Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

One district is crediting its proactive programme for its top water ranking.   The Water Services Authority's latest report suggests Grey District, the Far North, Queenstown, Ashburton, and Clutha councils are the worst for leakages.   Meanwhile the place with the least leakages is Hauraki District Council.   Mayor Toby Adams told Kerre Woodham the District has invested heavily in ensuring local dairy farms have reliable access to water.   He says it wants to get it right, ensuring there are no disruptions and there is enough to go around.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The first national picture of our water networks has revealed severe and immense pressures, with an average of 31 wastewater overflows across New Zealand every single day given as an example of how it's failing. In total, about 15% of our pipes are in poor or very poor condition – and that’s likely to be understating it, given that the pipes are under the ground and we only know there's a problem when there's a problem, like a sinkhole – good morning St Marys Bay, hello Wellington. Or when there's a major sewage overflow – good morning again Wellington, and looking at you, Queenstown Lakes and Herne Bay.  To be fair, a lot of the wastewater overflows are on us. Absolute morons cause blockages when they put things down the loo or the sink that shouldn't go down there. No, you don't pour your fat down there, because what happens when fat sets? Blocks everything up, doesn't it? Wet wipes, honestly, and the like. Will the Government's take on Labour's Three Waters, Local Water Done Well, fix the problem?  Well, even the proponent of Local Water Done Well, Local Government Minister Simeon Brown says it's going to be “a mammoth challenge”. That's like a doctor saying there'll be quite a bit of discomfort – what they mean is severe agony. When they say a mammoth challenge, that's like, we're not entirely sure we can do it, but we have to give it a bash. One of the key points, he says, the Government wanted to achieve with Local Water Done Well is making sure the entities that deliver these water services are, in essence, match fit, are financially sustainable, and have the ability to deliver, not just now, but in the years, the decades to come.  There are significant challenges around infrastructure investment deficit, and we'll need to spend, on average and all things considered, around $4 billion per year over the next 10 years. Now, some have already got cracking and underway, and that was in part one of the reasons that Labour's version of Local Water Done Well, the Three Waters, received a bit of pushback. The first was that local mayors said that the Government shouldn't get their mitts on local assets. The second was that some councils had already spent a great deal of money doing the hard stuff, not just building pretty things that look great above ground, but had invested considerably in their water structures. Auckland has a very efficient, reasonably well-run department of water, if you will, Watercare, and they didn't want to hand that over to anybody in particular. And then, of course, there was the co-governance, which was very poorly sold.  And even now, when we're joining into big entities so that there's more clout when it comes to borrowing and sharing and pooling of resources, Auckland's like, “well, if you haven't spent a cent, Northland, on your water, why on earth should we carry you?” And other councils are feeling much the same way. But anyone who's living near Moa Point in Wellington right now would say spend whatever it takes to get the pipes fixed. Ask anyone in Havelock North who was affected by the campylobacter outbreak there this time 10 years ago. Almost 40% of the town struck by gastro when sheep dung contaminated the town's water supply. There were four deaths, 953 notified cases.   Upgrading our water system is not a “gosh, that'd be nice one day”. Upgrading our water was gosh, it would be nice one day 20 years ago. It is so overdue. The money must be spent now, and it's infrastructure that must be prioritised now. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now in any recession, it's the young ones who are going to find it hardest to get jobs, and this recession is no different. Student Job Search says many students and graduates are really struggling to find jobs, part time, full time, which means they're also finding it tough to pay the rent and to put food on the table. And just looking at the story, it seems that many young people who've followed their passions are finding it the most difficult to get work. They've taken out student loans to get degrees in fields like screen production or radio, or they've done a Bachelor of Communications and then they're finding that the jobs simply aren't there, not for entry level. Or there are fears that the jobs for which the young people have qualified, taken out the student loans, worked their way through and qualified, simply won't exist in the future. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, has warned that up to half of white collar work could be automated by 2030 In this country, MB warns that young people may struggle to get onto the employment ladder as an increasing amount of entry level work is automated. The unemployment rate among New Zealand's 15 to 24 year olds currently sits at around 15% triple that of the working age population.  These are young people who are looking for work. They weren't faffing around just taking a dole or a youth allowance. These are young people who want work and the unemployment rate is around 15% Research from the AI Forum in this country earlier this year showed that 45% of businesses were planning to lower their headcount due to implementing AI. So not only are they struggling to find jobs in the field that they've studied and they've graduated in, there's real concern that they're not going to get a job in 10 years from now, that job simply won't be there. There was a review of a number of go get em tiger type books in The Economist this week  under the heading "Traditional career advice is failing Gen Z". Two of the books have authors who tell their readers to get out there and find a career you love, to follow your passion, nothing will make you more successful than loving what you do for a living. But the third author took the opposite approach and I think it's probably the more sensible one. He says get good at something that helps others and the passion will follow. His argument is that if you're good at your job, you'll have more leverage to do enjoyable work than if you pursue a passion and you're mediocre. Don't go for the big bucks, he cites the happiness paradox where once basic comfort and security are met, extra income yields much smaller gains in daily emotional well being. Just being wealthy isn't going to make you happy. You get to a certain tipping point where you can pay all your bills on time, have a little bit set aside for disposable income, a holiday once a year perhaps, that'll do you. Anything beyond that and it's not really worth it. He says do something where you feel valued and where your skills are in demand. Do that rather than follow your dream of becoming a professional YouTuber or a cinematographer or what have you. I have been very, very lucky to begin a job at 17 that I have loved, and I've pretty much done it on and off since I was 17 working in the media. Being a television presenter, being a radio journalist, being a writer, being a columnist, loved it. Apart from two years of COVID, but we don't need to go into that right now, not today. Absolutely loved it and feel very, very lucky to have done so. But what is your advice to your young people? Or if you are a young person who has recently graduated, how did you decide what to do? How difficult has it been trying to find a job? I mean 15% unemployment among the 15 to 24 year olds. That's a lot of young kids that are knocking on doors willing to do anything, and they are. These aren't lazy kids. They're willing to do damn near anything. They've given up working in screen production or radio or public relations, they just want a job. What's your advice? Do a bit of research and find out what jobs might be AI proof, service jobs, or do you still think it's important to tell kids to follow their passion? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A big job to hire the next float builder for the country's biggest Christmas parade.  Auckland's Farmers Santa Parade's long-time elf is retiring his paintbrush - after five decades of building iconic floats. Applications are open for his replacement - requiring artistry and carpentry to take on a few new editions each year.  Children's Christmas Parade Trust Chair Simon Bridges told Kerre Woodham they aren't restricting the search to just Auckland.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now it's just over three months till the election. It is a really important election. New Zealand is struggling to get back on its feet economically. A lot of Kiwis are hurting, and they've been hurting for a long, long time. And they have to decide between a party that gives them stuff, “Oh look, we've got free stuff for you," or a party that is promised to fix things, “Hey, we're in charge here," but is still in the process of fixing things and hasn't fixed a great deal yet, “Oh, it takes time.” Or even whether they should give their vote to a shiny new party, “Hi, we're from TOP," utterly unproven, has some interesting takes on taxing the rich, but hey, at least it's not National or Labour, stuff National or Labour. I'll go with that nice girl in that shiny party that may well end up taking your land off you, but hey ho, there we go, at least it's not National or Labour.   There is a lot to think about. There's a lot to consider, there's a lot to discuss, there are policies to pick apart, but instead we've spent a week of the 12 weeks we have left until the election fixated on stupid, crass, dumb stuff that politicians and would be politicians say. Should be a new media segment: Dumb Stuff Politicians Say. The media and the public are to blame equally. The media gets clicks on the website and eyes on social media and calls on talkback. Makes it easy, don't even have to work for them. The public can have a knee jerk reaction, “Oh, that's shocking," and an immediate opinion, “What a terrible person," without having to do the hard work of reading through policies and analysis of policies. And as expected, it didn't take Paul Henry long to be at the centre of a row when he was the guest of Radio Hauraki yesterday morning.  JEREMY WELLS: Quick game of shoot, shag, marry. Chris Luxon, Chris Hipkins, and Winston Peters. Who are you shooting? Who are you shagging? Who are you marrying?  PAUL HENRY: I mean, you know, you've got to shoot Hipkins, haven't you?  WELLS: Okay, so Hipkins is no more.   MANAIA STEWART: There's your headline.  HENRY: Yeah, I'm shagging Winston.  WELLS: And you're marrying Luxon.    AYESHA VERRALL: That is absolutely inappropriate and these things do have to be called out because we can't just let death threats go in our political conversation. There are nutters out there who feed off these sorts of things and one day, you know, we can be in the situation which the UK is in where members of Parliament lose their lives.  Oh, Ayesha Verrall, cool your jets. That was Ayesha on with my colleague Nick Mills in Wellington when she'd learned that Paul Henry had played shoot, shag, marry on Radio Hauraki. Death threats. The righteous indignation from Labour seems a bit OTT given Chris Hipkins participated in a similar game on The Project some years ago, except then as it was called kick, kiss, or marry. In 2023 Chris Hipkins said he would kick David Seymour, kiss Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to get it over and done with quickly, and marry Te Pāti Māori co leader Rawiri Waititi. Kick David Seymour! He's advocating violence! He wants people to hurt the ACT Leader! No, he doesn't. And nor does Paul Henry want to kill Chris Hipkins. They all just participated in a dumb media game and after Albanese got caught up in the shag, marry, date, and Kylie Minogue and all the trouble he got into with that, I'm sure we'll see cross party support from politicians of every hue and every party that they never play that stupid, stupid game in the media ever again. I mean, you heard one of the Hauraki hosts saying, “Oh, there's your headline," and it was.   Then you've got the National Party who have got party-wide outrage after Stuart Nash's comments on Katie Nimon and saying, “Oh, she's bloody lazy," inferring she shouldn't have taken so much maternity leave or parental leave. Now, the social media post from every Nat you've never heard of decrying the comments, and deploring them, and the like could be seen as the Nats quite rightly looking after and supporting one of their own, or it could be seen as a party-wide instruction to shriek your outrage across every media outlet because we're polling badly with women and we want to show women that we love them really, it's just that the country can't afford the pay equity legislation that Labour promised the women.   We've got Shane Jones and his knee pads comments and for all his purple prose, his grandiloquence, his circumlocution, his sesquipedalian tendencies, he's just as smutty as the next guy, loves a double entendre. But really, the column inches generated and the time wasted by that comment are just grist to his mill. This is what New Zealand First thrives on: agitate and offend people, then leap back decrying them all as “wokesters” and say, “Ugh, New Zealand First is here to man up, hey! You'll be able to knee pad your way around the bloody morning tearoom when New Zealand First is in power! Hey! Don't you worry about that!" I mean, it's just nonsense. Absolute nonsense.  There are columns in the newspaper, there are columns online, there are radio programs where you can discuss in detail the policies of the different parties and how they'll impact on New Zealand now and in the future. But people don't read them. We can show you the figures. And that's people. That's the audience. They click on the knee pads, they click on Katie Nimon, they click on Paul Henry and the shoot, shag, marry. They do not click on Treasury's analysis of the Green Party's tax policy – well they do, but not in as nearly the same numbers. So it's on all of us, except not really us because we do talk policy more than your average radio program and you as the audience who make us the number one rating show do read, do absorb, do analyse the policies more than the average member of the public. But honestly, given that this is one of the most important elections we've got coming up, this is what's dominated the headlines for a week. We do get the government we deserve when shoot, shag, marry is the most read column for the week with 12 weeks to go for an election. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Taxing the super-rich has been tried overseas and hasn't always worked out, one expert says.  The Greens have set their wealth tax rate at 2.5%, but Treasury modelling suggests it could shrink the taxable wealth base by more than 40%.   The party's own modelling puts the reduction at about 28%.   Dentons tax partner Bruce Bernacchi told Kerre Woodham if introduced, we'd be only one of five countries that have it.  He says in 1990 there were 12 countries in the OECD that had a wealth tax, and there are just four today.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Borrowers' pockets may feel the most impact from more regular inflation reports.   From next July, Stats NZ will phase in monthly Consumer Price Index reporting on top the current quarterly reports.   Statistics Minister Scott Simpson says it'll keep businesses, households, and decision-makers, like the Reserve Bank, better-informed.   The Herald's Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham it will also mean interest rates can be more up-to-date.   He says the Reserve Bank currently decide rates on a three-month lag.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dear oh dear oh dear oh dear. You do have to wonder whether Stuart Nash is employable in this country. He might have to head over to Oz and join forces with Tory Whanau – they can set up their own consultancy on what not to do if you want a job in the public eye. For those who don't know, and I can't imagine there's anyone in the country who doesn't, but let's recap: Stuart Nash has resigned as a New Zealand First candidate after yet another ill-advised reckon came back to bite him in the bum. In a late-night social media post – and therein lies the problem, I think. There is no good that comes from being out late after midnight. There is no good that comes from social media posts after 5pm. But in this case, he said the backlash over his comments had become a significant distraction, so he was resigning as the candidate for New Zealand First.  He had accused National's Napier MP, Katie Nimon, of being lazy. She had taken maternity leave. He was responding to Chris Finlayson's positive comments about Nimon in Finlayson's podcast. In a late-night social media text, Nash sent the text to Finlayson and it read: “Katie took nine months off on full pay, went back for a week, then took another month off. Laziest MP I've ever come across. Nice woman, ill-suited to the rigours of being an electorate MP." In fact, Nimon had 10 weeks of parental leave and was back at work as an electorate MP. She spent six months away from Wellington but working from her electorate office. If Nash's comment was a one-off, it could perhaps, with generous interpretation, be explained away.  But Nash has form. In mid-March 2023, Nash resigned as Minister of Police following revelations he asked the then Police Commissioner Andrew Coster to appeal a decision Nash felt was too light. You can't do that as a Minister – you have to remain neutral. Later in March, he made remarks on Newstalk ZB calling for a murder suspect to be imprisoned. At the time, the murder suspect was facing trial, hadn't yet been convicted. This is basic law 101 He has a law degree. He was Minister of Police. This is stuff he should know, and it just hands the opposition ammunition. Then, third strike and you're out, he contacted the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to advocate for a migrant health professional. So, ministerial interference. You can't do that.   In response, Hipkins demoted Nash to the bottom of the cabinet rankings as a final warning, but declined to strip him of his remaining cabinet portfolios until it was revealed that Nash had emailed two of his donors, who were commercial property owners, about a commercial rent relief policy that cabinet was discussing, which is in direct contravention of the cabinet manual, which says you can't talk about things that are discussed around the cabinet table. It is basic stuff if you want to do the job. Basic, basic stuff. Chris Hipkins said, “Right, Nash has got to be stripped of his ministerial portfolios." He'd given him enough rope, he'd subsequently hung himself.   He decided not to stand for Labour, or Labour decided not to have him, which gave him free rein to express whatever he wanted to say. And off he went onto an internet radio station, The Platform, and when asked for the definition of a woman, said it's a “person with a p***y and a pair of t***s”. He was working for a recruitment company, a serious recruitment company involving serious professionals. There might be some workplaces where that kind of thing is perfectly acceptable, but not at Robert Walters. He was shown the door forthwith, and he also resigned from the board of the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union.   This is not an "oh my goodness, how on earth did that happen?" You know that he's a loose cannon. You know that he says oiky, oafish comments that are then ammunition for opposition parties. And it's his indiscretion. Why would you send a text like that to a former National MP who's a very sort of moderate, sensible person who is quite likely to take offence? If he thinks Katie Nimon is the bee's knees, he's going to be rightfully annoyed when Stuart Nash sends him a text like that in the middle of the night. What surprises me is that New Zealand First took him on in the first place. They knew he was an indiscreet oik – he was exactly what was written on the can. You got what you expected, surely. But it's his lack of judgement and his indiscretion that makes him really ill-suited to standing for any kind of public office. He can't just do a Michael Laws and go from Parliament to regional councils to Parliament. No. Indiscreet, hopeless.  Heather had a hot take on it, saying that if you are an electorate MP, you have to get back to work. You shouldn't be mucking around taking as much maternity, parental leave as you're legally entitled to. If you've been elected and your name is on the door, you should be back at work straight away. I disagree with her, respectfully. Being a politician is hard work. It is a lot of travel, it's a lot of slogging around. It's not the same as being a radio host. I think if the parental leave exists, every employer, every voter knows that there is the possibility that if you employ or elect a young person of childbearing age, and that includes a man up until about —God, Mick Jagger's still churning them out, isn't he?— 80, there is a possibility they can take parental leave, male or female. I think it's really, really hard work and she was right to take the time off that she did. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the country’s most influential GPs is flagging an issue with the health system’s focus.  Dr Bryan Betty signing off as General Practice NZ Chair this week after more than three years in the role to join the Health NZ Board.  He believes New Zealand has reached a pivotal moment in how it plans and delivers healthcare.  Betty told Kerre Woodham that conversations around healthcare often centre around emergency departments and hospitals, while the primary care system and general practices receive little focus.  He says early intervention, and access to it, is absolutely critical going forward.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The changes to the way we vote. Voters will no longer be able to rock up on election day and register to vote thanks to a law change made last year, and Chris Hipkins isn't happy. The Labour Leader says the Electoral Commission isn't doing enough to make sure New Zealanders are enrolled to vote, and he's concerned that people will turn up on Election Day and find that their votes won't be counted because they're not on the electoral roll. In the past, they could see all the flags, think, “Oh, what's that all about?", wander into a voting station, “Oh, I'm not on the... Oh, I'd quite like to vote, I'm not on the roll." “No worries," the nice people at the voting stations would say. “We'll sign you up." So they'd be signed up, they'd be able to vote, and their vote would then be counted as a special vote.   At the last election, more than half a million special votes needed to be counted. Not all of these were numpties, of course, who didn't realise that they weren't on the electoral roll, or people who'd been scooped up along with a van full of the halt, the lame, and dispossessed to come along and cast a vote, who were just told, “Look for the pretty colour and tick that box." Some of the people were in hospitals, some were on the unpublished electoral roll, some were living overseas, and just on that, allow me to clamber onto my favourite hobby horse: if you have been living overseas and you have borrowed money from the taxpayer to get your degree and you haven't paid it back, and you don't have a payment plan in place to pay it back, you shouldn't be able to vote. Overseas student loan borrowers owe us $4.5 billion, and only 23% of them are meeting their repayment obligations. If I were King or Queen, I'd be like, “Right, you miserable lot, not one of you gets the right to say how we spend taxpayer dollars until you've paid back the taxpayer dollars you've borrowed, or until you are signed up to a payment plan that ensures you will pay back what you've borrowed. If you're not on a payment plan, get stuffed, your vote doesn't count and you can't cast a vote." So that would be me, I digress, but I will still seethe quietly.   The Electoral Commission has estimated that around 55,000 votes could be disallowed under the new law. Around 73,000 could have their electorate votes disallowed but their party votes counted because they were enrolled to vote but they weren't at the address listed on the roll. Labour's justice spokeswoman, Camilla Belich, spoke to Andrew Dickens on Drive last night about her concerns.  “Well, we're really worried that people who just want to go along on Election Day and cast their vote will be prevented from doing that. And the Government will say, “Well, maybe they should have done it in advance," but we know that a lot of people don't think about voting until around the election period anyway, and we're worried that this will limit their ability to participate in our democracy, thus ironically affecting the government's mandate to govern. So we think that politicians should be making it easier for people to vote, not harder, and unfortunately the Government is doing the opposite.”  So people don't realise they're going to be turning 18 and will need to vote? People don't check whether they're on the electoral roll before the Election? The Commission is about to launch a major awareness campaign. They will be writing to 3.6 million New Zealanders asking them to check their enrolment details are up to date and advising them of the changes that they won't be able to just rock up on Election Day. The only problem is, if your enrolment details aren't up to date, the letter's not going to reach you, is it? It seems to be a bit of a waste of time and money. And is it the Commission's job? I mean, Labour seems to think it is. It's the Commission's job to chase down every last voter in this country and offshore, take them gently by the hand, guide them through the process, and then let them loose in a voting booth.   If you can't get your act together, then should your vote even count? If you owe the taxpayer $4.5 billion, should your vote count? I would have thought, and go ahead and call me a miserable old bat and a Tory-loving Fox News ZB, but it's up to you, not the Electoral Commission, to make sure you can vote. Voting is a precious, precious right, and when you've had it for so long, you probably take it for granted, but there are people dying right now for the right to vote. If you don't take it seriously and you don't treasure the right to vote, you shouldn't bloody have it. If you're just going to be bundled into a van with the halt, the lame, and the dispossessed and taken down to put a tick next to the pretty colour, should you be voting? No. Not at all.   You can enrol, you can check, you can update your details online at vote.nz. Even the website couldn't be simpler: vote.nz. Or you can call a freephone number and ask for an enrolment form to be sent to you. That should be all anyone needs. Writing to 3.6 million New Zealanders – if your voting details are up to date, you don't need the letter. If your enrolment details aren't up to date, you're not going to get the letter. It seems utterly pointless and futile and hopeless. Vote.nz. If you can't manage to enrol and it's beyond you to check your details are correct, you know what? Stay home. We don't want you voting. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I have so many questions around the Government bailout of Golden Bay Cement, which is not in fact manufactured in Golden Bay, but in Northland.   Fletcher owns the company and they said Golden Bay Cement operates New Zealand's only domestic cement manufacturing facility at Portland near Whangarei. It supplies nearly 60% of the cement used in New Zealand – about 95% of its output is sold domestically. Golden Bay Cement took a long hard look at the account books and participated in an independent assessment which confirmed that without support, rising costs —including carbon costs— would force the closure of the company and a shift to an import only model for cement from 2030.   So in steps the Government with a $60 million payout. They say it’s a specific one-time response to an exceptional set of circumstances, to keep the plant open at least through to 2040. In return, Golden Bay Cement has committed to continue producing cement at its Northland plant at least until 2040 and to invest at least 150 million through to 2040, phased over time. Finance Minister Nicola Willis told Heather du Plessis Allan last night the decision to offer a bailout was not made lightly and does not set a precedent.  “We went through three steps. One, this is quite different in that it is strategically so important that you can produce cement for your domestic economy, that you're not exposed to not being able to have cement if there was an international trade disruption. Two, the financial case here is that actually this is a business that is working overall. The key thing is just that emissions cost. And three, we've set in place some really firm requirements that Golden Bay need to meet in order to get this cash with clawbacks if they don't meet those requirements. And that includes keeping production going through to at least 2040 making $150 million worth of investments in that manufacturing capability, keeping the jobs at that factory going, and having an open book exercise with us, the Government, so that we can audit that investment. So we set a very high bar, we took a very case by case approach. Believe you me, I did not want to be setting a precedent that we're going to keep doing this.”  Well, yeah, you kind of have set a precedent though, haven't you? Because when you bail out one company, that's precedent. The other companies can say you've done it before, so it's a precedent. And Nicola Willis made the point that, oh, this is a thriving company, it's just that emissions cost. Yeah, about that... that's one of those questions. If it's just that emissions cost, then that's not going to change unless you change our obligation to the Paris Agreement and unless you do as other European countries have done and delay the introduction of the ETS or scrap it all together. So “just that emissions cost” is what's snookering a whole lot of New Zealand companies.   Fletcher says that New Zealand manufacturers face carbon costs that importers largely avoid. They want to see a carbon border adjustment mechanism, something they say addresses the structural imbalance directly and would let the ETS work as intended without exposing domestic manufacturers like Golden Bay to ongoing domestic advantage. A CBAM would apply a carbon charge to imported goods based on the emissions generated during their production. While we're all being, hey look at us, we're being so good and we're saving the Arctic shelves and we're snookering our own companies because we believe in the greater good of the of the planet and the universe, other countries go, yeah, no, not for us. Not really. We don't buy into that whole ETS thing, so we're not going to do it. They can make their goods a whole lot cheaper on so many levels without the ETS even coming into it. Add the ETS on that, the fact that they're ignoring it completely, no wonder their goods are cheaper.   So as Fletcher says, why don't we bring in the carbon border adjustment mechanism so wherever it's made in the world, you have to pay your ETS if we're all going to buy into that. How is a one-off payment going to help given the trading environment isn't changing or they've given no indication of the ETS obligations changing anytime soon? And they won't under Labour and Greens, if anything they'd go up. And if Golden Bay is so critical, why isn't Carter Holt Harvey's pulp and paper and plywood? I would have thought that was pretty critical too. Except of course they closed down and it wasn't an election year. Perhaps that's the difference. Last year Carter Holt Harvey saw the closure of Kinleith and Eves Valley sawmill with the loss of hundreds of jobs. We had the closure of Ravensdown, Smithfield, and Ruapehu. Each of these towns and regions could argue that what they made was critical to the supply chain. It was certainly critical to the economic viability of their particular region, which is not awash in situations vacant.   Cameron Bagrie has called the bailout of Golden Bay corporate welfareism. Of course it is. Fletcher says it's not, the Government says it's not, but if it's taxpayer money going to an entity that can't support itself, that's welfareism. Nicola Willis might not want to set a precedent, but she has. And a one-off payment is not going to fix the problem, as Fletcher points out. We have signed up to the Paris Accord, we've said, oh yes, bring on the ETS, please let's cripple ourselves so we can maintain the moral high ground. And in the meantime, we're going to have to import goods that are made by other countries that have stuck two fingers to Paris and said we can't afford it. How does that work? How do we maintain the moral high ground by buying goods from countries that are ignoring their carbon offset obligations? We do our own companies out of business, we put people out of work, and we buy from countries that ignore the ETS. It doesn't make any sense to me at all. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealand First had its own little party on the weekend. It's going to campaign on funding a $1 billion survey of offshore oil and gas reserves that it says would lead to the country owning its own supply and reducing power prices. Hello, 1972! However, it is unclear how many years it would take for Kiwis to feel the benefits, if any, as Winston said it was expected it could take six years just to establish a pathway forward. Party leader Winston Peters announced the policy in his speech to the faithful in Auckland as he launched New Zealand First's 2026 election campaign. Same old, same old election-kind-of bag from Winston. He attacked Labour and the India free trade deal. That's what he does in election years. He's a perfectly capable and competent Foreign Affairs Minister, dealing with all people from all parts of the world until election year. And then it's hoots, wahay, and he's off. He's perfectly capable of forming a coalition government with Labour and, despite the attacks on Labour, still could, but that's what he does in election years. Back to the oil and gas. Can we make money out of oil and gas? If we have it, we can, but proven natural gas reserves within our economic zone have fallen by roughly two-thirds since 2021. Despite nearly $2 billion invested in new well drilling since the 2018 offshore exploration ban, results have been pretty modest. So far, it's all a bit pie in the sky. Does the world still need more oil and gas? If you listen to the Greenies, no. We're all sort of pedalling our way to work on our windmill-powered velocycles, everybody's got solar panels on the roof, and we're living in a utopian paradise where everything's clean, green and renewable. But if you look at the facts and figures, if we can find oil and gas right now — in fact, even in six years — we could sell it. A story trumpeting the decline of fuel consumption in Norway — where EV sales are approaching 100% of total car sales, resulting in a fall in domestic consumption of petrol and diesel — fails to mention that while Norway's consumption of oil and gas has plummeted, it's still flogging it off to the rest of the poor schmucks who have to use oil and gas because they don't have Norway's wealth to subsidise EVs. And Norway has that wealth because it's flogging off oil and gas. They can afford to be clean and green because they're selling the stinky stuff to poorer people, which is just the way it goes for a lot of green households. You have to be really, really rich to be a Greenie, or really, really poor. Middle-class people haven't got a show. The exports haven't fallen off in recent times. And if you look at peak oil predictions, peak oil was forecast back in the 1880s in the US when the Pennsylvania oil fields were exhausted. That's it — no more oil. Well, in fact, there was. Then there was a scientific prediction of peak oil, made in 1956 by a geologist working for Shell who used actual science to predict that US domestic oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970, and that proved remarkably accurate. He then applied the model to global reserves, predicting worldwide peak oil production would occur around the year 2000. However, he wasn't taking into account that methods would change and evolve during that time. The advent of fracking and shale oil has drastically altered the dynamics. Production capacities continue to evolve as new ways of finding oil and gas emerge. And why? Because there is a market for them. I've heard a lot of people dismissing it as pie in the sky, "old man shouts at sky", and all that sort of stuff, and you can certainly accuse New Zealand First of that in many of its policies. On this one, though, well, if we can get it — and that's a big if — and if we can get it relatively inexpensively, such that we turn a profit, then there may be an argument. We could probably get oil and gas if we threw every last cent we had at getting it out there. Would it be economic? Possibly not. It's got to be economic, and it's got to be there. If it is, we'll have a market. Is it worth New Zealand Inc becoming oil prospectors? At the moment, we get around 42% back when we grant a licence. I don't think we should be in the business of prospecting ourselves. It's too risky. High risk, high return — that's not what we're about. Sell the licences, let private companies put up the money, and let's clip the ticket on the way through. I'm all good with granting the licences. The market is still there as we evolve. Look what happens when you turn off the tap abruptly. You've got businesses closing their doors, manufacturing plants shutting down, and people losing their jobs because that continuity of supply simply wasn't there. Ideology trumped pragmatism. So while we evolve towards our windmill-powered velocycles to get to work, grant the licences, but let's not go oil prospecting ourselves. Your thoughts? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rotorua's iconic Prince's Gate Archway, built in 1901, is set to be dismantled after engineers warned it could be unsafe in extreme winds, but locals and heritage advocates are pushing for the landmark to be strengthened and restored instead. However, the council says public safety comes first, but any long-term decision will need to balance heritage value, cost and practicality. Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell told Kerre Woodham that there is still a possibility to replace the structure. "So the big question that our community is asking is can we replace them? That's where we haven't made a decision yet." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Councils are reportedly signing on to new iwi partnership agreements before the Resource Management Act is replaced. In the Government’s currently drafted RMA reform, councils won’t be able to enter into new Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements which outline how councils and iwi work together on resource management matters.  Taxpayers Union Executive Director Jordan Williams joined Kerre Woodham to discuss. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Should we be looking at banning youth from owning smartphones instead of banning them from social media?  ACT Leader David Seymour has suggested that under-16s should be limited to “dumbphones” that can’t access the internet, but can text and call.  While not suggesting it as official policy yet, he says social media has caused anxiety, depression, self-harm, poor body image, loneliness, and declining life satisfaction.  President of the New Zealand Principals' Federation, Jason Miles told Kerre Woodham he would recommend parents give their kids a dumb phone – the practical elements are appealing.  However, he says, the pressure that comes with the expanding online world will always be there now, and it should be on the social media companies to keep kids safe.  Miles asks why social media companies should be driving how society acts, telling Woodham that it’s surely something our government, parents, and educators should be doing.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The ACT Party's not really a “ban” sort of a party. I've always thought they supported the idea of letting people go to hell in their own way. If you want to make your own decisions, fill your boots – if they're bad ones, live with the consequences. And perhaps they do still support the idea of adults going to hell in their own way, but not when it comes to kids.   Leader David Seymour did not support the National Party ban getting kids off social media. They've said that's a dumb idea, there's no way you can police the internet. But what David Seymour has proposed is a total ban on smartphones for under 16-year-olds. He says Parliament could prohibit the purchase, possession, and supply of smartphones in much the same way we prohibit young people from purchasing alcohol and tobacco, and we prohibit adults from supplying minors with these substances. He's putting smartphones in the same category as tobacco and alcohol.   He says teenagers are perfectly able, in his world, to have dumb phones, but given the known link between smartphones and the social media apps you can access on them and anxiety, depression, and self-harm, he says we should consider a smartphone yet another harmful substance that should only be available to adults.  Now, of course, if you don't want your child to have a smartphone, you don't have to get them one. You can make your own rules in your own house for your own kids. But it's really hard to make a rule for your child that other parents don't have for their children. It's really hard too, in this day and age, to access notices at school about upcoming events, sports practices, lifts that people are offering to get your kid to training and back again. Everything's on platforms these days that you need the phones to access. There must be a way around it. We can just get the Gestetner out and get the school notices home again.   There was a time where we had a perfectly functioning community and civilisation that did not have smartphones, so there must be a way to do it. And if the Government is willing to do the heavy lifting and play bad cop so you don't have to, so much the better. “I want a smartphone, everybody else has got one," says the 13-year-old. “I'm sorry, it's against the law. In the same way I can't give you alcohol or cigarettes, I can't give you a smartphone." It makes it easier if there's a ban.   Of course, kids will still get them in the same way they will do workarounds if there's a ban on under 16s going onto certain social media apps. There'll be a workaround. But if the general accepted norm is that young people do not have access to smartphones until they're 16, it's just one of those things. Children, young people, don't drink until they're 18. Of course, some of them do, but the general accepted norm is that they don't. The general accepted norm is that you don't buy cigarettes for children.  Could it be possible that the general accepted norm becomes young people do not get smartphones until they're 16? It doesn't seem impossible. Yes, smartphones are everywhere now, but it's not that long ago that they didn't used to be. You don't have to have them. Some people don't, some people still don't. The world can perfectly capably function without them.   And certainly, in the world of a teenager, you should be able to function without them. There is no doubt that the anxiety, the bullying, the depression, the self-harm, the self-doubt has got worse. Social skills have got worse. The ability to function in the real world has got worse because you can hide away, you go through a portal into an app, through the other side, through your smartphone, and you don't have to face reality. No good has come of allowing the kids access to smartphones. There are kids as under 13 who are able to use them and accessing them. Once you see something, once you get embroiled in something beyond you, that's it. You can't unsee something, you can't unhear something. Keep the ugly, unpatrolled, unpoliced dark side of the web away from our kids until they're able to cope, they've got to build up a bit more resilience to cope.   David Seymour says banning smartphones will be a lot easier than trying to police the internet, and he's right. So if you're looking for a way to protect our young people, do you go with David Seymour's total ban on smartphones for under 16s, or do you try and patrol the internet by denying them access to certain apps? I think I'd just go for the ban. Quicker, easier, simpler. Cigarettes, alcohol, smartphones – no access till you're an adult. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stop the press, the media has a new darling. Chlöe Swarbrick and the Opportunity Party can have a breather this week, a bit of downtime, because there's only one show in town and it's Paul Henry. The self-made millionaire, the former broadcaster, has thrown his hat into the political ring again. He wants to become a polly, and not just any old polly. He has no interest in sitting on the back benches, cooling his heels, learning the ropes. He is not there to shag spiders. He's made it perfectly plain that he wants to be a minister in the next coalition government. Prime Minister, hey, why not? There is no doubt when you hear him speak that he has a real passion for New Zealand and that he wants New Zealand to be a great place for his children and grandchildren, for your children and grandchildren. And there's no doubt that he's a great cheerleader for the ACT Party.  “I think with ACT I can tangibly affect change. I think with ACT, it is the only party that I think can genuinely steer this country in the right direction. By right direction I mean create policies that inspire growth of our economy because our economy is perilously small, cut wasteful government spending in so many different ways, and hopefully create an environment whereby New Zealanders, I mean your introduction was spot on, where New Zealanders aren't angsting, they're not suspicious of everything all the time. I mean the thing that holds New Zealand back, because both of us travel a lot, we can both see New Zealand with a bit of perspective from offshore. What a brilliant country with extraordinary resources and potential it is. So why is it not being realised?" That was former broadcaster Paul Henry talking to broadcaster Mike Hosking this morning. Will Paul Henry have the discipline to sit through the turgid meetings and briefings that are a part of being a politician? A lot of people go into politics and they say they're going to cut red tape and they're going to get things done, and within a matter of months they end up hogtied in the corner defeated by the red tape.   Paul Henry is a loose cannon – he doesn't have to do anything. He's perfectly fine where he is. He could do whatever the hell he wanted. He's very bright, he's very quick witted. These are both blessings and curses for the ACT Party. He doesn't need the gig. He has his own thoughts. It might be a libertarian party, but by crikey, once he starts speaking his own mind within Parliament, it can create issues when you have to abide by coalition rules. And of course, Paul Henry is not the ACT Party – he's one person among many. The party has broad ranging policies and very strong ideas on just about everything, and you would have to surely look at those closely. You might like Paul Henry, but you might not like the policies that come along with Paul Henry.  Do celebrities make good parliamentarians? On the one hand, it brings profile to the party, especially if they've been languishing a bit, and it's fair to say that ACT has taken a back seat to New Zealand First this year in terms of column inches generated, probably even taken a back seat to the Opportunity Party this year. National's Christopher Luxon doesn't have the pizzazz, the jazz hands of Paul Henry, nor indeed does Chris Hipkins. But I don't think Labour voters would be looking to ACT as their alternate party – but who knows, stranger things have happened. When you look at former broadcasters that have gone into politics, they've done okay, I suppose. Maggie Barry's probably the best of the recent crop. She made minister, but I think it was pretty tough going. Do self-made millionaires make good MPs? John Key was a good Prime Minister. Didn't have to do the gig and when he got bored, he went. But I think it's widely agreed that he was a pretty good PM for the times.   This is probably just going to be a flash in the pan. There'll be the big announcement, we got it yesterday, it's gripped the media news cycle to the extent that we're going to wrap up I think the 24 hours of, I don't know what it was really, excitement? It wasn't shock so much, but it just seemed to be wow, it sort of energized the conversation around ACT, it energized the conversation around politics. And that's got to be a good thing. Anything that gets people interested in politics, great, but it's got to go beyond one person, it's got to go beyond celebrity, it's got to go beyond face value.   As I say, if you're voting for Paul Henry you have to be very careful, as people did for Winston Peters. They liked him and the party came second. So be aware that there are broad ranging policies, have a look at those before you decide oh, I like that Paul Henry, I'm going to give him a tick. And be aware too that quick witted, mercurial people who don't need the gig might not be around for a long time. It'll be a good time, but it won't be a long time. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I would like to get your feedback on whether or not we should be upgrading our warships. New Zealand's two main warships will reach the end of their working lives within about a decade, and Cabinet must decide by 2027 what should replace them.  The way we're going it'd be a fleet of jet skis. The choice will shape the country's ability to help keep its trade routes open for a generation, according to retired Major General John Howard, who's a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. He argues the decision about what to buy, if to buy, deserves far more scrutiny than it's ever done before. He says almost everything New Zealand sells and buys travels by ship. About 99% of its trade, measured by volume, moves by sea: dairy, meat, fuel, machinery. We're also responsible for one of the world's largest stretches of ocean, about 4.1 million square kilometres.  He says if the decision on the frigates is delayed or the wrong capability is chosen, New Zealand could spend years without a warship able to operate in contested waters alongside its allies, and the skills, the systems, and the experience behind that capability would take a generation to rebuild. If we don't have a navy and then decide that we want one, it's not going to be as simple as buying ships. You have to train up a whole generation of command structure, troops, sailors, the like.  No argument from me there, but you would have to wonder why we spent $600 to $700 million on upgrades to the Te Mana and Te Kaha if they're going to be obsolete within a few years. Major General Howard retired says we are a serious maritime nation – what we decide here will show whether we intend to stay one.  Now I've had no argument with his thoughts so far, but this one I would have to dispute. Can we seriously be considered a serious maritime nation if our naval fleet comprises two frigates, two support vessels, and four basically cop cars for the sea? We have of course one at the bottom of the ocean, but that was a survey ship and wouldn't have really counted. Norway, which is the same size as New Zealand, has a naval fleet of 69 vessels: submarines, frigates, corvettes, minesweepers, minehunters, you know, pick a ship, any ship, and they've got it. And sure, they are far, far richer than we are, and the Russian bear is close enough to them that they can feel its fur. But come on, a serious maritime nation does not have two warships and one survey ship at the bottom of the ocean.  I can understand why we haven't made our defence and our interoperative capability a priority over recent years when we have been lucky enough to have lived in a relative state of peace and calm. But the way we are now, the way the world is now, we need to decide whether we want to be part of serious alliances and play our part or whether we just bludge off our mates, who may or may not choose to help us depending on whether they can be arsed or what we've got that they want. There'll be no guarantees.  You only have to look at Europe to see what happens when you rely on another country for your defence. All of a sudden, they pull the plug and Europe is left scrambling. All of a sudden, they're having to play catch up for the past 30-odd years on their defence spending, on their defence capability, because they cannot rely on the US anymore.  We don't have to have a traditional navy. It doesn't have to look like it did 50 years ago. With changes to technology, the way wars are fought, wars are won – if you could ever say that wars can be won. But the way wars and battles are fought now, you'd need different technology, different capability, but we have to do some spending surely. For those who say we don't need to, look at Europe. The US said you've done nothing for us, you haven't spent any money, look after yourselves. And now they really are playing catch up.  We can stand on the shores to the beat of rhythmic drums and sing 'Give Peace a Chance' while people take what they want, and that is a valid option. Even with a fleet we could afford, we're not going to be able to repel a serious invader. But surely, we have to play our part if we want to be considered a serious maritime nation? I would consider that playing our part in an interoperative alliance. That's what we have to do, or that's what we have to make the decision on. I'm all for doing our bit and not bludging off our mates. I'd love to hear your thoughts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Defence Minister says we can't just follow Australia's footsteps as the time for replacing our two ageing warships nears.  The NZ Initiative says the frigates need to retire within a decade, with complex geopolitics adding urgency.  It says the replacements will impact our status as a maritime nation, and our trade routes and defence capabilities for the next generation.  Minister Chris Penk told Kerre Woodham we want to be able to coordinate with Australia but have other needs.  He says it might come down to cost, different capability needs, or wanting to be more active in the Antarctic, for example.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The editorial this morning goes out to all the small and medium business people. Those of you who are starting the work week looking to earn your own keep, employ some New Zealanders, pay your taxes, and provide a product or service that people want or need. You don't want luxury yachts and private jets. You just want to work hard, be rewarded fairly, have people get out of your way, not be strangled by red tape. Seems a fairly reasonable state of being. But as we know, small and medium enterprises are struggling and have been struggling for a few years now. And with an election looming, the EMA has released its election policy directives for 2026 And there are five of them: stability and certainty, wouldn't that be lovely, infrastructure and consenting, energy supply, employment legislation, and investment and innovation. Amongst its directives, the EMA highlighted what it says is a big issue for businesses: the lack of work readiness among those graduating from educational institutions. The number of those not in employment, education, or training in the 18 to 24 age bracket continues to rise. They've come out of school, they've come out of training, and nobody will take them on, nobody's willing to take a risk. There's no doubt one of the drivers behind these numbers is a reluctance by employers to hire those new faces, says the EMA. They're simply not ready for the workforce, lacking many basic skills and struggling with the simple disciplines of turning up, listening, and engaging in the workplace. So the finger's being pointed squarely at the young people and the schools and educational institutions that have trained them. On Early Edition this morning, employment lawyer Max Whitehead disagreed. He said it's not the young people, it's the businesses lacking confidence to hire right now. Young people have always been young people. We've always been a bit useless when we start in our job unless you're a rare and wonderful unicorn, you don't know the job. You might have been trained, that's not the same thing as doing and being in the job, you don't really earn your keep until a little later. So it's no use pointing the finger at the young person. Max Whitehead said it's the environment and the conditions at the moment that mean employers aren't willing to take a chance. And he also says that the corresponding lack of productivity is due to us being a nation of one or two men bands who lack the technological capability to be more productive. New Zealand's now a nation of contractors. They're just like one or one man bands or just a couple of people of employees. And they are the people that are really the core of our country. And that's where I think EMA's missing out is focusing on that, getting them on their feet again. Maybe even if some of many of our contractors worked as cooperatives and actually purchased collectively some equipment that would make them actually more productive. That would be better ideas, but that needs to be incentivised. Where do you think the issue is? If you are a one or two man band, you might have a few little young people working for you. You might have some people who've been with you for 50 or 60 years, but three, four, up to 10 employees. There's been an ongoing issue with New Zealand's lack of productivity. It's not that we don't know how to work hard. People are working hard, but they're not being as productive as they could be. Max Whitehead says we lack the technological capability that a group of like minded SMEs could get together and buy the technology, the computer programs that might be expensive, the capital that might be expensive, that you couldn't do on your own but you might be able to do as a team. I just don't think it's the young people. Everywhere I look, there are young people keeping shops, stores, businesses going over the long weekend. Without them, we'd be stuffed. And I bet there'd be a hell of a lot more young people in work if they could get it. You certainly hear of young people going around and knocking on doors and wanting to work. if you're a small, medium business operator, owner operator, are you exactly where you want to be? If you're not, what is it going to take for you to be where you want to be, to be as productive and earning as much as you want to be? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's positive movement in the club rugby refereeing stand-down in the capital. Referees will still boycott all club matches this weekend, after 19 reported incidents of verbal abuse towards Wellington whistlers, but they are working with Wellington Rugby to be back officiating the following weekend. Wellington Rugby Referees Association president Ben van Berkel says things won't change completely in a week - but they had to stand by their referees. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Both National and Labour are rolling out new solar power proposals ahead of the election, and it's clear there's mood for change.  Current WorkSafe rules prohibit the use of certain plug-in solar systems because connecting solar panels directly to standard household plugs is considered a safety risk. Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey says most political parties are getting behind new proposed energy changes and it's very exciting for the sector.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Everybody's into the solar energy now. National announced its solar energy policy last week and most people thought it was a sound idea, good common-sense idea. The party, if elected, would launch the Home Energy Fund by tweaking the Local Government Act and committing a one-off $7 million equity investment to secure a 20% shareholding in the new entity with the balance funded by participating councils. The Home Energy Fund, inspired by Local Government New Zealand's ratepayer assistance scheme, would allow property owners to obtain low interest loans secured against their property to be paid off over time through their rates over ten years. And it was intended to help fund the installation of rooftop solar and batteries, heat pumps, insulation, efficient electric appliances, and other approved energy resilience upgrades. Good common sense.  However, there were a few callers and texters to the show who said, “Well, what about the renters?" And I said, “Well, surely if you are a good landlord and you want to keep good tenants, you'd put that in because that would help the tenant save money and surely that would be seen as, if the landlords had to sell the house, then it would be seen as an asset having the solar energy on the roof." Well, you don't have to worry about that now because along comes Labour with its solar energy policy. Announced yesterday, the Solar Saver policy pledges a series of initiatives aimed at boosting the use of solar, one of those being the introduction of plug in battery units, sometimes known as balcony solar, widely used in the UK and Germany. The party's pledging loans of up to $3,000 for low- and middle-income households to purchase the portable units. Perfect for renters, they can move their solar energy plug in unit when they move houses, and it's estimated that they could save about $300 to $400 a year from their power bills. But, and it is a big but, WorkSafe has prohibited the use of a particular inverter found in plug in solar systems, which means right now the systems can't be used in New Zealand. Plugging a solar panel or inverter directly into a standard three pin plug is considered illegal and a serious safety risk.  Labour says “yes, well we know that and we acknowledge there'll be a hold up." They want to have major parts of the package rolled out within 12 months of being elected, but they acknowledge that's going to be an issue, and National has recognised that too. Energy Minister Simeon Brown says he's asked officials to explore what standards need to be changed to legalise the plug-in solar units. He says the principle's simple: in a country with the sunshine hours we have, Kiwi households and businesses should be able to generate their own power straight off the shelf rather than being locked out by rules that haven't kept pace with the technology. And he's quite right. We're all on board. Everybody's keen to have the solar energy and the renewables and take the load off the heavy, heavy power bills that many households are experiencing right now in the depths of winter. But as Chlöe Swarbrick says, and I'm not sure how many times I've said that phrase on this show over the years, as Chlöe Swarbrick, the leader of the Greens says, “if we're all on board, why do we have to wait until after the election to make it all happen?" Parliament can lower New Zealanders' power bills and reduce emissions before the election kicks in. Chlöe says now both the red team and the blue team have announced their support, there's no reason we can't progress on a cross-partisan agreement to do this right now. And why wouldn't we?  I suppose because we haven't got many sunshine hours at the moment as we're flooding and raining and cloudy and unable to hang the washing on the line, but why wouldn't we do it now? Why do we have to wait? I mean, there is going to be the faffing around as we try and make the balcony solar units safe. We don't want to plug them all in, all enthusiastically whip out to Mitre 10 and Bunnings to get our balcony solar units, plug them all in and blow the national grid. We don't want to do that. But she has a point – we don't have to wait until after the election. A good idea is not going to get any better if it gestates for six months. Let's start making it happen now. And I really like the idea of, like, I'm heading up to the Hokianga after work, and the balcony solar units or the plug in battery unit would be perfect up there. We don't have much to run: fridge, the oven's gas, we've got a wood burner. It would be absolutely perfect. Bring it on and I'm with Chlöe Swarbrick. Make it happen now. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What makes a city liveable? The Economist Intelligence Unit, which is such a grand name, has released its latest list of the most liveable cities. There are 173. Three Australian cities are in the top 10 – Melbourne third, Sydney fourth, and Adelaide eighth. For all the bad press Melbourne gets for its crime, it's doing pretty jolly well to be there in the top three. Auckland came in at 12th place, down five – one of the biggest downward movers, along with the Gulf state cities. We all know why they lost their lustre, but we haven't got a war to blame that on, have we? Wellington is out of the top 20.   How are they scored? Well, they're scored out of 100 across 30 quantitative and qualitative factors, categorised into five core metrics: stability, that's worth 25% that's the prevalence of crime, the threat of terror, and military and civil conflict. So of course, poor old Damascus, that kind of skews it for Damascus and Iran, places like that.  Healthcare counts for 20% the availability and quality of private and public healthcare. Culture and environment is 25%, but it's much more than how many theatres there are, it's climate, corruption levels, social and religious restrictions, access to food, drink, and sport. Education is 10%, the quality and availability of both public and private education, and infrastructure is 20%, the quality of public transport, roads, energy and water provision, telecommunications, and housing.   Now, the Economist Intelligence Unit doesn't just draw up its annual list to provoke debate and to get jingoistic city dwellers to go, “No, my city's better, no, mine is." Assessing liveability, they say, helps benchmark perceptions of development levels, as well as helping companies assign hardship allowances as part of expat relocation packages. If you're being transferred to Damascus, you can use this as evidence of applying for a hefty hardship allowance. Being transferred to Copenhagen, which came first, knocking Vienna off the top of the list, be hard to argue that's going to be a hardship.  How would you rank the liveability of New Zealand cities? If you've lived in a couple of New Zealand cities, two or three or four, I'd love to hear how you would rank them. Christchurch surely would have to rank highly given the rebuild, given the availability of housing, given healthcare there, given the opening of the new stadium. And there's also that intangible qualitative factor, which is the vibe of a city rebuilding. Wellington, I could have easily made a case for the best city in New Zealand a few years ago, but that really needs to get its groove back. Back in the day with the public spaces that were available, the beautiful City Square, and the library, and the Pyrmont Bridge, and the vibrancy of the nightlife, and the coolness of the arts and culture scene, combined with the fact that it was a city that was easy to get around... I would argue the climate, I enjoyed the climate. For a long time I was able to quote the fact that the Basin Reserve was able to play more days of test cricket than Eden Park. Eden Park lost more days to rain than the Basin Reserve did. That was a stat I kept up my sleeve when I was living in Wellington. But boy, that has plummeted off, and I would put the blame fairly and squarely on the successive mayors in Wellington. I think I'd go back as far as Fran Wilde and Ian McKinnon as the deputy. Since then, it's just been a bloody nightmare for Wellingtonians.   Auckland. I mean, it's a big sprawling city. It's a series of interconnected villages rather than really one big city, but it's starting to get its groove back. I noticed that yesterday when I was in downtown Auckland and I saw some gorgeous young people, well-dressed, striding down the street. The shops looked great, there weren't as many empty ones, there were the public spaces that weren't filled with people who looked like they needed professional help in making their way through the day. You know, it just looked like it was starting to get back to being a real city again.   Hamilton's going to have to do something about Victoria Street before you could call that a world class liveable city. But when it comes to what makes a desirable city, the Economist has its criteria: stability, prevalence of crime, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. When it comes to the cities around New Zealand, how would you rate them? I'd probably put Christchurch first, then Auckland, maybe Tauranga although it's got its issues, I'm looking at the schools as well, Timaru, Hamilton, and Wellington's got some work to do. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What would you rather? Would you rather toll roads and shiny new roads, or would you rather waiting for NZTA to put you on the list of priorities and potholes up your ying yang?   New Zealand has just three toll roads right now throughout the country, and two of them are in Tauranga. There are also two more planned on Bay of Plenty roads – not surprisingly, residents are up in arms. Yes, there are workarounds for them under National Land Transport legislation. If you're going to bung a toll on a road, then a viable toll-free route must be provided, though these free detours typically add 10–20 minutes to your travel time. So you can pay and take 10–20 minutes off your journey, or don't pay and just be prepared to take a bit longer to get where you're going.   Residents affected by the latest toll that is yet to be imposed —but it's imminent at the Pāpāmoa East interchange— say $3.40 is far too much for people to pay, especially those who need to use the road to get to work, especially for those on fixed incomes. Retailers say the toll will reduce the number of drivers who choose to stop at Golden Sands in Pāpāmoa. They'll just drive straight through to avoid the toll, and the shopkeepers are going to suffer. However, while Bay of Plenty residents have tolls, they do have new roads.  And for many communities up and down the country, they would love the option of a tolled road. In an interview with Lloyd Burr, the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce CEO Matt Cowley said every time we get a new road, we have to pay through tolls. Now we don't disagree with them because without the tolls we'd be way down the national priority list. But he says every new state highway in New Zealand should be paying through tolls for the road and they're not. And he's right. There's a list of roads, brand new roads, where you don't have to pay tolls to travel on them. He says it should be one rule for all. He said I don't know why other regions are so anti-tolling. This Government really needs to make a stand. You want a new road, users will have to pay. It was a travesty, he says, that Transmission Gully was not tolled. In principle, every new road should be tolled. That's how it happens overseas without too much fuss. Is he right? What do you think?  There are many regions that are desperately waiting for a new road, would love to see a new road, but they are so far down the list of priorities that you know it'll probably be in your grandchildren's day that the roads will be delivered. If NZTA wants to consider a new road for tolling, there has to be public consultation, the road must have a meaningful cost contribution to the road cost, deliver value for money with the infrastructure cost no more than 20% of the anticipated revenue, not result in changes to traffic volume on other roads.   So when you look at the different roads around the country that have been funded but have not been tolled, you'd have to say Bay of Plenty's probably had more than its fair share, but at the same time if you look at all the different communities and regions that are desperate for a road or a bridge and haven't got one and don't look like getting one anytime soon, would you be happy to pay a toll to get it? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yes, it's election year. How can you tell? They're all coming up with policies now, aren't they, designed to appeal to their core constituency. Winston Peters played a blinder by announcing to the party faithful at a campaign meeting in Warkworth over the weekend that he wants to see voting rights reserved for citizens of this country only. If his party is returned to Parliament, he will move to reform voting rights. Current electoral law allows some non citizens to vote after 12 months continuous residence if they are lawfully in New Zealand and not required to leave by a specified date. In his speech to attendees, Peters argued that that existing standard is far too lenient. And when you look at other countries that have the same policy, I think it's Malawi, Ecuador and Chile. Certainly our neighbours Australia do not. If you're not a citizen, you don't vote in Australia. I have friends who have been in Australia for years and years and years, decades, and they can't vote unless they are citizens, and one of them recently became a citizen just so he could. He did have that right, he had children that were born there and he wanted to be able to vote so he could help inform the future of the country. Winston Peters said to general acclaim, voting in general elections should be reserved for those who have made the full legal and civic commitment to this country. Permanent residence gives people the right to live, work, study and build a life in New Zealand. Citizenship, he said, is different. It's a formal bond of allegiance, belonging, responsibility and democratic authority. New Zealand First believes that distinction should matter again. Sort of like marriage over living together, shacking up. He wants to see a marriage between people who live in New Zealand and the government of New Zealand. Okay, fair enough, but if we're going to make changes on how we vote, why stop there? I have long argued, and I'm sure you've long agreed, that there should be a basic comprehension test before people can vote. Like, really. Some of the some of the comments and the questions that you will hear leading up to elections are truly terrifying. Their vote counts the same as people who have a basic grasp of MMP and democracy and the different parties and what they stand for. Maybe a basic comprehension test? Should people be allowed to vote if they're citizens but they've lived overseas for more than 10 years? Why should they be allowed to influence the direction of the country when they don't even live here? They have no skin in the game. If you haven't made any payments on your student loan while living overseas, you shouldn't be able to vote unless you've paid it back or you've got a system in place to pay it back. Why on earth should you be able to vote when you haven't paid back your loan to the taxpayers? If you're living overseas to avoid paying tax, I can think of a few high profile businessmen, you shouldn't be able to vote either. I mean, I've got a list as long as my arm. If we're going to start talking about who can vote and who cannot, I'd go a whole lot further than just reserving the right to vote for citizens. Anyone who has chose to make their home outside of New Zealand, who hasn't been back, who has no intention of coming back, anybody who is overseas and still owes a lot of money to the New Zealand taxpayer and has no system in place to pay it back, they shouldn't be able to vote either. What does your list look like?  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

ACT wants to grant security guards more powers, with industry concerns not many would want the extra abilities The Party says police are overstretched and security staff can fill the gap - protecting retailers, transport hubs and businesses. They'd like them allowed to detain and remove people, issue exclusion notices, and use force. Security Association chief executive Gary Morrison says he doubts most security staff would want to be in that situation. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Security guards will be given the power to detain people and use force under a sweeping ACT Party proposal that makes the very fair point that police are overstretched, and businesses can no longer wait for officers to respond. Some of them would see tectonic plates drift as they waited for the Police to respond to shoplifters who are slowly but surely causing their business to buckle under the pressure and the increased costs. Repeated shoplifters, those who just wander in, take what they want and leave because they know nobody's coming. Those who urinate in doorways and do all sorts of vile things I've heard about from inner city retailers because they know they're not a high priority. It's not good enough and nobody's come up with a solution yet until ACT's proposal. Under the plan, the accredited security operators would have and could use new powers on private premises, filling in the gap between police and community patrols. The policy would allow retailers, business associations, transport operators and others to deploy the guards.  In the story in the Herald this morning, David Seymour said the law and order pledge would protect business owners. He said police can't respond quickly to every call and we know that – security professionals have the potential to fill the gap. New Zealand has twice as many licensed security officers as police officers, but they currently have no more authority than any other citizen. And it's true that this has been a hardy talkback chestnut. The question is always asked; why can security guards tackle pitch invaders but not shoplifters who are brazenly walking out of supermarkets with hundreds of dollars worth of goods in their trolleys, taking one hand off the trolley to give two fingers to the supermarket owners, the customers and the security guards?   The answer is that pitch invaders are a threat to public safety apparently, to the players, to other people. So security guards are allowed to prevent disruption and mitigate high risk safety threats by tackling the hoors, whereas walking out with trolleys worth of stuff is not considered a threat to public safety. The physical intervention, the thumping tackles and the arm behind the back and the walking out of the grounds is purely for expulsion and safety, not for recovering property, which makes the tackle legally defensible if it prevents physical harm or major disruption.  The question is would you want to? Do security officers want the expectation on the part of the business owner and on the part of the customers, the legal customers, do you want that expectation on your shoulders that you will intervene? Do you want everybody to look at you and say well go after them?  There's all kinds of crazy out there, especially with people who are just blatant career thieves. Will it escalate violence? If you do the thumping tackle, can you expect that the person who's trying to flee will resort to violence to get away? Will simply the threat of security guards being able to act rather than having to stand there like cardboard cutouts of coppers while the thieves laugh all the way to the boot of their car and load it up with all their goods? That must be so galling for everybody, for paying customers to have to see it, for the business owner to have to see it, for the security guards to have to see it, these lowlifes just walking out and laughing because they know that everybody is powerless.   If you're given power, if the security officers have the power, will that be a sufficient deterrent? I'd really love to hear your thoughts on this. I don't know the answer. I'd love to see them get the powers, the legal powers to intervene, but are you paid enough to risk your life? The coppers aren't and yet they do and they're paid a lot more than you guys and girls. There's enormous acts of bravery on the part of security officers, but should there be an expectation of that kind of bravery? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Michelin stars to school lunches, sublime, ridiculous. I think it's safe to say none of the school lunches on offer will be getting Michelin stars. Then the last lot probably wouldn't have either. A scathing report has been issued by the Auditor General, which says only 50% percent of the meals delivered by the new school lunch programme in 2025 complied with the Ministry of Education's nutrition standards. We haven't talked about the school lunches for a hot minute, have we? Remember when it was the topic du jour? The parliamentary watchdog also took aim at inaccurate costings for the lunches, safety issues, contingency planning, and their rollout. Associate Minister for Education and the equivalent of 'Thatcher Thatcher milk snatcher', David Seymour is the one that said no, we're going to do away with them altogether, oh all right we'll keep them, but they have to be cheaper. He’s hit out at the criticism, inferring the Auditor General took far too much notice of malcontents formerly involved in the scheme.  “What they haven't done is a comparison of the quality before and after I took over. So they've been very critical in various ways and I'm happy to to answer their criticisms, but they haven't evaluated the whole programme and it appears that a lot of the initiation of the report and the feed into the report came from people that frankly had to be sacked after they were not able to manage the programme when I came in, and those who previously supplied the government, often at twice the current price. None of those people are very happy and they seem to have had a pretty good hearing from the Auditor General.”  I don't think we can shoot the messenger. The office of the Auditor General has done some sterling work over the past few years and they're just simply looking at the numbers. But should we just do away with them altogether? Because when it was initially conceived, I mean if you look at the data, the 50% nutrition figure for the School Lunch Collective's meals was calculated by the Ministry of Education. It was disputed by the Collective, which said by Term 3 we'd got it up to 69% of the lunches complying with nutrition standards, and in Term 4 compliance was 75%. I bet your bottom dollar I was churning out school lunches back in the day that did not comply with the Ministry's nutrition standards. And probably, if you look at the kids' lunchboxes this morning, there's a lot of pressure from schools and fellow parents to produce nutritional, yet decorative, eye catching, pleasing to the palate school lunches. Honestly, that thing where you're doing the bento boxes with the pretty patterns in the sandwiches, as if parents didn't have enough to do of a morning. Anyway, they probably wouldn't meet the criteria every day either.  And that's the thing. When school lunches were first envisaged, you and I, and indeed the MPs involved in the decision making, probably imagined a couple of Marmite or cheese sandwiches, some yoghurt, a muesli bar and an apple. Easy. Why not? Fill your boots. Do it. But that's where you and I, and indeed the MPs, are coming from a place of privilege. Who knew that a Marmite sandwich was privilege? It is. Bureaucrats stuck their oars in and said, no, when it comes to the school lunches for certain children, the school lunch may well be the only regular meal of the day. You privileged people with your Marmite sandwich go home to cooked dinners full of protein and veggies. These children don't. Therefore, we must cram as many nutrients and veggies as we possibly can into the school lunch to ensure these poor kids get their daily allowance. That's where it all got very, very, very complicated. Because if you're trying to make the school lunch the main meal of the day, generally it'll have to be heated. And you'll have to pack it full of veggies and some of these kids, you, some of these kids don't even know the texture of raw vegetables or couscous or rice or anything of the like.   Some providers did it very well. Remember that school in Porirua? Where we had the lovely principal and they got the parents involved and they did their own lunches. And they were mums and they were sensible and they knew how to make meals on the smell of an oily rag and how to disguise vegetables. You grate the carrot into the spaghetti bolognese. You don't put it there in big lumps because they're not used to that, a lot of these kids – they don't want to eat chunks of carrot. Most parents who are listening to this show will know how you disguise veggies into food. You usually do it when they're about 18 months old, nine months to 18 months old. You don't make it slop, but get them used to texture and chewing and the like. And that's what you do. You don't hit them up with a couscous salad on day one and expect them to scarf it down.  We come back to what success looks like for this programme. For me, I never imagined in 10 trillion years that it would cause this much angst, political toing and froing, that it would cost that much, around $328 million a year, that it would take up, command so much airtime and column inches in the media. It's absurd. I thought it would be a lunch as you and I know it, not every single calorie and veggie a child would need in a day. That it would be about improving attendance because when the kids knew there was a good meal for them, they'd turn up to school, and performance would improve.   But no, that hasn't happened. School attendance hasn't improved and the only data around improved classroom performance is non-existent. You just get the touchy feelies – the children reported a better sense of wellbeing. Well, that's not getting an A+, is it? That's not being able to sit through a reading lesson. No, the programme's become more trouble than it's bloody worth. Do away with the government being involved, you know, give some money to the charities that do provide, KidsCan provide lunches, Sanitarium and Fonterra provide breakfast clubs. Either scale it right back and keep it simple and keep it as cheap as possible, the sandwich, the yoghurt, the apple, or just don't do it at all. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Multiple hospitals are dealing with failing infrastructure.   Episodes of heavy rain are causing leaks and water damage at Middlemore Hospital’s aging maternity block.   And conditions at Hutt Hospital are being described as “disgraceful”, with water getting into wards, collapsing ceilings, and potential electrical hazards.  Nurses say they’re juggling patient care with buckets and mops, while Health NZ insists the issues are contained the hospitals remain safe.   Chief Financial Officer Bevan McKenzie told Kerre Woodham those specific issues will be addressed over the next 12 months under the remediation programme.  More broadly, he says, they have a weather tightness programme being implemented across the Health NZ estate, and they’ve earmarked $10 million for improvement in 2026/27 to continue that work.   McKenzie says that water-related issues are complex, as it can be difficult to identify where they’re stemming from, and wants to acknowledge the work the clinical and facilities teams are doing to improve the situation.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday, I was talking about the amount of aid we're sending to places like Vietnam and Indonesia. Places I would venture to suggest that are showing more go ahead, more investment in infrastructure than we are. When you're looking at Vietnam, they're building one of the largest stadiums in the world, they've got fast rail underway, they're building a huge city to house much of its population – they're spending billions. It's also a place where New Zealanders travel to get first class healthcare that we can't access here.  Now we've asked Winston Peters why we're sending money to Vietnam and Indonesia. He, or his people, referred us to MFAT. MFAT says they need time to tell us why Vietnam is in need of New Zealand money – we're waiting to hear back from them. They have been asked this before. Why are we sending money to places that don't really need it? It's the equivalent of donating to a Givealittle page for your neighbour to find out that they're building a swimming pool, but you can't afford to.   I was asking this question yesterday, this morning there are two stories about the parlous state of two of New Zealand's hospitals. Could be any of the hospitals, but in this case it's Middlemore, the ageing maternity block, and Hutt Hospital. And staff are complaining about the multiple leaks and electrical faults and mould and water on the window as a result of the heavy rain – the buildings can't cope with it. And they accept that every now and then, at times of heavy rain, there will be the odd leak, but they say throughout winter this is what they and the patients have to put up with.  Both of the hospital directors at Middlemore and Hutt Hospital say patient health was not compromised, services continued as usual, they're just leaks people, nothing to see here. But staff say they're fed up with working under sodden and collapsing roof panels, damp conditions and electrical issues. It might just be a leak on that one particular day and as a patient at the hospital you're only there for three days – the nurses, the doctors, the staff are working there all day every day and throughout winter they say it's miserable.   There's a programme of works for our hospitals around the country, a 10 year plan, but the need is so great it's hard to know where to start. The average age of our public health estate —1,274 buildings across 86 campuses— is around 47 years. That's the average age, some will be much, much older, and the new ones, the brand new spanking new facilities, will drag that average up. The population is growing and ageing and demand for mental health services is growing. The pressure on government budgets and on the health staff trying to deliver services in decrepit infrastructure is immense.  There is a 10 year programme of works, but Middlemore maternity hospital and Hutt Hospital don't feature as far as I can see on the plan. You've got Whangārei Hospital – and it's all built into stage one, two, three, and four. Waitākere, and God knows, despite the fact that wasn't in the news, according to locals, that needs a revamp. You've got Middlemore, but they're looking at targeted ED upgrades, and then stage two will be planning a new site. Stage three will be a new site or Middlemore expansion. Nothing about the maternities. Waikato, Tauranga, Gisborne, Hawke's Bay, God knows that needs a revamp. Palmerston North, Wellington and Nelson. So nothing there for Middlemore or Hutt Hospital, so I guess they'll have to keep going to the paper. And if the average age is around 47 years, the need will be great. I don't know how they prioritise which hospitals get it first.  Then you look at the last financial year, 24/25 New Zealand spent $943.81 million in foreign aid across 624 activities. I get that we want to be good global citizens and I get that we are wealthy compared to other nations and I'm not saying stop all aid, but come on. When household budgets tighten, you have to give less. There isn't that much money to go around, otherwise you are depriving your own family. And this is the case here on a macro scale.   How can we justify donations to Vietnam, which is just thriving, and Indonesia? How can $943.81 million in foreign aid be justified when we have leaky ageing hospitals, some schools need to be completely and utterly revamped, and some of the police stations are just appalling. A lot of the public buildings in which our public servants work are just not suitable and not fit for people to be there. How can we justify that level of aid when New Zealand citizens are travelling to the very country that we're giving aid to for their medical and dental care? Do foreign aid officials realise how weird that looks? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nobody loves a tradie more than a politician in election year. Labour announced it would reset the apprenticeship boost scheme back to two years from 2028 if come the glorious day they became the next government. Labour leader Chris Hipkins announced the election policy to the party faithful at Labour's congress as they call it in election year in Wellington over the weekend. There are so many young New Zealanders who would love to get into the trades and are just desperate for the opportunity to do that. And we've got a lot of feedback from those employers who would love to take on an apprentice but they just need a bit more financial support to be able to do that. And they'll get it if Labour becomes the government with the Greens and Te Pāti Māori and maybe TOP. It's a hangover from COVID. The scheme started in 2020 Employers were paid $500 a month for one year to take on apprentices, helping pay for things like wages and ensuring apprentices can keep earning while they're training. In 2025 the scheme was pegged back by the coalition government from a two year subsidy to instead focus on first year apprentices in targeted occupations. At the time, the government said targeting the scheme would ensure the skills and qualifications people were getting were in sync with what the country needed. Labour's scheme would see the 2020 we're back to the future with 2020 reinstated. It would be a two year subsidy and the trades that would qualify would also be expanded to include road construction, water treatment, and hairdressing. Hipkins later told media that Labour had deliberately sought to expand the scheme to more industries that employed more women. Pollys love a tradie.  Remember in 1999 you may not, but perhaps your employer does, Helen Clark campaigned on apprenticeships. Labour introduced legislation for a modern apprenticeship programme which would provide better opportunities for New Zealanders to gain national qualifications through work based training. So that was a big platform plank of Labour's policies going into the 1999 election. In 2013 then Prime Minister John Key promised cash incentives to encourage people to take up apprenticeships as of election year 2014 Modern apprenticeships and other apprenticeship type training would be combined under a new scheme called New Zealand Apprenticeships. The overall subsidy payments to the scheme would be increased by 12 million in the first year, that would rise over time. And then along came Labour's COVID scheme which the coalition government kept kind of but tinkered with. And now here we are with another election in a few months and yet again the tradies are being wooed. Are you wooable? Is this the sort of thing your business needs to take on more apprentices? Of all the schemes that have been dangled before you, that have been offered, that have been introduced and then tinkered with and then merged into one and then separated and then, times two divide by three, carry the four and plus five. Which scheme has worked the best for you? When it comes to taking on apprentices, training them up, having the time and the opportunity and the readies to be able to take on apprentices, which apprenticeship scheme has worked the best for you? Of all the many, and I only went back 27 years, has a government scheme made a difference to your business being able to take on apprentices or does it very much depend on the economic climate of the day rather than any kind of government? Surely a subsidy of $500 a month for a year would help because taking on apprentices does take time. You get a few prancing unicorns that come into your workshop or to your salon or to your work gang who are brilliant, who are meant to be doing the job, who understand it instinctively, who turn up on time. They're amazing and we get a few of those here. But the rest of us, and I include myself in that, aren't much use for a couple of years. We make mistakes, we learn from them, we cost you money, you roll your eyes, you manage not to kick our bums and in the end we come right and we're worth something to you. It takes time, it takes dedication, it takes the right temperament to take on apprentices. Is this COVID 2.0 scheme that Labour has announced, the apprenticeship boost scheme, is that going to make a difference to you in terms of taking on apprentices? Is there a government scheme over the last 27 years that's worked best for you or is it pretty much up to the economic climate of the time as to whether you can take on apprentices or not?  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Kiwi doctor who’s lived in Australia for decades was arrested at Wellington Airport over about $180,000 in unpaid student loan debt. Police stopped him as he tried to leave the country, his passport’s been seized, and he’s now stuck in New Zealand until it’s sorted. It’s part of a tougher crackdown, with billions still owed by borrowers living offshore. IRD Customer Segment Leader Rebecca Baker joins Kerre Woodham to discuss the details of the crackdown, and what will be done about Kiwis who are already abroad.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I read the Stuff story this morning and thought, "Oh, cry me a river!" Do the student loan evaders who finally get nabbed really expect sympathy when they bleat to the media? Stuff this morning has the story of Vic, not his real name. He was at Wellington Airport last month heading home to Australia where he's lived and worked as a medical specialist for three, how many Kerry? Three decades, 30 years, when three police officers approached. He was arrested, spent three nights in custody, and at a court hearing had his passport confiscated. He's still here, Stuff writes, a month later, unable to work. Vic hadn't committed a criminal offence, Stuff writes, but he owes, IRD calculates, student loan arrears of almost $180,000 He's just the 13 th person arrested at the border in the last decade for student loan debts. Vic's brother Bob, not his real name, has an even bigger bill of about $310,000 a debt he says he'll be paying off until he dies, unless he can negotiate a reduced deal. The brothers came home to care for an ailing father. They accept they owe the money and they accept they should have responded to IRD's repeated attempts to contact them. Ya think? But say it's only been in recent years they realised how much they owed, despite the fact that these overseas loan defaulters say they're the best and the brightest. Oh, didn't realise when we signed a contract and when IRD got in touch with us that if we didn't pay it back there'd be interest and penalties on the loan. These are our best and brightest. That combined from those two brothers is almost half a million dollars, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to the $2.3 billion owed by about 113,000 overseas based borrowers. They signed the contract to borrow the money off the taxpayer, they know they owe the money. When they don't pay it back and IRD contacts them, they refuse to acknowledge they owe the money because they're going through a lot at the time, easier to bury your head in the sand, and then they cry poor me when they realise how much they owe. Makes my blood boil. Taxpayers already pay 70 to 80 percent of the cost of their degrees. They're asked to contribute a small amount. Can you imagine what that specialist is earning in Australia? According to Google, it starts, a specialist in Australia starts at a quarter of a million Australian, goes up to a million dollars Australian. That moron could have the loan paid back in a couple of years and go and pay his equally dopey brother's debt off as well. IRD was given extra enforcement funding in the '24 budget and began cracking down on serious debtors last year. Revenue Minister Simon Watts said IRD had exceeded its targets, collecting $544 million in bad debt since then, when the target was $395 million. Long way to go till we get the $2.3 bill back that these shysters have in effect stolen from the New Zealand taxpayers, but it's a start. One of the reasons why the overseas based borrowers build up such mammoth arrears is because while onshore Kiwis don't pay interest on their loans, someone who's been offshore for 180 days sees the government charge 5.6 interest on their debt. For those in arrears, another 9.6 in penalties is added. The brothers say, Oh, we only actually borrowed about $60,000 between them in the early 1990 s." By Vic's maths, his debt has gone up 800 percent. Well, his maths should have kicked in earlier, shouldn't it? When he realised how much the loan's arrears and the interest was going to cost him. If he can do the maths, he should have done it a whole lot sooner. An April law change allows IRD discretion to remit interest. Previously they could only forgive penalties, and that move was opposed by both Treasury and the Ministry of Education, but Simon Watts said the changes were a practical way to recover debt that might otherwise never be repaid. And I think he's probably right. Better to get some of it back than none at all. Vic says he's had depression and cancer and that meant that he just buried his head in the sand when it came to his debt. You think the people who helped pay for his medical degree don't experience hardship as well? Do you think the people here who helped fund him into his high paying career don't get depression and cancer as well? And maybe, just maybe, if those loan defaulters paid back what they owe the taxpayer, we would have more money to help people who suffer from depression and cancer in this country. I have no sympathy. The more they crack down, the better. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The harm social media is causing young people is being explored in ‘Under the Influence’, a new series from the NZ Herald.  The second episode, ‘Manosphere v Boy’, explores the network of online influencers pushing extreme, and often misogynistic, ideas about masculinity to boys and young men.  The messaging sets unrealistic expectations around success, wealth, relationships, and dominance, often preying on insecurity and loneliness – offering simple messages and “self-improvement” tips that draw them deeper.   Director and producer Nadia Maxwell told Kerre Woodham that one thing that isn’t paid enough attention to in this conversation is the cumulative effects.   She says you might see a video you know has bad messaging, but young people are consuming hours' worth of content daily, and it doesn’t matter how smart you are or what your pre-existing beliefs are, all it takes is repetition.  A key element of the manosphere playbook is the concept of what’s fair, or to be exact, what isn’t.  Maxwell told Woodham that they’re essentially saying a certain group of people are to blame for the world being unfair, and then they sell them a solution – reclaiming tradition, power, and masculinity.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Far North Police say they're being met with a wall of silence nearly two months on from a hit and run that killed an 18 year old dirt bike rider. Jahkani Hamilton was found dead about 10pm between Kaikohe and Moerewa on May 1st. Police say an associate of his was found seriously injured nearby – he'd also been knocked off a dirt bike. Police are being stymied by witnesses and their supporters choosing to say nothing and actively resisting the investigation. They say the silence is hugely frustrating for the police investigators and for the boy's grieving whānau, and that their investigations are being hindered.   Doesn't this bring to mind the vile Kahui household who closed ranks over the murders of the twins who had the great misfortune to be born into that family? Rationally, intellectually, I know that people have the right to remain silent. Intellectually, they should have the right to remain silent – it's a legal foundation stone. But my heart and my gut says that when somebody, especially a child, has been murdered, lock up any and all of the people withholding information and keep them in a urine-soaked cell until such time as one of the gutless cowards coughs. You can hold two opposing thoughts at the same time. Defence lawyer Steven Lack was on Early Edition this morning. He said it might be infuriating for people who want to see justice for the victims, but the right to silence exists for a reason.  “It's designed to curb state power from compelling people in the community to provide answers and there will be investigations where there is public outcry about that because it hampers investigations, but in large part it operates to protect citizens.”  He's right. You can't torture people into coughing up the truth because they will tell you anything —anything you want to hear, not necessarily the truth— to stop you hurting them. And generally, countries around the world accept that torture compelling people to speak doesn't get you the truth. But I think as a country we are sick and tired of people closing ranks, staying shtum, and letting the brutal, callous murder of an innocent go unpunished. Somebody's guilty. There were only so many people within a house. I mean, we've seen it time and time again – the Kahuis are probably the most egregious example and the one seared into the public consciousness. But you know one of those unholy lot were responsible for the utterly brutal murders of these children. You know somebody drove into the 18 year old boy and killed him and seriously injured his mate. There were witnesses in this case. To actively hinder an investigation, to refuse to divulge information allows the death to go unpunished and the guilty to walk free.   I know Blackstone's ratio says that it's better that nine guilty men go unpunished than one innocent man is jailed. I'm not entirely sure. That was a philosophy from 1760 – does it still work in the year 2026? Yes, the right to silence is enshrined in our Bill of Rights, but rights are not absolute. They are subject to reasonable limits prescribed by law, provided those limits can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. They're designed to protect us, that the State cannot compel us to talk. I think most of us would be quite happy to talk if we saw a crime being committed. If we knew that somebody had been murdered, even if it was a member of our family. We have seen family members do the right thing and dob in a child who has committed murder because that is wrong.   The right to silence may well be a legal right but the right to live a life without being murdered surely trumps that? The right to be free and unimpeded and not have your life snuffed out by a violent, callous, evil human surely trumps the right to silence. Is it time to have another look at this? I mean, really. There are ways of modifying it. There are ways of still allowing people their legal rights without necessarily putting them in the cone of silence and protecting them. I'm just so sick of it. Anybody who's lived long enough will have seen it time and time and time again. I hate to think how many murderers there are walking amongst us because nobody had the courage within that family, within the household, to do the right thing and it's going to happen again. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

National is accusing Labour of having a “hidden bill”, worth $18 billion, in its spending plans.  Finance Minister Nicola Willis says they promised to outline how it would fund its election commitments after the Budget, but no credible plan has been provided.  But Labour disputes this, promising everything will become clear in the party’s fiscal plan, which will be released later this year.  The big focus is Labour’s Future Fund, which would take ownership of some Crown stakes and shareholdings, using the dividend revenue to fund other policies. However, this would leave a $2.7 billion hole in public finances.  NZ Herald Political Editor Thomas Coughlan told Kerre Woodham that Labour is refusing to say what will be redirected into the Fund until after the election – which they’ve rightly copped flak for.  But he believes that after the election they might quietly try to kill it by making it a very small fund —around 10–15% of what was promised— which could help the numbers stack up.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Separating couples are being trapped by falling house prices.  The drop in prices are leaving them stuck – unable to sell or split finances cleanly, and in many cases keeping them living under the same roof.  Property values are down roughly 17% nationwide from the peak, with larger drops in Auckland and Wellington.  Equal Exes Founder and Divorce Coach Bridgette Jackson told Kerre Woodham that in cases where people are fed up with their relationship, they wither make the decision to live amicably in the property, or you take the hit and move on – selling the house or buying out the partner.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you know what's real and what's not when you're scrolling through your news feeds? When you're scrolling through your social media? AI generated “news” pages and political deepfake ads are swamping social media feeds. They've been around for a while, but there's more and more and more of them and they're becoming harder to detect as the technology gets more sophisticated, as people understand how to use the tools they're discovering.  When it comes to the ads, think of Mike Hosking's cryptocurrency investment scheme scam and Toni Street's weight loss drugs scam – all AI generated, all false. But if it looks like them, it sounds like them, how do you know it's not them? It's the same as true with news stories. How do you differentiate between what is real news and what is fake news? And it's getting even harder now that some news is becoming fakeish.  The Herald reports this morning in their story that many posts are on pages with more than 100,000 followers, so you'd think, well, that would be legit. The phonies take existing stories, news stories that begin as real, then run them through AI to rewrite them and then republish them with fake images, again in many cases using the original image and then oomphing it up. The Herald used an example of the attack on Christopher Luxon's electorate office. They showed the real photo, which was of a pretty much undamaged facade of the building with two police officers standing outside. Next to it, somebody had vamped up the image by showing it completely gutted with fire appliances and many fire officers standing around with the two original police officers. So you take the original, then oomph it up.  Particularly spurious is the spate of fake social media articles that have been targeting New Zealand athletes and their families. Recent posts have featured former and current All Blacks, and Warriors coach Andrew Webster and his family were targeted with a post claiming his wife had died when in reality she is very much alive. Why would anyone be so stupid and so cruel? TVNZ spoke to Massey University marketing professor Bodo Lang, and he said the people posting these fake articles were likely seeking clicks and followers. They're people who make their living out of posts on social media. There are many of them who do that. Some are just eking out some kind of existence – they would far rather be an influencer, or run a YouTube channel, or run a page and make their money that way. That's what they think. It's actually a hell of a lot of hard work from what I understand from people who do in fact make a sizeable income out of their social media. It's a lot of effort and I don't think these people understand nearly how much it is.  And as many of the young influencers, the young YouTubers who start off life with followers because they're doing something they love doing, when they monetize it and have to put the work in, they end up crashed on the shores of their own fame, shipwrecked. They give it up by the time they're 22/23 if they don't come to a worse end. But initially, these young people think, well, this has got to be better than a real job. They'll take anything they can and use it to get the clicks in an attempt to monetize it.  So how do you spot the difference between what's real and what is not? In the story this morning in the Herald, there's a photo or an image that the Herald's used showing me in the big studio where Mike normally broadcasts and where we tend to film the interviews with leaders of political parties. It's got me in the big studio with Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins. Now, there's a number of things immediately wrong with that AI image. If I was moderating a debate, no matter what you think about my Tokyo Rose tendencies and my snuggling up to the National Party, I would not be sitting so close to the PM. A moderator always sits smack bang in the middle. And even though I'm looking at him with a kind of outraged expression as he lunges across the table pointing his finger at AI Chris Hipkins, I would not be sitting that close to him.  Chris Hipkins looks like Clutch Cargo – he's got this big manly jaw. Looks nothing, well, I mean, I'm sure he's got a very nice jaw, but it looks nothing like him really. Christopher Luxon's about right, although he looks to be towering over the rest of us when in real life, he wouldn't be. At first glance, if you were looking at that, you'd think, oh yes, when was the leaders' debate on? I must have missed it. If you weren't looking at it closely.  My mum got taken in when Pope Leo was anointed Pope. Did you see that lovely video about him with the alcoholic friend that he found in the Vatican City? Had him come and stay with him the first week. She showed me, and that wasn't even using particularly sophisticated AI, this was just a series of images of random people and the Pope. I'm like, Mum, no. No, that's simply not true. He did not take in his alcoholic friend from America and put him up in the papal chambers and get him sorted and reunite him with his family within the first week of his papacy. Well, how would you know? She said. Well, have a look at the papal calendar. And she's not a stupid woman; she just wants to believe nice stories.  So how do you know what is real and what is not? Have you been caught out before? I mean, if it's there for entertainment, if you know it's there for entertainment, you can enjoy it and jog on. But it does get damaging, it does get harmful when you believe that Mike Hosking is offering cryptocurrency investment advice. People have been taken in by politicians who are deepfakes, media personalities who are deepfakes. When you lose your money, when you are the victim of it, when you wake up one morning to find out that you're supposed to be dead, I mean, disconcerting to say the very, very least, and then having to tell people, no, I'm very much alive. And as we head into an election, how do you know what is real and what is not? When you look at all the information you're consuming across all the different media, how do you know what's true? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

More Aucklanders are hopping on bikes.  According to Auckland Transport, the city is quickly becoming the cycling mecca of the South Pacific, with a huge surge in cyclists - May the busiest month in decades.  They say trips are up more than 14% on last year – driven by new cycleways, high fuel costs, and growing demand for cheaper, healthier travel.  AT's Head of Active Modes Tania Loveridge told Kerre Woodham the key routes they’re starting to see high volumes of cyclists are the big commuter ways that connect into the city centre.  She says the intention is to create a connected network, not just for cycling, but also into the wider public transport network, so people can take their bike and then jump on the train, for example.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now I mentioned Thomas Coughlan's excellent piece in the Herald yesterday. He looked at the costings for Labour's policies so far. He got the Treasury costings for them, got Nicola Willis, the Finance Minister's accusations about lack of detail, crunched it right down to give us the best possible chance of getting a real world look at the numbers and whether Labour will be able to afford the policies. It is well worth a read if you haven't already. We'll talk to Thomas tomorrow about the importance of costing all of the parties' different promises. It's not just Labour's, it's just that they've released probably the most policy thus far, shockingly, given how late they were to the party.  But all the mainstream media seem to be producing excellent analyses of the different parties' pledges and promises, and we have to read them as we go up to the election. It is so important that we know what we're voting for, what the implications will be if our party of choice is elected. And it doesn't really matter whether you're voting out of self-interest, what's in it for me, whether you're voting for tomorrow's New Zealanders, you have to understand what you're voting for, how it will be paid for, how far in the future the payments are going to be if it's a very expensive promise and pledge, what the bottom lines are. We have to know what we're voting for.  Radio New Zealand's looked at the different new taxes being proposed by different parties. Basically, they've looked at the capital gains tax from Labour with comment from economists. They've looked at the land value tax from the Opportunity Party and the Green Party's capital acquisition tax, which is essentially an inheritance tax. And oops on the accounting error from the Greens. What's $800 million here and there, really? Not a great start, but there we go.   Newsroom has an opinion piece from Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Andrew Butler claiming that the current Government has enacted laws far too quickly with inadequate consultation or analysis before they're enacted. And they have exhorted people to ask the different parties before the election what the party's attitude is towards the taking of urgency on legislation. The present coalition government has taken record amounts, they say, of urgency and has also avoided select committee scrutiny altogether on some important bills. That's where you get to ask questions of it and test the bill, really. And it's true that the coalition National government has passed more than 90 unique bills using parliamentary urgency since coming to office, nearly half of all the bills passed.  Palmer and Butler have a point that it is not good for democracy when the normal protocols are bypassed. But Sir Geoffrey has either forgotten or learned from his mistakes – he was a senior member of the fourth Labour Government, which accorded urgency to a total of 152 bills. Of that total, 107 passed through all the stages under urgency during their term. The paper that the bills were written on was coming off and before the ink was even dry, people were voting on them. Sir Geoffrey is no stranger to urgency and perhaps he's learned that it's wiser to take time before you pass laws.  There's a lot that we can do to keep ourselves informed. There's a lot that we can do to understand the implications of what we're voting for. There's a lot that we can do to make politicians more accountable. But what the politicians are relying on is that this stuff is really hard, and it is. And they're making it even harder. Both Labour and the Coalition Government have been very slow to respond to requests for official information. Some of it is vexatious, some of the requests are vexatious and just designed to really annoy and take up the time of the people in charge, but a lot of it is not. It is hard to find the information, to get the information, to compare the information with other information from different agencies and then be able to form a conclusion from it. It's really difficult.  But our media's trying to do that on our behalf, and I think thus far they are doing a pretty good job. The politicians and the public service are relying on people to be as complacent as possible. Too busy, too busy working hard, too busy working hard with the kids. You do the thinking for me, you make the decisions for me, and then we moan when we don't like them. I mean, you look at Sir Keir Starmer – gone. Six Prime Ministers in Britain since Brexit because people don't like the news that they're getting. They want somebody to tell them it's going to be all right, and it's not. The world is in a parlous state, and we either have to cut our spending dramatically, and this is the Western world over, or increase taxes or some other way of revenue, getting revenue. It's really difficult. And so we have to know what we're voting for. The onus is on us starting from this election onwards to be informed as we possibly can. Democracy, from the Greek, rule by the people. Let us put the 'demos', the people, back into democracy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Financial Services Council is backing National’s KiwiSaver overhaul, saying it’ll boost long-term savings. Plans include lifting contribution rates to 12%, making the scheme compulsory, and enrolling Kiwis at birth with a $1500 kickstart — plus extending support for parents and over-65s. Financial Services Council Chief Executive Kirk Hope joins Kerre Woodham to discuss the changes, and the effect it will have on Kiwis going forward.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Very shortly public voting will be underway for the Spark Retail NZ's People's Choice award. The People’s Choice Award recognises a retailer that has made a genuine, positive impact on its customers. Retail NZ Chief Executive Carolyn Young said it's important to allow Kiwis to have a say in who they think deserves the award. Voting is open from Friday the 26th, and the awards ceremony will be on the 3rd of September. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the election gets closer, parties are starting to release their policies. And after a slow start, keeping their cards close to their chest, Labour's building up steam. We already had the three free doctors visits for all, now we've got free maternity scans and a promise to scrap the $5 fee on prescriptions and make them universally free. Add that to the free public transport, well, up to a point, $20 in the major cities and $10 everywhere else, and that capital gains tax is going to be working overtime to pay for it all. So far, so Labour. But I'm not really sure about the Oprah-fication of Labour's policies. "You get a doctor's visit, and you get a doctor's visit, and here's one for you too. You get a free bus ride, and here's a free bus ride for you, and one for you as well."  I understand that universal allowances, free bus rides for all, means less admin as opposed to targeted assistance, which if the administration and the paperwork for that didn't exist, would be a faff. But it does. The admin's already been done to reach those who need help the most. We have the community services card. So why not link the three free GP visits, the free bus trips, the free maternity scans to the community services card? And when I say free, I mean taxpayer funded. There is no such thing as free.   So why would the taxpayer be funding free public transport, free doctor's visits, free prescriptions for people who don't need it? I don't think anybody would object to trying to keep pregnant mums healthy, to trying to keep the community healthy, to trying to prevent people from going into hospital because they can't afford to go to the doctor or pick up prescriptions. We're all in it for that, and even if you don't care about people, you only care about the sums, if you do the sums, it pays off for people to be seen by their primary healthcare provider so they don't end up in hospital. All makes perfect sense.  What doesn't make sense is why the taxpayer is funding all of these things for people who do not need it. And you can't even say no thank you very much to some of them. I totally get that one of the platforms of Labour's policies is health, and they want to make sure that we keep people out of hospitals. Absolutely fine. But when Chris Hipkins was talking to Heather du Plessis Allan yesterday afternoon about the 150,000 people who aren't picking up prescriptions, I am not convinced that all of those people were avoiding picking up their prescriptions because of cost. Some of them can't be bothered. You know, buses are put on to remote areas to take people to their hospital appointments. Short of picking them up in a sedan chair and carrying them on the shoulders of the healthy and the hale to get them to their hospital appointments, you could not make it any easier. But I've heard from nurses and doctors and people themselves that they don't go. They take the free bus and then they go shopping in Whangārei, even though they've got an appointment. They don't bother telling people they're not going to turn up. So there'll be people who just can't be bothered. They don't prioritise their own health, they've got other things they're prioritising and it's not their own health. There are people who don't like taking pills, thinking oh for heaven's sake, you're asking me to take another pill, I'm already taking three, I don't want to take a fourth. There are people who'll be feeling better, think nah, don't need this one.  I am not entirely convinced that when he says 150,000 people aren't picking up prescriptions, that a) those numbers are right, because we're hearing a lot of numbers being thrown around by every party over all of their policies. I'm not entirely convinced about that. I'm not convinced about the cost. All I would like is targeted assistance to people who need it. As a taxpayer, I am perfectly happy to fund any kind of policy that will help make life a little bit easier and ultimately save us money in the long run by looking after people. The community services card exists to help those who need a little bit extra. Use that. The rest of us are fine. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Work ethics – where do we stand on those? Is it a generational thing? Do you continue to soldier on despite Covid changing the way we see coming to work while sick? Do you still soldier on? Do you pause and take a break if you can feel a sniffle coming on because you want to A) ensure you don't infect your colleagues and B) ensure that you've got the best possible chance of getting better by staying home? Is it a generational thing or just an individual thing?   Gerry Brownlee, the Speaker of the House, is cracking the whip. At scrutiny week yesterday, he proposed changing Parliament's sitting hours and expressed a strong view that Parliament did not sit long enough. During the 30 weeks that Parliament meets for business, it generally sits from 2pm until 10pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays with a dinner break —and this is harking back to 1953— with a dinner break from 6pm to 7.30pm. None of this snatching a thing of pre-packaged sushi and scoffing it at your desk for ten minutes. No, no, no. When the House sits, there's a dinner break from 6pm to 7.30pm, and then the House sits again. On Thursdays it sits from 2pm until 6pm.   Governments can move motions to extend sitting hours to the following morning or they can put the House into urgency, but that doesn't happen very often. Gerry Brownlee has proposed extending Parliament's sitting hours, but he wouldn't tell the media the specifics of the proposal saying it would be unreasonable to do so while all the parties were considering it. Of course, many MPs do much more work than just sitting in the House debating proposed legislation. If they're good MPs, they'll work every day of the week. I mean our electorate MP, I see him at every community thing, every community clean up, every school fair, and that's with two small children – a new baby and a toddler. When you're doing it properly, it's a job that's tough on people and on relationships.   And while we might like the idea of them all working longer hours and getting our money out of them, working longer hours and more days is all very well and good, but if MPs are just rehashing the same old ideas and arguing amongst themselves and point scoring and whatever, we wouldn't be getting value for money out of them, we'd just be getting more of the same. Working longer doesn't necessarily mean working better, does it? If you're the sort of jobsworths that sit there and work their hours, don't add anything, don't come up with any innovation, do something that way because it's always been done that way and we don't deviate from doing that way because that's the way it's always been done. I don't really think that you're getting value for money there.  And on the same day that Gerry was reported as calling for MPs to work longer and harder, there was an interview on Stuff with journalist and men's health campaigner Jehan Casinader talking about Gen Z getting it right when it comes to prioritising work-life balance. He said in the interview, “We hear Gen Z described or Gen Zed described as the snowflake generation, but I think they're actually just showing the rest of us how to prioritise what's important in our lives. They have better boundaries, they're more emotionally open, they're better at articulating their needs and they're focused on how do I get my work to support my life rather than the other way around." Jehan said, “I think that's challenging for a lot of older people because they grew up with the opposite story: sacrifice your health, sacrifice your wellbeing, do whatever you need to do to provide for your family, keep your employer happy." But I do think he says that we're seeing a cultural change.  And I have to say I am probably in that generation that turns up for work. I don't think there's anything wrong than doing whatever you need to do to provide for your family and keeping your employer happy. But then I've always had good employers, so you want to work when you've got good employers. I haven't had a crappy one. And my work's interesting, so I guess that's a bit different. Who's right, who's wrong?  I'm all for MPs sitting longer, but it's really difficult because when you are an electorate MP particularly, although I'm sure there are some good list MPs as well who work every hour God sends, but it's a bit harder to quantify what they do. Sitting longer in the House isn't necessarily going to ensure better legislation, more innovative legislation, great ideas, bright ideas.  I think there should definitely be penalties if you don't turn up for the bare minimum. Looking at you, Te Pāti Māori.  I don't know. Who's got it right, who's got it wrong? Is it a generational thing or is it an individual thing? And should our MPs be sitting longer and more often? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our economy was well on the way to recovery, driven by a resurgence in manufacturing, before the fuel crisis hit.  Stats NZ data out today shows GDP rose 0.8% in both the quarter and year to March.  Equipment manufacturing, food production, accounting and businesses services, wholesale trade, and agriculture were all doing well.  But mining had a big drop, as well as residential and non-residential construction.  NZ Herald Business Editor Liam Dann joined Kerre Woodham to unpack the figure.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm going to start with good news today. Now, I know we don't normally, but it is such good news I have to comment, and it's also a topic dear to all our respective talkback hearts. And that is that almost all of Parliament is backing the 30 year infrastructure plan. You'll have heard it in our news, the Coalition Government comprising National, ACT, and New Zealand First, as well as Labour and the Greens, have committed to the Infrastructure Commission's blueprint for major works in this country, and bloody well done to them, I say. To get this sort of rare across the house support, the Commission must have done an excellent job of prioritising works, justifying the order of works, outlining what needs to happen for these works to be done. Chief Executive of the Infrastructure Commission, Geoff Cooper, is absolutely delighted, as he should be.  “I think this is a great step forward. It is a significant opportunity for New Zealand to get to get better outcomes for infrastructure, and it's not every day that you've got the government and the opposition parties saying, “Yep, we can see a plan forward here."”  There are 16 recommendations, 10 priorities for the next decade, and this had to happen. We don't have to imagine the cost of a stop-start approach to vital infrastructure; the numbers have already been crunched. A report out earlier this month showed that pausing, cancelling, and delaying infrastructure projects has cost New Zealand an estimated $11.8 billion in the last 25 years. Auckland Light Rail, Transmission Gully, the Interislander Ferry replacements, just in recent times have all been paused, delayed, or scrapped. Both main parties have been guilty of prioritising ideology over the country's wellbeing, but now, hopefully, the next generation won't have to see money literally disappearing down drains.   Kieran McAnulty, in his foreword to the Infrastructure Commission's plan —the Government, Chris Bishop, Kieran McAnulty, and Julie Anne Genter from the Greens all wrote a foreword to the plan— put it very well. He said both Labour and National-led governments had announced projects without funding them, watched costs balloon, and then scrapped what the other side started. He said every time the plan changes, we lose time, we lose money, and we lose the skilled people who build these things —too many of them— to Australia. That's the problem this plan sets out to fix. He said the plan offered a long-term, evidence-based path that did not belong to any one government, a prize bigger than any single policy. That is very well stated.   Green Party infrastructure spokesperson Julie Anne Genter said the party supported all 16 recommendations in the plan and said the Party overall welcomed the Government's intention and urges that this commitment to long-term planning and evidence-informed decision-making continues to drive investment in long-lived assets. Now, Labour and the Greens have some reservations, but not enough to put a spoke in the wheel, not enough to hold up this fantastic blueprint for the future. Ultimately, they have come together to support a long-term vision for the country that will benefit all future voters, whatever party they support. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Opportunity Party says a property tax shake-up's front of mind.  The Party needs 5% to break into the Beehive, and has been scoring between 3% and 6% in polls.  The centrist party's proposing a blanket Land Value Tax, claiming it'll bring house prices down by up to 15%.  Leader Qiulae Wong told Kerre Woodham they want land banking to become less attractive.  She says it's about shifting the income tax burden on to land tax, so people can't just grow wealth from property.  WATCH ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

More than a million households could be overpaying for power this winter, as more Kiwis struggle to pay the bill at all. Around half of Kiwi households haven’t switched providers in five or more years, which is potentially costing them hundreds of extra dollars a year.  Consumer NZ says that sticking with the same provider can result in a “loyalty tax”, as better deals are often only offered to new customers.  Consumer Powerswitch Manager Paul Fuge told Kerre Woodham everyone grumbles about prices and their company, but they think it’s time something has to be done about prices.  He says it's causing harm to consumers and the economy, and it can’t keep going the way it is, so they've started a petition.  Fuge says that while some people have always struggled to pay their bills, the number of households struggling is increasing every year.  “Middle New Zealand is now struggling to pay their power bill, and that’s not acceptable.”  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The way the Government acquires land under the Public Works Act is being labelled unfair.   Grey Lynn locals are the latest to deal with their land potentially being bought for a major Auckland busway.   The Transport Agency plans to build the 18 kilometre Northwest Busway, to link the CBD with the city's western suburbs.   It will soon be acquiring half of the homes on Ivanhoe Road, to tear them down for the multi-billion dollar project.   Lawyer Adina Thorn told Kerre Woodham the projects can take 10, 15 years to eventuate, which means the people who own the designated land are stuck in never-never land.  She says their property has been completely devalued through no fault of their own, and you’re also stuck in the politics of the day – unsure whether the project will go ahead or not.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.