the Government on the Chinese company wanting to buy dairy farmland at Glenavy to put the processing plant on. 

In that advice, which was prepared for Finance Minister Nicola Willis, officials say if the plant goes ahead, it should only accept rubbish from within the South Island. 

This was advice from the Overseas Investment Office, which officials put together after getting input from Health NZ, the Ministry for the Environment, the Security Intelligence Service and Foreign Affairs and Trade. 

So, they said in their report that “feedstock” for the plant —which is the technical term for the rubbish used to run the furnace— should only be sourced from within the South Island. 

The reason the report went to the Finance Minister was that, primarily, it was her job to decide whether the purchase of the land by this largely foreign-owned company would be against New Zealand’s national interest. 

And, nine days after receiving the advice, she decided that it wouldn’t, and that the Government was comfortable with the Chinese company buying the land. 

But, in the process she overrode the advice from officials that the plant only be allowed to truck-in rubbish from within the South Island. Instead, she decided that it should be left to the resource consent process to decide that. And, as far as I’m concerned, that could be bad news for the South Island. 

Because, aside from the fact that I don’t want Canterbury becoming a dumping ground for the rest of New Zealand and other countries, can you imagine the truck movements between Christchurch and Glenavy that would be required on that goat track of a road that we call State Highway One? 

These trucks would either come from Picton or they’d go from Lyttelton. Can you imagine the extra amount of traffic? 

So the idea of this plant using rubbish from anywhere other than the South Island gets a big “no” from me. 

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How do you think I’m feeling about the Government's Māori wards bill passing its third reading in Parliament? 

Which means any local councils which established Māori wards without asking residents first will have to hold a referendum if they want to keep them. The same for any other councils that might want to in the future, as well. 

How do you think I’m feeling about that? I’m not feeling how Local Government Minister Simeon Brown is feeling. He’s saying today that it’s “a great day for democracy”. 

I don’t think that at all. I think he’s over-cooking that one, big time. 

I don’t feel the same way about it as Labour leader Chris Hipkins, either, who is saying that it’s “embarrassing”. 

But I am despairing, because this is a piece of legislation dealing with something that hurts no one. Having a Māori ward causes no harm to anyone. 

Now I know that some people think having a separate ward for Māori voters does cause some sort of harm. And normally they claim that it causes racial division. 

And, if they want to think that, then I can’t stop them. But I would ask anyone who thinks that: what harm does it do to you, personally? Does it make your life any worse? Does the idea of Māori wards make you less likely to get ahead in life? 

Does a Māori ward somewhere make the groceries, or the power, or registering the car more expensive? Does it make you more likely to get crook with a serious illness? 

The answer to all of those questions is “no”. But, somehow, some people think Māori wards are a threat to democracy. Which is nonsense. 

Because how can a constituency of people electing someone to be their representative on a council somewhere possibly be undemocratic? It’s not. 

Local Government Minister Simeon Brown is talking nonsense saying that forcing councils to have referendums before they can keep their Māori wards is a great day for democracy. 

It’s not about democracy, at all. In the Minister’s own words on radio this morning, it’s about being anti-woke. Whatever that is. 

It’s ideology and nothing else. Because Māori wards make no one’s life any worse - and getting rid of them won’t make anyone’s life any better. 

And they will fade out because we know who the people are who bother voting in local body elections - because these referendums are going to be done at the same time as local body elections. 

We know already, don’t we, what the results of these referendums are going to be because —generally— the people who can be bothered voting in their local council elections tend to sing from the same anti-woke songsheet as Simeon Brown. 

What’s more, if the Government is going to sell its Māori ward legislation as a win for democracy, and if councils are now going to have to ask ratepayers for permission before they can keep or set-up a Māori ward, then they should also have to ask for public permission to do anything else they want to do, as well. 

Now that would be democracy. But that’s not happening. Which is why it’s complete nonsense for the Government to claim that its crackdown on councils setting up Māori wards without asking for public approval first is a win for democracy. 

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Today on Canterbury Mornings John MacDonald was joined by Labour Leader Chris Hipkins for their regular chat. 

Why does he feel the Māori Wards Bill is an embarrassment? Will National's Tax Cuts prove Labour wrong in the future?  And what does he make of the Green Party stating their ambition to be the major opposition party? 

LISTEN ABOVE 

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Would you rather the police could only search a place for illegal firearms if they believed there were illegal guns there, or would you rather they could search a place for illegal firearms if they suspected illegal firearms were there? 

There’s quite a difference. If you believe something, you’ve generally seen or heard information that gives you reason to believe. 

But if you suspect something, it’s one of those things where you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you reckon there’s something going on. 

And that’s where things are potentially coming unstuck a little bit for the Government’s crackdown on gangs and illegal firearms. 

Because Parliament’s Justice Select Committee has come to the conclusion that some changes the Government wants to make in relation to firearms prohibition orders would give the police too much power to search without search warrants. 

And my response to that, is “so what?” Because, if we’re going to get serious about getting weapons out of the wrong hands, why wouldn’t we give the police more powers? 

The particular piece of legislation that the justice select committee has been considering is the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill. 

Prohibition Orders are handed-out by the courts, and they’re supposed to stop people from having a firearms licence, stop them from using a firearm, and stop them from associating with anyone who has a firearm. 

And they’re given out to people who the courts believe are high-risk and shouldn’t have anything to do with firearms.  

Another change the Government wants to make is to apply the law to more people. At the moment, the bar is pretty high, but the Government wants to see people convicted of lower-level offences also given Firearms Prohibition Orders. 

Apparently, this could see three-and-a-half times more people banned from having a firearms licence, banned from using firearms and banned from having anything to do with people who have firearms.    

But people like gang members, generally, don’t give two hoots about things like prohibition orders. Which is why the Government also wants the Police to be able to turn up somewhere without a search warrant - even if they don’t have reason to believe there are illegal firearms there. 

The Government wants the cops to be able to act on a hunch and go in somewhere without going through the malarkey of getting a search warrant and I’m all for that. 

It seems the select committee, which has gone through the proposed changes, is concerned about innocent people getting caught-up in police stings. 

They reckon it’s not good enough to search on the basis of suspecting someone might have an illegal weapon. They say the police should only search if they believe it. 

Which is all fine and dandy when you’re sitting in Parliament at your select committee meeting, having morning tea breaks and lunch breaks and looking at the proposed changes from a position of relative comfort. 

These politicians might think slightly differently if they or someone they know was at the wrong end of a gun barrel. 

Because so what if a few innocent people get taken-in for questioning now and then? Surely we should be more concerned about the safety of these innocent people. Not any inconvenience that might be caused if they have to spend a couple of hours down at the cop shop and are then allowed to go. 

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John MacDonald was joined by National’s Matt Doocey and Labour’s Reuben Davidson for Politics Friday. 

They discussed whether the Government should intervene on the replanting regulations for pine trees on the Port Hills after the multiple intense blazes. 

It’s been an emotional week in Parliament with the release of the Abuse in Care Report, so what needs to happen now? And, can we really get our response to mental health and addiction services back on track? 

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“Pines are one of the most flammable plants on the planet.” 

That’s a quote from a plant ecologist at Victoria University, Dr Nicola Day. 

And it's why some Christchurch councils went to the Government wanting a change to the forestry rules, to try and stop pine forests being re-planted on the Port Hills after the big fire earlier this year. 

The second big fire on the Port Hills in less than 10 years. And the Government has said no. Which I get. It's saying to the councils that it’s not prepared to change the forestry rules just to suit Christchurch. So I get that. 

But, at the same time, it’s nuts that more can’t be done to try and make sure we don’t have another big fire in another seven years. 

So, what happened is Christchurch and Selwyn mayors Phil Mauger and Sam Broughton, acting Environment Canterbury chair Craig Pauling and another ECAN councillor, wrote a letter to the Minister of Forestry Todd McClay. 

And they pointed-out to him that, after the first fire in 2017, there was no way they could stop pines being re-planted. Which meant, of course, that when the second fire broke out on Valentine’s Day this year the pines were back again and, bingo, we know where things went from there. 

And within days there were Port Hills residents coming out and saying how crazy it was that the pines had been re-planted after the 2017 fire and asking, you know, when will we learn? 

Since then, the councils have gone as far as they can go - and there are some changes proposed to what’s known as the Canterbury Regional Policy Statement. 

But the forestry rules, as they stand, get in the way of anything further. Because they allow anyone who has existing rights to have a forestry plantation on the Port Hills to replace it like-for-like if it’s damaged or destroyed by fire. 

The adventure park is a case in point. After 2017, the pines were re-planted there because the landowner had an existing right to plant them. There was nothing that could be done to stop that. This is what these local councils are trying to change. But the Government has said no. 

When the fire was happening back in February, a director of McVicar Timber Group —which owns the land where the adventure park is— was quoted in media reports saying that planting native trees costs 10-times more than planting pine trees. 

He also said that he didn’t think native trees would survive in the Port Hills because the area is dry and rocky. 

At the time, there weren’t many —if any— Port Hills residents agreeing with him. 

Such as Hannah Miller, who said: “Seven years ago was the perfect opportunity to re-plant in natives. I’m no expert on fires, but we’ve seen what burns in the Port Hills and what doesn’t burn, and the native vegetation does a pretty damn good job of stopping it.” 

She went on to say: “What on earth are we doing planting pines right up there? That’s utterly ridiculous.” 

And I’m not going to argue with that. Because it was utterly ridiculous that pines were allowed to be re-planted after the 2017 fire and it’s utterly ridiculous that the forestry rules —as they stand at the moment— allow the same mistake to be made again. 

But the Government has said “no”. So where do we go with this now? 

If the councils here in Christchurch have had no joy with the Minister of Forestry, they need to be contacting his Cabinet colleague Simon Watts - who is the Climate Change Minister. 

Because climate change —and more extreme weather— are part of the picture here. 

Just over two weeks ago, Simon Watts released the Government’s five-point climate strategy. And one of those five points - under the heading “Nature-based solutions to address climate change” says the Government wants homes and communities better protected against climate change through restored habitats and ecosystems. It also wants more native forests. 

So that’s where I think these councils should go next. 

I can see why the Government doesn't want to tinker with the forestry rules just because of what we’ve been through here in Christchurch with two big fires on the Port Hills in seven years. But something has to be done to try and make sure we don't have to go through the same thing all over again. 

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In some way, shape or form, every New Zealander is a victim of the horrific abuse laid bare in the inquiry report released yesterday.

First and foremost - absolutely first and foremost - it is the 200,000 people who were abused while in the care of the state and religious organisations that we are most mindful of. As we should be.

The Government appears to be, as well. The proof of that will emerge over the next few months as it works on a response to the 138 recommendations in the inquiry report.

As far as I’m concerned, there is one that should be prioritised immediately. Because, until this is done, a lot of the other strategies and plans and approaches recommended in the report will just be more paper, more talk, and our trust in the outfits who are supposed to be looking after the people who need it most will deteriorate further.

And that’s this recommendation that all staff and care workers are vetted, registered, and well-trained.

It’s astounding isn't it that this particular recommendation is even needed in 2024?

The Government’s first priority, though, seems to “re-dress”. Which is all about things like financial compensation and other forms of recognition for the direct victims of this abuse.

Even if you’re not one of them. Don’t think for a minute that this doesn’t involve you. Because you’re an indirect victim. I am too. Because, as I say, every New Zealander - in some way, shape or form - is a victim.

Whether it’s the families these kids went on to have or the people they had relationships with. The people who have faced the consequences of being brought up or living with someone broken by what they went through.

The people who have been the victims of crime carried out by the damaged people who finally found the belonging they were craving for in gangs.

The other victims I’m thinking of today, too, are the parents of these kids who were abused.

And if you’re thinking ‘oh none of them are me. I didn’t go through all that and no one in my family did either, so I’m not one of those victims he’s going on about.’ Well, think again.

Because we’re not just talking here about the abuse of 200,000 children and adults. Which is staggering enough, on its own.

We’re also talking about the huge abuse of trust we, as a society and a community, placed in these places that were supposed to protect and look after people.

And, particularly in the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s, our trust in these outfits was rock solid.

I know. Because I went to two Catholic schools in Dunedin where sexual abuse of kids was going on. These were schools run by the Christian Brothers. So it was Christian Brothers Junior School and St Paul’s High School that I went to. This was in the late 70s and 80s.

And since then, some of the people who taught me, have been exposed as sexual predators.

One of them I thought was the best teacher I’d ever had. He was an English teacher and he just brought the whole subject to life and probably had some influence over my decision to become a journalist when I left school. He was amazing.

What I didn’t know, at the time, though was, while "Mr Amazing" was opening my eyes and ears to words and language and stories - at the same time, he was also taking other kids to his place across the road at lunchtimes and abusing them.

As for another one, well, I remember there being talk about him being dodgy when I was there - this was at Christian Brothers Junior School - so kind-of around intermediate age. This guy was a Christian Brother and there was talk about him but in those days, when you were 11 or 12, it was all a bit of a giggle.

Terrible to think that now. And I’m appalled to think about the other kids at both of those schools who must have been living in absolute terror while the rest of us got on with playing four square and handball at lunchtime, and having a giggle about keeping your towel on in the changing rooms at the pool.

This particular guy was moved overseas by the church when he was caught out - on the condition he have no contact with children. The reports I’ve seen say he went to the Cook Islands and Africa; eventually came back to New Zealand and is no longer alive.

Other teachers at these schools I went to have been named publicly over the years, too. And I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for some of these kids.

And I’m not just talking about the disgusting things that happened to them. How their lives were ripped apart. I’m also talking about how much they must have grappled with the fact that these so-called “religious” people were trusted.

And I bet there were kids back then going home, telling their parents what was going on and their parents saying “oh, don't be so bloody ridiculous. Stop that disgusting talk right now”. I bet you there were kids that went through that.

Because the trust in these creeps - however misguided - that people and society had in them and their organisations was rock solid. And they knew it, didn’t they? The animals they were.

Which is why I’m saying today that every one of us - directly and indirectly - we’ve all been affected by this. Nothing like the 200,000 who, finally, are being recognised. Nothing like that. But the trust we - as a society - placed in these people and their organisations was also abused.

Which makes us all victims, to varying degrees.

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Irish comedian Ed Byrne joined John MacDonald on Newstalk ZB Canterbury Mornings, where he discussed his new show - Tragedy Plus Time. 

He explained how he manages to talk about the death of his brother Paul in the show and balance the emotion with humour. Plus his special connection to Kaikoura and Christchurch. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

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