So, the Herald, in the weekend, came out and called the anti-cycle lane movement a culture war in its editorial. They pointed out the bleeding obvious - that cycleways aren't the reason there is not enough money to improve our roads. They pointed out that cycleways make up 1 percent of our transport spending. It's far less than footpaths - but you never get talkback calls moaning about footpaths, do you now? This comes after the owners of the Westmere Butchery complained about a proposed cycleway outside their door affecting business. There's no parking outside their door. Look at Google Maps. There's 25 cars parked down Garnet Road and there's room for more. They're talking bull. They've turned out to be useful soldiers in a culture war. So was the Wellington owner of Pandoro Bakery, whose main shop on Allens Street is 100 metres from a free supermarket carpark and there's not a cycleway nearby or even proposed. I have no idea what their motivation is. Other than a desire to prevent us from having good things. Other than a desire to have a mediocre country. It's the common line from politicians these days - we can only have the 'need to haves' but not the 'nice to haves'. But it's a nonsensical slogan when you can't figure out the difference between the two. It's the 'need to have' thinking that gave us the flawed Harbour Bridge. Someone somehow figured out that 8 lanes and a railway line were a 'nice to have' and 'not a need' to have for a future growing city. The Prime Minister claimed that the Wellington Convention Centre was a 'nice to have' and that's we don't have money to fix the burst pipes. The pipes are broken because they weren't replaced 50 years ago and now they're 100 years old. That's because someone 50 years ago decided that water pipe maintenance was a 'nice to have' and that someone in the future can pay for it when it becomes a 'need to have'. On an overseas trip before the election, the Prime Minister gave New Zealand a serve for being wet and having no mojo. Well, look in the mirror, Christopher and Simeon. Businesses will look at you and all your false economy and see a so-called CEO who doesn't believe in capex or investment in plants and machinery. And we'll look at other countries and wonder why our 'nice to haves' are their 'need to haves'. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So the latest twist in the Treaty Principles debate is that the churches have come out against it. More than 400 church leaders are urging MPs to vote against David Seymour's bill. It's the latest chapter in a debate that has been described as 'divisive'. If you don't think it's been divisive you weren't listening to Māori at the King's funeral. They're not hearing the One People argument, because they don't believe the bill promotes that. In fact, they believe the opposite. They believe the Treaty is how we achieve One People Together in agreement. Personally, I don't care. I don't care if you support Māori and I don't care if you support Mr Seymour. The fact of the matter is this is a virtue-signalling sideshow and it is divisive. Just like vaccinations and mandates and the Middle East. The Treaty Principles Bill is divisive. And the reason why it's a virtue-signalling sideshow is because both National and New Zealand First have already said it won't get past the first reading. So it's a dead policy walking. Why not kill it now and stop wasting our time, money and emotion? Or the other parties could change their minds and help their coalition partner. But then you'll be branded as flippy-floppy. Either way, I can't see how this helps National. You have a divided angry nation at each other's throat or you look weak. Who's in charge of this coalition? And speaking of which: Former gun lobbyist Nicole McKee has used her power as a Government minister to reduce regulation for gun clubs - without any public consultation. It's not a major thing, but it is an abandonment of the true democratic process. Perhaps National needs a reminder that when the legislation was first introduced after the mosque atrocity that every single member of National voted for it. So were you wrong then or are you wrong now? Both these stories feel like the tail wagging the dog and makes National look weak. And I don't like that. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I was going to start my programme today with some thoughts about the energy crisis, but something else has popped up. But I will share with you some fun facts: Did you know that New Zealand uses the same amount of electricity in 2024 as we did in 2004? Even though our economic activity and population have grown immensely in the past 20 years. What happened is that we, as consumers, became more efficient with our electricity use. We started using LEDs, we started saving, we started being more careful with our use. So the energy crunch is because we're not making as much electricity as we used to - even though we've been saving electricity ourselves  Meanwhile, did you also know that there are currently 22 renewable electricity projects fully consented but not started by the gentailers? So sure, blame the oil and gas exploration ban and that will result in an energy crunch in 10 years. But today's energy crisis is because the generators, who are also the retailers, have not ensured supply despite having it all available to them for years now. I've got more on that - but right now, I have to mention outgoing Treasury head Caralee McLiesh who's leaving for a job as Australia's auditor-general. In her exit interview she said the New Zealand Government needs to make more revenue. And the only way a Government makes more money is more taxes. She'd like to see a capital gains tax She's like to see a capital gains tax - and she says the Government needs to save more in the big expensive items. She mentions super. She'd like to see the age limit raised. Now, Caralee is not some crazy ideological lefty who wants to see the old and rich punished. She's pointing out the bleeding obvious. We are structurally bad. Economists have been saying this for generations. We don't tax enough. When we tax, we tax the wrong people. We don't spend enough and when we do, we do it cheap and too late and then complain when it all starts to fall apart. Faced with all this economic reality, the current Government decided to reduce its revenue to help some taxpayers and landlords. That's the exact opposite of what the problem needs. And then to make things worse, they've stopped spending. And we end up with a country where pregnant Mums can't have toast, Nelson can't get a new hospital building, we run ferries that should be in museums, we run out of power and water, and then we moan we're becoming a third world country and it's all Labour's fault. Someone has to point out the bleeding obvious now and then. I'm pretty sure nothing will happen on Caralee McLeish's advice because to change our structure would be too expensive politically. No turkey votes for Christmas. So before you moan again about how useless this country is, remember it's the country you voted for. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do I need to remind you that politics is show business? It's all about seeming to be the best instead of necessarily being the best. This is why politicians often say the most ridiculous things and make the most outlandish promises. It’s also why they boil complex issues down to simple catchy slogans which are repeated ad nauseum until they gain their own reality. But eventually, reality catches up. Yesterday’s backdown over the Fast-Track legislation is proof of that. Under the coalition’s original proposal Simeon Brown, Shane Jones and Chris Bishop had the power to green-light anything, even if all advice was against it. This was all in service of the thesis that New Zealand is bogged down in red tape. A slogan hammered time and time again in the election until a significant number of electors believed that giving 3 ministers such power was without risk - and possibly good for the country. The coalition’s answer was totalitarian. I was flabbergasted when I first read the policy and astounded that there was not more outrage. It was immense power in the hands of 3 men. Imagine if Michael Wood, Megan Woods, and Willie Jackson had been granted such power in the last Government. You’d be up in arms saying it was undemocratic and dictatorial. It was much more undemocratic than any co-governance plan. But we all heard silence. We’d been well trained and well indoctrinated and no one complained. Now the National-led coalition has seen sense and now the new Fast-Track legislation means a panel of experts in the field will have more say. Which looks almost the same as Labour introduced before the last election - because it is. So in other words, this Government is no more committed to fast tracking as the last lot. So then you ask yourself - what was all that about? It's all about politics, it's all about getting your vote. Meanwhile, the credit agency Fitch came out with their assessment of our credit rating and with it our economy. And despite the widely distributed idea that we’re stuffed for generations - the credit agency called us an advanced and wealthy economy. Excuse me? They paid credit to macroeconomic corrections that started during Labour’s reign. I beg your pardon? They said New Zealand has a long-standing commitment of fiscal prudence. This is all running against the popular mantra that the last Government left an economy in tatters. It’s not in good shape but it’s also not in tatters. Fitch pointed out that the real problem with New Zealand’s economy is our high level of household debt and a high current account deficit. In other words, we save less than we spend and make up the difference by borrowing foreign capital. That’s on you and me and the long-running housing crisis rather than any crisis in Government spending. But you know, politics. Good politics says it’s all the fault of the last lot and the best Government policy is to do less. We’ve become wet, scared, and lacking mojo and confidence. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The corner has been turned. The 5-year pandemic pandemonium has been tamed. Inflation is down and we've had the first interest rate cut since the Reserve Bank realised they’d overstimulated everything 5 years ago. Proof that tax cuts were not inflationary, says the Finance Minister. And that is the case, but it’s not a sign that the cost of living crisis is over. Inflation and cost of living increases are two heads of the same monster. Tax cuts are not being sucked up by discretionary spending. But they are by increases in charges brought about by a cut in Government spending, a continued housing shortage and its costs, and local Government trying to bridge the infrastructure deficit that’s been growing for decades. For example, my family's tax cuts are going straight onto increased rates and increased public transport costs now that the subsidies have ended. But put on your dancing shoes - said Thomas Couglan at the Herald in the weekend. The rock star economy is back. And we can thank Luxon and Willis. This is a nightmare scenario for the opposition. Well sure. Even though economists have been saying that would happen for a year now. In fact, Shamubeel Eeaqub has been saying all year that a lot of money has been dormant waiting for a turn in the interest rates as a signal that it’s all back on again. So here we go. But was the rock star economy really ever a rock star in the first place? And do we want it back? It was an economy of growth spurred on by high immigration, low interest rates, and big capital gains from a strangled housing market. It was a rock star as long as you had property that you could raise capital on. Throughout the glory days, many warned that there were no productivity gains, that there was too much reliance on dairy and tourism, that there was too much spending on fripperies, there was too little investment on infrastructure that made us competitive Can we really say the rock star economy is back when we wait a month for a doctor's appointment? Or 3 months for surgery in a rotting, past its use by hospital? Can we be a rockstar economy if we can't make enough electricity? Can we say we're a rock star economy when half our water is lost in leaks? The return of a Key Government-style rock star economy will benefit me and I'm grateful. But I want something better than that. It's time this country put its big boy pants on and fixed the stuff that's been plaguing us for decades and makes us seem like a third-world country. Then we will be a true rock star. And the people who manage that will be hailed as true masters of an economy. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The winter solstice was on June 20 and 21. The longest night and the shortest day, but wisdom tells us that the depths of winter does not fall until 6 weeks after the solstice. It takes a while for actions to provoke a reaction. So right now is the depths of winter and much is at the worst it has ever been and ever will be. The All Blacks lost. In front of a disappointing crowd. Many are saying the poor crowd was down to economic hardship in the capital as the Government wages war on the size of the public service. The public service in Wellington is being slashed to cut the government spending to help the economy. However, this is all happening just as the Reserve Bank tries to fix their Covid mistake. We’re in a double squeeze.   In Covid, the Reserve Bank underestimated how well we’d operate under Covid lockdowns. With the benefit of hindsight, we know they splashed too much virtually free money. So now they have to strangle our economy after setting it on fire. It’s debatable whether we needed a double squeeze. But here we are. Whipping ourselves big time for future good. Meanwhile, the country is low on power. A dry winter and our gas reserves running out means that energy-dependent industries are finding it hard to make a buck and some are now on hiatus.   Reality check. We need gas. A fossil fuel and we have no alternative. Labour had a policy but no alternative. But another reality check. From the discovery of gas to coming online takes at least 10 years, so today’s shortage is on previous governments and gas companies. No matter what Simeon Brown says. We’re still low on health workers and the cuts on government spending suggest we’re not really going to splash cash on them. We’re still importing 100,000 people every year and not increasing contingencies to cope with their demands, like housing and health. But we’re more than happy to count whatever money they contribute to the economy. In John Key's years, they were called our rock star economy. To add to all of that we have one of the most negative governments I can remember who seem to enjoy telling us how bad we are and to blame it all on the past 6 years when the rot set in 30 years ago. They’ve followed a government that told us we had 9 years of neglect. No wonder we have a generation wanting to leave. Government after government promising the world and making no difference and telling us how rubbish we are. But then we watch our Olympians and their work ethic and we feel good. Then we discover that all regions are having an economic recovery. Except for Wellington for obvious reasons. And we have an OCR statement later this week. Could it be the long winter of discontent is finally over and we have green shoots and a good spring to come? New Zealand is where I want to be. We’re not the cot case the Government portrays. We do need to rediscover our mojo. We need to stop saying no to good ideas. We need better public transport, we need more houses, we need more gas. We need to look after ourselves.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I have always avoided getting into the Treaty principles debate.    It’s just too much of a swamp to get trapped in.    Either you’re for David Seymour's debate on a reset, in which case some will call you a racist.    Or you’re against a select committee debate means the racists will call you a wokester.    Both of which are gross exaggerations of what’s really going down, so it’s best to just avoid it.    However, with the resignation of Dr Anthony Jordan from the Pharmac board, I find myself truly confused.    Dr Jordan quit over the Government's treaty directive. David Seymour told Pharmac it was inappropriate for the agency to keep considering the Treaty of Waitangi in the health sector.   Dr Jordan said he "could not with good conscience" continue to work for the agency following that direction.    But as an outsider, I can’t understand how the treaty was factored into Pharmac’s decisions.    If ever there was an agency that’s work was based on need, it’s Pharmac. Everybody gets sick, everybody needs medicine. Pharmac’s job is to decide what medicines work for New Zealand. While it’s true that Māori get some illnesses more than others it’s still a need. If that need is great enough it may get funded.    It’s a bit like the belief that the Māori Health Authority and Te Whatu Ora’s setup meant that Māori received priority in healthcare. It’s a factor to be looked out for in identifying need but at the end of the day nobody jumped the queue. Once your need is identified you join a raceless list based on priority.    But Dr Anthony Jordan has now resigned, and I wonder if he’s ever considered that this will have more effect on Māori seeking equitable healthcare results from Māori than David Seymour's war on Treaty principles.    Dr Jordan is, by the way, the partner of a Labour MP and his resignation smacks to me more of political virtue signalling than standing up for Māori in the healthcare system.  The question for Dr Jordan is: Was it better to be fighting for Māori inside the tent or sitting around outside the tent moaning and achieving nothing at all?  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is only one story in town. I realised this when I entered the newsroom and everyone was still itching to talk about it. Firstly, I am so glad the assassin was unsuccessful. The repercussions from this attempt are already dramatic enough. If Trump had been slaughtered, then the reaction could have been disastrous for the United States. Imagine January 6 and the insurrection and then multiply that horror by a thousand. Every Trumpist and their dog would be reaching for their guns right now and the chances of an uprising or a civil war would have increased dramatically. Obviously, there was a failure in the security detail, the assassination was only averted by a chance movement of the president's head, even though he was already in the sights of a Secret Service sniper. This is disturbing - but also unfortunate in that the rumour mill online now suggests that the Biden camp had deliberately scaled down security for Trump despite obvious signs the whole election race was getting tetchy. I don't believe this because the sniper had the shooter in his sights. The attempt was preventable, but the Secret Service has lost its edge. This is also understandable, considering this was the first attempt on a President in 40 years.Meanwhile, the escalating tension has been covered by the MSM for some time now, complete with warnings that it could all get too real. This means that many supporters at the rally believed it was the media's fault. "You wanted political violence well you got it". Or- "the liberal media is responsible", one person said. Warning it's rising is not wishing it would happen. This shows that many have fallen for the 'look over there' trick played by many politicians and media commentators. Shooting the messenger and not listening to the message is a weakness. When a truth is not liked by a politician they attack the media. They've been doing this for decades.And then tension in the States is spreading. In my whole life, I have never heard more commentary on the left and the right. There is no left and right in America. Their left is right of our National Party. But there is a real battle between liberals and conservatives. And it centres on touch paper issues like immigration and abortion and governmental overreach in civic life. And the language used is extreme and exaggerated to drive home the points, and that creates anger and dispute. And we end up with the disunited states of America.And the real question is whether there can be a return to civil public discourse. Biden has already expressed this and a desire to bring unity back to the United States in an address from the Oval Office.And I will ask the question - can the US discover unity, or have we gone too far down a track of division?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I wasn't here last week because I was attending a funeral. A dear friend. 58 years old. Gut cancer. A reminder to us all- live life. Don't put things off. So, last week I thought I'd talk about the ferry debate and I thought that the issue would be over by now. But it's not. It rumbles on like the stubbed toe it is. Today, the Government receives a report that will outline some of the options going forward and what cancellation of the ferries will cost. This is not an insubstantial amount. Industry sources believe it's $200-$300 million dollars. Supporters of the Government say that's a bargain compared to spending billions on unnecessary rail infrastructure. And that answered a question I'd had all along. I've been confused at the continual assertion that the ferries were gold plated. They appear to be a very reasonable price, mostly because they were ordered during the Covid lull and the shipbuilders were grateful for the business. Yes they were bigger, and yes that means work on the wharves. But these wharves have remained unchanged for 50 years and needed an upgrade. Particularly the Kaiwharawhara port in Wellington. It's seismically vulnerable, so no matter what boats we eventually order, there will be a huge costs in earthquake proofing. There are no cheaper second hand options, otherwise known as the Corollas of the ferry world. No the reasons they are gold plated is because they are rail capable and National is no friend of railways. This is the party that sold the railways to Toll, who then asset stripped it to such an extent we bought it back for $1. They stopped the electrification of the Main Trunk line and stood in way of the CRL until they no longer could. They also gave way to the trucking lobby allowing trucks of more than 44 tonnes on our road. Killing rail freight and causing potholes that they're now spending $4 billion to fix. It's this sort of difference in opinion between Labour and National that is causing our paralysis in infrastructure, and this example is one of the worse. Meanwhile, I wonder if anyone has been investigating what the costs will be to convert these ferries into road ferries only. Because frankly, I can't see any better deal anytime soon. And time is of the essence. The Cook Strait crossing is part of our State Highway 1. Whether it's rail or trucks, tourists or cars, it is a major piece of our supply chain and to have allowed it to get into such disrepair and with no real solution in sight is a pox on both the National and Labour houses. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this day 60 years ago, 4 young lads from Liverpool arrived in Wellington on a plane to commence a week long tour of New Zealand. And they changed everything. It was the Beatles. It wasn't like we weren't warned. The week before was chaos as they toured Australia. 250,000 youngsters welcomed the band in sleepy old Adelaide. But the older generation were not prepared for the excitement, the hysteria and disorder that followed the band wherever they went. They were agog. It was the beginning of the generation gap. It was the beginning of the rise of youth culture. The Beatles opened New Zealand's eyes. The advent of international travel and of television meant they were the world's first international superstars and they were here. Andrew Dickens chats with listeners who remember the day and the week. The adventures are legendary. Most were extraordinarily young and yet the time is burnt into their memory. Take a trip. LISTEN ABOVE When We Was Fab: Inside the Beatles Australasian Tour 1964 (Woodland Press). Andy Neill has ticketed book launch events at Unity Books, Wellington, June 21; Hedley’s Books, Masterton, June 22; Big Fan, Auckland. June 25.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I went to a party at the weekend. Quite a swanky one. Negronis and burgers and all sorts of people. Judges and doctors and advertising people and even musicians.  An old mate was there, a card-carrying lefty.  We're chatting and he says he's part of an urbanism group. Studying and advocating for urban development, and he says, "you right-wing ZB types would hate it."  So I said, "I beg your pardon?"  What part of having a well-designed and functional city is either left-wing or right-wing? It's not about politics it's about practicality. Who doesn't want a functioning public transport system? Who doesn't want accommodation solutions for the poor and the young so they don't have to leave the cities for a house? By the way right-wingers love trains. Mussolini made them run on time.  The politicisation of city designs is why nothing ever happens anymore and our cities just get worse and worse.  So it was good to open the paper on Sunday and see the Auckland mayor talking about that city's abortive light rail plans.  He said it was good that the Government killed Labour's plan off because it was disastrously handled.  The main problem with it was the cost which had been calculated at 400 million dollars a kilometre. Mayor Brown said he was recently in a town in France, the size of Christchurch, who have built a very successful light rail, at a cost of 50 million a kilometre. Nearly 90 per cent cheaper?  Then he went into all the reasons big projects cost so much in New Zealand. The gold plating of design, the contracts granted to constructors who are also suppliers who have no reason to contain costs, and then there's the politics. What idiot wanted to put a light rail into a tunnel? Michael Wood, that's who.  But the problem with all of this is that a good idea is thrown away because of bad management.  When Labour came in in 2017, AT had a 6 billion dollar light rail plan, ready to go. But Labour and then the New Zealand Superannuation Fund thought they could do it better and suddenly it was 15 billion because of the tunnelling and it stalled and then National killed it.  Much was made of the 228 million spent with no track laid which shows us how little people know of projects. That money was spent on geo-tech reports and surveys and buying land and planning. It's still all valid now and to throw it out is a blatant waste of taxpayers' money.  Light rail is not left wing. Light rail is not a bad idea. Labour was just a bad government that cocked it up.  LISTEN ABOVE. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A report from Auckland Council's boarding house inspectors shows out of 44 properties suspected to be breaking the law, 40 were “operating unauthorised transient accommodation or boarding houses.”  Many had issues with fire safety breaches, growing numbers of gang-affiliated guests, and owners questioning council authority.  Andrew Dickens had two callers today who discussed their situations.  The first, Jamie, lives in a boarding house with his son.   Jamie told Andrew Dickens “There’s one room here that’s $500 – the guy’s killing it,”  Jamie said “You’re living with alcoholics and drug users. I’ve had to send my kid to his mum’s because it’s no place for a kid.”  The second, John, owns two boarding houses and lives there himself.  John told Andrew Dickens “When they come here, they are lost. When I give them a room, they sleep for a week - they are that exhausted.”  John said “It’s an ideal situation to get these people off the street and give them independence.”  LISTEN ABOVE. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I presume the lead story in the Herald on Sunday was welcomed by police and those behind our stronger gun laws.   An Auckland pensioner and his daughter have been caught for legally buying 13 guns for the Comancheros motorcycle gang.   It's the latest of dozens of discoveries by police of licensed gun owners buying for gangs who cannot legally purchase guns.   It was validation of good old-fashioned police work. Over the past 4 years the police have analysed more than 350,000 sales records looking for suspicious patterns of spending.    They then correlate the purchases with the records of gun owners, and they discover the gang's straw buyers.   But to me, it also validates the strengthening of the laws back in 2019 after the Christchurch mosque massacre.   That saw the banning of military-style semi-automatics, stricter rules on the “fit and proper” test to hold a license, the establishment of a gun registry, and a set of rules designed to ensure gun clubs and ranges are safe places.   At the time, gun owners made out that the laws criminalised legal gun owners which was a massive over-exaggeration.  It criminalised a type of gun only. A type of gun that non MSSA owners find intimidating and unnecessary. A gun that turns any idiot into a killing machine as long as they can handle the recoil.   And the new rules also told the citizens of New Zealand that ownership of a gun is not a right but a privilege that must be earned.     But they also say that once it's earnt there's no problem at all as long as it's not a military-style automatic.   And slowly it's beginning to make sense to even the law's hardest detractors.   Act campaigned on a full repeal of the legislation and the minister in charge is Act's Nicole Mckee   She is also the former spokesperson for the council of licensed firearms owners.   She was also interviewed in the paper yesterday where she said gun owners hoping for a rollback will be disappointed.   Act campaigned on greater access to MSSAs and scrapping the gun registry, but these didn’t make it into coalition agreements.   Instead, the National-Act agreement committed to repealing the regulations around gun clubs and shooting ranges - which Mckee has now backed off from doing completely - a review of the registry and a rewrite of the arms act.   But, at the moment, the laws are being seen to work.  And here's the rub.  If you support getting tough on crime then you must also support getting tough on gun ownership.  LISTEN ABOVE.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to Budget Week. Which I am looking forward to. After all the warnings from economists and world agencies like the OECD, that this is the wrong part of an economic cycle to bring in tax cuts, it ill be interesting to see the way they're going to pull it off. Personally, I can't see the budget being nearly as harsh, nearly as radical or nearly as transformational and beneficial as all the politicians say. I've already decided to call it the bad day at the office budget. Which we'll all get through. Meanwhile, we're getting little bones thrown at us to keep the headlines flowing. $50 million odd to hire teachers feels like a small change when you look at the entire education wage budget. My grizzle today is about doctors. The Waikato times weekend paper featured a couple of young doctors at Waikato Hospital and their impossible workload. Both are just 27 years old, 4 years out of school. 10 years into learning their trade. One ended out working alone on a cardiology ward with 100 patients in it. There should have been 3 doctors on duty. The other, a medical registrar, told a similar story about how patients in agony in E.D spent 12 hours waiting for care. Things are not getting better anytime soon. The population is growing, people are living longer, patients are getting sicker and arrive more sick because they haven't seen a GP. Because there's not enough GPs either. Meanwhile our underpaid, over worked 27 year olds have 6 figure student loans to pay off. So when choosing their specialty they often choose the better paying so good by psychiatry, hello dermatology. This perfect storm of dysfunction is the result of decisions made a long time ago. Not just the last regime. Student debt dissuades many except the determined or the already wealthy. Limiting our doctors' numbers. Immigration has been allowed to blow out for decades without any increase in doctors in training. So fewer doctors per person Entry numbers to med school are still embarrassingly low. So once again fewer doctors What have we been thinking for the past 40 years? We have a malaise. Not enough doctors, teachers, police, houses, roads, public transport, energy generation. The list goes on. We're like a 2 bedroom shack trying to house 10 people in it. But every 3 years someone comes in and wallpapers one room. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now, I'm not part of the tribe who automatically thinks that Auckland Transport is a bunch of ideological toss-pots who want to force us out of our cars. I'm the sort of urbanist that gets there's a limit to the number of cars that can use our roads, and when that limit is hit then you have offer choices so we can all get somewhere. I don't reflexively hate cycleways or bus lanes. I comprehend congestion charges and I'm excited for the Central Rail Link and even Light Rail. Mostly because I've seen the good a co-ordinated public transport system has done elsewhere in the world. But AT's 24/7 parking charges change is beyond the pale. Having developed the city centre with apartments, it will inconvenience residents who have been trying to take their cars off the roads by living in town. It's going to cost ratepayers. Either directly, such as the residents who reckon it will cost them $11,000 a year to park their car now. Or by funding a bureaucracy to run resident parking schemes. It's said it will affect hospo workers. It won't stop punters who tend to cab or even use public transport into town because they're on the lash. The people it will really affect are the minimum waged workers who need to get in and out of the city outside public transport times - and who are least able to afford it. But the most chilling part of the story is that the mayor and the Council are powerless to stop it, even though they've helped to cause the problem. Councils fund council controlled organisations but they don't run them. In this case, the Council looked to reduce its funding so AT unilaterally increased its external fundraising by hiking the parking charges. But that is AT’s constitutional right. The main Council body, including the elected representatives, have no operational control. Rodney Hide designed them that way so politicians couldn't get the filthy, compromised hands on big assets. Which is why I've always laughed about National's plan for council controlled operations to run all our water. Councils may own and fund CCOs, but they certainly don't control them. Just look at Auckland Transport. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I was surprised that the news that Auckland had inked a deal with the Government over water wasn't the lead story on last night's TV news. I would have thought that John Campbell would have had a deep dive on its repercussions for Auckland and the country. Basically, water and housing are the biggest issues for this country because every single person, business and animal needs water - and we all need a roof over our head. But maybe the kids we call journalists these days have never got water and its reforms. There is a lot about the deal that has not been said. Compared to 3 Waters, it's essentially 2 waters. Watercare deals with drinking water and human waste. Waste is sewage. That's a billion-dollar-a-year operation. But they don't deal with stormwater and drains. That's called sewerage and that's dealt with in Auckland by an entity called Healthy Waters. Now that's a $200 million dollar a year operation. It's not a council controlled operation. It will still be funded by council borrowings. So when people talk about polluted waterways being fixed, that's not really covered by the Watercare deal. Which is partly why Auckland's water rates increases are still at 7.3 percent. That 7.3 percent is, as we all know, higher than the rate of inflation and a major part of the cost-of-living crisis which the Government promised to tackle. But that's another kettle of wastewater. This deal happened because Auckland is the only council with CCO or council controlled organisations. They are the product of Auckland's amalgamation into a Super City by Rodney Hide. CCOs were actually designed to prevent Councillors fooling about in core business they know nothing about. And because of that they've never been overly popular. Yet it is claimed that this keeps water under local control. Ask Auckland's Mayors and Councillors about how much control they really exert over CCO's like Watercare, or Auckland Transport, or Auckland Unlimited. So, Watercare will have the remit, which is to provide water and remove waste. Operationally, they're in full control of their processes. The Council's control is limited to a majority of places on the board. So just a reminder that CEOs run companies not boards. They purely appoint a CEO and then assess how well the CEO has done. The Auckland deal was low hanging fruit for the Government, because the structure was already in place. The real test is how this works for everywhere else in New Zealand. The first real test will come this week when Horowhenua, Kapiti, Wairarapa, the Hutt Valley, Porirua and Wellington City meet on Friday to work together on a plan for a greater Wellington region water deal. They will have to set up an entity with bureaucracy and thrash out a deal about which region receives what in funding. Just like 3 Waters. Meanwhile, the good people in the countryside not adjacent to cities will be wondering if there's any white knights riding to their rescue regarding water borrowing. Or if they're going to be left behind. To me this deal is 3 Waters lite, with no ‘co-governance’. And that's it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealand seems to be waking up to an issue I thought would have caused more concern. As part of the bonfire of the public service, the Government seems to be eyeing cuts to our public research and development sector. Principally that means the Callaghan Institute, the Crown agency that employs about 300 people and has been the target of attack, particularly from David Seymour. He sees the agency's work as being a form of corporate welfare, a bugbear of ACT's. Other ministries and departments conduct significant research funded by the taxpayer. The Department of Conservation has developed major techniques and processes that have been adopted around the world. The Primary Industries ministry also funds valuable research, including work into climate change mitigation. It's feared that all this work will be affected as the Government saves costs in the backroom. Last week, Stats NZ revealed that private industry is starting to put their money where their mouth is. The New Zealand business sector has shown a robust increase in research and development (R&D) spending, reaching a new high of $3.7 billion in 2023. That's $540 million increase, or 17 percent, from the previous year, marking the largest annual growth since annual data collection began in 2018. There's value in research spending. So it would be short-sighted to reduce Governmental spending on it R&D funding cuts could mean we will lose our best and brightest scientists, like those at Callaghan, to overseas countries who are investing in science. As we enter a regime determined to cut spending I think it's good to remember a famous quote by Oscar Wilde. He said - " a fool is a person who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing". The worry is that the Government goes too far and starts to cut things of value. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It is fair to say the country is not in a good place right now. Job cuts dominate the headlines. A double-dip recession came true. Inflation is robbing us of our purchasing power. Last week an IPSOS poll found that 60 percent of us think that New Zealand is in decline and 65 percent believe that the economy is rigged to benefit the rich and the powerful. And when people bemoan our situation and wonder how we got here a common response is to blame the Labour Government and the Reserve Bank. A common refrain is Robertson blew all the money so we can't afford to do anything now, even something as important as paying our police more so they don't quit or leave the country. You also hear that Labour caused a debt so large our children and their children will be paying for it for decades to come. So I pricked up my ears last week when Mike Hosking talked to ASB economist Nick Tuffley about inflation and the economy in general. Mike asked him how bad was our economy and he said pretty bad but still nowhere near what happened after the GFC. To remind you, the GFC ended early in 2009 and John Key's government was in charge. To remedy the situation we borrowed, we opened up immigration and we went through austerity to a far greater degree than we're doing now. And it worked. Need I remind you that within 5 years we were described as having a rock-star economy. This is not to diminish the situation that we're in right now but it is to put a perspective on things. But Nick was also asked why inflation and bad economic tidings were still happening here when other economies like the States, the UK and Australia are bouncing back. Economies with far greater debt and spending. Tuffley essentially blamed our static productivity. He says considering we imported nearly 3 percent more population over the past 2 years our GDP should have raised, but it didn't. We seem incapable of making more money per person year on year. And it's a problem that we've had ever since Ruth Richardson's Mother of all Budgets early in the 90s. And it's a problem that exists no matter the colour of the government. It's something we need to look to ourselves for not something we can blame on the government. And it relates to the comments that Christopher Luxon made overseas that angered some when he boasted that New Zealand is now open for business. We've always been open for business. The real question is how much business are we open for?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since we were last together, the collapse of television news and current affairs has continued. And with it, we have been subjected to a lot of highfalutin thinking about the metaphysical and cultural reasons why linear TV is dying. You know - go woke go broke. Or- this is because nobody trusts you, because you're all raving lefties. Meanwhile, Melissa Lee has been asked what she is going to do about it, when it's obvious that there's very little she can do. These are commercial entities that are suffering at the hands of market forces that have been long predicted to hit. Commercial broadcasting and journalism is an easy business model. Inventory control and labour costs. In other words, you can't employ any more people than the money you make from the advertising. Hearing that more than 300 were employed by Newshub was pretty revealing. That's a lot of salaries. For some perspective, NZME employs just over 200 for it's papers and radio and digital content. And the lid has been sinking steadily for a years now. That's because digital players are siphoning off $100 million a year in advertising content Despite the 6 o'clock news having the highest spot rates, they were unable to make the budget balance Faced with this environment I was confused after Warner took over 3 that they added to the news output with full-service late-night shows and more. They increased their costs at a time when revenue was going down. It seemed to me that no matter how woke or unwoke or how biased or unbiased, Newshub was increasingly modelled to lose money without a huge recalibration. Meanwhile, despite warning bells sounding about the theft of revenue by digital companies, our TV operators seemed timid to adapt. Facebook and Google sell clicks. They gain news content and then clicks when punters repost links. Yet the links from so many news operators continue to be free. There's a reason the Herald is now behind a paywall, so at least we can clip the ticket. When we did it the industry thought we were audacious. It's beginning to look very smart. Furthermore, TVNZ in particular has made a foray into the digital world with TVNZ+. But it's free to air and the ad inventory is so low it's better to watch it online with time shifting, thereby missing out on the ads that pay for the whole shebang. The model is broken not because of politics or bias but because of fear. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I vividly remember the first time I saw Christchurch Cathedral. I was 10 so it was 1973. I was on tour with the Auckland Boys Choir. It was winter and it was twilight and we went into the Square, which was bustling with cars and buses and Victorian buildings and a marvellous magic shop. People wore overcoats and scarves and there was the cathedral. It as like being transported to England. We went in to listen to the cathedral's boys choir performing Evensong and my choirmaster said they were the best in the land. And they were. I say this after the news that the restoration may be put on hold due to the escalating cost. I can't comprehend stopping something halfway through. It's too late to go back. Forward is the only way to go. To paraphrase the Prime Minister - we have passed through the decision gate and in passing that gate there can only be commitment to finishing the job, even if it seems to be escalating out of control. It's called aspiration. It's called determination. Perhaps this is the lack of ambition that our Prime Minister accuses us of. Opponents say tear it down, because in 100 years who will know the difference? But using that logic, why do anything outstanding? I'm reminded of the Notre Dame in Paris which will open to the public in December - 5 years and 7 months after being gutted by fire. They have harvested an entire oak forest for the timber and raised 2 billion dollars through donations. French billionaires are scrambling over each other to fund the thing so that their name lives on through generations. The cathedral is 160 years old this year. Notre Dame is 860 years old. But they're worth the same to their cities. Marking stones to the start of great cities. And in 100 years, who'll care how much it cost? Sometimes it seems that New Zealand knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I was not going to talk about dolphin-gate- but from first thing this morning, everyone was talking about it. Sir Russell Coutts has had an epic meltdown over the cancellation of Saturday racing of his SailGP series. He had to refund the spectator's tickets, which meant at least a third of his income went up in smoke. Now he's belittling all New Zealand for their bureaucratic torpor that stops go-getters like him getting their way. I would have raced. And if a foiling boat traveling at 80 kilometres an hour ran over a calving dolphin, turning it into sashimi, I could then say we learnt our lesson- and please pass the rice and the wasabi. But I think it's important to realise how we got here. Coutts sailed Lyttleton last year. With dolphin protocols. 1 race-day got delayed. He knew the Lyttleton problem but carried on. This year he decided to race in Auckland. He wanted to build a stadium and hospitality on the site of a former oil and chemical storage site. Auckland said you can't put people and food on poisoned land. Russell said stuff you and flounced back to Lyttleton. There was no investigation of alternative Auckland sites. Or even going to Wellington. He went back to Christchurch and signed a contract knowing all the protocols and the possibility of disruption. He knew the Lyttleton problem but carried on, hoping for the best. When the Saturday race was delayed because of a mammal on course the telly coverage, owned by Russell, promptly played a promo praising SailGP's respect for the environment. That they were powered by nature and they look after our marine mammal buddies. It was good press. Until the dolphin didn't move on. Then he unleashed a spray about New Zealand holding people like him back. I don't think it's in his construction to admit he made bad choices and to assume some personal responsibility. And then he tried to make it seem like he was a victim. I don't think this is a left versus right issue. Or a nature versus industry issue. It was all good until Sir Russell lost some money. So take a deep breath. Realise New Zealand loves the product. Put it on in an appropriate venue and let's move on, shall we? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So if you've listened to me for any length of time, you'll know I respect Liam Dann very much indeed. Liam is the Herald's Business Editor at Large. He hosts podcasts and writes stories about the business world and he's been at the NZ Herald for 21 years. He's at pains to stress he's not an economist. He's the guy who interviews economists and then translates their technical stuff into news we can all use and we need. He's just written a book called Barbecue Economics, which explains all this stuff for the average man and woman on the street. He also writes a column every Sunday, and yesterday he asked the question I've been asking myself for a long time. "Is the Government’s shock about this 'worse than expected' economy political theatre or just ignorance?" Last August, Nicola Willis stated the cupboard was bare, and we all knew that. They then campaigned on fixing it all up. Killing inflation. Solving the cost of living crisis. Building the missing infrastructure. And then on top of it all, giving up on $14.5 billion worth of tax revenue by giving us a tax cut. But some of us wondered that if the cupboard was indeed bare, was all this possible or was this exaggerated rhetoric to get votes based on some magical thinking that all will be fine in the end? Now the Finance Minister is saying the economy is worse than expected and maybe some of the policies can't happen. I'm not sure it is worse than expected, because the government's accounts have never been secret- thanks to the Fiscal Responsibility Act introduced in 1994 to stop nasty surprises. And people were warning National of this last year. Liam Dann reckons: "To put it generously, it looks like National was using best-case economic scenarios to justify policy promises that were marginal at best." The question that remains is whether National knew the promises they were making were unaffordable or whether they just don't know what's going on. Or to put it more bluntly. Are they stupid or were they lying? And if they were exaggerating their ability to afford their policies, did they think we'd be too stupid to realise? We all got sick and tired of the last Government gaslighting us and making promises they can't keep. I'm not going to be happy if it happens again. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When National formed it's new government there was a snappy little phrase that supporters were fond of using. Thank God the adults are back in charge. Suggesting that the left wing Labour Government were naive, inefficient fools who had driven the country into the ground like a 12 year old in a ram raid. National would lead a government run by grown ups who know what to do and how to do it and then actually DO it. So when Christopher Luxon presented his State of the nation address yesterday, the expectation was that the grown ups were about to tell us how all our problems will be fixed. What we got was a warning that times were going to get tough. What we got was a promise that our PM would not shy away from tough talk.  What we got was a lot of talk about beneficiaries. They were told the free ride was over. And then at the end an admission to reporters that the Government was yet to explain how it would address and finance the solutions to our woes. We also got a lot of talk about how bad the last Government was and the implication that they were the root of the parlous state we find ourselves in. That our water problems and our transport problems and our health problems and our labour problems and our housing problems and our energy problems and our weather problems and our farming problems and of course our economic problems all rest with one cohort of politicians who were in power from 2017 to 2023 It's that sort of blame game that got the Labour Government called childish. I would like to think that this government might have resisted that urge. To be the adults. I think what many of us want is governance that is future focussed. That considers a time 30 years in the future when our population has doubled or even tripled. That acknowledges that the mess we're in has taken many different governments and decades to create and will take many different governments to fix. The most powerful part of Christopher Luxon's speech was the line that New Zealand is fragile. We are. At a very fundamental level. And have been for a long time. And will be for a very longtime. So the sooner the adults turn up with a real plan that we can all get behind and that will work, the better.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So two big video interviews over the weekend. Firstly, Tucker Carlson interviewed Vladimir Putin. Tucker said it was because no-one but him had bothered to ask which is BS. There's always people in the media claiming they're the only people holding power to account. My feel is that Putin knew Tucker was desperate for the scoop following his embarrassing downfall at Fox, so obliged him as a useful idiot. But that's not to denigrate the appearance. It was great to watch and listen to Putin. Know your enemy, they say, but you can't if no-one lets you hear them. The interview was reported 2 ways. Either Putin keen for World War 3 or Putin keen to negotiate for peace. He alluded to both things but what I took as more chilling was his half hour history lesson on the Russian/Ukraine situation. It went back centuries. It showed his depth of feeling. Māori would understand, having such long held historical grievance. It's a depth that means he's not pulling out or pulling back. In fact, his keenness for peace negotiation only requires USA to stop funding Ukraine. He's playing a long game. This conflict will only stop when Putin has gone which is no time soon. So the other interview was Jack Tame's conversation with Chloe Swarbrick. It was a shocker. Her refusal to understand how her Palestinian chants had been received was remarkable. This after mediation by the Human Rights Commission. This after Jewish members of her electorate had spoken with her. The left are famous opponents of hate speech, but to understand if speech is offensive you need to have the empathy to understand how the offence has been taken. Chloe seemed unable to comprehend the fear Jewish people have of that chant. She was unable to own any blame. The rest of the interview made me feel that the fresh and intelligent woman who entered parliament has been replaced by a hard line radical informed only by her own echo chamber. The Greens are in deep trouble. The Ghahraman resignation and forthcoming trial. James Shaw, the one calming influence, the man billed as a relationship builder, gone. The prospect of Davidson and Swarbrick ruling a radical socialist party. The damage is already evident in the polls this weekend with the Greens dropping 4.8 per cent to sit at 9 per cent. They're fast becoming unelectable. A socialist party that pays lip service to the environment and has forgotten about why they came into being in the first place.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So there was a little bit of excitement yesterday as Jack Tame caught the National Party spreading misinformation on Q+A. Chris Bishop was talking about dropping smokefree legislation and made the claim that there would only be one outlet in all of Northland. Tame had done his research and said there was more likely going to be 35, which resulted in a classic caught out face from Chis Bishop, who stuck to his line and said he understood there was only going to be 1. Unfortunately, Jack never asked him where that understanding came from. It came from the Prime Minister, who made the same claim earlier in the week. It was not questioned then, but there was more than enough time for the media to research it and wait for someone to use it again publicly. Which Bishop did and walked into a "gotcha" trap. Now you've got opponents of the Government jumping up and down going on about the lying Government. Which is a wild over-exaggeration. The factoid was not crucial to their argument about black market trade and gang involvement in tobacco. Mr Luxon did the right thing and came out and said his team made a mistake. He has urged them to fact check more before they give his Government talking points. But it's still a thing- and a lesson not to be loose with facts. As the Prime Minister noted last week about the Pubic Interest Journalism Fund - he stopped short of calling it bribery, but said there was a perception of it. And perceptions are dangerous. But not necessarily true. The Prime Minister has already been caught out amplifying incorrect statistics through the campaign, so there is a perception that making up statistics is their modus operandi. As the numbers of outlets was clearly and easily available, a perception could be made that policy is being formulated without sufficient research. Chris Bishop used to be a tobacco industry lobbyist. Now caught using misleading statistics to support continued sales of tobacco there could be a perceptions of favour for former employers- which is a bad look. The Prime Minister could be perceived to be in thrall of the Dairy Owners Association who have argued against prohibition, because it would wreck dairy profitability. The Labour Government found out that perceptions stick. Considering this new Government is only a week old, they might want to learn that lesson fast.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Congratulations to the new coalition Government, which was sworn in today by Governor General Dame Cindy Kiro. And as our new Prime Minister says- they're ready to get stuck in. But things are already getting better. Some say it's just because of the vibe. But don't discount plain good luck and timing. The so-called hermit kingdom is over. As we heard a week ago, nearly a quarter of a million people chose to emigrate to New Zealand in the past year. Today we learn tourism is up- and spending in the year to September hit $30 billion dollars. That's up $6.6 billion on the previous year - and pretty much back to pre-Covid levels. This while the international spend is still recovering. As Nicola Willis finally gets her warrant to fool with the economy, the economy appears to be turning a corner. In today's paper is a report that economists believe the Reserve Bank will not be raising interest rates anytime soon. It also reports that markets are predicting a rate cut as early as May and as many as 3 cuts through 2024. Which is great news for first-home buyers. With all this good news, there's still one thing that bugs me about this Government and that's the disconnect that you feel when a tax cut has to be funded by a tax rise. You'll remember that was the problem I had during the election where the tax cut for the squeezed middle was funded by a wealth tax on rich foreigners buying houses. For a Government averse to taxes, it seemed off brand. The new version came up after the Government's surprise axing of the smokefree programme, and I say surprise because no one can find mention of it in any pre-election manifesto but axed it has been on New Zealand First and ACT's insistence. Yesterday on Newshub Nation, Nicola Willis said extra revenue from more widespread cigarette sales would help fund tax cuts in lieu of the now-scrapped foreign buyers tax. This was a loose thing to say prompting accusations that long-term public health had been sacrificed for a short-term cash-grab. Which is a bad way to start a term. It's not rocket science. If you cut a tax you cut expenditure. You don't tax a fall guy to make it work. That's inequitable. Jack Tame asked Nicola Willis if she accepted more people would die because of cancelling the #Smokefree policy. Willis says- "I have not seen advice or analysis of that so I am not prepared to answer that question". FFS, this is what we can expect in the next three years. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So, still no Government. It's not a biggie. Remember, they only started talking after the specials were counted so it's only been a fortnight. But then again, why did they only start talking after the specials were counted? But still not a biggie.  Meanwhile, all those getting stuck into Winston are not using their knowledge of history or politics.  He doesn't have to be in Government. He can say no easily and then bring the Government down whenever he wants. Yes, he's the tail and National's the dog but the dog needs Winston's tail far more than Winston needs the dog.  And when it comes to the difficulties of the negotiation, many seem to forget that Winston is an old-fashioned anti-globalist who hates immigration and the stress it puts on our infrastructure.  They seem not to remember that it was Winston's idea to slap a foreign buyers ban in our property market. And he was part of the team that did in 2017.  But letting foreign buyers back in is at the centre of National's tax plan.  So they're asking New Zealand First to do an absolute U-turn in terms of policy and principles. That's a big ask. It was always going to be. It was evident weeks before the election. And Luxon has already hinted that the foreign buyers ban may stay. That's a big U-turn too.  If there's something to criticise National for, it's dropping their 2 ticks blue campaign and letting Winston in. They have much in common but the differences are big stones in the path of coalition.  Meanwhile, while the cat's away Wayne Brown comes out to play. National's policy of dropping the Auckland fuel tax is leading the mayor to ways to raise money to build the roads. All of a sudden congestion tax is on the fast track.  It's proof that there is no such thing as a free tax cut. National wants to drop the tax to give Aucklanders more money in the back pocket, but as Wayne Brown points out that comes at the expense of roads. So what do you want more? Roads or tax cuts. Tax cuts or congestion taxes.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is my first ZB shift since the election brought in our new Government-to-be. And I must say it’s been the most fantastic fortnight, until we lost the Rugby World Cup final due to first half sloppiness and a trigger-happy TMO. But we had our chances. We can’t complain. You have to play to the rules. But really, it’s been 2 weeks of calm and confidence and a feeling of recovery and renewal after the election Business Confidence went from a number in the 20s to a number in the 50s overnight. Inflation came in in the 5s, despite most expectations being half a percent higher. Credit agencies said we’re in ok shape and didn’t make our borrowing more expensive. New Zealand came in 4th in a global tax competitiveness survey. The real estate section in the paper suddenly doubled in size. Real estate agents starting calling telling me to invest now, because the property market is about to explode. I even felt that crime has stopped. Just like that. Until I checked and saw there has been a ram raid. In Waihi Beach at 3.40am. 4 perps captured by police. Suddenly the cops are tough on crime. And suddenly I realised what had changed- nothing. What was different was no chorus of wet and whingy commentators and politicians telling anyone who was listening that this country was wrecked. You know the mantra: “The second to last economy in the world. Heading towards Venezuela. A crime rate to rival the most lawless areas of the world. The last bastion of communist dictatorship in the western world. Our children’s children’s children will be paying for this Government’s 6 years in charge” It is such a relief not to hear the doomsayers yelling with their megaphones into a dark and depressing echo chamber, every day. Trying to convince us that only they know the answers and New Zealanders wouldn’t know success if it slapped us in the face and said congratulations. I’ve always said that the country was not doing nearly as well as Labour thought it was, but it’s also not nearly as bad as National would like to have you believe. We’ve been talked out of our mojo. It reminds you to always be wary of politicians and their slogans. They don’t seek a legacy. Just your vote so they’ve got a job for 3 years. So enjoy the respite from criticism of this country, because it won’t last. As soon as the specials are counted we’ll back to the race to the bottom. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So the political party that didn’t know what it stood for anymore and offered no real future lost the election to the party that offered tax cuts that are affordable only by increasing taxes on the wealthy and then claim that we’re back on track.  I’d argue that New Zealand is confused.  How else can you explain a nation that just 3 years ago so gratefully gave a red tide to Labour and now switches to a blue tsunami after a thousand days?  I think the theme of the election is more that it was time for a change than getting back on track.    It’s been an horrific four years of pandemics, cyclones, floods, fires. On top of that some ineptitude as Labour gave us slogans rather than policies. Exactly what they criticise National for.  It was decades worth of angst in just six years so we changed the one thing we could.  So National get their turn.  But the wholesale switcheroos we’ve seen in the past two elections are not a good thing for the country.  When Labour took an outright majority in 2020 we lost some of our best National MPs. The retirement of senior MPs like Joyce and English took the wise rudders.  Now the same thing has happened to Labour.  The upshot is a parliament full of newbies on both sides with no real depth of experience and knowledge in governance.  And governance is not like regular business. If you don’t believe me read Stephen Joyce’s book about his experiences as a newly minted Transport Minister.    Yes Minister is a documentary not a comedy.  Such dramatic flip flops smacks of a lack of core belief and that a lot of us will vote for whoever offers us the most moolah in the back pocket. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, here we are. Finally in the last week of an election campaign between the most incompetent cohort of politicians seen in a long time and wouldn't you know it, an international geo-political crisis just to accentuate that statement. Obviously, Nanaia Mahuta sympathises with Palestinians. She feels they've been colonised the same way Maori were. That doesn't make her an anti-Semite. BUT- you must condemn a surprise raid on civilians that killed thousands. She didn't, while the rest of the world did. So it was left to Chris Hipkins to do the right thing. Isn't that just like Labour. The few competent people trying to tidy up after the incompetent after yet another cock up. So why do I think this is the most incompetent cohort of politicians? They all blow in the breeze and will say anything to get the job. It started when Hipkins got the big job and started the bonfire of the policies, leaving me to ask whether he stood for anything at all. Since then, he's announced more and more spending despite advice to tai hoa and pay down debt It continued when National announced that to afford tax cuts for landlords and the middle class, they had to impose a wealth tax on rich foreigners. What a mixed up ideology. Christopher Luxon announced he could work with Winston Peters just two weeks ago, but now he's taking out full page ads telling voters not to vote for Winston. This is a mess entirely of the leaders' own making. Meanwhile, Winston tells the world in a debate that he doesn't support GST-free fruit and veg even though it's there on his party's website. 15 minutes later it isn't.   As Ben Thomas said: "Imagine being in Winston's team and having to concoct and then delete whole policies in real time as he is thundering on live tv." And now we've got National suggesting we may need a second election and Hipkins agreeing he'd rather have a second election than break his promise about not working with NZ First. So why not cancel the first election and go straight to the second? That's me being facetious. What a mess. How can I vote for any of them? But saying that all politicians are useless - don't vote is the sort of empty thing that Russell Brand would say. So my final word before this election is just vote for the party that matches how your gut feels. This is a vibe election. So just do it and we'll fix it all up on Monday. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I want to start the show with tributes to 3 people. The first is Brooke Graham. My neighbour and friend from the Coromandel who died recently at the age of just 42 from brain cancer.  A fast death inside 9 weeks but slow enough for her to make plans for her 10 year old daughter and her husband. Hers was a death of great grace and I am immensely sad. So to Carrick and MacKenzie, here's to your amazing wife and mother. Then there's Simon Barnett and his support of his wife, Jodi over the past 6 years in her fight against brain cancer as well. This was featured in the Weekend Herald on Saturday. Of course all of us here have on the afternoon show have known what Simon and his family have been going through. His strength, courage and love while still working this demanding job is amazing. It's good that you now know. And finally I want to acknowledge Richie Poulton, the director of the Dunedin study who passed away yesterday at the age of 61, again of cancer. Richie and I were at Auckland Grammar together. In the same cohort were people like Martin Crowe and Grant Fox and business people Ian Narev and Simon Herbert. But Richie is the best of all of us. At school he was smart and sporty.  I knew him as a nice bloke and a very good cricketer. I had no idea of the greatness within him. He was featured last night on the Sunday programme. It was a heart-breaking watch. Now, if you don't know, the Dunedin Study is a research programme that has followed the progress of 1,000 children born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1972-73, from birth to midlife. Over 1300 papers have been published about how your environment and upbringing influences your situation. It's world famous, as is Richie. Last night, John Campbell asked him what the greatest finding was. Richie said poverty. He said you can't undo what happens in childhood. In 2016 the Dunedin Study published a paper called "Childhood disadvantage strongly predicts costly adult life-course outcomes". It found that nearly 80 percent of adult economic burden can be attributed to just 20 percent of the study members. The researchers determined that this “high cost” group accounted for 81 percent of criminal convictions, 66 percent of welfare benefits, 78 per cent of prescription fills and 40 percent of excess obese kilograms. Professor Poulton says that they also found that members of this group can be identified with high accuracy when as young as 3. Target these guys and you solve a lot of problems. But as he said last night no-one has talked about poverty in this election campaign. Labour made it their core goal over the past 6 years, and yet all they've done is throw money at all beneficiaries. And National doesn't utter the p word at all. It was- cut benefits and belief it can stem criminality with longer sentences. Yet back in 2017, Bill English quoted the 2016 study and talked about social investment. If we can identify the truly vulnerable, why don't we help them, and just them. National has abandoned all that work it did 6 years ago and I have no idea why. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a funny old week it's been listening to the media and the Government howling for National's costings on their foreign house buyers tax and National's refusal to release them. Personally I don't give a flying fig on the costings. It seems perfectly obvious that National will not raise the money it says it will because that would take a record level of overseas sales. And National doesn't care. The overseas buyers tax is a sideshow. They are committed to tax cuts. That's their thing. That's non negotiable. They will happen. So if they can't subsidise the cuts with the new tax what could they do?  Either borrow more or cut Government spending. Cutting services will make their coalition partner happier, so what do you think will happen? The overseas buyers tax seems like a strange one for a so called right wing neo-liberal globalist party to propose. One that says it's committed to fighting inflation. In essence it's a wealth tax. "You can afford a $2 million dollar house. Great we'll have another $300,000 bucks in tax thanks, you rich prick." I guess it's OK to tax the wealthy if they're foreign. That $300,000 is another incentive for foreign buyers to find places without the tax because they don't like tax either, so that's another blow to National's optimistic projections. The opening of the market is another strange call in a time of inflation. It will mean more buyers and therefore higher prices which all contribute to inflation. If the market picks up steam because of the foreign buyers, then the wealthy with property will have more capital to borrow against to spend on their next overseas trip or car or new kitchen. Again spurring on inflation. Houses will get more expensive freezing out first home buyers. That's headline news and more inflation. Meanwhile, National is squirting $2 billion into consumers back pockets, will also spur inflation. In fact, when you look at National's suite of policies, they're all stimulatory, which is not the thing you do in a high inflation environment with historically high house prices. Margaret Thatcher would be having kittens. It's no wonder some true neo-liberals call National Labour-lite. At the end of the day, I don't know why National is so wedded to the tax cuts other than they're an easy sell to house owners. Why couldn't they just cut the wasteful spending and delay the tax bracket changes until we're better placed to wear them? Cut all the wasteful spending and then spend the savings on stuff we really need. Like doctors, hospitals, water pipes, roads and public transport. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a wild and woolly weekend on the hustings. Christopher Luxon turns up on Q&A to talk about National's policies. First up, he promises to close Rotorua's emergency housing motels and kick any troublesome Kainga Ora social housing tenants out. Obviously, this is great news for law abiding Rotorua residents and New Zealanders suffering from the neighbours from hell. But he forgot that people ask follow up questions. Like, so where do you put these people? To which he has no answer. This is not good.  Don't take my word for it. Avowed right winger Ashley Church was on Early Edition said this went too far. The State is the landlord of last resort, blah blah blah blah. The social housing and the motels were a bad answer to a bad problem.  Get rid of them and all you have is a badder problem getting worse. And if you think feral's behaviours are bad in a state house you wait until they live in a car. Luxon offered nothing. Then he said their housing policies would provide downward pressure on rents. Of course, we all know he's a landlord so Tame asked the obvious question, "So will you reduce rents for your tenants in this new environment?". What followed was a stammering exercise.  Claire Trevett describes it as a rookie MP in an interview with no answers. Here's the thing, he's auditioning for the top job in the nation. If he can't stand up to Jack Tame, what's going to happen when Xi Jinping starts asking some hard house tax questions? What's going to happen in the leader's debates? The reason this is a concern is because Labour really does seem like the Walking Dead. Fresh from their spectacular second term implosion and the loss of cabinet Minister after Cabinet Minister. After 6 years of failed promise after failed promise. With Hipkins seeming to be low on energy and new ideas and only bursting into life slagging the opposition. With all the other Labour MPs existing in radio silence either because  they've been muted or they've got nothing to say. After all that, National should be romping home. It should be like shooting fish in a barrel. Instead, Christopher Luxon just shoots himself in the foot. Time and time again. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So we're off and running with an election 40-odd days away and both parties promising the world. Labour is out of the gate with their policy of free dental care for the under 30s. A policy they, themselves, said was unachievable just a month ago. A policy that needs more dentists, but we only train 60 a year and it takes 6 years for them to be in the workforce. Everything is against this policy and Labour knows it, which is why they won't even try to do it until 2026, and only if they get back in. It's almost as if Labour doesn't get what's driven the electorate off them over the past 3 years. Pie in the sky word salads that are barely possible if not impossible. They were given an incredible mandate just to repair what pandemic lockdowns did to us but instead, they started chasing unicorns. My pet peeve is the Light Rail that might bother some shop owners, so they thought- let's just stick it underground at eye-watering cost. And you want us to take you seriously. To win, National just needs to seem capable and the first reactions to their near $15 billion in tax cuts seemed favourable. But that is waning. On Friday, Matthew Hooten rubbished it and called it cynical. On Saturday, tax experts said it breaks tax treaties overseas. On Sunday, even Heather du Plessis-Allan was saying the foreign house buyers sales tax figures were ludicrous, and they are. Nearly $900 million of tax cuts are dependent on foreign buyers suddenly buying half of all the $2 million dollar plus houses available. It's starting to have that "made up a month ago and costed on the back of an envelope" feel. Meanwhile, a question they've never answered is whether spraying nearly $15 billion into the money market will be inflationary. So tax cuts are inflationary because they increase the money supply the same way money printing and borrowing does. They need to be timed very carefully. The only way they would not be inflationary is if you reduce Government spending by the amount you're giving back in tax cuts so that spending is net zero. But they're not doing that, which is why they've invented the foreign buyer tax and casino tax. And the other problem is productivity. We're running at nearly full capacity. Look at our participation rates and particularly the food price index. There's no room for job growth to drive prices lower. Meanwhile, giving the people more money means you give the people the ability to afford higher tomato prices and inflation carries on and becomes embedded even if you do slash Government spending. National is running on the promise of being prudent financial managers. A prudent manager would bring in the bracket changes when inflation has abated. But they're not. To that end, National shows themselves to be just as hostage to ideology as Labour is. Just promise tax cuts. it always works. A letter to the editor on Sunday called National and Labour Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumber, and said give your vote to someone else. However, the other parties seem like Tweedle-Dumbest. So as I've been saying all year. New Zealand deserves some smart leadership but no one is offering it. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So last week we lost Sir Michael Parkinson, the great interviewer. His son interviewed in the weekend saying his father was proud of his working-class roots but hated politics. While he hated politics but loved policy. He thought most of politics was just an act, but policies are actions.  I thought about that watching the corny play that was acted out over the weekend. Hipkins ruled out Peters even though Peters had ruled out Hipkins ages ago. Then Dunne says great politics and that it snookers Luxon, but Luxon comes back and says he's not thinking about Peters at all.  Honestly. So much hot air over almost nothing.  Then Chippy calls National, ACT, New Zealand First a coalition of cuts, chaos, and confusion.  Virtually the same thing that Luxon has been saying all year. Could you be any more insipid?  I said last week that I fail to comprehend what Chris Hipkins actually stands for anymore, and there's more proof.  Then we have Paul Henry in the paper on Sunday. John Key's bestie and former National party candidate.  He’s seen no evidence that if a new government is elected in October, things will “dramatically” change.  He says National are paralysed with the fear of dramatically committing themselves to anything and that Luxon is too obsessed with not screwing things up, and not screwing things up is not success.  And he's right. National's policy planks seem to be just removing anything Labour has done and throwing tax cuts at the cost of living which is like using gasoline to put out a fire.  There's a lack of a vision thing in our major parties, and when they do have a vision then they fail to realise it.  The National Party's policy on cancer drug funding last week was the closest to vision we've had from them in years, but they didn't sell it very well.  It's a return to Bill English's social investment philosophy. Using the Community Card to target help those who really need it rather than splashing cash around universally on prescriptions for everyone including the rich.  At the moment all the politicians in all the parties seem either misguided, .  It's time the politicians figure out what they stand for. Stop complaining that New Zealand's lost its mojo and ambition and get some yourself. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So the World Cup has finished it' stellar month downunder with a victory for Spain. Who, I hope, took the time to thank Palmerston North for the city's contribution towards their success.  After all one would presume that if the team was so bored with the Palmie nightlife then they'd be getting good sleep and spending plenty of time practicing and improving their game during the day. And that is the magic of this World Cup. That New Zealand was so significantly and visibly involved. We hosted half the draw in a tournament whose ratings far exceeded anything we've hosted before. Bigger than a Rugby World Cup, bigger than the America's Cup, bigger than a Commonwealth Games. 2 billion pairs of eyes watched us. Despite what negative columnists wrote about our domestic problems being visible to the world I can assure you that was not the case. We looked great. And if a fraction of those people decide to visit us in the future that's a win. The monetary benefit is still to be calculated but it's fair to say the whole thing was an unqualified success and we owe it to public servants from the council and the government who oiled the wheels in the first place. Some of the workers at Tataki Auckland Unlimited had been working for 15 years to convince FIFA that we were up to the task. They had to battle against super powers like England and Germany who were against us co-hosting. But they got there. But those are the people who are currently under threat. Wayne Brown wants his civil service to return to rubbish bins and water and no more. 200 jobs are going at Tataki Auckland Unlimited. It's the sort of short sighted populist policy that is alarming Auckland businesses who understand that nothing happens without incentives, which they told the Mayor back in May. It's why Coldplay is playing Perth and Taylor Swift is playing Sydney and Melbourne but neither are playing New Zealand. The cities and the country cut them a deal. ACT's David Seymour is waging the same fatwa against public servants which he continued this morning. Now while I have no problem with KPI targets I do have a problem with his belief that this country can survive his drastic cuts to the public workforce.   A few months ago Mr Seymour said he could cut $1 billion out of the public sector in a week. He went further reckoning he could cut $38 billion out of the annual bill. He particularly dislikes event incentives and sweetheart deals for things like films and Research and Development, calling them corporate welfare. He wants to eviscerate Stephen Joyce's innovation, MBIE.   He believes business initiatives should stand on their own feet. But he ignores the fact that without public money some of things wouldn't even be able to crawl. The sort of cost cutting Mr Seymour is suggesting would also provoke an enormous austerity and impact the whole economy. Public servants buy goods and services from the private sector. But they don't if they're unemployed. But it's a popular policy. He's exploiting an embedded dislike of public servants that has been stoked along by small government capitalists for decades now. The belief that all public servants are bad wastes of money and stuff would happen without them. Stuff would happen but not at the scale we've enjoyed lately. After all what business is prepared to throw 15 years of effort and incentive at an event that might not even happen?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So Chris Hipkins’ big roll of the dice has happened. Two months out from the election. 61 days if you're counting GST comes off fruit and veg, Working For Families gets even more money and higher thresholds. It's a 2 billion dollar giveaway for poor vegetarians and breeders. The rest of the poor are left out. And this is it. The economic situation, both local and global, preclude any more big spend ups. We've heard Grant Robertson say that. But we've also heard Grant Robertson say many other things only to be guzumped by political expediency, so who knows? So will this do the trick? I don't think so. Nicola Willis got the GST debate out early stealing its power. Meanwhile, the increase in In Work Tax Credits and Working For Families cash is being largely ignored as it benefits only 160,000 families. Still a big number but not big enough. There's a lot of other poor people getting nothing And it's very hard to vote for Labour in 2023 after their six years in power, for two main reasons. I'm reading a book by Dylan Jones, the former GQ editor. It's all about the Nineties. Cool Britannia, Britpop, Young British Artists and politics. New Labour. Tony Blair and the Third Way. In it he talks to a former advisor to Gordon Brown who pointed out that New Labour became more obsessed with the presentation of an idea than the idea itself. The catchy phrase. The snappy nonsensical slogan. It killed them. The same malaise has befallen New Zealand's Labour since they came to power. 100,000 Kiwibuild houses. Light rail by 2021 was incredible. They seemed to have no idea how long it takes to build a piece of kit like that. Or The Road to Zero, which fails because unless you hit zero, which we won't, then the policy fails. It's in the name. This is not to say this government has achieved nothing at all, which is a common complaint. They have achieved a lot but even they seem unaware of exactly what it was. And secondly, the problem with Tony Blair became that nobody knew who he was, or where he came from, or what he stood for. Unlike his predecessor John Smith, a campaigner for the working class, Tony was just a kinder Thatcher or a more interesting John Major. But at the end of the day, you just didn't know what he was about. Other than lying about Weapons of Mass Destruction on behalf of the Americans And that's what's happened to Chris Hipkins. He's rolled back so many policies he has nothing left except a desperate desire to keep the right form having a crack, and that's not enough. What does he stand for other than sausage rolls and Barkers suits? But you can have the same criticism of Chris Luxon and the right, who are running on a campaign of repealing everything Labour has done and then giving you an inflationary tax cut. One of the slogans in play this election is Let's Take Our Country back. It's slightly depressing that six years after being promised a transformative government we've ended out with all our politicians promising a return to the policy settings of seven years ago. As if nothing has changed in the world in nearly a decade. When we ask whether New Zealand has lost its mojo and its ambition, should we really be starting with our politicians who seem to be content competing in a lightweight personality poll? And mistrust of the cynicism of politicians who will say anything to get a vote is at its peak. With our leading party polling just 34% right now you have to ask if they will really have any mandate at all come October.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Infrastructure is hogging the headlines as Labour and National push separate priorities. Unfortunately both priorities are pressing. But this is the New Zealand way. We ration our spending which invariably means everything costs more and happens too late. But there is a much criticised piece of infrastructure that is currently working very well. I'm talking about Eden Park which is taking a starring turn at the Women's World Cup. The weekend game of Spain versus Switzerland saw a new record for a football match in New Zealand. 43,217 spectators for a game that featured no New Zealanders. It's the third time the record has been set in the tournament as the audience enjoys the experience enough to go multiple times. Now where I live has been the base for a number of travelling supporters of teams and I have taken the time to have a chat to them about their experience. The love the stadium. They say it's quirky and has character and they are aware of the venue's history. They're a little surprised at the the lack of rooves but that is also a part of its charm. They've been impressed how quickly the stadium empties and how easy it was to train back to the city. Back in the city they've loved our restaurants. One couple I talked to from New York couldn't believe the quality of their meals and their prices compared to restaurants back home. A family from Arkansas raved to me about the Commercial Bay food hall, saying how quick and cheap and good the meals were for a family. They've also used the fan zone a lot, which is right beside the construction site where 2 people were shot dead at the start of the tournament. When I asked them if they had seen anything scary they said no. In fact, everyone commented on how nice New Zealanders are and how many people had gone out of their way to help and talk to them. It's worth remembering that the USA team alone brought 15,000 supporters with them, and so far I've yet to find a supporter who will not go home and rave about our country. Meanwhile their boost to the local economy has been very welcome. All this stands in direct contrast to many New Zealanders who believe that we've lost our mojo and our ambition and we are becoming the laughing stock of the world. We're halfway through and the Women's World Cup is proving to be an outstanding success on a global scale. Well done. Let's bid for the men's event, shall we? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The media seems to be writing to a theme and the theme is "Rats leaving the sinking ship". Over the past few weeks there have been a string of stories about high profile and high net wealth New Zealanders leaving New Zealand because the place has apparently lost its vibe and energy. It's election year and a tactic to get rid of the Government is to prove that the country has gone to wrack and ruin I hate the tactic. It's like we had to burn the village to save it. Marc Ellis kicked it off. He made his fortune in professional sport, the media and the orange juice business. He's semi retired. He's relocating to Puglia in Italy where the property prices are cheap as chips, unlike New Zealand. He's right on that. Puglia is the heel of the boot of Italy. Its main industry is olive oil, that has seen technology strip the work force so there are empty houses galore in an area with loads of beaches. He's a rich man going to live in a poor place Also remember that Italy's tax rates are higher. Its GDP growth is slower. Central Government debt is 4 times higher per capita and the mafia still pull the strings. But despite all that he still thinks it's better than New Zealand I found the whole thing a bit disingenuous. He's got an Italian wife and Italian kids and they want to spend some time learning the language and seeing her family. It makes sense that they'd want to go home. But I don't see why he had to kick the country that made his fame and fortune as he went out the door. Ben Cook the property developer made the same headlines. He' selling up his 100 million dollar property portfolio and moving to Australia, prompting headlines suggesting New Zealand is rubbish. But Ben Cook said he just likes Sydney now his kids are grown up and he still loves New Zealand and that it's the best place for lifestyle and the outdoors. I think it's great for the country that Ben Cook is selling up. It gives a new generation a chance at the assets and to move forward. People who have had success in New Zealand are keen to have a crack at bigger markets. That's what made them rich in the first place And finally there's Tamzyn Adding who's taking her design business to Brisbane. But her reasons were different. She doesn't blame the government. She blames business people. She reckons she's landed more work in Brisbane in 5 weeks than she got in 5 years in New Zealand because the business people have a better attitude. She calls New Zealand an old boys club where no-one wants to try something new. She's sick of business people constantly bagging the country and creating a toxic environment. And there's the nub of it. We've gone to sleep and prefer moaning about it rather than doing something about it. The Koru Club is one big depression party with everyone moaning about how bad we are and making empty threats to leave the country if Labour gets back in again. We're not nearly as bad as so many make us out to be, but then again we're not nearly as good as Labour pretends we are. But let's all be a little positive.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well didn't Kiri Allan throw the cat amongst the pigeons last night. Driving along Evans Bay parade, the windy road on the East side of the bay that is used as a route out of Wellington, the Justice Minister hit a car. The cops turned up.  It turns out she's been drinking.  She refuses to accompany a police officer so she's hauled off to the police station to sit on a naughty chair until the early hours of the morning. She's the Justice Minister. She's been detained by the police. The Number 1 thing not to do in that job. She had returned a breath test over the legal limit but at a level considered an infringement offence and police will not press charges in relation to that. She was described as being very distressed So she quits her ministries and then the Prime Minister starts blaming her mental health. Just a few days after assuring us that her mental health was good enough to continue in her job. None of this is good.  None of this shows an ability to deal with stress and responsibility.  All of this smacks of a government just holding on by the skin of it's teeth. And the whole year has been like this. An inability to handle the basics.  All Michael Wood had to do was employ an accountant to sort out his affairs.  All Stewart Nash had to do was not email cabinet deliberations.  All Kiri had to do was call an Uber. Simple mistakes by supposedly smart people. And now we have 5 more parliamentary weeks left and the Labour Party has created a rod for it's own back.  3 years ago they had the most decisive parliamentary win in MMP history. 65 MPs on the government benches and yet the big jobs have been shared amongst a small coterie of politicians. There's been no future planning, there's been no blooding of new talent. We need a new Justice Minister. we need a new conservation minister, we need a new emergency management Minister in a time when emergencies seem to be coming at us left, right and centre. Who will Hipkins turn to? And while he doesn't need to should he call an snap election?  I mean, things are not going to get any better for this Labour Government. The opposition parties will get their guns in a row and the next 3 months will be a horror show You can almost hear an echo of the time when Muldoon called a snap election when half cut.  When challenged that it didn't give his party time to prepare, Muldoon replied it didn't give his opponents time to prepare either. Whatever happens Chris Hipkins is a lame turkey right now, waiting for ChristmasSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So, welcome back after the Matariki holiday weekend. Yesterday our media was full of stories of New Zealanders celebrating Matariki in all sorts of ways. Whether it was kite flying, or welcoming the dawn and trying to spot 9 dim stars as they pop over the horizon, or music festivals, or —in the case of the visiting US Womens Football team here for the World Cup— wishing everyone a happy Matariki and reminding you to remember all those in your family who have passed on. It was all a bit rah rah, but then again it's only the second time the holiday has been marked, so it's still new and we're figuring out what the holiday means Which gets up a lot of people's nose. They accuse the media of being complicit in a Government scheme to force an unwanted and unneeded holiday on New Zealanders. Social media was full of people claiming that Matariki is a made up holiday. Well, if you want a made up holiday, try King's Birthday Weekend which celebrates the birthday of a man who doesn't live in this country and even more bizarrely, it's not even his birthday. Many claimed the real New Year always starts on January the first so what's this holiday all about? Ignoring the fact that the financial New Year starts on April 1st, and New Years around the world have different dates like Diwali, the Jewish New Year starts in September, and the Chinese New Year in February. Labour Weekend celebrates unionism and the 40 day working week, yet many capitalists opposed to unionism gladly take the day off and head to their bach for a kip. The real argument against Matariki is that it pushes us into a territory of too many statutory holidays, which is bad for productivity. But then again, the beach I was staying at had all their stores open. They were doing a great trade, and were thankful for the holiday and some much needed cashflow. But I didn't see that sentiment echoed by too many others. Most of the complainants about Matariki just don't like Maori stuff, but whatever you do don't call them racists because they hate that too. But they'll have to get over themselves because the holiday is not going away. That's what Christopher Luxon promised last year. I liked Matariki. I liked the positive attitude of many. I liked the sentiment of remembering your ancestors that goes with it. It comes at the right time of the year because winter is a long slog of full weeks and bad weather. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well the culture wars and cancel culture just grows and grows and grows. All Black captain Sam Cane was criticised by some, including himself, when he tripped a pitch invader after the All Black game in Agentina. The invader was one of about 15 that took to the pitch, generally making a nuisance of themselves. The invader ran past Sam who swung a foot and tripped the invader, who then scampered off while security staff ambled along in his wake. Promptly the All Black captain apologised in front of the media, All Black management sought the invader out and apologised and members of New Zealand media including Andrew Gourdie from Newshub castigated the captain for actions. And yet a poll soon after showed that nearly 80% of New Zealanders had no problem with Sam's actions at all. So why did Sam do his mea culpa? Fear of a backlash from the minority who thought his actions were unworthy of an All Black captain. Fear of a media firestorm. Because that's the way the world operates today. There's always someone offended somewhere and these days if they announce their offence it gets publicity. Yes from the mainstream media, but then that's always happened. The difference these days is the citizen channels. The whole world is a media outlet with the invention of social media and these controversies can lose all sense of perspective rapidly. Another culture war swept a small but vocal part of New Zealand this weekend. A Spark social media editor supported a Threads post that hoped that anti-transgender comments would be banned from the social media network. The social media editor is herself lesbian and married with a wife, and Spark supported her taking the stance through their official channels. This got up the nose of some who believe that trans-activism is preventing free speech by women. Let Women Speak is the name of their campaign. It's all a bit over the top to be fair But they've started a campaign to get clients of Spark to leave the telecommunication company. Cancel culture. Which used to be the weapon of choice of the left and liberals, remember Lauren Southern and Phil Goff. And conservatives and right wingers would moan about cancel culture and the death of free speech. But now Conservatives and the right seem to have adopted the exact same tactic.   The most extreme example has been the Budweiser go woke got broke boycott over a transgender marketing campaign which has seen the stock lose billions and Bud Light selling for less than water in many states. Which is killing the jobs of many innocent employees and investors who want nothing to do with this culture war. It appears to me that too many on the more extreme sides of our political spectrum have lost the plot when it comes to expressing their ideology and the politics of division is rife in both the left and right.  Both sides are determined not just to argue with their opponents but to silence them and it feels like free speech is now under attack more than ever before.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's an old political wisdom that if you've got bad news to tell, drop the news last thing on Friday so it gets buried by the weekend. So I was a bit confused to be watching One News on Friday with John Campbell oozing and gesticulating all over the screen, telling a story that on the surface seemed to be good news. 1News exclusively revealed that nearly 40,000 charges have been laid with over 8,300 people arrested to date as part of Operation Cobalt, their operation against gang activities. The operation was originally set up after an intensive spate of Killer Beez and Tribesmen-linked shootings in Auckland last year. Police said the arrests include patched gang members, gang prospects, and gang associates. Over 400 firearms have been seized and more than 1,100 search warrants executed. By any metric this is a significant blow against organised crime. Now the cynic in me immediately thought the Labour Party has leaked this before the National Party conference, which we could all tell was going to be hard on crime and law and order. But closer inspection saw the release came from the Police and the tone was defiant. Detective Superintendent Uraia Vakaruru, the officer in charge of the operation, told 1News that seizing prized possessions —for example, a gang member's motorbike— tends to really send a strong message. He said police are just focusing on the business at hand. I get their pride in their work and I've been worried about police morale for a while. With opposition parties and editorial writers bellowing away that the government is soft on crime, day in and day out for weeks, every sector of our justice system gets tarred with the brush. After the gang funeral a week ago the police were also criticised for their inaction by people with no operational experience at all. But these figures and the nine arrests made in the week after the tangi says to me that the police are fighting crime smart rather than stupid. The police have to play by the rules and they have to make arrests stick into corrections. Letting the perception that the police are soft on crime run rampant in the media sends a bigger signal to criminals than anything else. The fact that National and ACT beat this drum to beat Labour in an electoral contest is regrettable. I'd like to take this opportunity to praise the police and thank them for their work.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The first thing I thought when I heard of the new surgical wait list criteria policy which includes ethnicity is that Labour wants to lose this election. If their strategists didn't immediately see the risks in this policy then what are they doing in the job. After an autumn full of racially tinged politics where it is obvious that that National and Labour are more than willing to hoe into any policy favouring Maori and Pacific Islanders, this should have been placed in the "not now, not ever" pile. And I say not ever because this is fundamentally bad policy. It asks doctors to award care based on race and not need which is against the fundamental tenet of providing care to everyone with no fear of favour. From the Hippocratic Oath through to the Geneva Convention doctors are taught to treat people humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. But not in New Zealand. If the doctors are moaning about it then you know it's not kosher. It has whole layers of racism. In the waiting list acquired by Newstalk ZB the person at the end of the list had been waiting the longest. And he was a Middle Eastern migrant. So now we all know who's at the bottom of the race rankings. But while some dimwit might have thought they were doing good they obviously don't understand healthcare and inequity. The inequity does not occur in the hospital but in the home. The negative outcomes for certain races stem from poverty, bad housing, fear of doctors and the state, bad diet, bad exercise, and smoking and drinking. Surgery is the end of the healthcare process. It literally is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff and not the fence at the top. By the stage you're needing to be operated on your condition has gone beyond your income or the colour of your skin. Any competent politician should have seen how mad the policy is and the fact that it was sliding towards nationwide policy throws doubt on the competency of this government which has already been called into question countless times. I'm just so amazed that they have blundered into this giant bear trap.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It must be election year because the signature polices are coming out to play. The latest is the Greens wishlist policy of more taxes on more stuff and income owned by well off people. Which, in my opinion, is barely worth the paper it's written on. Three reasons: first of all, as James Shaw told Mike this morning it's not a bottom line policy for coalition formation. And Labour is not politically stupid, well. They might be, but they’re not that stupid, and they know this will not aid them forming a government. I mean, this thing isn’t happening. This is virtue signalling; this is them saying “this is what we would do if we could, but we can’t, so we probably won’t.” Secondly the policy is a radical and revolutionary change to the very foundations of New Zealand’s economy and people's economic planning. And New Zealand is no longer a place where revolutions happen. We're cautious and afraid of change and like turkeys we don't vote for Christmas. So why should any ambitious generation vote against a system that has benefited many generations before them. Who’s going to take the hit? Newbies? No one. And thirdly, the tax changes as proposed are not confined to the very rich. The impact will be felt for those earning $125,000+. And in case the Greens have not hung around normal people lately, $125,000 is not the rich. $125,000, well, it’s pretty good, but you are not the rich with that. You are part of the squeezed middle, already balancing our high cost of living with trying to build a future for your family. They may approve of more taxes in principle there's no way they'd vote for them. But like clockwork the rich have come out caterwauling about the policy like whimpering snowflakes. The politics of envy, the rich will pay for everything, government is the enemy of ambition, poor us. Which I find distasteful and reeking of their privilege they don't seem to recognise they have. It comes from a generation with free tertiary education who have never been burdened by educational debt, people who grew up with free healthcare. Unlike most countries in the world they've never had a capital gains tax, they've never paid death taxes, or stamp duty. Or significant numbers of tolls or levies. Tell any investor overseas that our landlords could write their investment property loan interest rates off and they're gob smacked. No wonder the young can't get on the property market while the rich get richer. Our tax rates have always been low. We've never had the extraordinarily high top tax rates that caused rock stars to relocate to Monaco. New Zealand is a good and cheap place to be rich and a tough place to be lower middle class and lower. New Zealand's economic settings were made back in the day when we all paid near enough the same, and we all had ambitions for a bach and maybe an investment property to retire on. And there's no way we're turning our back on that no matter how many other New Zealanders it affects. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I come to you fresh from 12 days holiday in Japan. For those of you who are keen but the language difficulties keep you from going, I've got 2 words for you. Google Translate. The free app that translates anything written in most languages. It's the key to unlocking a different culture. Japan is the home of high performing public transport. The government decided to put all its effort into trains and subways, letting private enterprise build the motorways.  As a result the roads are tolled and expensive.  While the trains are plentiful and cheap and so on time. No one is ever late for work. Meanwhile bicycles and cycle lanes are everywhere because the costs associated with cars are prohibitive. Watching mums cycling around with 2 kids on their mama chariot bikes was eye-opening. It was my first big trip overseas since 2015 and Japan had only just lifted Covid vaccination controls the week beforehand. I was bracing myself for all the people calling New Zealand a laughing stock because of our overreaction to Covid because that's what so many people had told me they were saying on my talkback sessions. I met a lot of French and Americans.  We weren't a laughing stock. They called New Zealand mature and wise unlike their own childish and tribal politicians. Which made me laugh as I read about Megan Woods advising New Zealanders to take shorter showers in wake of the cost of living crisis. The return of nanny state politics which ran Helen Clark out of office back in the day. You would have thought that the first thing Labour politicians learn is not to talk about New Zealander’s showers. Then little Simeon Brown who believes that New Zealanders are so dumb we can't handle 2 languages on a road sign. For your information Simeon, Japanese road signs are written in both English and Japanese. And no one is confused. Be proud of your casual racism if that's what you are. Meanwhile people are saying that Labour has nothing new after their Labour Congress apprentice policy announcement. That's true. At the moment they're just extending existing policy or postponing unpopular policy, there sure ain't anything new. And National just u-turned on their housing policy, the one Nicola Willis, Judith Collins, and Megan Woods spent months working on. That's got to be a slap on the face for Nicola. But frankly it was a blunt and stupid law change. Auckland in particular had already thrashed the issue out with their Unitary plan. If National really wants to speed up housing provision perhaps they should get stuck into Resource Management Act reform. Something they've been promising for decades now.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So why are so many mainstream media outlets so poor at telling the news? I say this after tuning into One News coverage of the coronation only to blunder into a 5 minute piece about Harry, followed by how to cook coronation quiche. Maybe they thought they were being entertaining, but instead they came off as infantile. So I tuned over to BBC World. There, they were talking about the King’s involvement in the arts and they followed it with more details about the ceremony. The story was about the King and his country, not his errant son. In fact, Harry arrived on a commercial flight, gave no interviews, joined the rest of the family, sat with other retired or non working royals (which is what he is), and afterwards he went to the airport to go home to see his own family. No fights, no showdowns, no dramas. Yet the Mirror alone, over the week ran 100 articles about Harry, mostly derogatory. People have described the onslaught as 'hate for hire'. Even when Mike Hosking wrote 1000 words about the Coronation for the Herald the paper chose to highlight one sentence in which he said Harry looked alone and a little lost as the headline. I actually thought Harry seemed relaxed and chatty, but who cares. It's only the media that was so obsessed with Harry. Today they've moved on to another royal cliché. The breakfast show on TV1 was covering whether it was time for New Zealand to become a republic. Too soon and too stupid in my book. I don't believe it will happen in my lifetime. Particularly after the success of this weekend. The reason the British monarchy the most successful monarchy on Earth is that they have spent hundreds of years slowly backing out of the day-to-day affairs of state so that today they are purely performative and symbolic. No one is feeling oppressed or ruled by this family. This story was not about the King, or his son, or the institution of the constitutional monarchy. It was about the British nation. It's about their capability and their spirit. In the past year the Brits have seen three historic royal events - the Diamond Jubilee, the Queen’s funeral, and now the King’s coronation. And they’ve all been faultless triumphs of organisation, story telling and co-ordination involving thousands. This was not live coverage of an old toff sitting in a chair in a church and having someone put a fancy hat on his head, as some critics portrayed it. This was a nation showing the world what it can do and that it's the best in the world in doing it. It was a show of strength and order and no-one is cancelling that any time soon. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In less than a week, King Charles the Third will be crowned, sealed and delivered. Officially invested as the new King of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth and our official head of state. What a thing. In 2023. Which has led to a number of protests and general grumbling about the anachronism of the monarchy. Then to make things worse Charles wants us all to stand up and say this in the middle of the ceremony.  “I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God” That’s not going down well with some saying Swear At the King rather than Swear For the King. But that’s not enough for me to go off the whole palava. I think it’s a marvellous folly. A useful sideshow from the drudgery of everyday life. A bit of fun with a handy side serving of pragmatism and finance. Firstly why should the UK persevere with the monarchy? Well, it’s a real money-spinner. A recent study found the British people paid 100 million pounds in costs to keep royalty running.  In return, they got 1.7 billion pounds of benefit. That’s an incredible return. The Royal Seals of Warrant keep firms in business and act as international calling cards. The King’s farms sell 60 million pounds of goods all self-financed and the proceeds go to the Princes Trust charity which then funds programmes for the underprivileged. And then there’s tourism. London is currently an orgy of overseas visitors and their capital. Even this station has got 4 members of staff there consuming hotel rooms, food, airfares and the like. The Royal Family is a goldmine for the UK and with Charles promising a slimmer and more modern set up they’re only going to become more profitable. But then there’s his position as head of State. But really what does that mean? In the UK he is irrelevant and he is kept out of the national conversation.   If you worried about hereditary influence then the House of Lords is far more of a thing. For all the opponents of co-governance, how would you feel in the UK where the House of Lords has 777 members all given their place by appointment, who their daddy was or what their job is? Not a democratically elected member among them. But the King is not one of them. The King does not have a vote. Here he is represented by the Governor General. There is no interference and the powers exist as an unbiased external regulator just in case of an extreme breakdown in civil order. And in a country of just 5 million, that’s important.  I trust the Governor General and the Court of St James to adjudicate in the case of civil or democratic breakdown far more than I would trust a locally appointed President. For those who say having the King as Head of State is a sign that we’re immature as a nation, I say stop virtue signalling. It ain’t broke don't try to fix it. And finally, there’s King Charles himself. A man who had a terrible childhood and absent parents and extraordinary interference in his personal life. But still came out of it as a complex man but with wisdom born of complex issues. I think he’s going to be great. Far better than his spoilt sons and far more interesting than his cautious mother. Long live the King.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It didn't take long, did it, for the headlines to change. One moment the Prime Ministers of both New Zealand and Australia were trumpeting a new deal for Kiwis living in Oz. Nek minnit. New Zealand is petrified about a brain drain. The new deal means a faster and cheaper path to residency more in line with the pat for Aussies here in New Zealand. And that means a faster line to the dole, and pensions and healthcare for Kiwis in Australia. That makes it more attractive if you're wanting to plant some roots in a place. But the real kicker that makes Australia so attractive for New Zealanders is the pay. You get paid more there. You pay more tax principally because there are 3 tax levels. Rates, State taxes, and federal taxes. But you get paid more and stuff is cheaper there. So on balance it's more attractive. So my real question is why do you get paid more in OZ? Many say that the population is bigger which means more demand and there's a mineral wealth that flows into the economy. And while that is true it masks the bigger truth that Australians are paid more because they chose to be. And the opposite is true. New Zealanders are paid less because we also chose to be. The Herald compared pay this morning. Nurses, Teachers, and Doctors are paid, on average, 20 to 30 thousand dollars less in New Zealand. But who decides their wages. We do. As taxpayers. As politicians. As a country. Principals are currently on strike while simultaneously looking at better pay across the Tasman. So in a competitive international labour market we are not as attractive as we could be. And yet we baulk at paying nurses and teachers more. There's conniptions at any raise of the minimum wage and then complaints that we don't pay well enough. There’s horror at Fairpay legislation but Australia has had Fairpay legislation for decades. This is not some issue that's popped up because we've got socialists in charge. For 30 years we've been hearing that New Zealand's low wage and low productivity labour market was profitable in the short term but would eventually bite us in the bum. Welcome to bum biting season But not all is lost. Many have argued workers are not coming because of our immigration settings. And yet as Liam Dann reported yesterday migration is smashing records. The net migration gain of 11,700 in February this year was the second highest for any month ever. We're on track for a net gain of 100,000 in a year. So people are still finding reasons to choose New Zealand. In fact, according to the OECD, New Zealand is currently the most desirable destination for highly educated migrant workers. The OECD has just launched its Indicators of Talent Attractiveness (ITA) index, and New Zealand tops the list for “high-educated workers”. We come in fifth for attracting entrepreneurs, and fare less well (15th) for attracting start-up founders. So New Zealand is not a basket case. But we do have to figure out how to pay people more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's an ad on ZB these days about reversible vasectomies. It talks about how easy it is to make the wrong decision and then have regrets. The example it uses is the Auckland Harbour Bridge, which has become famous as the bridge that austerity failed to build sufficiently. Back in the 50s the Bridge was proposed to be 6 lanes wide with a movable centre barrier. But to keep the cost down both economically and politically, only 4 lanes were built. Within 2 years the bridge was packed and 10 years later we had to add 4 more lanes at great expense. It's a lesson we fail to learn. We're currently in the middle of the same thing with Dunedin's new hospital. For the sake of a saving of 100 million on a 1.7 billion dollar project we were on the verge of cutting the construction of operating theatres and ward rooms. Facilities that will invariably need to be built in the future and ill inevitably be far more expensive to build. It's the Bridge all over again. The government is slowly crumbling on the issue but you have to wonder about the false economy and austerity that's on display, while at the same time 14 billion dollars is being earmarked for a light rail system that few seem to want. The cost of projects and the politics of cost saving is all over water infrastructure decisions too. Back in 1996 the Mangawhai District was agonising over an 11 million dollar wastewater scheme. Political arguments over cost saw the whole thing delayed by a decade, and when it was finally built it cost 60 million dollars. There was an outcry and a report that damned the whole decision making process and the Mangawhai wastewater project is held up as a poster boy for how not to do things amongst water engineers. And now just 25 years later the project is nearly at full capacity and another 60 to 90 million dollars has to be spent and the District is once again arguing about cost. And rightly so, as there are only 25,000 ratepayers in the District and they're facing a big bill. But for goodness sake, it's deja vu all over again. So the Affordable Waters reform would spread that cost over a bigger population and save Mangawhai residents from the biggest bills. But I'm not going to say that's the answer because there's plenty wrong about the 10 Waters concept. What I do want to say is that New Zealand has a long and inglorious record in infrastructure planning and construction. And it's because politicians play political football based on 3 year terms. It's costing us dearly.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some of the things that have scuppered the Labour Government are their use of hyperbole, and exaggeration, and magical word salads that are easily debunked and ridiculed The good old favourites like the 100,000 houses from Kiwibuild or the light rail that would be started by 2021. Too many times the words and promises have not matched the deeds and that reduces trust in their ability to govern. So with this quite obvious it's a gimme for Opposition parties in their campaigning. All they have to do is project competence, and common sense, and achievable goals and aspirations and we'd consider them a government in waiting. So on Friday, Chris Bishop launched National's Electrify NZ policy. This is designed to create more renewable electricity to power on a green future away from oil, gas, and coal. I was doing Drive so I got the first crack which is always hard because you haven't had long to digest the policy. But right from the start, I realised that the policy principally involved shortening the resource consent process. I asked and Chris confirmed there was no financial help for generators. I wondered whether this was just a resource management policy repackaged as an energy policy because Labour had just released its Second Harbour Crossing policy. I wondered whether this was just a piece of political flannel. So Chris Bishop turned up on Q+A yesterday. By then questions had been asked of generators about what they needed. Turns out there are 8 wind farms already consented, but the generators are waiting for favourable market conditions. So consenting is not the immediate problem. Now look, I have no problem with streamlining of resource processes. Nobody does. Minister David Parker has been wrestling with that for the past year. And Bishop's policy is not of itself bad. But… it's not a clean energy policy. It's time for all politicians to realise that we're not stupid and present policy to us that makes sense and to back away from the bluster.   We've had too much of it over the past 6 years and we won't want to vote for more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the new world of performative politics and the battle of the outraged. Though it's not a new world, but the same old world now amplified by social media and our move away from the written and spoken word and into pictures on screens. The visit of Posie Parker went exactly as anyone could predict over the weekend and the fallout is just as predictable. All sides played their part in this passionless play. All feeding on each other for validation. All throwing out vast generalisations. It all started with with the calls to ban her entry. Free speech crusaders railed against it. Trans activists bellowed for it.  Ignoring the fact that entry could only de denied on criminal record. Posie Parker is many things but she's never been a criminal. But the drama acted out broadcast by media entities both professional and social who only report what's right before their eyes Posie Parker is nothing without opposition and we'd all be ignorant of her stance if opponents hadn't highlighted it. She claimed to be representing New Zealand women despite never having been in the country. I wondered what the point of her tour of New Zealand and Australia was for and it is obvious it was for her supporters back in the UK, therefore she needed the protests. She needed the pictures to become a hero for her people. This was evident in her bizarre choices of venues in public open spaces both here and Australia. A security consultant over the weekend asked whether she was naïve or stupid in choosing Albert Park. Wide open spaces, hard to defend with easy access for supporters and opponents. I'm pretty sure Posie knew she was vulnerable and didn't mind. Remember, Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux's cancellation came at the hands of landlords of the venues. On the other side, trans activists needed a perceived threat to publicise their cause, so Parker was perfect. They amplified the threat and mobilised their forces and built up a lather. They talked about the threat to their lives of being trans and yet turned up to a protest with signs saying 'Kill the TERFS' with absolutely no sense of irony. The Nazis smelt some attention in Melbourne and turned up with their masks and salute and got coverage. Brian Tamaki smelt opportunity to follow up his 'gays caused the cyclones' outrage. The Greens meanwhile smelt the opportunity to demonise all white straight males. Meanwhile, right wing and conservative broadcasters hitched their horse to the issues to push the "New Zealand has been trashed by a Labour Government". So the actors played their part to a willing audience. But it was interesting to hear a caller this morning talking about how 95 percent of the Albert Park protestors were polite and law abiding. Which was exactly what we heard about the Parliamentary protests on the vaccinations. Which is the truth. What we saw this weekend was the extreme minorities of both sides having a go at each other which meant the news that the IOC has banned athletes who transition after puberty from Olympic Sports passed by with little comment.   There's no drama when the grown ups speak. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So, it's been a week since I was last on ZB, and last Monday we were talking law and order and what really needs to happen. But of course in the week since, the former Police Minister Stuart Nash has had a spectacular meltdown and we now have our 5th Police Minister in 5 years. In fact, it's our 10th in 14 years. Police would like the revolving door to stop spinning so fast, but that's not in their control. But the funny thing I noticed about Stuart Nash's supposed crime is how little anybody really cared. In fact, one woman questioned by telly over the weekend said the classic line: he was just saying what everybody is thinking. The people who were most vocal about Nashie's misbehaviour were the opposition MPs. Particularly Mark Mitchell and David Seymour. "A flagrant overreach of ministerial authority and an instantly sackable offence" they chanted in unison. What Stuart Nash did was suggest what the police should do operationally. The Cabinet manual for all parties forbids this. It also forbids instructing the judiciary. These are facts that the opposition choose to ignore when they spin their "the Government is soft on crime" line. Operationally the police and the judiciary will be exactly the same no matter what the government. And last week the talkback also seemed to ignore was is really possible. We had suggestions of trucking offenders off to other countries and overseas detention camps. International Law Courts might have something to say about that, I said. Callers wanting judges to be told to increase their sentences. Can't do that they're independent. Mark Mitchell even phoned and said what was needed was more wrap around services, which is exactly Labour's line, and military academies. Which he told me were already operating well in Whenuapai and elsewhere. Now I can find no mention of military academies for offenders anywhere in New Zealand. The closest is Vanguard school, which is a special character school which started as a charter school. It's one that requires a voluntary choice by parents and kids who are committed to a change. And the thing that Defence Forces have told me is that they don't want feral, foetal alcohol affected, life time crims to rehabilitate. And towards the end of the conversations, a caller texted me and said you've dismissed all our ideas, what are yours? I guess the first thing I'd do is support the police more. Having talkback callers parrot an opposition line that police have no respect anymore damages only the police and empowers the crims.   I'd insist on a standard ratio of police numbers to population. An idea and target floated in 2022 but still being missed. The problem is churn. We're employing new police, but they're not replacing the police who have had enough and are leaving the force. So I would up the numbers of new police. And like everyone, I'd like to toe rags identified early and interventions put in place. Policing and crime is not simple and the soft on crime rhetoric helps no-one. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have you ever considered how amazing it is that the health system operates at all. If you think about the pure logistics of every operation that will happen in New Zealand today, it is an awesome collaborative exercise that most industries couldn't match. A half dozen extensively skilled practitioners have to meet in a purpose built room. Some of them will have studied for 15 years or more to be at this level. The surgeons not only need knowledge but physical prowess and stamina as surgeries can last as long as 12 hours or more. The whole team need to be spotlessly clean and hygienic.  As does every piece of highly technical equipment they're about to use. An army of post operative carers need to be ready to provide 24 hour attention after the procedures. It's a small miracle that happens every day and we take it for granted. But at the same time as recognising the brilliance of our health system, we also have to admit the system is broken. The past weeks' headlines of staff shortages, room shortages and bureaucratic bungles are evidence of this. So how can we have a system packed full of so many intelligent, skilled and hard working professionals fail so spectacularly. At first glance, miserable investment by successive Governments. As the population of New Zealand swelled by half a million over the past dozen years, did we see a corresponding increase in facilities and staff? No, we saw extravagant claims of extra funding which in reality was barely keeping up with inflation. Auckland City Hospitals new building was opened 20 years ago.  It has 1100 beds and saw Greenlane Middlemore and Starship integrated into one complex. Auckland got less beds at a  time when it needed more. Our traditional DHB model never helped with competing regions sabotaging each other. And we have a bureaucratic class between the politicians and the workers that spend more time trying to hide the deficiencies and avoiding blame than they do trying to make sure the dollars reach the patients. We know this after the departing spray by outgoing chairman Rob Campbell. A man who was not appointed to overhaul the system as people erroneously say, but to oversee the people charged with the overhaul. As we heard he was not impressed with their torpor. Are we prepared to fix the system. I don't believe so. We're too busy using it as a political weapon. When former Minister David Clark threw Ashley Bloomfield under the bus during the Covid days we roundly turned on him.  The concept of Ministerial responsibility. But as the Simpson Roche report showed us. The Ministry was failing to inform Bloomfield and the Government accurately, meanwhile not dispersing orders downward. It's a broken underfunded, understaffed system with some mandarins who are hesitant to change. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So it is now officially the silly season as Christopher Luxon finally got off his State of the Nation speech and released his first policy in the election year. And who saw that coming? National has promised it would give households with a joint income of up to 180-thousand dollars a year a 25 percent rebate on their child care costs. Now strangely enough the last politician to use an early education bribe was Jacinda Ardern. And that was only last November and the new settings come in next month. National has taken that policy a bit further.  It's a classic case of not staying in your lane, hijacking another party's policy to swing some of their supporters your way. And that makes it good politics. The policy is not cheap at $249 million dollars. But National says it will claw that money back from the amount consultants currently charge the government.  There's a certain irony that National will fire consultants to give tax rebates so that parents can hire consultants to look after their children. Now painting the consultants as the bogeymen makes sense on one hand and none on the other. As Ben Thomas said yesterday "no-one has sympathy for consultants," so they're fine to paint as bad guys. But I think you'll find an awful lot of the consultant economy vote national so they won't be feeling the love. Consultants are a 1.7 billion dollar slice of our economy. Target them and the economy at large will take a hit. It's easy to scapegoat consultants. But we need to remember that government after government of all colours has made the consultant a more and more necessary evil. Since the 80s governments have tried to reduce the size of the civil service and their pay by coring out their full time paid experts and hiring consultants project by project. Private practice has been doing this for years. It's the call centre in the Philippines trick. National has uses them as much as anyone because they are always on a mission to reduce the public service. So now it works like this. Politicians, who know nothing, come up with an idea. They hand it to the Civil Service, who have no idea, so they hire a consultant to find out if the idea works and if it does they then advise how to make the idea happen. More and more the consultants are the ones who scope, cost, plan, and facilitate large projects like roads, bridges, flood protection, and water needs. So, if you reduce public services you will need private consultants. Which means the question for National going forward will be, "How can you reduce both public servants and consultants if you want anything to be done?" And maybe the answer is that National hasn't got anything it wants done.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former National MP Chester Borrows has died, aged 65. He was diagnosed with cancer last year. Borrows campaigned in two elections before winning the Whanganui seat in 2005, which he held for four terms. He served as Courts Minister and Deputy Speaker of the House in John Key's Government, before retiring in 2017. Andrew Dickens reflected on the political legacy of Chester Borrows after his death. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As part of getting back to basics and bread and butter, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced that Three Waters is over. Just the name, mind It's an acknowledgement that the Opposition's campaign against Three Waters has tarnished its’ name.  So it's gone.  Not the reform. Just the name That was met by crowing by National Party members. In reply, I have said all along that I will not be voting for any party that doesn't have a cogent water reform policy. If you've listened to me you'll know that Labour's water reform rankles with me because of the appropriation and redistribution of assets and debt raised on them.  It penalised the councils doing well and rewarded councils that have been slack in investment and maintenance. But it did address the issue of raising enough equity to fund the work that is necessary for a water system we can be confident in So I was quite excited to see that National had finally stirred itself to present a water reform policy which they've called "Local Water Done Well". So what is it? Well in Chris Luxon's words: "a National Government will set and enforce strict water quality standards and require councils to invest in the ongoing maintenance and replacement of their vital water infrastructure, while keeping control of the assets that their ratepayers have paid for" So far that's what we already have. But it's made even harder for councils because the Government will create an agency to oversee and demand the Councils do a good job. So there will be greater scrutiny and obligation on Councils to get it right, which is going to cost a lot of money.  So where's that coming from? National will ensure that water assets and income are ring fenced from the Council's other activities so they'll be able to raise capital separately from the Council's books. But that doesn't help smaller councils with less assets and ratepayers To help them they suggest the smaller cash strapped councils band together and form regional co-operatives to give them the ability to raise more money.  I'm starting to laugh now because that just seems like Three Waters, only voluntary. National's plan is magical thinking. It's the status quo with even more costs. It's worth reminding yourself that Water Reform is necessary because we don't have enough water pipes and the ones we do have are breaking and leaking and we need money to fix them.  It doesn't matter if that money is $130 billion as Labour says, or $100 billion, or $50 billion.  It's money that Councils don't have and to get it we're all going to have to pay more. Either through sky rocketing rates or massive new water charges. National doesn't address that.  Nor does Labour.  So I guess I'm voting for no-one this year. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been a week since I was on the radio. It's been one of the worst weeks in New Zealand as Cyclone Gabrielle did its worst in areas that were not expecting it. There's much to talk about the present but talk has started about the future. To fix our battered country up is going to take a lot of money. 13 billion was Grant Robertson's first forecast. Where do we find that? Over summer I was bailed up by a grandfather who felt for his grandchildren who were being lumbered with a crippling debt because of this bloody socialist government. I said the debt is not that bad in reality. This weekend Stephen Toplis the BNZ economist talked about our current debt to GDP target of 21.4%. Currently we're about 30 percent. Now to give you some context on that debt. Japan tops the list at over 250% debt to GDP, The United States is around 120%, Canada 110%, the UK at 100%.  Now sure, these are not levels to aspire to. So let's look at our brothers Australia. They're on 36%. My point is that we're not the macro financial basketcase that many make us out to be because they just hate a left wing government. I don't care what the government's colour is. I just care about the numbers. So Stephen Toplis says if we move the debt target from 20.4 to 27 percent then that's 20 billion we can borrow without any impact on our debt rating. The numbers say we can do this. So take heart. But it's important that we rebuild better. Take the Redclyffe substation that serves Napier. Even at a casual glance it looks vulnerable. Built by the sea, by a river, and on a flood plain. The substation was designed in 1927 and refurbished in the 1970s and was designed to withstand a “one in 100 year” flood. Now first it's important to understand 1 in 100 year floods.  What that actually means is that they have a 1 per cent chance of flooding in any given year. It's an international standard thought to be a fair balance between protecting the public and overly stringent regulation. With over 300 days in the year it's possible to have 1 in 100 year floods 3 times In fact if you know anything about statistics and the concept of annual exceedance probability you'll know that the real probability is that there'll be a flood every 20 years. Water experts have debated forever the wisdom of saying a 1 in 100 year flood when what they're really saying is a 1 in 20 year flood on average.  It gives false security This substation has had plenty of opportunity to be made more resilient but we didn't because we're cheap. The Napier expressway could have been raised higher over its flood plain but it wasn't. Our cellphone network can be made more resilient but it hasn't been. It's time to stop doing only enough to get by until tomorrow because it will only become more expensive the longer we leave it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Philip Duncan from WeatherWatch joined Andrew Dickens to give an update on Cyclone Gabrielle and the current weather around the country. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is so much to unpack from the great Auckland anniversary weekend flood and organisational screw up that I’m just going to detail a few points. Firstly that the storm was unexpected and unforecasted. Well, it was and it wasn’t. All Spring we were told that La Nina was into its third successive cycle. The implication of that was a very warm, wet, and windy summer. Well that sure came true. Some have immediately jumped onto the storm as evidence of climate change. Except this weather cycle was already predicted and has happened many times before. Climate change may be adding to the impact of La Nina, but that’s a very difficult calculation to make and certainly not one that should be barked at local body politicians hours after the event. Forecasters knew it would be a significant event, but not quite as significant as it turned out to be. That said, the fact that we sent 40,000 Elton John fans out into the eye of that storm and the concert was not cancelled until 15 minutes before showtime is still inexplicable to me. An earlier declaration of a state of emergency might have prevented the exodus of innocents into harm’s way. So, the state of emergency was not declared until 9.30 and then made public at 10.18pm at night. The Mayor explains that this was when the emergency services officially informed him that they were overwhelmed. This is all technically correct but it lacks basic common sense. It's not what the Mayor and his advisors got wrong. What was lacking was leadership and communication. Proactive leadership from a mayor and emergency staff. Geeing us up. Helping the spread of information. Auckland Emergency Management issued no social media alerts for four hours between about 6pm and 10pm. I find that incomprehensible. But also incomprehensible is that the Mayor didn't recognise the problem and kick them into action. Not for the first time, Mr Fixit didn't know what to do to fixit. Wayne Brown doesn’t get it but others do. Thank God.   Councillor Richard Hills was brilliant on twitter. Praised by Mt Albert MP Jacinda Ardern on Saturday for his compilation of info. Councillor Desley Simpson was the real Mayor on Facebook and posted all night long. Marcus Lush’s programme stopped my son going down an on ramp closed by a fallen tree with just minutes to spare From the Mayor’s office we got no advice on how to cope all Friday evening. We got one picture of him signing a piece of paper and that’s it. And that was symbolic arse covering. Look I did something. The next morning he was sniffy about twitter versus official channels. Well, Twitter saved my family mate. Welcome to 2023. Mayor Brown's performance is part of the pantomime of leadership amongst the politicians we see these days, which views the pursuit of political power as some sort of theatresport, rather than a competition of valid and workable ideas. We saw examples all week long. Jacinda Ardern steps aside for Chris Hipkins and suddenly we think that the Labour Party has essentially changed? Nicola Willis saying raising the minimum wage by a few cents would be inflationary after spending last year claiming a tax cut for the rich would not be. It’s time to remember: many of these politicians aren’t leaders, they’re politicians. They'll say anything to keep power and popularity. They’re people who don’t get that government is different than business because you have to worry about everything and everyone all the time and not just your mates. And it appears that many of them really don’t care for what Christopher Luxon charmingly calls the bottom feeders.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Happy New Year. It's nice to be back after a long summer break during a summer that was both brilliant and awful. When it was beautiful it was very beautiful and when it was horrible it was appalling. The East Coast mutilated not just by the elements but by the slash washed down from the hills. This is not the first time this has happened by any stretch and it has to stop.  The industry is well aware of the risk.  Like any industry you need to be able to clean up after you. And now the new year welcomes a new Prime Minister. Firstly, the resignation of Jacinda Ardern saw the most incredible outbreak of Jacinda Derangement Syndrome I've ever seen. Fans and acolytes from the left were left wailing and despairing. Truly bereft. Grown men crying. Meanwhile champagne corks were popping in the Koru Lounge, rural pubs filled up and the right wingers felt that all their troubles were over. All of which was a wild over exaggeration of Jacinda Ardern and her acheivements and abilities. For the past 5 years I've been saying that Ms Ardern was not as wonderful as her fans believed but nor as dangerous as her enemies said. But she was becoming a liability to her party. 5 years of mud throwing was sticking. The middle ground of voters were starting to believe the claims that she was a dictator and a control freak. That she was a narcissist ruling an idealogically driven cabal of communists committed to ruining everything about the country right up to changing the name unilaterally. So with a quick sidestep Cindy was replaced by Chippy. And that's an important point. An older generation used Cindy to infantilise her which was part of their misogyny. Hipkins used to hate Chippy but is now at home with it so that's an offensive weapon neutralised. Hipkins is a good call. He's a scrapper. He's got a thicker skin. He's not addicted to always being right. He's prepared to accept and admit he's made a mistake. He's a worker and he seems normal. Like the New Zealanders who vote. Like the New Zealanders who are doing it hard, and they're the people he mentions every time he's near a microphone. I see today on Twirtter that Matthew Hooten said: ‘In 3 days the Labour party rebranded themselves from Grey Lynn to Glendene and Wadestown to Naenae.’ And that's a good line. Meanwhile, take note that Chris Hipkins was on ZB this morning unlike the previous Prime Minister. He's prepared to stand his ground. Whether this is enough for Labour to regain the Treasury benches is a matter we'll have to wait and see. But I think they have more chance under Hipkins than Ardern. Hopefully it will be a wakeup call for National, who seemed to be sleep walking to the election. Christopher Luxon makes much of his party having real world experience but he seems to forget how new his troops are, and that Hipkins and Robertson do have real world experience that his Ministers don't. They've been running the shop for the past 5 years and should not be underestimated. It's making for a great election. I'm looking forward to the Hipkins-Luxon debates and the Robertson-Willis debates. And then we'll see who really has the chops to lead a country.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So the election result in the Hamilton West by-election is proof that this election year is going to be a thrilling ride. The electorate was always a soft blue one which swung hard red after the government's handling of Covid. But now it has swung back to the sort of political leaning it had before the pandemic. In fact it may have gone hard blue. But it needs to be taken with a grain of salt, as only 31 per cent of the electorate voted. The election was also missing a Green candidate, Gourav Sharma also took 1200 votes with him, which was a surprisingly good result in my book. Crucially National Leader Christopher Luxon also saw that it wasn't as one sided as some made out and warned the party against arrogance and lethargy. It must be tempting as a National party supporter to hear the constant criticism of this Government and then see the turning of the tide in polls being confirmed by this by election result and think you're home and hosed. And this Government is constantly criticised. "The most incompetent Government ever. A Government obsessed with control. A Government beholden to Maori interests. A Government with no business experience" But this is still a Government that won the biggest mandate in MMP history just 3 years ago.  It is a Government with 5 years on the Treasury benches. And National has a lot of new talent on its books after the evisceration of the last election.  Even its leader is only one term in. The Prime Minister's statement that the economy will be Labour's main focus this coming year is also a sign that they're beginning to see the writing on the wall. If they're smart they'll start jettisoning the policies that are starting to alienate voters. The RNZ/TVNZ merger. The hate speech legislation is disappearing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I went to Billy Joel on Saturday. Great concert. The sound for the top tiers of the stadium was not good, but I blame that on Billy's team who had a rushed set up. The video walls were also very loose but the music was amazing. The real beef was transport. There were no trains because Kiwirail scheduled maintenance without anyone looking at what was on that weekend. It created a lot of chaos. Now, I live on the Shore and taking a ferry and a train to Eden Park is normally a delight. So instead we opted to take our electric scooters to the Park taking the NW motorway bike path. Not ideal. Had to stay sober but hate delays and not fond of buses. So we ferried to downtown which took 15 minutes. Then rode up Queen Street and on to Eden Park.  That took us 15 minutes. Coming back it was well lit and we were in a hurry so it took us just 12 minutes. So it was surprisingly efficient and a lot of fun. But the real take home is that we were the only people on the bike path. Now, that's not the path's or the council's problem. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Aucklanders were offered a choice with the bike path. While rush hour is seeing big numbers no one chose it for the concert.  All the better for me. It's all about choice. I have a friend who lives round the corner from me who bikes. But he chose to Uber home from the concert. It cost him $100 and he arrived home an hour after me. My total transport cost was 5$ return on the ferry. So Michael Wood's transport spend up announced this weekend will be an investment that will never be appreciated unless New Zealanders freely make a choice to take a punt on PT. For that it needs to be safe and efficient. I have often talked about how I use public transport and bikes and electric scooters and I get swamped by texters telling me how they're not able to use public transport. They've got kids and sports practices and shopping to cart around. They seem to think I don't have the same pressures.  And of course I have 2 cars and I too use them for shopping and what not.   But when there is a choice and I weigh up the pros and cons I will take the scooter or the bus or the train or the ferry. But only when it makes sense. Bit by bit it is making sense. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We are now just moments away from the nationwide vigils and protests against retail crime planned to take place outside dairies and Labour MPs offices. This comes after the murder of 34 year old Janak Patel outside the Rose Cottage Dairy in Sandringham last Wednesday. In the half week of debate after this crime we have seemingly talked about every aspect of crime without touching the major factor behind the Rose Cottage crime. People assumed it was part of the ram raid fad that has taken hold this spring, that it was theft of cigarettes and vapes that have gained a new transactional value due to their high price due to the taxes imposed upon them. That the offenders were youth who have no fear of consequence from the NZ Police or Justice System. That this crime was spurned on by a government that is portrayed as soft on crime. As we have found out in the fullness of time, the alleged offender was 34. His accomplice 42. These were not kids.  It was not a ram raid.  They were after the cash register not the ciggies. There has been a consequence as the alleged offenders have been caught and charged. We found out that Rose Cottage has a long history of violent crime that pre dates this government, including being hit 2 months in a row in 2016 and one of those incidents was an armed robbery. And most tellingly we have discovered the alleged offender was deported from Australia. The grounds for his deportation from Australia cannot be reported for legal reasons but he joins a long list of deportees returned to New Zealand that have gone on to cause havoc. The 501 strategy of deporting New Zealanders on bad character assessments has been happening since 2016. In that time 3000 odd holders of New Zealand passports have been sent back to this country. They have boosted gang numbers and brought a new level of organisation and violence with them. They have committed 8000 offences with more than a third of those offences have been violent. We have been used as a rubbish bin and the Aussies know it which is why Peter Dutton famously called the policy taking the trash out. A new government is now in place and more sympathetic to New Zealand.  Does this mean the mass importation of criminals raised in Australia might stop? Well, the Australian Home Affairs Minister, Clare O'Neil, featured on Q&A yesterday. She said that while they were looking at the treatment of New Zealanders in Australia, the 501 deportation policy wasn’t going anywhere because it is an important national security policy for their country. So the mass importation of hardened criminals continues.   In my opinion it is the single biggest driver of a perceived rise in crime and yet we are powerless to resist.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The debacle that was the awarding of the Football World Cup to Qatar is once again back in focus with the start of the tournament. But make no mistake there's been controversy ever since the awarding of the tournament back in 2010. The appointment turned heads.  The smallest country to ever host the cup, the first Arab country. The first country to host the cup that had never qualified for the cup.  A country with little football history.  But a country with a lot of petro dollars The appointment came as 2 FIFA officials were suspended due to allegations of corruption and money laundering. And the appointment process has been tainted ever since even though there is now concrete allegation as yet. Immediately there was concern about human rights of the country's construction workers because they don't have any of their own. Arab countries have long imported their labour from South East Asia, paying them little and taking their passports causing allegations of modern day slavery. Meanwhile 10 years ago, the Guardian estimated that 4000 construction workers could die because Qatar's lax safety and employment history.  As it turns out they under-estimated the number to die and to date it's closer to 6500. So all this was predicted but the beginning of the tournament has still been fraught.  Ambassadors for the cup have expressed religous disgust for the LGBTQ community. Journalists have been stopped and threatened. At the 11th hour beer was banned from the stadiums upsetting major sponsor Budweiser. At today’s game the Ecudorean fans started chanting WE WANT BEER. The entire Australian squad has signed an open letter criticising Qatar. Rod Stewart told us he turned down 2 million bucks to croon a tune.  David Beckham has been shamed for taking the oil dollar. Tent camps have sprung up for the fans at 175 pounds a night to sweat it out under canvas in 40 degree heat. Others fly in jets to nearby Oman to find hotel beds in the middle of a climate crisis. The whole thing is a mess and not an advertisement for the so called "Beautiful Game" It's caused some people to say teams should boycott the tournament and that fans should not watch the games.  Which is all too little too late.  Where were you when this was all so obvious 12 years ago. My hope is that Qatar hears the criticism and joins the 21st Century.  Their money has taken their humanity. And FIFA’s. Football is a rich game enjoyed by the poor and all. Remember your roots.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Friday saw the committee charged with reviewing public submissions on the Three Waters water reform return their recommendations. Changes to co-governance was not in their list of suggestions It beggars belief that out of the 88,000 New Zealanders that bothered to make their voices heard that co-governance wasn't high on the list of concerns. But as I said on the Friday drive show, the lady is not for turning. Co-governance appears to be a hill that this Labour Government is prepared to die on. But as I also said on Friday, co-governance should be the least of your worries if you're concerned with creeping socialism. The Three Waters reform suggested is property theft and that's the reason that Phil Goff was against it and had to be bought off. This Government wants to seize assets paid for by ratepayers, amalgamate them and then borrow off them, so that funding for water stays off the Governments and Councils books. It's blatant nationalisation by a left wing government It's like needing to do urgent repairs on the house but you have no money.  So you take your neighbour's house and use it as equity to borrow money to fix your place. It's just wrong. But this is happening because the deferred maintenance and investment has become so huge that we don't have enough money to fix it. Meanwhile, National MP Simon Watts told TVNZ’s Q+A on Sunday that the party agrees there needs to be reform, but it opposes the Government's current proposals. So Jack Tame pressed Watts pretty hard on what National’s alternative model would be.  Watts said National would reveal its policy closer to the election. Frankly that's not good enough.  If Labour's dodgy scheme is the only game on the table then it will limp across the line. And reform is needed. Today the front page of the Wairarapa Times Age reports that close to half of all drinking water in the region is lost in leaks before it even gets to the tap. Meanwhile the region is booming with new houses. Imagine if you went to fill up your car and only half of it made it into the tank You wouldn't tolerate it. It has to be fixed. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A couple of weeks ago, I warned you that Winston is back and I was right. The latest political poll by Horizon Research released today finds New Zealand First with 6.75% support – and in a position to decide which parties would form a Government. This result would deliver the party 9 seats in a 120-seat parliament. So, Horizon finds Labour would win 40 seats, the Green party 15. A total of 55.  Not enough to form a Government. Meanwhile, National would win 37 seats and ACT 17. A total of 54.  Again not enough. Meaning that NZ First would be the kingmaker once again.  To get back into parliament the party needs either an electoral seat or 5% of the vote and on this poll it does that. Horizon is a company that involves Graeme Colman, ex of NBR, and other professionals with 30 odd years of experience so I don’t feel it is biased. So the coalition partners are stable. ACT continues to be strong with 13% of the vote but that seems to be coming from National voters.   This result should worry both the main parties.  Labour has continued to track down while National has stalled in tracking up. There’s a feeling that both parties are under performing. Labour’s problems are well documented. Grand promises, poor achievements. For instance, 100,000 Kiwibuild houses promised 5 years ago.  As of the end of last month we were at 1430 Kiwibuild houses. It’s a better picture for all public social housing with nearly 10,000 built in 5 years.  But remember that 4800 public houses have been sold or demolished in the same time. And so it goes on. It should be a free ride for National but it hasn’t been. Perhaps it’s that the electorate can see the emperor has no clothes on. Tax cuts are not a cost of living policy. They inject more money into those above the median wage and very little to those below. The wealthier continue to fuel the inflating prices while the poor suffer.   It’s economics 101 and the electorate can see it, they saw it in real time in the UK, and so centre right voters continue to leach to ACT. Of course National voters get conniptions whenever Winston hits kingmaker level because of the perceived treachery of his Labour coalition deal 5 years ago. But on the evidence of this poll perhaps they need to get over that because it doesn’t look like Winston’s going away. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As we digest the local government elections, it's important to realise that in the wider world our concerns are small change. Roadcones, cycleways and speed limits are small fry compared with Ukrainian war, global recessions and rampant inflation worldwide. And then there's climate change and controls on our emissions. In the past fortnight, you may not have noticed stories that put climate issues into perspective. The sabotage of the Russian gas pipe was the single greatest man-made climate disaster in history. The pure mass of methane that escaped into the atmosphere was incredible. Remember that methane is over 80 times more effective at warming the atmosphere than CO2. Decades of emission controls were written off in just a few days. Meanwhile, the Government admitted that the drive to replace the entire Government fleet with electric vehicles by 2025 is way off track. It's looking like 25% of the fleet will be electric, and not by 2025 but more like 2030. Why? There are just not enough electric vehicles available. Words are easy but actions are hard. On Friday, Environment Commissioner Simon Upton told us that to offset all our emissions with trees would require 2 thirds of our country to be pine forests, proving the unsustainability of offsets. Then there's the fact that came out of an Indian Dairy conference that the Indian cow herd is 10 times bigger than New Zealand's but New Zealand produces more milk than all of India. With a tenth of the cows and a tenth of the emissions. Showing that New Zealand's intensive and efficient farming is climatically better than India's. This all goes to show that the worldwide battle against emissions is failing. It shows that we've been lectured by simplistic group think by people who drive their cars to protests to tell us to emit less. Which is not to say we should give up. What it says is that we need to praise the small victories and not hysterically demand inefficient broad-stroke virtue-signalling policies. Because that is the real blah blah blah. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As this is my first time on ZB since the death of Elizabeth the Second, may I add my gratitude to the many who have praised her exceptional service. In the days since the expected but still devastating news I have been struck by how history is unfolding before our eyes. History is made up of milestones and crossroads and we are in the middle of an astounding period of change that we will all point to in the future. We are at the end of the Second Elizabethan age.  A 70 year period of incredible progress and modernisation, where technology has aided and abetted more individuality and self-determination than ever before. In coincides with the greatest pandemic for 100 years. The most impactful war since the World conflicts of last century.  Brexit and other economic developments changing world trade patterns. A worldwide inflation outbreak. And a climate that is becoming increasingly volatile. I feel people in the future will look back to this point as a significant point in this planet's history and here we are right in the middle of it. So change is in the air. And one of things that may change is the identity of our head of state. Already, many are saying why is a 73 year old Brit 12,000 miles away our head of state. And I get that. But my feeling is if it ain't broke, why fix it. We have a sophisticated political, constitutional and legal system that has evolved from our links with the Crown. As Head of State the King has no real power over our direction as a nation.  We are fully self-governing and autonomous. What he and his system does is provide is an impartial tool for when things go very wrong as they did in Australia in the Gough Whitlam years. For those unaware of the story the Australian Senate ended out in an impasse that crippled the country constitutionally.  Eventually the Governor General Kerr dissolved the Whitlam government, put opposition leader Malcolm Fraser in charge, and called a new election which Fraser won. To take such drastic action requires impartiality and a position beyond impunity.  You can't be seen to have a dog in the fight. The Crown has that position for countries like New Zealand and Australia. Political neutrality. The Armed Forces are also responsible to them which distances the Forces from accusations of political influence. And we get all this for next to nothing. To set up a President or a New Zealand Head of State would take a mountain of money and and bureaucracy. Add to all that the Maori point of view that the deal over nationhood and governance is with the Crown, then it's removal creates a wealth of issues over the Treaty which could become very fractious and further disadvantage Maori or settlers. Some say that we need to separate from the Crown to prove our national identity. To that I say our national identity is strong and independent. And so, if it ain't broke, why fix it?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another day and another debate on crime and what to do with it. There is no doubt the craze for ram raiding amongst the young has contributed to the perception that crime is out of control. Add to that the growing number of gun crimes particularly amongst the gangs.  It has led to a feeling that our streets are more unsafe than they've ever been before. It has led to the debate on crime to be all about punishment and all about crimes of violence and trespass. But the iceberg of crime is far bigger than we mostly hear and like an iceberg the biggest crimes are unreported. Jarrod Gilbert writes today about the incredible level of white collar crime we have in New Zealand and our laissez faire attitude towards it. He cites a couple of cases recently. The bloke charged with stealing $ 600,000 by defrauding the Covid wage subsidy.  Another case saw an allegation of an employer pocketing his staff's PAYE payments to the tune of $300,000. The size of the problem is even more evident when you look at the assets of criminals seized by the Police. On the list of the top nine people who have had assets seized or frozen only one was a gang member. The other eight were businessmen. The alleged illegal assets of the gang member made up just 3 per cent of the total assets of those on the list.  The combined assets of the white collar criminals loot was some $322 million. These are big numbers and big crimes but they're not supported by big sentences.  A fraudster who took investors for $115 million dollars was out of prison on parole after just 6 years. No New Zealand drug lord makes anything near that sort of illegal money. There's another statistic going about.  For every $1 stolen in common or garden crime, there's $40 stolen by white collar criminals. Who knows why we are so lenient on the business people defrauding the meek. The victims are legion.  The investors and super annuitants who lose their nest eggs and their security for the rest of of their lives.  The fraud that dwarfs any beneficiary fraud in this country.  But do the white collar criminals face the daily barrage of disgust that we direct at solo mums and residents of emergency housing. Maybe we just can't imagine that people who send their kids to nice schools and wear nice suits can be just as bad as any low life mongrel. If you're a tough on crime supporter you might want to get your dander up about that statistic.   White collar crime destroys lives in a far more widespread and invidious manner and the sooner we get tougher on it the better.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So last week, my opening comments centred on how opposition MPs and anti-government commentators have been fear mongering about the state of the economy. When it was published online it became one of our most commented on pieces of the day with over 500 people expressing what they thought. Many called me a Labour party apologist. A lot asked why I was praising Labour's management of the economy. Problem is; I wasn't.  Nowhere did I say Labour was doing a good job. In fact I'm on record as saying the Government and the Reserve Bank have not handled the reality of the economic situation appropriately. But, I'm also pointing out how many are exaggerating the possibility of economic gloom and doom for political effect. And the more it's said the more chances it has of becoming real. Last week a number of economists from home and abroad came out and said they don't believe New Zealand will fall into recession. But on Friday, retail figures came out with a 2.6 percent fall. The headline was "Fears of a recession as retail spending falls". A Westpac economist was interviewed. In it he actually said Westpac does not believe a recession is coming.  But the headline in the story did not give that impression did it? He said that hard goods like furniture and electronics were down but he also pointed out that the comparative figures were swollen by the pandemic, when we didn't travel we just bought a new telly online. He did warn of a Christmas slowdown citing shipping costs, petrol and interest rates, but one of the biggest factors he highlighted was consumer confidence. People believing bad times are coming closing their wallets.  Probably because they keep hearing fears of recession headlines. We are talking ourselves into hard times. Liam Dann interviewed two visiting Australian economists in the weekend, including the guy who invented the phrase ‘Rockstar Economy’ for New Zealand. He's one who does believe that a recession is likely.   Both believe that Australia and New Zealand are very well placed to be the fastest recovering economies on Earth inside the next year.   Our government spending was excessive but not as bad as most. Shipping prices are falling rapidly. We don't have the energy crisis that Europe is about to undergo and our primary exports are still desirable. That's the story I prefer hearing rather than biased players calling us a basket case to get rid of the incumbent government.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I only work at Newstalk ZB one day a week so I've been spared having to talk about the Guarav Sharma drama. Or as we now know the Sharma Drama. But my god it's still going.   Over the weekend he revealed that Kieran McAnulty called him a terrible MP and that was bullying. Knowing how fruity Kieran's language can be, I think Gourav got off lightly. There's a reason Kieran's a whip. He's good with the old don't argue. I've realised that the MP for Hamilton West really doesn't like being yelled at. Sharma's maiden speech in February 2021 alleges a paediatric surgeon bullied him while he was at university. It also contained many claims of bullying and racism while he was on the campaign trail. Sharma appears to feel he's been bullied his entire life. It was the Prime Minister's turn this morning and she once again ruled out an investigation saying that there needs to be a threshold to instigate these things. Otherwise any time anyone called anyone a bully or a racist we'd have investigation after investigation. We of course can't judge whether that threshold has been reached as all we have so far is the good Doctor's account because the PM is not open and transparent. Anyway, this "he said she said" thing is terribly frustrating and has kept the issue in the headlines for nearly 2 weeks now. So some say that the launching of an investigation would at least shelve the conversation. They point to National hiring a QC to investigate Sam Uffindell which has silenced the debate. That may be so but what will that investigation prove? Mr Uffindell has already admitted his misdemeanour. And secondly, Mr Luxon has already stated that the result of the investigation will not be publicly released. If there is an investigation but no public result has there really been a result at all? The debate may have been silenced but not the practices and attitude that sparked the whole thing in the first place. Just shows that National is just as good, possibly better, at hiding their dirty laundry as Labour. And that was the way I felt throughout the whole Sharma drama. None of it surprised me. Politicians have been playing games like this for years. National was perfectly capable of fudging Official Information requests. Labour appears to have lifted the bar to a new high or should that be low point. It's all brought our respect for politicians to such a depth. It's why we have such polarised debate now. It's why our debate has fallen to name calling with words like liars and corruption thrown around willy-nilly. And it makes me nostalgic for the days when the backbench would wage war on the front bench over policy issues and not office demeanour.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So let's be honest with each other Did you, in your darkest heart, secretly hope the All Blacks would lose to prove that Ian Foster was always the wrong man. To get Scott Robertson into the driving seat? C'mon. Many did. Some even admitted it on social media. Now if you did, it's quite a dark place really. Actively rooting against your own team, even if you think it would be best for the team eventually.   Diehard fans would be disgusted. They'd call you a fairweather fan. Not there for the team, only to share in their glory. If you're important enough or your voice is loud enough the players may hear of it and it may crush their spirit which no-one wants. It's OK to think that others could do a better job but there is no benefit in wishing for failure. I say this because for some time I've been appalled by the number of people who appear to want New Zealand to fail because they don't like the current Government. It's almost like they're hoping for a recession just to prove to everybody, or maybe just to themselves, that the Government is an ignorant, economically illiterate mess. It's important to differentiate between those people analysing the economy as scientifically as they can and others offering opinion for their own benefit. You get that negative stink off the Opposition right now who would be the only leaders praying for economic Armageddon, because it may see them elected to the benches. But hoping and praying for economic doom is not a sound idea. Either you inherit the doom and it proves hard to fix, or the doom never really arrives, making you look stupid. There is no arguing that New Zealand is doing it tough at the moment but that's true of every economy on Earth. Every government running an economy is falling backwards in popularity no matter what side of the political fence they're on. But awkwardly, New Zealand might not be heading for doom. The ANZ last week in their quarterly outlook suggested we look like avoiding recession.   They predict inflation will be at 2.5 percent next year. Goldman Sachs has also come out and said that both Australia and New Zealand will skip recession. Sydney based Capital Economics sees the cycle turning even faster with the OCR going no higher than 3.5 percent and three cuts next year. Jucy, the motorhome rental firm, has just announced a $40 million credit line to buy more homes due to demand. A mate of mine who runs a tourism firm in his retirement is complaining about working too hard and his forward orders are huge. If it all adds up to the economy looking better by next year's election, not worse, that could prove problematic for all those predicting doom and gloom.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So the National Party conference was held over the past weekend in Christchurch. Things went well until late on Sunday night when planes started being cancelled and MPs and party members went mumbling off into the wet cold winters’ night in search of a bed. The conference was organised and dull which is just what a party wants. An action filled conference is not the sign of a settled party. But they seem settled on Luxon and Willis and so the game continues with a policy thrown out to keep the party in public discussion. Maybe I've just been in the game too long, but I could have guessed it would be some sort of benefit policy that says something along the line of kids don't want to work, benefits are a lifestyle and the Ministry of Social Development are useless. Which is exactly what they said. I've heard these plans so many times in so many guises. I wonder where this army of competent community advisors are going to come from in a time of skilled staff shortages, and I wonder about the cost of bureaucracy to monitor the spending of taxpayers dollars by NGOs and third party providers. But that's the National way. In an election year, tax cuts and benefit bashing are their bedrock. But here's a thing. Is National really promising tax cuts? ACT finally called their potential coalition partner out this weekend pointing out that National is not planning tax cuts at all but just shifting the brackets. Their release says tax bracket indexation is just Labour's tax policy adjusted for inflation. Therefore it’s not a tax cut. It’s tax tinkering that effectively freezes Labour tax policy in time. Which, of course, it is. Always has been. Brackets haven't moved under three administrations now, both National and Labour. That's nearly a decade of increased tax revenue year on year. That's nearly a decade of people being placed into higher tax brackets than they can afford. It really is a rort. It's not the rich getting richer that bothers me. It's the policies from both parties that see the poor getting poorer that makes our country impoverished.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just at the moment when New Zealand should be getting back to business, the wheels keep falling off for this Government. On Sunday, we finally opened up completely to the rest of the world.  After two and a half years the so-called hermit kingdom was over. There's even a cruise ship scheduled to arrive in a few weeks We should be emerging triumphant, but we're not. Today we're bickering over a government handout that's supposed to help with the cost of living crisis but is proving to be a thorn in the side of the Labour Government. And it is probably just going to make inflation worse. Nicola Willis and the National Party are claiming that overseas residents are going to be getting the three instalments of $116.67, even though they don't live here. Ms Willis claims a man living in Dubai who has not been a NZ resident for 22 years is going to be getting the payments and he's feeling embarrassed. This is an outrage, if it's true. But you should never totally believe a politician. So 2.1 million people are in the process of getting a payment or an email from the IRD, who have been charged with running the scheme. The letter says all sorts of things. Only people who have filed their IR3 returns or taxed at source will get the money. So you need to have earned taxable income from NZ to be eligible and to have paid it. You have to be a tax resident. You also have to have a current functioning New Zealand bank account. And all the way through it says YOU MAY BE ELIGIBLE. Which is not to say you will get the money. There are many reasons why many people will get the money around the world.  It is because they are taxpayers and therefore their taxes are being used to be given back to them.  But I'm picking that Mr Dubai will not get a cent. However, Handout Shame was the headline in the paper. So this is a badly designed bureaucratic mess that rewarded tax residents, not just physical residents. Add to that the people who most need it are denied it. The poorest beneficiaries and the OAPs who are paid the winter energy payment But that is not its worst crime. Before we even come to who gets it or not, this pork barrel exercise will barely help ease the cost of living while at the same time add fuel to the inflation fire. Because, despite what the Prime Minister said on Q and A yesterday, it will be inflationary. Just for the record. All excessive spending is inflationary. Government spending, corporate spending, excessive profits and even private spending It all spills cash into an economy, increasing demand at a time when supply is limited. So the lesson from today is carry on with business but remember all politicians never tell the whole truth.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’ve spent the weekend trying to figure out if the New Zealand Prime Minister has done a good job for the country in her overseas trip or not.Firstly, the new extended OE deal which sees working holiday visas extended by a year both in the UK and for UK citizens coming here. And allows it for up to 35 year oldsIt’s not surprising that the UK was prepared to give a little on this. Their labour shortage is even more acute than ours. Not only have they suffered Covid lockdowns and all the other pandemic related economic pressure, but it all came on top of Brexit.Brexit saw a lot of cheap European labour excluded from the UK and according to the Office for National Statistics, there were 1.3 million positions waiting to be filled in the first quarter of 2022, nearly 500,000 more than before the pandemic struck.  Of course they want more New Zealanders.UK citizens have reciprocal rights but will that influx match the outflow of Kiwis.I doubt if it will.  Firstly, there are too many people telling our young folk that this country is a dog so that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Secondly, if you remember, this current Government was elected on a promise to reign in immigration. Remember? Lots of you voted for it. Or did you not read the manifesto?Then there’s the Free Trade Deal with Europe.Many complained we folded and maybe we did. Certainly right up to the eve of the signing the Prime Minister was saying we would walk away. But my feeling is that Europe was prepared to play even harder.After all, we are just 5 million people on the other side of the world opposed to their 500 million.They have war on their doorstep and 27 nations whose farmers are deeply suspicious of us taking their business and there’s a growing sense that shipping our foods halfway around the globe is bad for the planet.So I look at the benefits.It’s better than any Free Trade agreement we’ve had before because we’ve never had one. This has taken 14 years to wrangle and I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t want to get into another decade long negotiation.It’s not bad for dairy and beef. But it’s pretty great for horticulture, wine, honey and seafood. And how long have we been going on about diversification?Dairy and beef’s beef with the deal is that it affords them no growth, but with many already saying we’re at peak cow where were they expecting to get the product from? Their complaints also centre on a dollar value of current exports, but the deal is in fact based on tonnage. So if you want to make more money, sell stuff for more. Surely this is another factor towards adding more value to our exports to sell them for more.I see this deal as a chance to reset ourselves. To keep doing what we’re doing but add to our arsenal of products and markets.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You’ll be pleased to know you’re not about to hear another white middle-aged man pontificate about abortion.  But I will talk about the effect of the ruling. That Christopher Luxon felt compelled to make a public statement on the future of this country’s laws based on a decision in another sovereignty with a completely different system shows the emotion and polarity behind the issue. Now, the decision is not a surprise.  Republicans have been working towards this outcome for years and when it comes to Supreme Court judges, we’re talking very long games. The Democrats also play the game which is why there was so much pressure on Ruth Bader Ginsburg to resign during Obama’s tenure.  She didn’t, but then died under Trump meaning he had the card to play in the game of “stack the Supreme Court”. As an outsider I am always amazed at the political influence in choosing the Supreme Court in the United States.  It flies in the face of the traditional pillars of democracy and society. The four pillars are the judiciary, executive, legislative, and media.  To work properly and to hold each other to account, they need to operate separately.  But in allowing the legislative and executive wings to choose the judiciary that kind of all goes out the window, don’t you think? Now one of the reasons it resonates in this country is because at the centre of the issue is a state’s power over an individual’s body. This has been echoed here recently in our vaccination mandates. Over the weekend I hosted an unvaccinated friend of my son’s and eventually the conversation turned to his motives and concerns. It was emotional and compelling and I was left feeling that he feels a second-class citizen in this country He asked me, “How can a government tell us we have to have something injected into our bodies”. It’s a valid question. My way of reasoning was it was a short term measure to get vax rates up. The mandate was necessary to get to a minimum level of immune resilience to the virus. That resilience was needed to minimise transmission times and maximimise survival rates To motivate all without a deep-rooted reservation against vaccination.. I thought it was going to be a temporary measure. Once we reached over 90 per cent vaccination rates I thought that it was mission accomplished and the mandates could ease, which mostly they have. Except for health workers. A sector suffering huge work force shortages. I find it hard to reconcile the fact that all New Zealanders can enter the country unvaccinated but an unvaccinated doctor can’t work. Some may argue it’s the Government’s desire for control. I don’t. They’re not that organised. It’s a job that’s fallen through the crack and needs to be addressed today. Lives and livelihoods were taken and they need to be returned right now.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We live in a world beset by problems right now.Having spent 2 years being ravaged by a pandemic we have entered an age of inflation and economic uncertainty.The world is full of bear markets crashing around us with the exception of crude oil prices that are up 6 per cent in the past month fuelling on more inflation. It’s a vicious cycle.And one of the most immediate crises is in the health sector.Tomorrow is the Winter solstice and the official start of deepest winter.For a long time now this has meant a crunch time for our health system. Respiratory illnesses like flu and RSV overwhelm our hospitals. But now we have the victims of Covid added into the mix.For weeks now we’ve had health workers saying it’s an emergency, that we’re at breaking point. We’re understaffed, under resourced, underfunded and that people will die because of it.The Health Minister maintains his line to maintain public confidence that we are coping. But the stories of brain bleed victims uncared for 8 hours who then die puts lie to that.Meanwhile, Andrew Little continues to blame National for the sorry state of the health system. On Friday his office released a statement that said “The health system has been under serious pressure from years of neglect and underinvestment.”National’s Shane Reti responded to that saying that he will own all the things that his party did right and did wrong over the 9 years they were in power. But then he turned it back on Andrew Little saying that he’s had 5 years to ease the problems and now it’s his problem to own.As I see it, both parties and all New Zealanders need to own the problem and drive the answer because this is not a quick fix.To build an ICU bed you need to find 18 new staff to operate it.To improve primary care we need to find thousands of doctors.To have safe hospitals a third of them need to be ripped down and built again.This all takes time.Health spending and plans have a 5 to 10 year time lag to them. It takes that long from budgeting some money to the money having a real effect.It takes 5 years to train a fully qualified nurse and 8 years to train a junior doctor and that’s nowhere near creating specialists.This crisis was 30 years in the making.Labour is now embarking on a half billion dollar restructure of the health system that National won’t support.This is not good.Health is too important to be politicised this way. We need a plan that has consensus and a timeline that exceeds political terms.The sooner we get all Health planning and funding out of the hands of politicians the better.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Has everyone else been as blown away as I have about the vigour and speed with which China has decided to woo our Pacific neighbours? And is everyone else as worried as I am about our preparations for a new geo politics in our backyard? The Chinese Foreign Minister is in the middle of a whistle-stop tour of 8 Pacific nations. He carries with him millions and millions of dollars in aid and development funds and in return, all he wants is Chinese access and influence. Over the weekend he was in Samoa. They signed up immediately. They spoke about climate change, the pandemic and peace and security. Things that Australia, New Zealand and the United States have consistently failed to do. The things the Pacific are really worried about. We have taken the Pacific for granted and paid them lip service and now we have competition for our influence. This is prompting a wave of concern about what we can do. Which is all a little too little and too late Yesterday on Q&A, one expert said it's time to invest more in defence and I totally agree. Back in the 90s when I first appeared on talk radio one of my first opinion pieces asked when we were going to fund our defence forces adequately. A few people called me a warmonger. But remember this is defence. Not offence. We're sparsely populated islands far from any allies. It is prudent to be defensive. And we have a massive exclusive economic zone that needs monitoring. There's a basic rule of thumb that nations should spend 2 per cent of their GDP of defence.  We've never come near to that in modern times. Currently, we spend 0.7 per cent. That's actually bordering on negligence. What makes it worse is that underfunding has gone on year after year after year. And with every year of underfunding, we slip further and further behind. Defence is an expensive and slow process. Our frigate Te Mana has been in Canada for the past 3 years undergoing an upgrade which has been beset by cock ups which have blown out the cost to between 6–700 million dollars. Because we have so little kit the absence of this ship has left us virtually defenceless. I see National has promised to lift defence spending to 2% of GDP but how that marries with their quest to cut government spending and taxes, I'll never know. What I do know is that now is not the time to stop investing in some basics. For a couple of generations, we have failed to invest in our security, our policing, our health system and our education.  We are seeing all those chickens come home to roost. It's time to grow up.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to budget week and welcome to the immediate aftermath of the Covid pandemic. Is the pandemic over? No, far from it. Temporary labour shortages as the virus works its way through the population means everything will be difficult for some time yet. Nearly half our music station staff were off last week after one company super spreader event. Productivity was knocked for 6. Who needs the Government to lock us down when we do it to ourselves. Meanwhile, the post-pandemic hangover affects the whole world and it's having a political fall-out. In Australia, Scott Morrison looks in doubt as Labour blames him for a cost-of-living crisis. In America, Biden is losing ground because he's blamed for a cost-of-living crisis. Boris Johnson will be lucky to survive as Labour hammers him for a cost-of-living crisis. All the Governments that have steered the world through Covid are now being made to pay for it. They're being blamed for the profligate spending that kept businesses afloat. But at the time they were blamed during lockdowns for not doing enough. There's no pleasing some people. But as Liam Dann pointed out in the weekend, simplistic tribal politics is the driver of opinion and not reasoned economic debate. So, on Thursday Grant Robertson will announce his government spending. $6 billion dollars' worth it's said. On health and climate change mostly. Already many people are criticising the spending without knowing what it is. National's Christopher Luxon criticises spending unless it's targeted.   And he's criticising the Government for not having spent more money on ICU beds. He says that's what he'd invest in. So, I'm not sure he understands what that means. I'm not sure that we all do. An ICU bed is nothing. It's a bed and some kit. The problem is the staff for that bed. It takes six nurses a shift to staff an ICU bed. That's 18 nurses a day. But New Zealand is already 4,000 nurses short.  So, if you want more ICU beds first you need to find more nurses. Thousands and thousands more nurses. They don't grow on trees. And you have to pay them. Pay them well. Better than they are now. Because you will have to attract nurses from overseas. Plus, you'll have to train new ones. If you can find them. Honestly. Fixing health problems is going to cost 10s of billions of dollars because of 40 years of underinvestment since Rogernomics. So, is it right to criticise the Government for spending on something that we should have spent on before? Is waiting till better times truly prudent? The question is, if not now, when?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Newstalk ZB Chief Political Reporter Jason Walls joined the show to unpack the Emissions Reduction Plan and explain how it all works and what it will cover.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After taking over the world tiny brick by tiny brick, the global phenomenon LEGO® Masters NZ is coming to TVNZ 2.Hosted by Dai Henwood, LEGO Masters will test the imaginations and the building skills of six teams in our first national brick-off.Dai’s sidekick, Brickmaster Robin Sather will set a colourful mix of new and classic LEGO building challenges, which will be judged on aesthetics, technical and storytelling ability. All in the hopes to find the first team in Aotearoa judged worthy to hold aloft the coveted LEGO Masters trophy.Brickmaster Robin Sather joined Andrew Dickens to chat about the show.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, here it comes. A budget and an election. The season of politicians treating us like idiots and believing they can bribe us into their camp. Labour has released details of police and crime funding that will be announced formally in the budget on May 19. It's a 562-million-dollar package which always sounds impressive. But as always, it's spread over 4 years. In fact, when you look at the numbers and think of the current rate of inflation and cost escalation the whole thing is barely treading water. The headlines are about helping businesses through this ram raid epidemic. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no detail of this help because it doesn't exist yet. How stupid do they think we are. It's an example of a political party trying to shoehorn its existing policy into the news cycle of the day. It's just the same as National swearing black and blue that its intentions to cut tax are to help people through an increase in cost of living while knowing full well that a tax cut is even more inflationary than the same amount of government spending. People spend tax cuts on smaller consumables and not on building new hospitals. When asked if New Zealanders know how to spend their money better than governments do, you can say yes. On themselves but not on community initiatives like new roads or public transport or police forces. Meanwhile, ACT releases its alternative budget which features a 5.3 billion dollar cut in Government spending. They swear black and blue that health, education and policing would not be touched, but the list of cuts is impressive. Say goodbye to the Forestry Programme, Research and Development Tax credits, film subsidies, both international and domestic, pest control, pine control – all shovel ready projects – all funding for Callaghan Innovation. And if you're connected to any spending for Māori or women or Pasifika then say goodbye to the gravy train. Then to cap it off they want to raise the super to 67 by 2025. Which is just 3 years away. The super will rise every 2 months for 2 years. This is an austerity budget in all sense of the words and you'd have to wonder who would vote for it. Has nobody in ACT got a memory that goes back to Ruth Richardson's Mother of All Budgets back in the 90s and the pain that put New Zealanders through? It would be impossible to implement. It's virtue signalling. So, 3 parties and 3 waffly bits of policy which all miss their mark.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the Government dropped the latest iteration of its Three Waters water reform on Friday, I was left with the question: “what on earth do you want to achieve with all this?”  For more than 2 years, local and central Governments have been struggling with the issue of water reform.Reform is necessary as too many New Zealand households have substandard water and wastewater services. Meanwhile, antiquated pipes are losing 20% of the water we’ve gathered.  Meanwhile, most of our cities and towns have done a good job in collecting and distributing the water we’ve collected and disposed of the waste we’ve produced.  But the other half has not done a good job and it’s inherently due to underinvestment.  They have underinvested because either their rating base is too small or their electorate cannot see the benefit in higher rates or water charges to fix pipes they can’t see. So, we need to fix them. Why the Government has made it such a minefield is anyone’s guess. The government’s answer is to gather up all the assets. Put them in 4 big groups and let the entities borrow off the assets and fix up the bad areas.   Understandably, this hacks off the places that have done a good job, who see their hard work being siphoned off to subsidise the bad players.  But the Government has also chosen to shoehorn a co-governance factor into the whole she-bang which has caught the attention of the race warriors both for and against. Even though the co-governance model is now so watered down as to be nothing but a bit of virtue signalling with no teeth. But it doesn’t matter. Expect politician after politician to stir the pot that the water’s being given to the Māori. Already that issue is enough for National to say they will reverse and repeal Three Waters when they get into government which they have a fair chance of doing. Water is too important and too basic to all human beings to be turned into a political football. Surely reforms need to be accepted by us all and not controversial. The problem has never been governance but money. My solution has always been to set up a $100 billion dollar water infrastructure bank and fund the necessary work. Too bad it ends out on our core debt.  Getting water right is the first thing a grown-up society does. Ask the Romans.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you're in Christchurch, you'll now need a resource consent to rent out accommodation through Airbnb or any other online booking platforms.The consent won't expire once you've got it, but to get it will cost at least $1000.Airbnb don't like it and are calling the move the most restrictive and outdated home sharing laws in Australasia.Christchurch City Councillor Mike Davidson joined Andrew Dickens.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In just her second Olympics Zoi Sadowski-Synnott has completed her collection of medals, but a historic second gold will have to wait. The snowboarding sensation has been forced to settle for silver in today's big air final in Beijing, upstaged by defending champion Anna Gasser. The Austrian seized gold in a breathtaking climax, becoming the first woman to land a 1260 in Olympic competition with the penultimate jump in the final. That left top qualifier Sadowski-Synnott with one last shot to retake the lead but, unlike in her slopestyle victory nine days ago, she was unable to respond and couldn't quite land a 1260 of her own. The silver medal will still sit triumphantly alongside her slopestyle gold and the bronze she claimed in big air four years ago, when Gasser first took top spot on the podium. Sadowski-Synnott has now claimed the majority share of all the medals New Zealand have won at the Winter Olympics, and nothing about her performance in Beijing suggested she would be stopping at three. The 20-year-old said yesterday that the nature of the competition meant the top riders all knew what one another's best tricks were and felt genuine joy when their rivals landed a jump that had taken countless hours of hard work. Zoi Sadowski-Synnott performs a trick during the women's snowboard big air final. Photo / Getty Standing at the top of the ramp after Gasser had stormed into the gold-medal position, any joy for Sadowski-Synnott was put on hold as she took a few deep breaths and prepared for her final action of these Games. But after she barely failed to land her attempt at a 1260, a jump she completed while winning double gold at the X Games last month, it was clear the Kiwi was as excited as anyone with Gasser's performance. The pair exchanged a couple of big hugs while the scores were confirmed, Gasser taking gold with a combined 185.50 from her two best jumps as Sadowski-Synnott consigned to silver with 177.00. It looked like that order would be reversed after the first two runs, with Sadowski-Synnott quickly carrying over the form that saw her take top spot in yesterday's qualifying. The Wānaka local watched her 11 rivals jump first and then immediately flew above them all on the leaderboard, her frontside double cork 1080 coming with huge air, a long grab and silky-smooth landing, riding away with a wave to the small Kiwi contingent in the crowd. Zoi Sadowski Synnott waves to the crowd. Photo / Getty It was the same trick that set alight qualifying, only the judges were even more impressed, the 93.25 score topping her competition-best of 91.00 yesterday. Only Gasser (90.00) was near Sadowski-Synnott after the first round and kept up the pressure with a backside 1080 to earn a second-round score of 86.75. Sadowski-Synnott soon replied to retake the lead by the finest of margins, putting down a backside 1080 that was perhaps safer but no less sleek, sneaking ahead of Gasser by a quarter of a point. The Austrian then showed just why she was the defending champion, as her unprecedented jump received a score of 95.50 to leave Sadowski-Synnott in need of perfection. That was a level the Kiwi, for once, wasn't quite able to achieve, but it will surely be a matter of when and not if Sadowski-Synnott stands atop an Olympic podium once more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been a fortnight since I was on ZB and I have watched on in wonder as the world has slowly gone potty. Maybe it’s Covid fatigue, but everyone seems to have lost their minds. Let’s work backwards.   Is everybody else as embarrassed and amazed at the behaviour of our Speaker over the weekend as I am? Trevor Mallard’s actions over this past weekend have frankly been childish. He took a ticklish situation and made it worse. Sprinklers and Barry Manilow are water off a duck’s back to these people and he just gave them a motivator to stay even longer. Mallard’s texts took his immaturity to the world. They’re laughing at you, Trevor. Not with you. That’s not all. Mallard’s call to keep press on the parliamentary balcony and not talking to the protestors was another clanger. Politicians don’t tell the press whom to talk to, Trevor. Who do you think you are? Well done to Barry Soper for getting down and dirty. The rush to evict the protestors from parliament’s grounds is bad call. If they are taxpayers, it’s their land. Protestors occupied parliament grounds for long periods of the Springbok tour without this argy bargy. Occupy protestors spent the best part of a year on public areas in our cities. When protestors are on public land, If they’re not causing trouble then let them be. However, outside parliament grounds is a different story. The Wellington City Council’s abdication of their responsibility to keep Molesworth Street and the adjacent transport hub open was a bad call. Allowing the protestors to curtail the free movement and business of your ratepayer’s reeked of your impotence. That road should have cleared on Day 1. And on Day1 someone should have gone out and met the protestors. The demonisation of their concerns and dismissal of them all as nutters and crazies by all the politicians was highly disrespectful. But the protestors have also not covered themselves in glory. There are some people with valid grievances there. But there’s a lot of people from out of the rabbit hole. So, the protests lack of organisation and clarity is appalling. Too many narratives and too many of them are there only to disrupt and wreck.   You can’t call yourself freedom fighters or defenders of freedom as you take other people’s freedom away. And when you start talking about hangings and executions you are now the enemy of a free society and not the defender. This has been an embarrassing week for all those involved and the rest of us who are trying to keep this show on the road are looking on with bewilderment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this crazy topsy turvy world that is the Covid pandemic it is possible to feel enormous sympathy with Charlotte Bellis, but also little sympathy at all.  So, what the hell happened?Charlotte needs to find a new place to live and have her baby because the place she chose to live in, Qatar, makes it illegal to be unwed and pregnant.  So, she escaped to the father's homeland of Belgium but under EU rules she could only stay there for 3 months. With nowhere else to go, the couple return to Kabul where the regime can spot a PR gift when they see one.  All the while she’s trying to win a place in the New Zealand MIQ lottery and failing. Even though people are going for overseas holidays and returning, others like Charlotte appear to be not so lucky. Pointing out the lack of rationality in a lottery-based system. Then New Zealand closes its borders to its citizens because MIQ is full of Omicron infected Kiwis, but there is no Omicron in the country. The action buys time to make sure more New Zealanders are vaccinated against the inevitable Omicron surge.  So, Charlotte applies for an emergency exemption but is refused because being pregnant is not an emergency. She had no medical appointments and wanted to come home in a month but the emergency provision is only open for the immediate fortnight.  It’s a bureaucratic bungle by Charlotte. Sadly, she hit a faceless pen pusher who operated under rules and not common sense. She’s told she’s got the paperwork all wrong and needs to reapply.    Instead, she snaps, hires a PR firm, contacts an opposition MP and goes to war on the Government.  On one hand, the crisis is all of her own making.  Rules are rules. However, on the other hand, it is also the making of a bureaucratic public service regime that seems to show no ability to think for itself.  I have no doubt that an answer will be found quickly now that the politicians whose jobs depend on public favour are aware of the implications and the worldwide reputational impact on our country and then this firestorm will be over.  Now I’ve been a big supporter of MIQ. Despite the fashion to say it’s failed; it’s actually been the most successful quarantine programme in the world aided by our geographic position. It’s why we have had such a low infection, hospitalisation and mortality rate.   However, things need to change.  MIQ was closed to hold back Omicron. Now Omicron is here, it’s time to reopen it.  Time to start phasing it out in favour of home self-isolation.  My suggestion would be that once we hit the 1000 cases a day level that should be the trigger. According to the doomsayers, that'll be in a fortnight and then there's plenty of time for Charlotte to get home to have her baby in May.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well let’s start with the good news.  For all the griping about MIQ, I think we owe the system a debt of gratitude.  Without it there would have been no summer. Without it we would have rolled straight from a Delta surge into an Omicron tsunami.  MIQ bought us time. Which is what it's always designed to do. It was never created to keep Covid out forever because that really would be a hermit kingdom. In my eyes it’s all been about suppressing and mitigating the outbreaks so they fit within our meagre capacities. And that happened. While the community went down to just a dozen cases in the community a day, in MIQ Omicron surged to over 500 cases. But the border held firm until now and that's a good thing So, I’m glad that the people who were obsessed with opening up the border at the end of last year were not listened to.  So, let’s also hand it to summer. The good weather and the virtual absence of Covid meant money in the bank for struggling businesses.  The Mercury Bay Informer, published out of Whitianga, reported last week that the Coromandel had had the busiest December in the last 3 years. I spent 3 weeks on the Peninsula and I can tell you it was going off.  Contrast this with New South Wales last week who reported some of their worst economic data of the outbreak, and this was without a lockdown.  Omicron’s efficiency in making people too sick to work cleared out the town. Those who were still healthy kept away for fear of getting sick. It was like a voluntary lockdown and that’s the new part of the phenomenon of this pandemic.  When the Prime Minister yesterday said we were taking precautions to protect the vulnerable I thought she got that wrong.  Omicron is not so much about saving lives now that we have the vaccine. We have to work together to protect the entire economy which is again under threat  We must expect workforce shortages across the economy, but especially in frontline roles that can’t be done from home; healthcare workers, supermarket workers, truck drivers and other parts of the supply chain will all be affected.  Businesses are going to have to figure out how to cope with extreme levels of sick leave.   Meanwhile our health system is still woefully exposed after decades of under investment. On Thursday, 68.3 percent of ICU beds were occupied and 84.7 percent of general wards or hospital beds were full. That's in summer and with almost no Covid-19 in the community.  None of this can be solved with money or solved overnight.  There are only two things that we can deploy. The vaccine and personal responsibility combined with common sense.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

National has unveiled its new-look line up with big promotions for Chris Bishop and Erica Stanford, now ranked fourth and seventh.Bishop has been reunited with the shadow leader of the house portfolio, which Collins stripped him of.Stanford has taken education from Paul Goldsmith, and retained the immigration portfolio.She has rocketed up the rankings, having been ranked 25th previously.One of the biggest losers is former leader Judith Collins, demoted to 19th. But she still stays in the shadow cabinet, and has the research, science and innovation portfolio.New National Party leader Chris Luxon has decided to part with the tradition of giving the entire caucus - except new and departing MPs - a numbered ranking.Instead, he's given rankings to the first 20 MPs, and left the rest unranked.'Ultimate team sport'Speaking at a press conference after revealing the reshuffle this afternoon, Luxon described politics as the "ultimate team sport".He said his line-up was based on performance, as well as matching people to their experience and skills.Luxon said every MP had a significant role to play, and he hadn't ranked those below the shadow Cabinet because it was irrelevant, and performance mattered more than ranking.The new party leader said he'd spoken to every MP himself, but had not talked to previous leaders Sir John Key or Bill English or Steven Joyce to get their opinions on MPs' strengths and weaknesses.He said another former party leader, Todd Muller, had re-entered caucus. Luxon said it was a decision for Muller to make whether to stand again in the next election."I know he wants to come back and be part of our team."Luxon this afternoon said he watched the MPs closely for the past year and seen where their strengths and weaknesses lay.He said he had watched low-ranked MPs perform very well against their counterparts in that area.On Judith Collins, he said the ousted National leader had a "real passion" for the portfolio she was given.Asked how he could be convinced the reshuffle would unite the party, Luxon said MPs were feeling energised because of public feedback that change was needed.Luxon said he was still working on getting his own office set up in terms of staff, but was loving the pace of his job."I'm absolutely loving it. I'm somebody who needs to be wired and ready to go 24-Seven."Luxon asked deputy Nicola Willis to start working on redeveloping Bill English's social investment work from the last term. That included a programme to identify and target social assistance to at-risk people early on.Match-ups promised"My shadow Cabinet leverages the wealth of talent and depth of real-world experience across the National caucus team," Luxon said earlier today."I have deliberately selected a shadow Cabinet of 20 members to match the Government's Cabinet."I'm confident that when you put any of National's shadow ministers against their Labour counterparts, you'll see that National's MPs have the deep experience, the political skills, the work ethic and the intellectual grunt to come out on top every time," Luxon said.Former deputy leader Dr Shane Reti has suffered the least of Collins' former team. He has fallen from second place to fifth.And Reti has kept health and been given the Maori-Crown and Pacific Peoples portfolios.Whip Matt Doocey has kept mental health and youth and been given a ranking of 8. He was previously ranked 20. He has been given the associate transport portfolio. The caucus will elect the party's whips tomorrow.One MP to suffer a severe drop is Todd McClay, falling from number six to the unranked bottom of the list. He's got the trade portfolio and tourism.Simeon Brown continues his dramatic rise, climbing up the ranks from 19 to ninth. He's dropped his police portfolio (given to Mark Mitchell - number 14, down one) and been...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So here we are approaching the next hurdle for Christopher Luxon to vault; the choosing of his shadow cabinet.  Last week was spent facing the media and the public in walk abouts. The media indulging in their age old game of playing gotcha politics.  For those who don’t know the gotcha, it’s about asking a question that draws the subject into an awkward reveal.  Jessica and Tova had the opening gambit which was on how many houses Luxon owns. That backfired, as anyone who heard talkback the next day will tell you. All the callers saying that there’s nothing morally wrong with owning property and it’s a sign that he’s successful.  But that wasn’t the gotcha. The gotcha was when Jessica asked how much his Remuera home was worth. Christopher was $2 million off. The implication was that Christopher doesn’t understand the implications of the housing crisis, or has no idea about his own balance sheet, which is a problem if you want to give him the keys to the country’s balance sheet.  There was a double whammy when both Luxon and Nicola Willis were a hundred bucks off when asked what the average rent was.  But the answer that I found most interesting was Christopher’s reckon on the living wage. He thought it was 28 bucks when in fact it’s 22.75.  The minimum and living wage has always been opposed by National in that it affects small business owners, but here was a National leader thinking it was higher than it was.  But, combine that with his view expressed on Q and A that he supports a higher minimum wage, if the economy can afford it.  This is a new view for the National Party.  And I like it. It shows someone who finally understands economies.  For too long we’ve been called a low wage, low productivity economy with expensive infrastructure and transport.  Anyone who gets that lifting the bottom will in fact lift us all, has a nod of approval from me.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was halfway through last week, and I was having a conversation with a mate about whether MIQ for in-bound citizens was still relevant.  Both of us were noting that with over 2000 active cases in the country, compared to a handful in MIQ, you were more likely to catch Covid in New Zealand rather than from a recent returnee.  So he asked me, can you give me one good reason why we should retain MIQ? There was only one reason I could think of, and that was the possibility of a new variant rising and us needing to prolong our defences as we ready ourselves for another viral invasion.  So imagine my surprise when over the weekend that exact scenario played out.  Omicron was discovered.  Nations immediately prevented flights from Southern Africa.  Australia started the process of re-introducing hotel based MIQ.   The world went on war footing.  And here our slowness to dismantle quarantine measures suddenly looked like an inspired decision, rather than a decision born of fear and a love of being a hermit nation.  But make no mistake, this was not an inspired decision.  This was yet another example of this country’s plain dumb luck.  When Covid first arrived, it was in our late summer so we were outside and infections never went ballistic the way they did in the housebound Northern hemisphere.  Being an island nation and not a travel hub, it was easy to close the borders and keep the bug out.  The looming end of MIQ was much like the process that ended out in the Australian travel bubble.  Long term sustained vocal pressure from business and opinion writers and the opposition resulted in a slow relenting by the Government.  But with the benefit of hindsight, you could argue that the trans-Tasman travel bubble was vastly uneconomic or worthwhile.  It so obvious that I’ve never seen a detailed Return on Investment study on it.  So, it may have been that the scrapping of MIQ could also have been a well-intentioned move, but ultimately a mistake.  We will wait and see whether we’re into round 3 of this scrap with Covid.  Here’s my hope. Omicron seems much more infectious but the symptoms seem milder. Big lethargy and tiredness with a headache but no respiratory effects.  If this turns out to be true, it may be this Covid is the bad Covid killer. It could become the dominant strain resulting in an infection that finally is really like the flu.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So Auckland waits for 4pm for an announcement that they will be rewarded for their stirling effort in achieving vaccination targets.  They’ve been good little hobbits. They’ve jabbed like their life depends on it.  It’s what being locked down for 98 days will do to you.  The town is desperate for a haircut.  They’re desperate for a sit-down meal.  They live in one of the most highly vaccinated cities in the world.  But I have bad news for Auckland, the chances of them being given that freedom are very low.  Not only has the Prime Minister’s office hinted at that over the weekend, but use your common sense  If the cafes opened on Wednesday under a Level 3.3 model, then one and all, vaxxed and unvaxxed could swan into a café and order a panini.  Then in a few short weeks, the traffic light system comes in and suddenly all the unvaxxed are refused permission to enter the cafes they’ve already been freely entering.  It just won’t work. This means Auckland’s freedoms won’t be denied on vaccination levels but on the efficiency of their bureaucratic roll out.  This will be the cost of not having a vax passport system rolled out months ago and that is on the head of the Ministry of Health.  The procurement process which started in July was not contractually finalised until October. The process was the standard process but this is not standard times.  It’s been a tale that’s been repeated throughout this pandemic.  New Zealand began its vaccination programme only after Medsafe declared the vax authorised.  Compare that with America who started vaxxing as soon as it was available.   FMA approval for the Pfizer jab only came through on August 23rd.  If America had waited until then, then the death toll would have been far higher.  These are extraordinary times which demand extraordinary measures in emergency time frames.  But in New Zealand, our bureaucracy bumbles it’s way like a plodding sloth to unfortunate outcomes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the first day of vaccine mandate.  Today was the deadline for teachers and health workers to have had at least one shot of the Covid vaccination.  We all know this has caused some consternation amongst members of those professions who have an antipathy towards the vaccine, and amongst those people against government compulsion.  In fact, there has been a cacophony of calls suggesting that this issue is splitting the nation. Headlines, commentators and talkback callers claim that this is the most divisive issue in our history.  But is it really? To be divisive, you really need to be split 50/50 on an issue, yet in vaccinations we are already pushing 80 percent double vaccinated. That is a very large majority of the country.  What we have is a very loud minority who are prepared to shout division at the top of their lungs.  It is interesting how many of our politicians are pro-vaccination but anti-mandates.  Even the Prime Minister was reticent. Today, David Seymour calls the mandates divisive and mean-spirited, even though as the personal choice party he should also be supporting the businesses who make a personal choice to employ who they want.  It’s important to realise that these mandates proposed by the Government are mostly for their employees. The doctors, nurses, teachers and firefighters which covers 40 percent of the population.  It should also be noted that private companies are doing the exact same thing.  Whether it’s Spark or The Warehouse or Air New Zealand or my very own company.  The non-vaxxed will not be let into our studio doors and negotiations with non-vaxxed staff will hinge around them staying at home.  So, whether it’s government order or just the domination of the wishes of the vast majority, there will one rule for the vaxxed and another for the non-vaxxed. It’s your personal choice  The mandates are a fact of life. They’re not hear to oppress you but to preserve your health and the health of others around you.    They are compulsion. Just like the compulsion that was conscription and compulsory military service which led servicemen to die in defence of your freedoms in the first placeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So once again, we await another announcement about our gradual stumble towards something someone might laughably call freedom  At 4pm, the Government should confirm their in-principle agreement to lower Auckland to Level 3 Step 2.  Otherwise known as a bit of a shop and up to 25 people outdoors, otherwise just as you were, please.  The whole thing is dependent on vaccination rates and hospital beds.  The Government has specified 90 percent double jabbed for freedom, but that could all be reversed if a surge depletes our hospital capacities.  So, everything is based on vaccinations.  Which is why the conversation needs to be re-framed.  It’s not about taking Auckland out of lockdown and allowing them to travel.  Auckland has beds and will break the 90 percent barrier in just over a week.  It’s about closing down the areas with the lowest vaccination rates and least hospital beds.  Which is why Christmas holidays are still under threat.  The places with the best beaches have the worst vax rates.  Gisborne, Coromandel, Whangamata, Northland and even glitzy Matakana.  It’s time for the tourism entities and local DHBs to step up and demand an effort.  The sort of effort Auckland has already done  Meanwhile the vexed vaxxed issue continues to be Māori rates.  They continue to lag.  Jack Tame yesterday on Q and A said Māori disparity the biggest failure of Covid response. But who’s failure?  I asked the question on Twitter yesterday. Based on their experience and the carnage of the 1918 Spanish flu then I would have thought that Māori would crawl over broken glass to get the jab. What do you call this hesitancy and it’s motives  In response, a Māori intellectual, who only got double jabbed this week, wrote me this.  “I'd call it post-colonisational trauma, mistrust of abusive authority, loss of rangatiratanga, reactionary expression of cultural suppression, defensive response to perceived threat based on historic experience, ingrained lack of self-value arising from generational state abuses”  That, to me, is an over intellectualisation and considering it comes from leaders it’s concerning.  If you don’t want a repeat of your great grandparents slaughter, get to a pharmacy now guys. It’s sounding like martyrdom if you don’t.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another day with so much going on submerged under the tsunami of reckons that is Covid.  4pm today we find out the next phase.  It really is six of one and half a dozen of the other.  Pure health theory would be to wait until the magical 90 percent is reached.  But political reality is that compliance is waning. Unless you bring out the water cannons and the rubber bullets there will be an erosion of standards tomorrow whichever way the decision goes.  Fun fact.  Wales.  Population 3.2 million people had a 7-day average Covid case number of 2700 this past week.  10 people died.  6140 have died in the pandemic and they have 71% double jabbed.  Yet 70,000 screaming Welsh fans without masks gathered in the Principality Stadium and then flooded downtown Cardiff.  As a matter of comparison NZ is currently 75 per cent double jabbed and Auckland is 80% and yet shut down.  Meanwhile other stories are pushed aside.  NZ this weekend made a pledge to cut Carbon emissions in half by 2030.  Just 8 years. But it’s a game of smoke and mirrors. The Government thinks that spending $1.5 billion of borrowed money to plant forests in Asia is called cutting emissions.  No, it’s not. It’s called offsetting emissions. It is of minimal help to the planet.  The whole thing has become an artifice where governments struggle to look like they’re doing something when they’re not. That’s not a problem, except it’s all so freaking expensive. A freaking expensive nothing.  Three Waters staggers on.  A government determined to centralise and give honourary seats on the board to iwi.  The thing about Three Waters is that authorities with good water systems don’t want it and don’t need it.  To drag them into dysfunctional regions is classic socialism. Dragging all down to a lower overall level.  What was needed was investment in poorly performed regions, while not fixing places that weren't broken.  My suggestion was always to set up an Infrastructure Bank to lend the capital to the places that are under invested because they had too few ratepayers, or they had ratepayers who hated paying fair rates.  And finally, the Assisted Dying regime comes into effect this weekend. Despite the fact we don’t have any nurses because of Covid and we haven’t had training because of Covid.  In New South Wales they have the same problem and they have postponed the rollout. Why haven’t we?  It’s reckless.  Three issues alone that could dominate talkback.  Yet all we get is Covid, Covid, Covid. It is the most corrosive diseaseSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well since I was on air last week things have devolved into a right royal mess.Last Monday, the Prime Minister kept Auckland in Level 3 but threw the city a bone.You're still locked down but you can have a little visit with another family or your yoga class.Her mistake was fooling with the settings.What Aucklanders heard was socialising is back on the menu boys. They heard Level 2 with restrictions. Not Level 3 with picnics. Give a city an inch, it'll take a mile and it did and lo and behold, case numbers are up and the spectre of Melbourne and Sydney is upon us.Those cities got into a mess by going into loose lockdowns which don't work. The Government last week lost their bottle and made exactly the same mistake.They've bowed to the pressure from business who are constantly advocating for opening up, meanwhile they've let down the population who believe that the suppression of Covid cases until we're as fully vaccinated as we can be is the best course for the country.In trying to make everybody happier they've made everybody angrier.Meanwhile, the spread of Covid into Waikato and Northland suddenly saw a surge in vaccinations. What worries me is not the hardcore vaccine hesitant, but the guys who only pull their finger out when the threat becomes real. Getting the jab in Raglan the day Covid arrives is 4 weeks too late.This is New Zealand's great weakness. Too many people don't see the threat. They've not seen Covid up close. Elsewhere people leapt on the vaccine because they'd seen too many ambulances picking up their neighbours in the middle of the night. We never had that.There is complacency in the community as well as in government.The threat is hiding in plain sight. It's the swamping of our health system.This current outbreak is causing a hospitalisation rate of 10%. With the numbers at their current level, we can absorb that. Just. Double them and we're in big trouble. We're on the verge of doubling themObviously, we need to learn to live with Covid. Surely, it's simpleDouble the hospital beds and ICU and offer freedoms only once we're at 80% vaccinated, or more.Everything else is just shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well haven’t we worked ourselves up into a tis was. Frustration with 7 weeks of lockdown in Auckland is starting to boil over in public with claims that everything is failing and not working and will never work. We’re being left behind and there is no plan.  And it’s all this Labour government’s fault.There have been calls to give up the lockdown strategy. To open our borders and start to live again. But has New Zealand’s strategy against Covid really been such a failure. Melbourne today celebrates it’s 246th day in lockdown becoming the world’s most locked down city.  Meanwhile Sydney approaches their 100th day in a row.  A rough back of the envelope calculation shows that Auckland is around 120 days all up since March 2020. On Saturday Melbourne had 1176 cases and 3 deaths. On Saturday 10 people died in New South Wales.  No body died in Auckland and there were 33 cases. While Covid was not eliminated, it was mitigated by the lockdown strategy preventing hospitalisation that we could not cope with. Call me a glass half full fella but I call that a success. But, like everyone, I want the lockdowns to stop and in every country where they have there is only one factor that led to their scrapping; and that is the level of vaccination in a population. We’re so close to hitting those goals I wonder why on earth would anyone want to throw out the effort that we have made so far. There has been a lot of talk about anti vaxxers and the vaccine hesitant but I’m more worried that New Zealand’s remarkable success over the past 18 months is now working against us. Last night’s television gave us this admission from a Raglan resident. “Before you didn’t really think too much about it but now it’s arrived it’s time for a test and a jab.” What an astounding degree of complacency. The Auckland truck driver who drove to Palmerston North: unvaccinated.  The 2 in Raglan: unvaccinated. There appears to be no urgency to get the jab amongst a small minority of New Zealanders.Not because of ethical grounds, just complacency.Maybe it’s because we have been fortunate compared to the rest of the world. We’ve worked 464 days since the beginning of the pandemic as opposed to 82 in Australia and 75 in Britain. We don’t have neighbours and family members dying gruesomely. But this tardiness has a terrible consequence and that’s a loss of a billion dollars a week from our economy.  You would have thought that was more than enough motivation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is Covid-19 increasing the risk of leader burnout?NZ Herald Business reporter Jane Phare researched into the issue, and found that leaders are feeling even more overworked as a result of Covid, compared to 2019, and that leaders are caught in between their staff and their businesses.86 per cent of business leaders are feeling stressed, but Phare says they carry the burden of the entire company.Jane Phare joined Andrew Dickens.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here we are in yet another Monday of decision and it seems that the powerhouse of Auckland is going to remain in lockdown longer yet as the long tail of Covid seems peskily hard to stamp out.Another week, another billion down the drain. Once again last week I heard business advocates asking what's the plan to get out of this. Actually more accurately they want to know when. Well your guess is as good as mine. That's the funny thing about wars and pandemics and the weather. They don't follow arbitrary timelines as defined by humans. The thing is, there always has been a plan. The plan is get everybody vaccinated.  Now I know that’s not much of a plan but that’s the plan.  That’s the only option humans have.  Get vaccinated or lockdown every time hospitalisations overwhelm the health system. It is a great pity the plan did not include the phrase “as fast as possible”.  In the the historical reckoning that will be seen as the government’s greatest mistake.  But it is fair to say we’ve sped up. Businesses want dates in the plan.  Dates can come and go if we’re not vaccinated enough. There is no point telling businesses that we will have a retrenchment from lockdowns and a slow lifting of border control from March when March comes along and we're stuck on 60 percent vaccination rate. And that is my greatest worry.  That we’re going to stall.  That too many people are vaccine hesitant. In the USA their vaccination rate has stalled at 65 percent. That's not enough. Biden has got tough and is starting to implement no jab, no job policies.So much for their freedoms. Our government has always tried to avoid mandates because people hate being told they have to do something.  So why doesn’t businesses themselves step up to the plate?Businesses need to be actively telling their staff that vaccinations are critical to their company's continued survival. This is not tiddlywinks. If we fail in our vaccination rate, it's lockdown for life, no matter who's in government. In particular, businesses need to be telling that to the vulnerable amongst their staff. And they also need be telling that to the hesitant, the reticent, the lazy and the ignorant. Which is why I found David Seymour's little race based stunt last week unbelievably short sighted and basically business unfriendly. It is in NZ businesses’ interest to get the vaccine to the hesitant and overlooked as soon as they can, not having politicians actively deride measures that may aid that goal. It was basic petty race politics that acted against business interests.  But I expected nothing else from a career politician who has never worked a day in business in his life.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It started on Friday.First I saw my neighbour struggling down the street on crutches. He'd had a knee operation at a private hospital.It was the last operation they did before lockdown he said. Then he added that the hospital was preparing itself for any overflow from the public system in the event of a surge of Covid cases. That's a worry I thought.Later that night the tweets and social media posts from friends in the health system started.Auckland and Counties Manukau were bracing for an increase in cases.Staff were being sought from Waikato DHB.Covid cases amongst the staff combined with a rise in hospitalisation was starting to stress the system.It was a reminder what all our battles against Covid are about. Preventing a meltdown in healthcare.We have 500 odd cases so far and 34 hospitalisations. Thats a conversion rate of around 7 per cent. Added to that the fact that our health system was at capacity even before an outbreak of Covid then we sit in a perilous place where the only option was lockdown. Or risking scenes like we had in New York and Italy last year.It's a fact we've known all along. We have the second lowest number of ICUs per capita in the OECD. Half of Australia. A third of England and a whopping tenth of Germany.We knew this 18 months ago. So add it to the list of fails along with slow vaccine rollout. That said, each ICU bed costs a million and takes a million a year to run and we don't have the nursing stock in any case.This is the harvest we had reaped after decades of under investment in a health system while allowing massive population growth. Auckland has added 500,000 people since the last hospital upgrade.I say this as middle aged mansplainers like Scott Morrison tell us that we can't live in a cave and learn to live with Covid. No kidding bucko. By the way your 2 biggest cities are living in caves. New South Wales for 65 days and Victoria for 28. Scott is full of empty slogans and broken promises.I think we all know how to live with the virus. We need enough hospital beds, we need to be vaccinated and we need excellent contact tracingWe don't have enough beds already. We need to double or triple our capacity long term. Why we didn't prepare more temporary beds in the 169 day Covid free lull we had I'll never know.We have vaccinated too slowly and we may indeed slow further if we run out of vaccineAnd if our contact tracing was battle ready, why is it that we urgently hired 370 new tracers last Tuesday.We are nowhere near being ready to live with Covid so our fate is to wait and lockdown until we are.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A mother in the US has felt the wrath of parents worldwide after revealing on TikTok that she charges her 7 year old daughter rent to teach her the value of money.Felicia Farley told TikTokkers, "every week my daughter has a list of chores. If those chores are completed daily, she will get $7 at the end of the week."She then went on to say "In total she pays $5 for bills, leaving $2 left over which she can then keep and save or spend."Andrew Dickens asked callers what they thought was appropriate for kids to do to learn the value of money.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So since I last spoke with you the Government have announced their plan to transition towards more open borders and Amazon have decided to pull the Lord of the Rings out of New Zealand.  The 2 stories are linked. There are parts of Amazon’s reasoning that haven’t been widely reported.  They’re moving to Shepperton Studios in England which is currently in major expansion mode.  It’s merged with Pinewood Studios and now provides the second biggest studio in the world behind 1 in China. 18 new sound stages have been built this year.  Netflix has announced it’s putting a production hub in Shepperton taking productions out of Europe and North America.  There’s talk that Amazon is about to take a stake in the studio. It also has to be remembered that Amazon’s Lord of the Rings is heavily dependent on studios.  It’s being done with sets and CGI.  So it’s no sweat to move the sets to England and keep going.Then there’s an instant saving on cast cost. My point is that even if we were open and easy to get to the probability is that Amazon would still be on the move to a bigger, better and cheaper location. But having said that, the same Hollywood Reporter issue reports that productions of Bridgerton and House of Dragons have been closed down in the UK.  Why? An outbreak of Covid in the cast and crew. And the productions are paused indefinitely. And here’s something to remember about the future. Even as nations, states and cities decide to live with Covid it does not mean that businesses will.If Covid is present in a workplace then buisinesse in the UK are closing of their own volition. An outbreak of Covid that takes out your stars and your crew stops production just like that and  it costs a fortune to insure against. Andrew Lloyd Webber just closed his latest theatre production in London because of an outbreak.He’s quoted as saying “Freedom Day has become closure day”.Lord of the Rings might move and then stop.  Something that didn’t happen while they were in New Zealand. So the simple fact is that the longer New Zealand remains Covid free the longer our advantage lasts. And while we remain lucky the best thing is to get your vaccinations as fast as possible. I’m tired of hearing the whole world say it’s our only defence and yet people still dilly dally.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Firstly, my condolences to the people of Timaru and particularly the parents of the boys who lost their lives in the horrific incident. I’m not going to draw any conclusions from the particular event because I feel it’s too soon and the whole district is feeling it, as are we all. No one needs a radio host or talkback callers pontificating on the should have beens. But in the course of the conversation today we have heard talk on perception of risk and how poor it is in young brains. And that’s not the first time perception of risk has been mentioned over the past few days. We heard it from Sir John Key in the weekend.  He suggested that many New Zealanders had little perception of risk from Covid 19 because we have been spared the worst ravages of it and that may be why so much vaccination hesitancy exists. Why get vaccinated when there’s no Covid about.   Sir John suggests that if New Zealanders were told the next stage of the plan which would include fewer lockdowns and more ease of travel then people might be incentivised to get the jab. Then there were Maori and Pacific Islander health professionals suggesting the uptake of vaccination is low amongst their people because the state hasn’t engaged with them and, again, there is no perception of risk because there is no Covid in the wild And a lack of perception of risk was blamed for our abysmal usage of the Covid 19 contact tracing app. 21 per cent of us have the app on our phone but don’t use it and another 20 per cent don’t have it at all.  No Covid in the community, no use of the app. This all defies common sense and logic.  Get the vaccination and you’re one step closer to travelling and one step further away from lockdown. How anyone from any ethnicity doesn’t know what’s going down is baffling and it's too late to start vaccinating once the virus is running amok amongst your people.  And if you don’t start using the app until Covid is in the community then again it’s already too late and you’re a week behind the game, just ask New South Wales. All of this inaction because of a lack of perception of risk closely resembles wilful stupidity and threatens to wipe all the gains that have been made in this fight against an invisible enemy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This morning I was driving to work listening to Steve Price talking to Mike Hosking at 8.40am. It wasn’t a pleasant listen.  What’s happening across the Tasman is a recurring nightmare.A nightmare that somehow we have avoided so far. Lockdowns popping up like mushrooms.  Case numbers growing and worrying hospitalisations. Two thirds of the new cases are under 40s.   Of the 53 people in intensive care, six are in their 20s, four are in their 30s, one is in their 40s, 18 are in their 50s, 14 are in their 60s, nine are in their 70s and only one is in their 80s.  So, so much for Covid being the disease of the old, frail and feeble. There are 203 people in hospital with Covid-19 in NSW.Twenty-seven are ventilated.Imagine that here where our ICUs are already at limit. Meanwhile lockdowns into October are being mentioned and the Australian treasure is warning this may create a second recession for the so called lucky country.  Not a pretty picture. The question is how did Covid get into Australia?  The common wisdom is through the border. So why has it not happened here with the exception of the Aussie tourist in Wellington? Despite numerous accusations that our border and MIQ is useless and not fit for purpose it appears to be better than Australia’s.  But it does make it feel like one little slip and we’re in Aussie territory. For all of Scott Morrison’s brave words about plans and living with the virus, Australia has reverted to the tried and true because at the end of the day there are very limited ways to fight the virus. Lockdowns, social distancing and masks and vaccinations. Australia has proven to be bad at them all.  Crowds at Bondi this weekend were the largest ever seen in winter.  The Aussies just don’t seem to get it.  And their vaccination rates are even worse than ours. But are we really that much better?  Contact tracing app use here has fallen off the cliff.  I asked a group of friends the other day to show me their diaries. One didn’t have the app all.  Most hadn’t registered at a QR code in weeks. We’re not contact tracing.  We’re slowly vaccinating.  We’re complacent. Give me one reason why we’re not next.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sometimes I wonder how we have become the architects of so many bad administrative decisions. This is the story of British GP Ann Solomon which featured in the Sunday Star Times this weekend At the beginning of the pandemic New Zealand made some border exemptions to fill critical worker shortages Ann Solomon responded and has been living and working in New Zealand with her family since last August. But the temporary visa is running out and Ann Solomon’s family’s future hangs in the air. One of her children is just about to leave school and without the permanent residency will not be able to legally work here. Ann Solomon is not just a doctor, she’s also a woman and she’s living in Foxton. As a female rural GP she is in very high demand and is a very rare breed. She is not someone we can afford to lose. She’s not alone; there are 1129 other similar cases, many dating back to the Key Government. People who have made the effort, brought skills to the country, settled themselves and now facing an immigration reset that says thank you very much but there’s no place for you here. They’re in limbo because of the immigration reset and the very real chance that their application for permanent residency will be turned down. This is madness. These people are here, happy, housed and already vital to our economy.  Just let them stay.  Ann Solomon’s case was in the paper yesterday. If I was the Immigration Minister, I would have come into the office today and said ‘get that woman a visa and get it now’. In fact I’d probably offer an amnesty for all since we can’t do without them and we’re not accepting any new immigrants in the near future.Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi received advice about this in April. It’s nearly August and nothing. I wonder if Kris has too many portfolios to get anything meaningful done. It’s also not good enough to claim its covid’s fault, because it’s not. With no immigrants since last March there must be plenty of hands available to do the work. But also remember this is a government that came into power 4 years ago promising a wholesale cut in immigration so they might just be bloody mindedly committed to a short sighted policy This is analysis paralysis and a lack of direction and politically correct posturing. Give it up and give these new, New Zealanders some respect.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the aftermath of the farmer protests on Friday, some tempers have been running high as farmers allege city residents don’t understand them.  But in fact, there are many issues that should unite farming and city folk. As I drove in this morning, I heard a farmer on ZB claiming that city folk have no idea of the environmental regulation and the cost of compliance that the farming community have to bear. I thought that was a bit unfair. Currently Auckland Council is spending $1 billion dollars on the interceptor project which is to prevent wastewater from entering the watercourses that crisis across the city. That’s part of the costs of keeping rates high. Then there’s the story of the service station that’s being developed in my suburb.  This is a saga that has rumbled on for years.  The service station operator has now spent more than $500,000 on getting resource consents and will spend just about as much on environmental safeguards. City businesses will complain about compliance costs as much as any farmer. Meanwhile, I’m struck by the similarity between the issues of S.N.As and heritage protection. S.N.As are Significant Natural Areas on farming land that the authorities now want to register and protect. Farmers see this as a land grab.  It’s their land and they’ll do what they want with it. If farmers bought a block with a wetland in it they may have already factored in the draining of that land as part of the business plan. To have a council come along and say hands off would go down like cold sick. Of course, some farmers do it voluntarily with over 4700 covenants on Significant Natural Area already in place. And that’s the choice thing rather than the compulsion. In cities, there’s a similar but opposite argument.New zoning is threatening heritage properties that could be redeveloped into higher density housing.Battlelines are being formed particularly in older city suburbs to protect owners from councils imposing zoning laws on their land and neighbourhoods.  It’s a personal property right issue just like S.N.As are for farmers. It would be nice to see that as New Zealanders, whether in the country or the city there is more that unites us than divides us.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So look at that: the Pfizer vaccines that we were freaking out about arrived. Not only that, they arrived two days early.So what was all that panic about? We only knew about the potential delay because the Minister told us about it. So why do that?It's because the government is becoming increasingly gun shy. Afraid of negative headlines, they are choosing to pre-empt the bad news to try and mitigate any possible damage. But in this case, they shot themselves in the foot unnecessarily.The public perception is that this vaccine rollout is less than perfect and so the government is defensive.When I said that on social media last week, many supporters of the roll out and the government took issue with me. Our roll out has a 107 per cent success rate, they said.This is true. We are seven per cent ahead of schedule. But that means nothing if the schedule was too slow in the first place. The government is doing exactly what they said they would do but with hindsight we see that was not enough.Today we learn that Oakland Zoo in the San Francisco region is currently jabbing their big cats, bears and ferrets. American ferrets are further ahead in the Covid queue than you and I and Australians. The zoo has the Pfizer that Australia and New Zealand doesn't have.As I said last week, I have no idea why our two nations are being punished for our early success. When this is all done and dusted I want some answers without all the politics.Speaking of Covid politics. Over the weekend the UK and Australia came out with their plans for a post Covid world joining other nations like Taiwan and Singapore. They all talk about learning to live with CovidI've read the plans and they're full of common sense and little else. They're all dependent on 70-80 per cent vaccination rates which is when the herd immunity starts to kick in. All the plans fail to specify timelines.I've also heard comment that these countries are ahead of us while we maintain a hermit kingdom stance.But that's not fair. As Scott Morrison sees lockdowns and community cases he starts to talk non-specifically about the future to give some hope that this stuff will end. It is same with the other nations who are seeing the Delta variant have a flare up. Out of blue, Taiwan went from 6 cases a day to 600 at the beginning of June.It's “look over there” Covid politics and nothing else.Every nation is the world is hungry to reach 80 per cent vaccination. Australia and New Zealand are well behind. It would be great if Pfizer acknowledged that and took the Covid from the ferrets and gave it to us.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here we are with lockdown's popping up across Australasia. The Delta variant is causing some havoc amongst two nations universally praised for their handling of Covid over the past 16 months. Two nations who on the whole went hard and early and reaped the harvest of return. Much to the globe's jealousy, we opened one of the first and most successful travel bubbles. We've been smug about our full stadiums and enjoying concerts and the ability to keep a large part of our domestic economies functioning. But all that sways in the balance today. And one of the reasons our two nations are here is because we lag much of our comparable countries of the world in vaccinations. Much has been made that we are last of 122 OECD nations in the vaccination table, and that’s true, but the Prime Minister is also right when saying that table is based on the number of first shots given. On fully vaccinated figures, we do a little better.  As of this morning just 7.8 per cent of New Zealand has had two shots. The global average is 10.8 per cent.  Australia is way worse than us on that metric at 4.7 per cent there.  It's irritating to look at the vaccination tables. England is at 48 per cent, the States at 46 per cent.  It's galling to see Sweden who launched into a failed herd immunity campaign sitting there with 26 per cent of their population fully vaccinated.Even Brazil, a country with far inferior infrastructure and a leader who actively doubts Covid, is better than  us at 10.5 per cent. The countries that failed spectacularly a year ago are beating us now. How did we fell from first in line to last in the OECD?When we ask our government, they say don’t worry, it’s all good.  We're ahead of the schedule but that's a pointless answer. We're ahead of a schedule that's behind everyone else's.Ask many and they'll just say our government is useless. But why is Australia in the same boat, a boat that's leaking more than ours. It's a question I've grappled with. One theory is that since we've not had crisis level infections then vaccines have been provided to those counties that do. Australia and New Zealand are at the end of the supply chain. The drug companies are the quarter masters deciding our rations. Steve Price this morning said one of the causes of the vaccination delays was a cancellation of a vaccine shipment. We order it, we pay for it, it does not arrive. If this is the case, and I've spoken to people in the drug companies who say it is, then the real failure of both Australia and New Zealand's government is protesting against it. But perhaps they can’t as this will cause more delays.It seems cruel that two of the only countries who actually followed the World Health Organisations advice are to be punished for that success. Particularly when our relatively small populations means the impact on vaccination supply globally would be negligible.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So Winston’s back for another crack. I never doubted it. The man’s constitution and energy are only matched by his ego. And he’s a worker. I’ve always liked Winston and New Zealand First and always been surprised at how misunderstood his party is by so many New Zealanders. He’s a conservative with a small c from an earlier age in New Zealand where egalitarianism was strong. It’s one for all and all for one and no-one is your master and no-one you’re inferior.  He may be a lawyer but he’s really just working class.  There’s One New Zealand and everyone keeps New Zealand First.  It’s in the name. New Zealand First was socialism-lite without the virtue signalling that the new breed of middle class Labour supporters embrace. He’s always had more in common with a Helen Clark or a Michael Cullen than he ever had with John Key or Bill English. Somehow I think many National supporters thought that New Zealand First was a National lite because that’s where Winston first made his name.  But there was always a reason Winston parted with National. So when he went with Labour in 2017 those National party supporters were truly shocked and branded him untrustworthy.  But I never felt that way.  Throughout the election he campaigned hard to oust the National government and that’s exactly what he did. He never pulled the wool over your eyes. You were just too blind to see. He brought with him some solid hard working MPs. I had no problem with Ron Mark and Tracey Marting and Jenny Marcroft.  Shane Jones was another thing but he is not working class at all and would be far more at home in Labour Now Winston’s back and he knows that the Labour Party of the 2020s is not the Labour Party of old, but a pimply faced crew of social justice warriors, so he’s here keep them honest. But once again to get the cut through he’s returned to what I call the Winston whistles. Winnie whistles are knee jerk hot takes and reckons that resonate with the grumpy. So yesterday he went at like the warhorse of old. First he thrashed Labour, then National, then the media, then the Greens, then the Maori Party, then the cyclists, then te reo in public life – particularly the phrase Aotearoa and then cancel culture. It was like he’s spent the last 18 months in limbo listening to talkback radio and taking notes. If he had also got stuck into gender politics he would have completely sounded like your Uncle Colin on Christmas Day after five whiskies. Irrelevant worry lines. Nothing on housing or post Covid recoveries or mental health and income inequalities that are the real worry for real New Zealanders.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s been two weeks since my last show on Newstalk ZB which means a fortnight listening to howls of outrage over cycle bridges and rail links. And I’ve come to the conclusion that New Zealanders do not and have not understood infrastructure and it’s planning. The news that a dedicated three quarter of a billion dollar pedestrian and bike bridge will be constructed next to the Auckland Harbour Bridge horrified me. And that’s saying something since I am a dedicated bike commuter and have been all my life. It’s just too expensive and the cost benefit does not stack up.  In parliament, the Prime Minister estimated the Bridge would have 3000 crossings a day meaning a cost of $12.50 a crossing.  That was a big underestimation and many calculate it is more like $50 a crossing. Well, cyclists are already crossing the harbour on ferries and it’s costing them $5 a crossing on their HOP card so its more expensive than the current regime.And here’s a point.  Why don’t we charge the cyclists $12.50 a crossing the same way we charged motorists 20 cents a crossing in the early days of the Harbour Bridge in the first place? That would be an interesting test of the market for such a bridge. It all begs the question why we just don’t expand the existing bike service.  Three ferries with capacity of 50 bikes each would do it and at a cost of around 100 million.  Make them electric too. All of this not taking into account the real problem which is the capacity of the Bridge itself.  Car numbers will not reduce because the government’s intention seems to be to replace carbon fuelled vehicles with electric vehicles. This is a problem that has been acknowledged since the Bridge was first proposed in the first place.  Options have been presented for decades. Leading the pack, a new bridge beside the existing bridge providing new lanes and a double train tunnel. But somehow those ideas were thrown out at a moment’s consideration for a bike lane.  Why? I can only think the problem is that infrastructure decisions are I the hands of politicians who  sway and bend in three year cycles. Infrastructure needs more long term planning and it needs to be out of the hands of politicians. Ashburton’s Bridge needed to be replaced with a longer spanned bridge decades ago.  But wasn’t. Ideas to increase Auckland Harbour Bridge’s capacity should have been in place in the 80s.Do I have to remind you again that Sydney started built it’s underground rail system and it’s bridge in the 30s.  Nearly 100 years ago when the population of the town was 1 million. And the bridge they built has road rail cycle and pedestrian lanes and lines. Our cheap arse short termism has cost us dearly and will continue to for the foreseeable future.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A couple of weeks ago I was hosting ZB Drive. When it came to the Huddle, one of the panellist welcomed me by saying, “Hello Anaru, how are you”Unfortunately, I was in a bit of a snippy mood and so I snapped back by saying, “Is Anaru my real name?”Chill out Andrew, I was just being friendly, said the panellist.I didn't take it any further but Anaru is not my name. It's Andrew. Not Andy or Drew either, but Andrew. Anaru is a Maori equivalent, but it's not the name given to me by my parents and that I have answered to my whole life.A lot of people have since praised me for standing up to what they called "wokeness". The liberal obsession with introducing the Māori language into our day to day conversations more and more.But that's not what I was doing. I was making a point.It was about mutual respect for the two national languages of our country. If Māori want me to respect their language then they have to respect my language too.If Māori think they can call me Anaru any time they please, then they can't complain if I decide to call every Hone or Tipene I meet, John and Stephen. And non-Māori can't complain when Māori ask for traditional placenames to be reinstated.What's sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander.So I believe in mutual respect for our two languages but mutual respect for the languages of this state is at a strange moment and it's reflective of our current state of race relations.There seems to be an irrational and visceral anger at any broadcaster who chooses to spread a little bit of Te Reo through their broadcast. Now, admittedly a lot of the attempts are excruciatingly tryhard, as anyone who has heard Susie Ferguson try to tell the time in Māori will tell you.But the reactions of some to any Māori interspersed in our news bulletins is positively blood curdling. They're furious at hearing a smattering of an official language. A language that has been heard on these shores for hundreds of years.  An official language since 1987.It's a completely out of proportion fury which I think exposes a deeper animosity towards Māori.It reached its crescendo when at last week’s meeting of the newly formed Tauranga Ratepayers Alliance. An attendee stood and launched into a standard Māori greeting and was met instantly by jeers and shouts of ‘Speak English’. She said six words of welcome for goodness sake.I suspect this fury has been fired on by a fear that Maori political power is increasing and more and more they're looking to be in charge of their own affairs. But to be frank a hatred of Maori has been bubbling under the surface for a while and it affects many non-Māori in this countryThat crowd was unbelievable, childish, quite vile, shameful to many and, yes, racist. Plus overly sensitive and easily offended just like the snowflakes they despiseJust a request. Could all the Māori language haters just shut up and let the adults do the talking? You are on the wrong side of history. If you don't like Māori, go somewhere where it's not an official language.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm not one to blow my own trumpet, but sometimes someone has to step up to plate and so I am.Exactly one week ago, the last time I was on Newstalk ZB, I predicted a boring budget with the only big item, an increase in benefits.Other than that I said that it would be business as usual.And that's exactly what transpired. A boring Labour lite budget for beneficiaries sprinkled with a little honey for rail.As an aside, considering its desire to be perceived as the wellness Government there was a pathetic increase to the Pharmac budget.After four years on the Treasury benches, the transformative Government has transformed nothing at all. With the exception of a new tax rate for the wealthy that will raise half a billion and a regional road tax that raises a couple of hundred million there has been little or no change to the macro settings that have been in place for over a decade now.The most galling for me was the 1.9 billion promised to mental health in the first Wellbeing budget which 2 years later remains unspent while all along the nation's mental health statistics worsen exponentially.Nothing is really going down at all with this lot other than managing day-to-day crises wrought by nature.So it amazes me when so many seemingly rational opponents of the Government start imagining all sorts of backroom doomsday scenarios where this Government is secretly plotting to completely overhaul this country's constitutional arrangements without any heed to the democratic process.It seems rich to hear the opposition claiming that this Government is useless and then claiming they are capable of the greatest constitutional revolution since the signing of the Treaty itself. All in secret. Come on.The hysteria over the He Puapua report is very disappointing and confusing. It is nothing more than the musings of half a dozen people who were asked to look at ways we could comply with the UN's Declaration of Indigenous People's Rights which, by the way, the National-led Government signed us up to in 2010. Maybe Judith forgot that.When presented to the Government it was promptly ignored. There were other things on. Like a pandemic. And many of the ideas are preposterous and politically impossible to get through like a separate Maori House of Parliament.Some of the ideas like a Maori Health Authority were canvased and might come to pass. I'm not a fan because medicine is a science and not beholden to culture.But Judith seems to have forgotten that it was National that instituted Te Wananga O Aotearoa, which now has 80 campuses through New Zealand. A Maori-led tertiary organisation grounded in Maori values. They also promoted charter schools for Maori. Yet no one screamed separatism at Sir John Key.He Pua pua needs to be debated. That's why we asked some big brains to have a think about it in the first place. But it's nothing more than a think piece and to imagine it might be secretly enacted is to be completely ignorant of the processes of democracy in this country.Is it constitutional revolution by stealth? Stop reading fantasy novels.Was Judith wrong to bring it to light? No. But she was wrong to create racially-based panic on such a flimsy pretext.We have become far too open to conspiracy theories and fake news and imaginary scenarios.If you don't believe me read Sir John Key's weekend interview about vax deniers. When the great Common Sense politician of our time starts seeing his fellow New Zealanders losing their rag over nothing you might start thinking we're in trouble.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, I have little to say about Judith Collins and the Nats low polling in the Newshub poll, other than to say Judith Collins is once again wearing too much of the blame.The National Party is "Absent Without Leave" with a few exceptions like Nicola Willis and Shane Reti.For example today we had a piece in the paper from National's Finance spokesperson. Can you name him? Andrew Bayly. SurpriseNational's schtick is to have a finance monster. Read Richardson, Birch, English, Joyce. True number 2s. Andrew Bayly is very good but he's no English.So welcome to Budget week and the question on everyone's lips is what will happen on Thursday.After the Australian budget last week, the Labour Party were quick to jump on the Aussies slogan.Treasurer Frydenberg called it the Recovery Budget and now our Government has said that's what they want to do as well.But can we afford to do what the Aussies have done?In a word No. The Australian economy is a strange and unique beast. It's built on iron ore and mineral prices to an extreme extent. It makes our reliance on the white gold of dairy seem like play money.Currently, Australia is raking it in as China buys as much iron ore as it can at record-breaking prices. It's up 400 per cent on pre-Covid prices which were already high.So Frydenberg has loads of cash, that we'd never see, and no hesitation in borrowing like billy-o to create jobs. Our Government will seem spend-thrift compared to the Aussies because they just have more money than us. And our government doesn't want to lose the former National voters who voted for them last electionSo, what do I reckon? I expect the Government will raise benefits.This is classic consumer-led recovery economics. Give the lowest paid a bit more cash and they'll buy a few more New Zealand goods like food and services giving retail and the general economy a bit of a boost.And this dovetails into why they pretended to come down hard on the public service last week with the infamous pay freeze.It's a classic Clinton trick from the 80s called triangulation. Jon Johansson the former New Zealand First Chief of Staff wrote about this at the weekend.It's the “look over there” tactic. Knowing they want to introduce their Fair pay and benefit rises this week, they appear to come down hard on the hated bureaucrat class.The centre-left praise the caring benefits. The centre-right praise the crackdown on the rampant public service and the Labour Party floats along as appealing to the everyman in the middle. The 3 points of a triangle.John Key used to do this impeccably. It's focus group politics. New Zealanders are essentially reasonable moderate people so the trick is to be more reasonable than the other guy.There's no political philosophy there just a desire to be popular.When you realise that all politicians do this the whole game becomes less threatening.It's also sobering to realise that no government has been transformative since Douglas and Lange in the 80s.So I'm predicting business as usual but beneficiaries will be able to afford another loaf of bread a week.Shock horror. Welcome to New Zealand - the little country that coasts along under its own people's steam.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The news of a boost to cervical cancer testing budget and a move to less invasive techniques is a brilliant piece of news. The disease as we know is a killer but also very preventable using techniques such as immunisation against the HPV virus and regular monitoring and testing. The testing has always been invasive and that has been a barrier to greater numbers of women being safe, so the news of a less invasive swab is fantastic. The only downside is that the introduction of the new testing regime is still years away.  I know there are a lot of t’s to be crossed and I’s to be dotted but these things in the Ministry of Health seem to take an inordinate amount of time.  Just like the Covid vaccination campaign. By the way, my company’s flu vaccination campaign is underway.  I got an email, booked a time and filled out a form all in five minutes. I’m being jabbed at 8.39am on May 26th.  Simple really when you put your mind to it. Now the cervical cancer testing regime will definitely help Māori.  At the moment 61 per cent of Māori wahine get their smear versus 75 per cent of non-Māori. Why is that number so low?  After all Māori and non-Māori all have the same systems.  Peeni Henare explained this a few weeks ago when Kiri Allen announced her cervical cancer. For Māori women, much of the mana is tied up with the sanctity of the reproductive system so any fooling with it is a direct attack on their mana. They won’t get the test because it hurts their pride. This is the sort of apologetic poppy cock that drives me crazy. Because the mana on non-Māori women is also tied up heavily in their bibs and bobs.  The cervical cancer testing regime is deeply invasive, and demeaning, and uncomfortable and degrading.  It affects your pride, or your mana.  It is not nice. But the difference is that more non-Māori suck it up and take the test because to die before your time and unnecessarily is also deeply hurtful to your mana.  To your ability to pass on your knowledge and guidance to your  tamariki and mokopuna. Māori leaders would do better by their people to guide them towards the future rather than validating some outdated cultural values that, at the end of the day, kill them.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listening to the blamestorm over MIQ last week I thought the universe had tipped on its axis. There was our poverty defeating socialist Prime Minister, punching down on a minimum wage frontline worker and bemoaning his lack of accountability and accusing him of lying..Meanwhile, a cohort of neo-liberal, conservative right wingers were busy defending the honour of the man because he was among our most vulnerable who was being attacked by our most powerful. Are the lefty’s now the advocates for personal responsibility now? Because that was the PM's angle.  And are the right wingers the advocates for ultimate governmental supremacy in all?  They seemed to be exonerating the worker and First Security for not keeping to the rules.In my opinion both sides were kind of right. The man misled his employer, who then misled the Government. He told fibs presumably because he doesn’t like a bottle brush up the nose. Some would call that lying.Meanwhile, the Government should have known that something like this could happen and have ways of picking it up earlier.  It appears nearly 500 others lack the personal responsibility to get a fortnightly test. But what is the PM always says. We're all in this together. So one party got left off the blamestorm. Governments decide policy then pass it on to the public service to make it happen. So in this case the responsibility to make sure the governmental policy of fortnightly tests for frontline workers was enacted surely belongs to the Ministry of Health. The behemoth that is the Ministry of Health.  1000 highly paid head office experts who you would presume know more about health issues than any politician. A yearly budget of $20 billion. Overseeing. 6000 DHB workers. 20,000 nurses.  And yet handed a policy of fortnightly tests, no-one in the Ministry had the wit to make sure that it was monitored and was in place. Do politicians have to tell us how to do everything these days?It doesn’t surprise me. The Health sector is a mess. The DHBs have a multitude of systems and services that don’t talk to each other and a culture of secrecy that prevents the truth. That was highlighted by the Roche Simpson report.It doesn’t matter who’s at the top. You won’t know what’s happening at the bottom. I don’t know if the bottom knows what’s happening there. The Government gifts the Ministry $1.9 billion for Mental Health improvements and the Ministry doesn’t know what to do with it. Most worryingly, we closed the country to prevent our emergency services being swamped by Covid 19 patients. Well, we find out this month that our services and facilities are swamped anyway, without a single case of Covid. Covid has exposed the Ministry of Health as dysfunctional. Andrew Little is launching a campaign to fix it.  He has a very big job to do.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A huge statue of Jesus Christ is under construction in southern Brazil, and it will be even taller than its famous counterpart in Rio de Janeiro.The "Christ the Protector" statue is being built in Encantado, a small town in Brazil's southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, by a local organization named Friends of Christ Association (AACristo).Made of steel and concrete, it will stand 43 metres tall -- 16 feet taller than Rio's Christ the Redeemer, according to AACristo.The organisation said the statue will be the third-tallest statue of Jesus in the world, after a 249-foot statue currently under construction in Mexico and a 172-foot monument in Poland.The statue is the work of sculptor Genésio Gomes Moura and his son, Markus Moura. Its head and arms were installed on April 6 and the construction, which began in July 2019, should be finished by the end of this year, according to AACristo.It will cost around $353,000 in total, and AACristo is asking for donations to finish the project.An elevator installed inside the statue will take tourists to a lookout at the height of Christ's heart."It will be a glass opening from where people will be able to film and photograph the valley," head project supervisor Artur Lopes de Souza said on the AACristo website.The aim is to boost tourism in the area, which is close to Brazil's borders with Uruguay and Argentina.The Christ the Redeemer statue has looked down upon the city of Rio de Janeiro for almost 90 years and is one of Brazil's most famous tourist attractions.text by Jack Guy, Vasco Cotovio and Rodrigo Pedroso, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This weekend saw the one year anniversary of the quarantine system that has now entered all our lives - MIQ. You’ll remember it started in February 2020 with a fleet of campervans on a Whangaparaoa Peninsula Naval base housing a couple of hundred Kiwi refuges from Wuhan. Then New Zealanders were asked to self-isolate, which we proved to be spectacularly unreliable at, so a government mandates and monitored quarantine system was initiated in mid-April 2020 It has been a huge undertaking.  MIQ involves 4500 rooms around the country in 32 hotels. 130,000 New Zealanders have passed through.  There have been 850 cases of Covid 19 in the facilities including 95 active cases right now. There are 4000 staff.  They have delivered 9.1 million meals and snacks, and conducted more than 900 swabs each day. Brigadier Jim Bliss says MIQ had grown into a "massive logistical exercise which runs incredibly smoothly and has served our country very well". He also says what MIQ has achieved is beyond belief And that on the whole is true, but that has not stopped many saying that the process is bad and the government is useless.  Criticisms have included that the government’s lack of business experience has contributed to MIQ’s weaknesses. This despite the system’s oversight coming from the Defence Department which has some of the highest skill levels of logisitic planning in our economy. All this is in the pursuit of accountability which is very important.  But sometimes the people holding the government to account need to be held account themselves. National’s MIQ spokesperson Chris Bishop said that National’s policy would be a purpose built facility and not the 32 hotels currently co-opted. So easy to say and so easily parroted on talkback radio but why does no-one ask him what that means. Is it one facility to cope with the 6000 residents we house every week? Because that is a very large facility.  Very large indeed.  And with a very large price tag. In the billions. Is it only for the active cases which are currently housed at jet Park and which is our most dedicated facility?  In which case we have it already, in essence. It’s a call that I would take so much more seriously if I could see that some serious thought had gone into it. It’s happened all through this year.  David Seymour last week congratulated the government on instituting a trans-Tasman bubble but claimed it was six months too late.  Which is a nonsensical statement as Australia didn’t even have an internal travel bubble six months ago. It’s the same as the National Party election policy that travellers must be tested 72 hours before departure.  A policy adopted by the government eventually. From the moment it was announced I was asking the question on how you police that in another country you have no sovereignty over and how do you ensure there isn’t a black market in dodgy tests. Which has proven to be devastatingly accurate. When we look back on this year of Covid fighting we will see a long string of reckons and crackpot ideas that were not held to account.  Not just from the government but from the opposition and media critics as wellSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The plight of the unfortunate container ship that has blocked the Suez Canal has provided amusement for millions online, as the global chaos sparked by the incident continues to have massive financial impact around the globe.While progress has been made on moving the ship, with the Ever Given being shifted 30m overnight, it remains fixed in place.The bizarre blockage has been celebrated across the internet.Several websites have popped up offering their own stance on the issue - with one giving users the chance to try and move the ship with Suez Canal Bulldozer (spoiler alert - you won't have much luck). You can also find out if the ship is still stuck at the helpful website istheshipstillstuck.comAnd if you want to see how the massive ship would look if it was stuck at other places around the world.   Helen's not going to be very happy about this... pic.twitter.com/0q75DIVQ78— Josh Couch (@JoshCouchNZ) March 28, 2021 Hard to know how the ship even got into Lake Taupo in the first place... pic.twitter.com/W8Quc1bkUY— Dylan Reeve (@DylanReeve) March 28, 2021 The incident is also being celebrated in meme-form, with many seeing themselves in a photo of the plucky digger working away at the base of the massive vessel. me just trying my best pic.twitter.com/s1ESpPs0KY— Kim Bhasin (@KimBhasin) March 25, 2021 Today’s Comic: We are all, in our own little way, that ship. pic.twitter.com/GVDjLxzErX— Chaz Hutton (@chazhutton) March 24, 2021 This is my favourite meme format in a long time pic.twitter.com/p7XOuC43PU— Ben Harris-Roxas (@ben_hr) March 24, 2021 My ambitious plan to free the boat is to push a huge cotton swab up the canal pic.twitter.com/ZnY4ehu8fx— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) March 25, 2021See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's nice to be on air again after another depressing week hearing New Zealand media, politicians and talkback callers give us their wisdom over how to solve the housing crisis.In simple terms houses cost too much in this country. Currently seven times median income. 10 years ago they were five times the median income. The international benchmark is three times median income.A house in New Zealand is twice as expensive as anywhere else in the world. That's not a good look.But let's also remember that people have been prepared to pay twice the price - because we have no choice.Most markets correct themselves when the price becomes too high and the market realises they don't need to pay that. But when it comes to houses you do. Because everyone needs a roof over their head. And the roof needs to be where a job is.This has been a multi-generational planning failure of epic proportions based on some 1930s utopian view that every New Zealander can live in their five bedroom, quarter acre, pavlova paradise.So now we're here what do we do? We moan and wail at the government to do something about the fact we can't house ourselves.So government after government has tried to put a cap on prices by penalising demand with taxes like the brightline test, or limiting who can buy with LVR rules. Bad people for wanting to buy houses.Anecdotally we've heard that the first week has seem an abrupt decrease in sales and inquiries from investors but let's be honest, these guys needed a break, it's been a busy summer. They'll be back because nothing fundamentally has changed except on the edges of their margins.What will the new tax do? Will it provide cheap affordable homes? No. Will it stagnate an already suffering economy? Yes. Will it halt price growth? Yes. But only temporarily until investors remember that the upside still exists. Happens every time.Will it mean a rise in rents? Yes. If the government increases costs then that's passed on to the people paying for the service.And this is the greatest crime to me. Forget first home buyers. The most vulnerable in our housing market are those who will never have enough money to buy a house and depend on the money bag investors to let them rent a house from themMost importantly, will it build new houses? No. Not at all.Which is why I was amazed how little attention was paid to the one part of the proposal which might create a house or two. The government money to be invested to build infrastructure.Because houses are not built on land. They are built on pipes and wires and roads and shops and service stations and transportation routes and bus services.One expert spoken to by ZB Drive on the day casually said that the government probably needs to spend 10 times that amount. Unless of course you want be like Wellington where you build more and more houses until the streets explode in a fountain of poo. Forget taxes. Build infrastructure. You'll never regret it.And one final note. Why is the housing crisis solely the government’s problem? They are bit players in this market compared to the buyers, the developers and the builders. The private sector has failed to meet the demand of the market.This was driven home by the news that Carter Holt Harvey is to stop providing timber to the independent wholesalers preferring to supply big players like Fletchers.Why? They underestimated the demand for wide timbers used in multi-storeyed developments.They've run out of wood. In a country with the second largest forest plantation in the Southern Hemisphere.It beggars belief.If the people who provider the wood can't keep up with the property market, then what hope is there for the amateurs in the government?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s D-day for bubbles.  Is it really?  Or will it be a day where there is an announcement about a future announcement as is the Governments favoured method of operation? If they offer not one concrete proposal or date or destination there will be considerable anger amongst the tourism industry and opponents of the government at large.  This bubble debate has been annoying as it seems to have been going on forever - which it has.  Weeks after we first emerged from lockdown, there were people advocating for an opening of our borders.  With 20/20 hindsight we realise now how misguided those calls were. In June and July last year we had no idea about just how widespread and rampant the pandemic was going to be.But the calls were understandable because the impacts on the tourism, hospitality and educational sectors have been so dramatic and specific.  Since then the issue has raised it’s head each month, only to be submerged under another break out of infection, governmental pussy footing or a political power play by Australia.  Make no mistake the travel bubble has been used by Australia as a political pawn a number of times. Angered by our anger at their Kiwi deportation policy and other issues, the Aussies have broken off talks a number of times.    They are perfectly aware that this bubble is more important to us than them.  Their economy is not hostage to tourism and education in the way that ours is.  We need Aussies to come skiing in Queenstown this winter while they can do without a Kiwi shopping trip to David Jones in Melbourne.  But now with nine months under our belt and both Australia and New Zealand approaching some stability and expertise about handling outbreaks, it’s time for movement. Five weeks since a community case in Melbourne, you’d think it would not be outside the governments parameters to open up in three weeks time. That's two months of infection cycles done and dusted. A simple step would be to allow travel bubbles with Covid free islands to allow seasonal workers in to help horticulture.  But a word of warning.  Throughout our bubble debates people claim that billions of dollars would resume it’s flow into our economy, but that presumes that we will return to our previous levels of tourism and international students.  And I’m not sure if that demand exists. Well, certainly not to the level before the pandemic. A return airfare to Australia is more than twice what it was bin the days of cheap travel we enjoyed in 2019. We need the bubble as a first step to normality. The government needs to allow a bubble because their caution is becoming increasingly toxic to their popularity.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Engineers want to build an underground lunar ark, filled with millions of seed, spore, sperm and egg samples from Earth's species, hidden in a network of tubes on the moon to provide a genetic backup for the planet in the event of a doomsday scenario.Scientists from the University of Arizona have proposed an ark, dubbed a "modern global insurance policy" for 6.7 million species from Earth, cryogenically preserved and hidden inside a series of caves and tunnels under the moon's surface.They said the vault could protect the genetic materials in the event of "total annihilation of Earth" which would be triggered by a major drop in biodiversity -- but any move to build such a bunker is a long way off."Earth is naturally a volatile environment," researcher Jekan Thanga, a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering in the University of Arizona College of Engineering, said in a statement."As humans, we had a close call about 75,000 years ago with the Toba supervolcanic eruption, which caused a 1,000-year cooling period and, according to some, aligns with an estimated drop in human diversity. Because human civilization has such a large footprint, if it were to collapse, that could have a negative cascading effect on the rest of the planet."Similar "doomsday vaults" exist on Earth: The Global Seed Vault, home to just under 1 million seed samples, is located on a remote island in Svalbard, an archipelago located between Norway and the North Pole.In a paper presented earlier this month, the team from the University of Arizona think their concept could preserve life from Earth in the event of destruction of the planet we call home.The researchers said the project is dependent on advancements in cryo-robotics technology -- to be cryopreserved, the seeds must be cooled to minus 292 Fahrenheit, while stem cells must be stored at minus 320 Fahrenheit. But the team says that at such temperatures, metal parts of the base could freeze, jam or cold-weld together.Scientists also still don't understand how a lack of gravity could affect preserved seeds, or how to communicate with an Earth base.Experts uncovered a network of some 200 lava tubes beneath the surface of the moon in 2013, which had formed when streams of lava melted through soft rock to form underground tunnels billions of years ago.Scientists think the tubes -- 100 meters (328 feet) in diameter -- could provide the perfect shelter for the precious cargo, protecting it from solar radiation, surface temperature changes and micrometeorites.Powered by solar panels, the underground ark would be accessed by elevator shafts, which would lead to a facility storing cryogenic preservation modules.Scientists say that 250 rocket launches would be required to transport about 50 samples from each of 6.7 million species to the moon.Some construction is already scheduled to take place on the moon for another project.Last week, China and Russia agreed to jointly construct a lunar space station, which will be "open to all countries."text by Amy Woodyatt, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I spent the weekend in Wellington and it was fabulous. I went for my son’s 22nd birthday using the tickets I bought for his 21st birthday that I couldn’t use because some sort of virus was floating around. I arrived on Friday and had a good shop and a great dinner at Havana where the octopus and the gnocchi are to die for. Saturday was a blinder of a day.  The clearest blue with a steady Northerly.  You wonder why they don’t have the America’s Cup in the capital if you’ve got a problem with wind. People were buzzing around doing stuff as only Wellington can on a sunny Sunday.  Maybe it’s the promise of beautiful weather, or the fact that so many public servants are let out of the state architect designed concrete prison cells to do what they want, but Wellington crackles on a Saturday morning the way few places do. We enjoyed the waterfront, went to Makara, had fish and chips on the South Coast as the sun went down behind the South Island. And I thought to myself, who said Wellington was dying? Who said it had lost it’s mojo?  That’d be John Key and our own Heather Du Plessis Allen just a few weeks ago and a host of other commentators. No, Wellington is exactly the same as it’s always been.  And that’s it’s problem. I lived in Wellington in the mid-eighties.  The motorway and roading system is virtually unchanged. The water infrastructure unchanged. Yet the population has grown.  The city is penned in by hills and so to cope the buildings have gone up. But the base the city is built on is 100 years old.  It’s right there on the Mount Vic tunnel.  Built in 1931 with plans for 2 more lanes in a sister tunnel.  90 years later nothing. The problem is not this bunch of local politicians, or the previous bunch or the bunch before that. The problem is the model which is why nearly every city and town in New Zealand face the same fate as our failing cities. I was reminded of that when commissioners in Tauranga took a look at the books and wondered how on earth you run a city on this and promptly suggested a 22 per cent rate rise. For generations out cities bodies have been funded by a tax on households, while central government taxes individuals. That means the local bodies are woefully underfunded compared to central government. For example the average Auckland rates bill for 2020, according to the Taxpayers Union last December, was just under $3500. But in my household we have three taxpayers living in the household paying nearly 30 times that in tax. We give councils a pittance to deal with our roads, our water, our rubbish, and our excrement - the most important things needed to survive - while Central government gets a fortune to pay for our teachers, doctors, cops, soldiers and bureaucrats. We choose our local leaders based on who will cost us the least by promising the smallest rate increases.  It’s self-fulfilling .As long as we give them peanuts, and we elect monkeys, our cities and towns will continue to be circuses. Enjoy the show.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Let’s try this again - take two on 2021 - because we screwed the first take up. I had high hopes for 2021.  Particularly when the first three day lockdown had the ambition of being a short sharp surgical shock.   I was hoping that the systems and procedures had been sharpened over the previous year to a point where bringing the economy to a screeching halt was unnecessary I was thinking that this was the start of a new normal.  A lockdown that honed in on the viral outbreak like a laser guided missile, quickly identifying those infected and isolating them, cutting any spread before it happened. But I was wrong. We missed three viral vectors. Three people who through either ignorance or disobedience allowed the chance of the virus spreading to a wider community. Faced with learning on a Saturday afternoon that an infected person had been at the gym, the authorities panicked that the gym goers were heading out for a Saturday night to super spread Covid.  So the entire country was punished. I felt for everyone.  But it was deeply sad for the sports fans and art deco festival goers and all the ancillary business outside of Auckland that were closed even though the chances of inter region spread seemed negligible. So here we are back at the beginning and time for a Take Two on 2021. Here’s what I hoped I learnt.  Firstly, the Covid App does work but only if the population uses it. It was the Covid App that alerted the authorities that case M had been to the gym and MIT within minutes of discovering he was positive. Without it would we have known.  Honestly, if you hate lockdowns, use the app. But the Covid app missed the walking ladies and the lodger.  Flat out fibs to contact tracers can’t be tolerated. It is an argument for an amnesty if contact tracing unveils dodgy behaviour. If people aren’t afraid of consequences they will tell the truth.  One undisclosed tenant is not worth a nationwide lockdown. I’ve learnt that this government is exhausted and holding the Covid card too tight to it’s chest. Too often we’re told things are tickety-boo when they’re not. Now we find vaccine press releases branded with Labour Party branding when this is not a political issue. This is no longer an emergency.  It’s becoming even more political than it’s already been. And I’ve come to the view that it’s time for the Prime Minister to step aside from fronting the Covid battle. There are too many other issues that are being put on a back burner that we will pay for for generations.  Whether it’s housing, child poverty or infrastructure.  The PM needs to get back to knitting.  Watching Kiri Allan fronting the tsunami press conference I realised how the Prime Minister has hogged the issue.  When asked for science advice, Allan deferred to a scientist.  When asked about Civil Defence decisions, Allan deferred to Roger Ball.  It looked so easy The Prime Minister likes to think she has all the answers on Covid.  She does not and it’s becoming increasingly obvious.   It’s been a long haul.  Time to delegate and move onto the next stage. So let’s go - 2021, Take Two.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As I watch the news last night I wondered how the young lad at the centre feels as event after dream after hope gets cancelled.  I wonder why the link between his family and the originally infected family was never revealed to the contact tracers.  Did they know what they did was wrong? Was there some link between the families so powerful it made them forget the rules?  Or did they not know the rules in the first place?I wonder about the motivations of the apologists. The counsellor claiming the messages of a year have gone past people because there are 20 languages in South Auckland.  We don’t have enough translators.  How on earth do any of these New Zealand citizens and resident survive if they don’t understand a rule as simple as stay at home if you’re sick?  Or stay at home if you’ve had a Covid test? Don’t visit another family under Level 3?I also wonder how every other denier and complacent feels. They fuel a climate of dissent and lack of responsibility that results in greater anarchy Day in and day out we hear a constant buzz of disrespect of authority.  The government’s useless.  The goverment’s incompetent. The government’s lazy.   Ashley’s slack.  The contact tracing app doesn’t work.  Covid’s just another flu.  Covid is a myth.  Vaccines kill.  Police don’t arrest anyone any more.  There is a sufficient underbelly of people in this country who don’t care about the rules because they’ve been set by people they don’t respect. The government and the system has it faults but it’s biggest weakness is the population itself.All New Zealanders had to do was assume some personal responsibility to help everyone. Too many of us can’t do that.  I don’t know why. It’s either because we’re selfish, immature, short sighted or stupid. You choose.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An Alaska woman had the scare of a lifetime when using an outhouse in the backcountry and she was attacked by a bear, from below."I got out there and sat down on the toilet and immediately something bit my butt right as I sat down," Shannon Stevens told The Associated Press on Thursday. "I jumped up and I screamed when it happened."Stevens, her brother Erik and his girlfriend had taken snowmobiles into the wilderness Feb. 13 to stay at his yurt, located about 20 miles northwest of Haines, in southeast Alaska.Her brother heard the screaming and went out to the outhouse, about 150 feet (45.72 meters) away from the yurt. There, he found Shannon tending to her wound. They at first thought she had been bitten by a squirrel or a mink, or something small.Erik had brought his headlamp with him to see what it was."I opened the toilet seat and there's just a bear face just right there at the level of the toilet seat, just looking right back up through the hole, right at me," he said."I just shut the lid as fast as I could. I said, 'There's a bear down there, we got to get out of here now,'" he said. "And we ran back to the yurt as fast as we could."Once safely inside, they treated Shannon with a first aid kit. They determined it wasn't that serious, but they would head to Haines if it worsened."It was bleeding, but it wasn't super bad," Shannon said.The next morning, they found bear tracks all over the property, but the bear had left the area. "You could see them across the snow, coming up to the side of the outhouse," she said.They figure the bear got inside the outhouse through an opening at the bottom of the back door."I expect it's probably not that bad of a little den in the winter," Shannon said.Alaska Department of Fish and Game Wildlife Management Biologist Carl Koch suspects it was a black bear based upon photos of the tracks he saw and the fact that a neighbor living about a half-mile away sent him a photo of a black bear on her property two days later.That homeowner yelled at the bear but it didn't react. It also didn't approach her but lumbered about its business, like it was in a walking hibernation mode.Even though it's winter, Koch said they get calls all year round about bears being out.And 2020 was a record year for general bear problems in the Haines area. Reasons for that, he said, could include the fact it was a poor salmon run year combined with a mediocre berry crop. "It is also possible a bear couldn't put on enough fat when they go in the den, that they might be out and about more often or earlier," he said.Koch suspects Shannon's wound was caused by the bear swatting at her with a paw rather than being bitten. Either way, the location might be a first."As far as getting swatted on the butt when you're sitting down in winter, she could be the only person on Earth that this has ever happened to, for all I know," Koch said.No matter the season, Erik says he'll carry bear spray with him all the time when going into the backcountry, and Shannon plans to change one behavior as well."I'm just going to be better about looking inside the toilet before sitting down, for sure," she said.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Firstly today my respects to Christchurch.  10 long years. I was at the first memorial in March of 2011, one month after the event.  Prince William was there and spoke.  He told tens of thousands of Cantabrians this: "My grandmother once said, that grief is the price we pay for love. Here today, we love and we grieve." I saw a young lad who had lost his Mum uncontrollably sobbing.   Towards the end of the service we looked towards the Port Hills and saw hundreds of first responders who walked right across Hagley Park to join us and they were given a standing ovation. It was a blue sky day and a kite was in the air saying “Rise Up Christchurch”. I’m sure all these sentiments will be present today.  10 years is no time at all really. But today will also see the Australian cricket side play against the Blackcaps in Hagley Park. Our best venue that was born out of the quake which also shows you how far we’ve come. On the Covid front we have a possible change from Level 2 to 1 for Auckland.  I think this is on the cards.  Chief smarty pants and scaredy cat Professor Michael Baker thinks it can happen so that’s a good sign.No one wants this more than Joseph Parker and Junior Fa who have their living on the line this Friday at Spark Arena.  No Level 1, no fight. Meanwhile, National’s Covid spokesman Chris Bishop has launched the biggest back of an envelope reckon of an idea when he suggested we construct a dedicated MIQ facility. He’s proposed land near the airport. Well, Ihumātao shows you how difficult that is and how expensive.  Cabins with individual air con filtration to be built.  Basing the costs on you basic prison build, you’re talking a billion. All to stop leaks out of MIQ, of which there have been none.  We’ve had returnees return to their homes after MIQ and then the virus flare up again and that’s affected Auckland the most because, newflash, more people live in Auckland.   This is not an Auckland problem.  May I remind you that our biggest outbreaks are the Bluff Wedding Cluster and the greatest death toll was in Christchurch. And this all as we commence a vaccination regime for MIQ workers that will further reduce the risk. We’ve come too far and learnt to much to be subjected to half thought out reckons. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday morning, I thought I’d start my programme with another call to rationalise or even nationalise our water and wastewater operations. This is prompted by situations facing Waikouaiti, Karitane and Turnberry who have now been joined by Akaroa.  Towns whose basic necessity, water, has been poisoned by lead and opossums.  They join a long line of shameful water management including our capital. If the government wants a shovel ready infrastructure project to get their teeth into then fixing the nation’s water supply should be at the top of the list. But that was yesterday. Today we’re back in lockdowns.  Called faster than ever before, which caused a strange pandemonium. I have a great sympathy for all the Cafes and hospitality businesses, who suddenly had just minutes to hours to sort their stock out.  Frantically trying to save food before being forced to throw it all out and the money it represents. But I understand the need for health services to crack on.  I’ve always found it strange that having decided a lockdown was necessary we delayed the lockdown for days.  It’s not like the virus takes any time off.  It’s always working 24/7. What I don’t understand is the panicked exodus to baches that occurred. I understand that lockdown is better at the beach but what part of Stay Safe Stay Local do the beachgoers not understand?Are they aware that the locals hate the invasion because of the pressure already basic medical services and supply chains for smaller supermarkets?  Do they not understand that they could be just like the woman at the centre of this current cluster who felt she didn’t have the virus.  That meant she felt free to ravel.  That meant she could have introduced the cluster to New Plymouth. Anyone of the bach refugees could be introducing the virus to retired populations in Pauanui, Whitianga, Keri Keri or Mangawhai. Are the bach refugees also aware of the disdain they’re held in by the people whose businesses are forced to shut down in lcokdowns? Their sacrifices are being ignored.  The exodus completely negates the purpose of lockdowns to halt spread, when Aucklanders are spreading themselves all over the island. Finally, we have a vivid example of why you should scan the codes.  The woman at the centre of this cluster thought she was sweet and took a roadie to Taranaki and neglected to scan.  Leaving the good people in New Plymouth in a state of suspended existence waiting for the worst. Will she be able to remember the places she went in a town she is unfamiliar with? Was it so hard to spend five seconds to hold a phone up to a QR code?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I want to talk about governance.Governance is defined in the dictionary is the way rules, norms and actions are structured, sustained , regulated and held accountable. It’s the job of governments in public life and board in corporate life. But I view governance differently.To me, governance is the trick of actually doing something, actually achieving something and actually running something for the greater good.  You know, governing.I’ve been moved to talk about governance because of continuing failures in this nation and overseas by the people who are charged with it. In reality, Governance is not what governments do.  Politicians can’t run a thing.  Sure, they make decisions and plot directions but they then hand the job over to a workforce who are supposed to be professionals at getting stuff done. The professionals at governance. When Phil Twyford said the last government would build 100,000 houses he made an enormous blunder.  But part of that blunder was the inability of the public servants in his charge at making any of it happen. The Simpson Roche report that was sneaked out just before the holidays has ample examples of that failure. The politicians determined the amount of PPE to be purchased and handed the job over to supposed professionals to get the stuff ordered and distributed.  They failed and then fudged that failure to the governing body. I was reminded of all this again with the tragic story of the New Zealander in Japan with terminal brain cancer, who just wanted to come home, but was refused permission. This was decision of a civil servant who brutally applied the criteria without engaging a brain or a heart.  As soon as the politicians heard of the case and how obvious the need was they reversed to bureaucrat’s bad governance. With public servants like these, politicians don’t need enemies. It was the same last week when testing was ramped up for Covid in Northland resulting in fearsome capacity restraints and queues. I don’t blame the politicians for this but the Ministry of Health and DHBs for not predicting the flaming obvious. Where was the flying squad of testers ready to swoop into hotspots at a moment’s notice?  We’ve had nearly a year to figure that out. The failures in MIQ are failures at the ground level.  The people through the government ordered the public servants to design a quarantine system.  It’s full of holes.  Different sites, different systems and no one on the ground using common sense. If they need politicians armed with law or philosophy degrees or just a desire to do good, to tell them how to do it, you have to ask why we have the so called experts in public policy and governance at all. Many people talk about holding our politicians to account. What we really need is the government and the media holding the frontline and our public servants to account. Because they’re the ones who keep letting the so called team of 5 million down.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For as many foes as the superhero fends off, Batman has a formidable team of supporters starting with his sidekick Robin, Gotham City Commissioner James Gordon and his ever-loyal butler, Alfred Pennyworth.But one of the Caped Crusader's most fervent supporters lies not in a comic book, but in the US Senate, and he's known the Bat for more than 80 years.Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont and the longest-serving member of the current Senate, is a Batman aficionado who's turned his fandom into philanthropy. He's even used the comics to forward his legislative agenda.Now President pro tempore of the Senate, Leahy is third in the presidential line of succession. Though it's unlikely he'll ever have to serve as President, his high-profile position shines a brighter light on his colorful resume -- which includes multiple appearances in the "Batman" films.When he's not working in the Senate chambers in Washington, Leahy retreats to Gotham, where Batman fights cartoonish villains and mans the Batmobile. It's a comfort he took up when he was 4 years old."If you live in the real world all the time, it can be kind of boring," the senator told Vermont alt-weekly newspaper Seven Days in 2008.When Leahy met BatmanLeahy declined an interview for this story through his spokesman, but his affinity for all things Batman is well-documented. As he wrote in the foreword of "Detective Comics: 80 Years of Batman," he was born just one year after Batman's first comic published in 1939.He first discovered Batman at age 4, when he received his first library card. He frequented the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier, where he spent many an afternoon poring over comics. While his school friends raved over Superman, Leahy found a "kindred bond" with the Bat."Entering Batman's world through my imagination opened an early door into a lifelong love of reading," he wrote in his foreword.He'd continue spending hours at the library each day until adulthood, and even after he moved to Washington, he'd make time to pop in. He's a vocal advocate for literacy and the preservation of libraries so children can have similarly formative experiences with books."Some of my fondest memories as a child were at the library, where everyone fit in and possibilities were limitless," he writes on his Senate website.Leahy's appearances from page to screenLeahy was elected to the Senate in 1974 and until the mid-1990s, his affinity for Batman didn't have much to do with his duties on Capitol Hill.That changed in 1996, when Leahy collaborated with DC Comics to create "Batman: Death of Innocents: The Horror of Landmines," a graphic novel warning of the dangers of landmines. Leahy has long advocated to end the use of landmines, and he told the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call that he placed copies of the comic on every senator's desk that year.Leahy's first foray into screen acting -- something he does strictly when Batman is involved -- came in 1995, when he appeared in the critically reviled "Batman Forever." The same year, he voiced a character billed as "Territorial Governor" in "Batman: The Animated Series."Since then, Leahy has appeared in nearly as many "Batman" films as the Caped Crusader himself. He usually appears as a scowling politician (though in "Batman & Robin," which his son Mark also had a cameo in, he was allowed to enjoy a raucous party). He even met an explosive end as the curiously named Senator Purrington in "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.""I explain to everybody that getting blown up was OK 'cause my wife's a registered nurse," he joked to Roll Call in 2016. "She put me back together and I never missed a vote."His most notable cameo, though, came in 2008's "The Dark Knight," when he confronts Heath Ledger's Joker and famously tells the villain that he's "not intimidated by thugs." The Joker, true to form, responds by grabbing Leahy's...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So Covid is in the Community. No great surprise, we all knew it was just a matter of when. Last week I hosted ZB's Drive Show and started with an editorial as you always do. In it, I railed at New Zealanders pathetic usage of the Covid App. I criticised opinion writers like Peter Dunne and Richard Prebble who spent the summer dissing the app.  I shamed the vast majority of customers at my supermarket who breezed past the QR code without scanning it when the process takes seconds.  I know that because I got my son to time me. I got a lot of support but also a lot of criticism. One comment stuck in my mind from a bloke called Michael.  Michael told me to “Jump in the River, Mate. You’re so self righteous.  I’ll scan when there’s community transmission and not before”. So, how are you feeling about that now Michael? The infected woman left MIQ on Wednesday January 13.  She started feeling iffy on Friday 15.  She finally got tested on the Friday 22, it was confirmed on Saturday and announced yesterday. So the virus was in the community for a week, Michael.  But because you didn’t know, I presume you weren't swiping.  I wonder if you went shopping at Helensville Countdown last week.  I wonder how many people who went shopping at Helensville Countdown swiped in.  Based on what I’ve seen all over the country, I would venture five eights of FA. Not using the app until there is a case in the community is like refusing to wear a seatbelt until you've had a car crash.The app works on most phones.  It works on cheap smartphones which you could buy if it doesn't work on your old clunker. It works even better now that it has Bluetooth and yet so many of us refuse to use it. It’s not the government’s fault.  Its yours. It’s either massive laziness or childish petulance.  Ask yourself what your motivation has been.After the announcement at 4pm yesterday, there was disappointment and some anger at the delay in the release of the public places the woman had visited in the week, which we know number 30. They were posted on the Ministry of Health and media websites at 9pm.  Five hours later. But if app usage was widespread the people who needed to know would have been pinged and would know even if they hadn’t heard the news. The app is fast, efficient and the only defence we have other than social distancing.  And it stands between us and lockdowns. It may not work on older phones but, my god, it's a lot better FA.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker Trevor Mallard has been accused of destroying an innocent man’s life, after falsely accusing a parliamentary member of being a rapist.Mallard's in the firing line amid revelations taxpayers footed a $330,000 bill for his settlement and legal costs of a defamation action - after he wrongly called a staff member a rapist.Newstalk ZB Political editor Barry Soper told Andrew Dickens the Prime Minister and Labour Party are not living up to their own words and values.“If Jacinda Ardern pleads well-being and kindness as she does, there has been none of that applied to the man at the centre of this.“He’s now very ill as a result of the accusation made against him, his life has been destroyed. That is not well-being or kindness.”LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mallard, Bubbles and how good are those Black Caps. They seem to be our current pre-occupations. Let me deal with the dead duck walking, Speaker Trevor Mallard. The calls for him to resign or be sacked have been almost universal. They will be universally ignored because Labour controls the House. Not just controls. Dominates. There is no need for them to spill their own blood on the floor and in the scheme of things a third of a million is chicken feed compared to the welfarism they continue to fund.  For instance yesterday over $170 million was pledged to keep air freight moving. But here’s why I think Labour should give a damn about the Speaker and give him the boot. In all the debate thus far we’ve heard about 2 men. One who accused the other of being a rapist who in turn claimed he was defamed. But what about the woman who raised concerns in the first place. The woman whose case was described so glibly by the Speaker that resulted in the stalemate we’ve reached. Her concerns appear to have been buriedThe reason any of this came to pass was because of the independent review into Bullying and Harassment in the New Zealand Parliamentary Workplace conducted by Debbie Francis that was released in May of 2019. It concluded that Parliament was a toxic workplace with a systematic bullying and a sexual  harassment problem. Case studies were included in the reports and it was while commenting on one of them that the Speaker stuck his foot in his mouth. The concerns of the woman involved have now been completely superseded by the actions of 2 men. It’s a former of abuse in itself.Furthermore, the Speaker is in charge of the House.  It is his responsibility to implement reforms to make Parliament a safe workplace.  Trevor Mallard has shown a complete  inability to comprehend the complexities of abuse.  His casual use of the word rape and claims he doesn’t understand the exact meaning of the word rules him out of being able to  be the steward of reform. He's just not smart enough or he just doesn't care.The Prime Minister would do well to force the Speaker to leave and replace the old dinosaur with someone with more empathy, tact and intelligence. She owes that to all the women who work at Parliament. She also owes that to all the men who could be wrongfully accused of harassment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So we’re talking Whakaari White Island again. That’s not surprising as the one year anniversary arrives on December 9.  But it is surprising we’re also talking about Worksafe prosecutions  Last week, Worksafe announced that it would be taking 13 parties to court, including 10 organisations and three individuals. Those charges and what they were charged with remains confidential allowing the parties to apply for suppression when  the charges are presented to the Court. However a number of organisations including GNS have been prepared to admit they’ve been charged. The release of the intention to prosecute so close to the anniversary I thought was not very worksafe by Worksafe.  Employees already wearing the emotional baggage of shock and guilt were suddenly named and by inference shamed. I know I was already reflecting on the day.  I was on air at the time and I clearly remember discovering a timelapse CCTV shot of the crater featuring a party walking towards the crater.  A moment later the time lapse showed a smoking hell. That affected me profoundly. A little bit of sensitivity might have been in order with the prosecutions announced at a more sympathetic time. After all, those charged already know what they did or didn’t do and what they could or should do better.  These prosecutions are to find a criminal negligence as opposed to an accidental negligence. We need to know all that went wrong.  Including Worksafe's involvement in the island's management.We would be better served by a proper commission of inquiry that would provide a more objective basis for learnings. I was thinking of those learnings today reading about a couple who survived.  The husband wearing shorts and T shirt burnt on 50% of his body.  His wife with long sleeves and leggings burnt on 25% of her body.  A simple warning to wear long coverings may have saved lives.  Issuing flameproof overalls would have increased the survival rate dramatically. The anniversary has also seen stories of extraordinary bravery in our media but also graphic accounts of the viciousness of the volcano. This weekend’s article on the doctors at the Burns Unit in Middlemore and what they dealt with and how, was particularly gruesome. The unit was already suffering with overwork and when over 20 victims with horrific injuries both from steam and hydrochloric acid arrive the workload became immense. It reminds us how reliant we are on specialised medical professionals. A recent conference of the salaried medical professionsals pointed out that we are heading towards a crisis in slow motion. Specialists are special people.  Their training takes dozens of years.  Surgeons need an extraordinary physiology.  A recent report found that the average age of specialists in this country is 57 and rising. We need a new wave of these amazing individuals and we can’t leave it to luck that they’ll suddenly appear.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Everything is relative, said Einstein. Nothing can be measured and assessed if we don’t have a focal point where everything can be measured and assessed on. Apples can only be measured against apples and oranges against oranges. It something that you should bear in mind when assessing our response to Covid. If you look at New Zealand in isolation then it is fair to say the actions of the Government have been a dreadful burden for the country to bear. And in doing a series of lockdowns, we have caused unprecedented economic damage. But to put to assess it correctly you need to look at it relatively. First thing to do is look at it with a time scale.  This is an evolving situation stemming from a single time point in late March.  Every day that goes past alters the relative effect of the actions.  Every day that we have Covid free is a day that improves the outcomes and its relative effectiveness. In the early days of the Covid battle, much was made of the countries with more lenient lockdowns and measures and their ability to trade more fully than us. And that was true. For a limited time, they did better. But with the benefit of hindsight, we can see the advantages of full domestic trading versus partial domestic trading.  Every day we trade at 80 per cent capacity is exponentially better than a day at 60 per cent. When the government said that the health response would be the best economic response that was only able to be confirmed after time passed. In the past week Bloomberg did a thorough analysis of the economic and social outcomes of the various responses and found that New Zealand is the world’s leader.  Beating other countries regularly touted as better traders than us such as Taiwan and Australia. Leakage of the virus at the border is also only assessable in relative terms. On Saturday is was revealed that isolation and quarantine rules have been breached every 36 hours in MIQ.  76 incidents in 27 of the 32 facilities since the start of August.  Nearly four months ago. Again, that has to be put into relative perspective. MIQ deal with 7000 people every fortnight. Or nearly 60,000people in the same time period. The incidents make up 0.1 pr cent of all cases.  I know we’re aiming for perfection but that’s pretty damn close. I guess what I’m saying is that is often easy to only see the glaring faults but in relative terms we are still a success with upside to get better.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nicole Grey first dreamed of becoming a cop as a teenager, and, at age 24, she thought it would finally become a reality.However, after waiting for about two years to get a place, she says she was told just days before she was due to start training in Wellington that she couldn't attend.She'd had a busy couple of years - in the space between applying and getting accepted she went through a marriage breakdown, did a tester course on what police life would be like and worked part-time to support her two young children."The same 24 hours that I signed my contact into police college, which in itself is an achievement, I stumbled across an article on the internet which mentioned adult ADHD."Listen above as Grey shares her story with Andrew DickensSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Auckland Council is warning that they’re going to be in financial doo-doo because of Covid for at least four years.   There are rumours of dramatically increased water charges and rates amidst a reduction of services. Auckland is not alone.  Wellington is talking about rate rises of 23 per cent. It’s not good. There’s a billion dollar hole in Auckland’s finances.   One of the reasons is that 60 per cent of the council’s revenue comes from Auckland Airport and City Events.  That’s gone. Blame has also gone onto declining dividends from the Ports of Auckland.  But can we blame Covid for that?  I don’t think so. There are now supply chain warning all over the place in the New Zealand economy.  My chemist has run out of my aftershave and says there is no sign of new supplies.  There’s a 16 week wait for wallpaper to arrive. There are warnings that Christmas orders will never appear. Covid is being blamed for the situation at our number one import port in Auckland.  But how come imports are being transferred to the Bay of Plenty  and Ports of Tauranga are now putting on four extra trains to ship goods to Auckland?   How come Tauranga is working and Auckland isn't?The plain truth of the matter is that Ports of Auckland is operating well below capacity and they can’t blame Covid. The Port has been undertaking a five year automation project.  Three new mega cranes appeared one day a few years ago, raising the number of cranes to eight. Yet they’re not working.  Three work during the day and two at night. That’s a third of their operating capacity. The Port is also short 50 stevedores.  Specialised positions that take extensive training.  You can't find these skills overnight.  There obviously hasn't been a long term employment plan.We have a shipping company in our building and this morning I talked to some of their staff.  The forthcoming supply chain shortages they put down to industrial action in Sydney and the Ports of Auckland failing at it’s core business. None of this can be blamed on Covid. This is a five year plan that has not been implemented proficiently. The chickens have come home to roost and it’s a tragedy that this coincides with a global pandemic. For years Ports of Auckland have done whatever they wanted, meanwhile demanding Aucklanders cede even more of their harbour. What we’ve got now is a Port company that is helping to ruin Christmas, hobble our economy and raise our rates. And I’ve got no aftershave. It’s just not good enough. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some of New Zealand's most legendary musicians are headlining a variety concert this summer.The Kiwi Concert Party will take place at Auckland's Villa Maria Winery on January 23, 2021, and promises to be a two-hour entertainment with something for everyone. Tim Finn, Bic Runga, the Topp Twins and the Hātea Kapa Haka group are headlining. Runga, Finn, and the Topps will perform live on stage together and will also perform each other's songs.Finn says in a statement the concert will be a great way to "shift the mood" of the past year."I thought after everything we'd been through together in 2020, a mix of music and comedy would be a great tonic," Finn said. The variety show will also feature singer-songwriter Reb Fountain, who will open the show, plus DJ Manuel Bundy."The idea for a Kiwi Concert Party starring Bic Runga, the Topp Twins and myself felt both classic and timely. Add into that mixture the Hātea Kapa Haka group with their amazing vocal harmonies, a musical director of the calibre of Karl Stevens, acclaimed songwriter Reb Fountain and iconic DJ Manuel Bundy and you have a unique and celebratory event. We will share the stage and shift the mood, reminding everybody what a special place NZ is. Have a sing, have a laugh, have a dance and a drop of the doings. See you there!"Families can bring one child under 12 for free for a picnic style evening in the GA fields. Reserved seating is also available, and each patron will need to hold a full-priced ticket for this area.Tickets go on sale next Tuesday.LISTEN TO LYNDA AND JOOLS TOPP TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The stars and stripes have been fluttering all week on the streets of Ballina -- the town of just 10,000 in the west of Ireland where US president-elect Joe Biden's Irish ancestors hail from.Ten of the former vice president's 16 great-great-grandparents were born in Ireland, according to the Irish for Biden campaign, with Edward Blewitt, Biden's great-great-great-grandfather, providing the Ballina connection.On Saturday, as CNN projected Biden's White House win, Ballina residents came out to celebrate their distant kin's success."I think Ballina has saved the world tonight, because without Ballina, there would be no Joe Biden," Smiler Mitchell, a local publican, told CNN.Balloons were tied to cars and the crowd sang "The Green and Red of Mayo," a famous ballad about the county where Ballina is situated. One car with a cardboard cut out of Biden in the front seat had a license plate which read, "PENNSYLVANIA BIDEN #1."In the lead-up to the election, the community held a "Ridin' for Biden" event around the bridges crossing the River Moy with a carousel of cars passing the town's iconic cathedral and finishing in front of a mural of the man himself, erected in the town's main square."Ballina has always been an underdog town in the west of Ireland, which has had its own challenges in the past," said local politician Mark Duffy."Now we think it's our time to shine and put our best foot forward. We look forward to welcoming as many visitors from across the US and across the political divide."He noted that the town is in a beautiful part of the world, with lakes, mountains and urban forest in the surrounding area.Biden still has distant relatives in the town.Joe Blewitt, a third cousin, who has met the president-elect several times, said his namesake "is totally down to earth.""He's a family man," Blewitt told CNN by phone.But Ballina isn't the only Irish town with a Biden connection. On the opposite side of the country -- in Carlingford, County Louth -- a community pipe band was set to premiere an anthem for Biden at noon on Sunday.Biden's great-grandfather James Finnegan arrived in New York on the Marchioness of Bute ship in 1850 from Carlingford, a coastal town located about 70 miles north of Dublin.In honor of their most famous son's election win, Carlingford's local parish priest planned to ring the bells of the church with school children and members of the community in attendance.Paul Allen, the lead organizer of the Irish for Biden campaign, told CNN the town was overjoyed with the result."Joe Biden is a quintessential Irish American and it shows what a combination of hard work and determination can do," he said.The campaign had encouraged Irish people all over the world to phone a relative in America and ask them to vote for Biden."The nurse working in Chicago, the firefighter in Boston or the policeman in New York, the construction worker building America; that's the Irish American connection," Allen added.The Carlingford community hosted Biden in 2016 and in advance of his visit, he wrote a letter which said: "Northeast Pennsylvania will be written on my heart. But Ireland will be written on my soul."Ireland's Taoiseach, or prime minister, Micheál Martin was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Biden on his victory Saturday.Back over in Ballina, more celebrations were expected on Sunday.The town, twinned with Scranton, Pennsylvania, is also home to Ireland's first woman president, Mary Robinson, who was elected 30 years ago to the day on Saturday."Her message was one of hope and a light in the window for the diaspora," said politician Mark Duffy. "...30 years later to the day, one of the descendants of our diaspora, who would have left Ballina in such a dark and bleak time for Irish history, has gone on to hold the highest office in the land."text by Eoin McSweeney,...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So it’s over.The power of good and righteousness has finally defeated the evil that has occupied the White House for the past four years.Well, that’s what some are saying.  The fact of the matter is that little really changed. Just like Clinton before him, Biden has won the popular vote, this time with a record number of votes.  But Trump also polled very well. Biden got 75.2 million votes, while Trump got 70.8 million. Both men getting more votes than any President ever. There is an enormous bloc of Americans who find nothing wrong with Donald Trump and were more than happy to give him another mandate.  This is not a sweeping victory in fact it is a concern for the Democrats, faced with a universally derided President they failed to convince nearly 71 million people that they could do better.What is their vision?  Biden ran on the ticket that he is not Trump.  Pure and simple.  He said little about Covid and post pandemic recoveries. Often people ask how could people vote for Trump. Well, go and ask many of them. They’re not the deplorables that Clinton derided.  They’re not hayseeds or racists or yokels. They’re people who believe in Republican ideals of small government and personal and working freedoms and they saw Trump as the only one embodying that so they voted for him. And Jo Jorgensen, the Libertarian candidate who pulled 1.7 million votes, may have robbed Trump in states with razor thing advantages to Biden like Georgia and Wisconsin. That’s 73 million who didn’t put their trust in Sleepy Joe.With such a loyalty to a tarnished brand, you have to say that the Republicans must rethink their approach. You have to ask why they feel the need to lie and exaggerate and insinuate and use rumour and gossip to try to gain a political advantage. To lie, as Trump did at an industrial level, diminishes everything else that comes out of your mouth If Republicans had played with a straight bat, where would they be now? They need a Republican Ardern or Obama. A popular trustworthy mouthpiece. But the same has to be said of the Democrats. They need to learn to walk a walk rather than using trash talk.  Nancy Pelosi in particular showed an extraordinary lack of ability to talk to and about the working poor of America. She was the embodiment of a champagne socialist.  The Democrats of privilege that goes right back to the Kennedys. Watching a coterie of 70 year olds and propagandists bickering on the stumps was a sad watch. America has been a stuck record now for 30 years. It’s time for a new and more innovative generation. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a walloping, and now the recriminations begin for one side and the plans for the successful government start to fall into place. Starting with National, this is a disaster and their only hope is to realise how and why they got it so wrong over the past three years. It is all their own fault and they should not shift the blame. It started in 2017 when they failed to secure a coalition partner gifting government to Labour. National supporters blame Winston.  But there was little chance after the way the party treated Mr Peters for an extended period of time.  John Key knew this.  As soon as the Māori Party started to crumble as their kaumatua retired, Mr Key knew he had no friends left so flew the coop. A smart party would have built a bridge to Winston. But they didn’t. After the shock loss the dithering began.  They lost Stephen Joyce and with him a number of other talents. The election of Bridges and Bennett split the party and no Bridges-bridges were built.  Simon believed that the party needed to be a bit more aggressive, totally forgetting that Prime Minister’s need to be likeable or feared and he was neither. So another schism. The Muller move further diluted the party and more talent left.  Muller’s meltdown was unfortunate and left Judith Collins as the last one standing.   National’s faithful  somehow saw the 61-year-old who had been discarded in the Key years as a brave new hope to crush the opposition.  But that was not shared by the swinging voters without tribal loyalty. Chris Finlayson was damning of National on Sunday.  He called the current party and its politicians arrogant and complacent, infused with a born to rule superiority complex that was unfounded. That doesn’t stop National and its final core supporters believing the rest of the country has been bewitched by Jacindamania pixie dust, which is so condescending.   It doesn’t stop them attacking the media. To account for the total domination of the party vote by Labour even in rural areas they now speculate that it’s tactical voting to keep the Greens out. The fact of the matter is that National was basically unelectable. A disorganised shambles with a confused message.  A party at war with itself as shown by the Denise Lee leaks. Up against another party with a multitude of flaws but who did the one big job of the age relatively well. I say all this as a National voter in 2017, 2014 and 2011.  This current mob is a shadow of the party I supported in those years and the sooner they realise it and why the better.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One thing I’ve noticed in long running stories is that people seem to forget that things change. Often that change happens within a week.  What is true at the beginning of the day is not the case by sundown, I thought this as Dr David Nabarro from the WHO appealed to world leaders yesterday, telling them to stop "using lockdowns as your primary control method" of the coronavirus. His main reason is that lockdowns are make the globe’s poor even poorer.  He could have added that it also makes the globe’s sick even sicker as they miss out on ongoing treatment. This is a chilling message as many countries, like the UK and Canada, look to re-enter lockdowns due to a re-emergence of outbreaks It’s also led to many people claiming that the widespread use of lockdowns in the first place was the wrong thing to do.Now, that’s not the right way to look at things. Lockdowns should only ever be used when transmission is high.  A short sharp shock to break the back.What’s changed since the beginning of the year and now is that we have some knowledge about how best to handle new outbreaks, most national and subnational interventions can be much 'lighter' than the full suppressions we have seen at the beginning of the year. Things change because things happen.  At the beginning of the outbreak modelling portrayed all sorts of doomsday scenarios.  Those scenarios didn’t occur because we did things and as soon as we did things the parameters moved and the numbers changed. I was thinking that at the end of last week when Sharon Zollner, the economist from the ANZ, reported that business confidence was soaring and the economy is doing much better than expected with many sectors doing better than they were in the pre-Covid times. How can this be? We were told we were heading to hell in a handcart. Some people were throwing the word “depression” around willy nilly. It’s because we didn’t just sit there.  We changed the way we did things, we changed the things we do.  We adapted. I also thought that during last week’s Front Bench when Chris Carter said we’re doing well because there were 9000 new jobs created during Covid. The rest of the panel roared with laughter and asked how can he say that when we lost 40,000 jobs. Well, we lost the jobs but we didn’t just sit there and stay unemployed.  We pivoted. We found new jobs.  9000 of them. This is a good sign. Statistics out last week show nearly 30,000 new companies have been registered this year. Again, we’re dealing with the new reality by growing and changing Things change. Humans own this planet because we are the best on the planet at adapting. What was true at the beginning of Covid is not true now.  We’re not in a great place but we’ve not arrived in hell in a handcart. The people that tell you we’re rooted are the real fear mongers of the Covid crisis.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Taking the bar exam is hard enough, but one Illinois woman took it to the next level by having a baby in the middle of the test.Brianna Hill, a recent graduate of the Loyola University School of Law in Chicago, knew she would be pregnant during her bar exam, but she wasn't expecting a huge curveball in timing due to the Covid-19 pandemic."I thought I would only be 28 weeks pregnant when I took the bar," Hill told CNN. "However, due to the pandemic, the test was pushed to October and I was going to be 38 weeks. I joked about taking the test from my hospital bed. Lesson learned!"The remote version of the test is four 90-minute sections spread out over two days. Hill said the exam is proctored so you have to sit in front of the computer the entire time to make sure you aren't cheating."I thought I felt something about 30 minutes into the test and actually thought, 'I really hope my water didn't just break,'" Hill said. "But I couldn't go check and so I finished the first section. As soon as I stood up when I finished, I knew my water had broken."But even the realization of going into labour didn't stop Hill from accomplishing her goal."I took my break, got myself cleaned up, called my husband, midwife, and mom, cried because I was a little panicked, then sat down to take the second part because my midwife told me I had time before I needed to go to the hospital."Hill said she got to the hospital around 5:30 p.m. and her new baby boy arrived just after 10 p.m."The whole time my husband and I were talking about how we wanted me to finish the test and my midwife and nurses were so on board. There just wasn't another option in my mind," Hill said.So, the next day, hospital staff provided Hill with an empty room to finish the test and put a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door. Hill took the rest of the exam in that room and even nursed her baby during breaks."I'm so thankful for the support system I had around me. The midwives and nurses were so invested in helping me not only become a mom but also a lawyer," Hill said."My husband and law school friends provided me with so much encouragement so I could push through the finish line even under less than ideal circumstances. And my family, especially my sister, just kept reminding me how I could do it even when I wasn't so sure myself."Hill hasn't received her bar exam results, but she already has a job lined up.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A seal sanctuary in England made a dating profile for a lonely otter who lost his mate -- and now he's found love again.Harris, a 10-year-old Asian short-clawed otter at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary in Cornwall, England, lost his partner Apricot after she died at age 16, according to a press release from the sanctuary.He was alone for the first time in four years and had appeared to go back to his bachelor ways.The team created Harris an online dating profile for a fake dating site they dubbed "Fishing for Love," in hopes of finding another otter in need of love and affection."I am very attentive, I love a cuddle, and I am a very good listener," the profile said. "I will love you like no otter."Harris came to the sanctuary in 2016 after being rejected from his family at the Welsh Mountain Zoo.Tamara Cooper, curator at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary, said there was something about Harris that checked all the boxes for Apricot."He was a doting partner to Apricot, so when she passed away a few weeks back he was absolutely lost," Cooper said.Because otters naturally live in pairs and Harris was such a good partner, the team thought he deserved a second chance at love.Luckily, there was an otter named Pumpkin at Sea Life Scarborough sanctuary, who had recently lost her own elderly partner named Eric."Pumpkin has been extremely lonely so we are delighted that Harris will be coming to join her," said Todd German, the Sea Life Scarborough display curator. "[We] hope his arrival will provide Pumpkin with comfort and companionship."While the introduction of otters can be a bit nerve-wracking and difficult, the two teams decided to introduce Harris into Pumpkin's habitat so that the male more easily submits to the female."We will be very sad to see Harris go as he is such a character," Cooper said. "But we will be keeping in touch regularly to see how him and Pumpkin get on."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So Auckland waits to go to Level 1 and a return to the semblance of normality we had for 102 days earlier this year. But are we all ready. A number of scientists and health officials spoke over the weekend saying that they hoped we executed Level 1 better this time than we did last time. Because last time we were hopeless The evidence of this was the size of the Auckland cluster that has left our biggest city in limbo until today. While the virus managed to sneak through in a way that is still not known, the real concern is how it then spread through the community.  Once lockdown 2.0 began the flouting of gathering rules in churches kept the virus fires burning.The Auckland cluster in Lockdown 2.0 was the single biggest outbreak this country has had in the pandemic. And that’s why the doors were shut and why they are only just being opened. So the question is, are we better at Level 1 than we were?No, we are not.  My supermarket is strict and has a door person so mask wearing and app utilisation is strong. However, this weekend I went to another supermarket in another suburb and was shocked that I was virtually the only one wearing it. And I watched a stream of shoppers keep their phone in their pockets. Now I’m not a mask nazi, but I have got quite at home at wearing them when I plunge into crowded social situations.  Not just to keep myself safe but to make others feel more comfortable. What’s the big deal? Meanwhile, the Covid App usage has declined immensely over the past month.  When lockdown 2.0 first emerged there was a rush to download the app. 2.4 million people now have it and for a while used it diligently.  Now usage is a fifth of what it was a month ago. Thanks for nothing New Zealand. Again it’s not about you, though it will keep you safer, but it’s more about others. If you become a carrier like the schmucks from the Mount Roskill Evangelical Church who were sure it wouldn’t happen to them, then we’d all quite like to know where the hell you’ve been. We are actually not too bad at contact tracing.  Recently we tracked spread to a lift button and a rubbish bin.  In America they have no clue how their President came into contact with the virus. So why are we slack? We have become immune to the exhortations of the Health Department and the Prime Minister.  Be kind Be safe, Blah blah blah.  It might be nice to see other political leaders join the call.  Judith Collins has a mask in her bag but barely uses it and sees no problem in sticking her fingers in babies mouths. How powerful would it be if Collins and Shaw and Davidson and Peters and Seymour and others actually joined in the messaging?We seem to believe that we’re immune from the second waves that are spreading through Europe and the Americas as we speak. Good luck.We deserve the freedom but there is a price.. Use a mask and the App. Please.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

COMMENT:The Mood of the Boardroom issue is out today in The Herald and this issue more than any other is necessary reading.Since the start of the Covid campaign in March and the extraordinary economic impact of the lockdown strategy the call has been loud and clear.What’s the plan?Firstly how are we going to stimulate businesses to make up for the lost income that closed borders and closed cities bring.And secondly how will we pay for the amount of corporate welfare that has been doled out to keep affected businesses operating until they’re strong enough to cope again on their own.With our future so murky the cry has been loud. What is the plan? Where are we going?And the cry has always been to the government. Which I have always found confusing.We rail against nanny state and too much government intrusion into our lives until everything goes wrong and then it’s all the government’s liability.The Mood of the Boardroom is a chance to see what business is really thinking and what they really want.And they seem just as confused as the rest of us.They both praise and damn the Covid response. They praise its efficacy and damn it’s cost.They want more discussion on the plan to take advantage of our Covid free status but I don’t see any barrier to business talking up a plan. Surely while the government provides the welfare to support the victims of the downturn, and that’s what the job subsidy has been, it’s still up to private business for figure out a business plan rather than waiting for a Government to tell them what to do.When it comes to who would be the best government they are similarly split. Overall they favour National’s ability to run the economy while simultaneous having more confidence in Labour’s Finance spokesperson. They give Grant Robertson a 92 per cent mark in credibility and Paul Goldsmith just a 53 per cent mark. Even more damning is that just 4 per cent are unsure of Robertson’s credibility while a whopping 25 per cent are unsure of Goldsmith.Inside the 40 page issue there are some concrete proposals which is good. Shouting where is the plan is not a plan and we need business to have a plan.Perhaps the best idea from the 150 CEOs surveyed is the desire for business to have a seat at the planning table. No matter how skilled a bureaucrat you need the input from the ground at the start of the plan rather than having business rebel against a bad plan at the end of the process.It would also help some of these super confident masters of the universe in the business world get a grip on just how complex and difficult this battle and its repercussions are.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've all experienced the frustration of being stuck on an airplane, so close to the end of the journey, yet forced to wait while some technical problem is sorted out.But while common sense stops most people from opening the doors ourselves, one passenger in Ukraine apparently decided the best course of action was to pop open the emergency exit and take a stroll on the aircraft's wing.Cooling offA minute-long video has emerged of the woman, dressed in a white top and light pink trousers, hanging out on the wing in front of stunned onlookers at Boryspil International Airport in Kiev, before being summoned back on board by the airplane's crew.The unidentified passenger, who was traveling on a Ukraine International Airlines flight from Antalya, Turkey to the Ukranian capital with her husband and children, was reportedly overheard saying she was "too hot" and needed to cool down.Her unauthorized walk on the wing of the Boeing 737 has seen her banned from all future UIA flights.According to a statement from the airline, airport security and police attended the scene, along with doctors, who determined the woman "was not under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs."The Ukraine airline went on to criticize the passenger for setting an inadequate "parental example," stressing that she may be subject to "an exceptionally high financial penalty in the form of a fine."A spokesperson for Boryspil International Airport declined to comment on the incident, which took place on August 31.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

COMMENT:The closer we get to this election the less able I am to differentiate between the leading parties. They seem to be morphing into one indistinct blob. It started when the issue of opening the border seemed to disappear from National mouths just as Todd Muller disappeared from public life. It continues when Judith Collins started agreeing that the government had done a good job to this point. This was in her early days as Opposition leader where she acknowledged that the steps taken to date were effective. It validated the elimination argument and watered down the flames that had been fanned by Todd Muller that our border control was a shambles. Then she threw out the financial targets that had been suggested by Paul Goldsmith around paying off debt.  Goldsmith said the party would try to reduce net core Crown debt to 30 per cent of GDP in roughly a decade, requiring $80b less borrowing on current GDP projections. Collins didn’t like putting numbers and targets on things which could come back to bite them on the bum if they weren’t achieved.  But it also diminished Goldsmith’s thoughts on his role which included spending cuts most notably in Government contributions to NZ Super. Next thing we’re hearing that the Government would not extend the wage subsidy scheme as it is all borrowed money and after 6 months enough is enough.  If that wasn’t a strange enough about face on it’s own, it was followed by both Collins and ACT’s David Seymour called for an extension. While I understand why, it did seem like the parties had temporarily swapped heads. Meanwhile the common cry that the Government has no plan for short term recovery is still trotted out by National.   Despite the fact that all of National’s economic plans are around the long term.  They’re all post Covid plans.  The new job subsidy, the writing off of GST on capital expenditure.  The billions to spent on big infrastructure which is still 10 years down  the track. They’re policies that are good for businesses that are confident on growth rather than figuring out how to get through. It’s almost as though all politicians are exhausted and confused and not quite sure what’s going to happen to us next in our Covid adventure. Therefor they’re loathe to put their ideas on the line. The debate seems to be stuck in the immediate issue of border control. And not much more. There’s no talk of taxes or government cuts or a moratorium on pensions or benefits. There’s no talk on how to kill the debt monster that any government will inherit. There’s no talk on poverty or inter-generational unemployment. Or what’s going to happen to health and education services in straightened times. Both Labour and National are campaigning on a simple unqualified statement that each is the best to manage this.  Because.  Just because. There is no talk about what’s next because no one really knows what is next.  We’re a nation taking it one day at a time and making it up as we go.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So here we are again at yet another crossroad on our Covid path.  A six-month journey that so far that feels more like a year.  A period of time that is but a blip in the timeline of a virus or a pandemic. There always the common perception that tasks grow easier as time goes on.  Not in this one.  This is the hardest part of the battle so far.  The coming weeks will test us as we have never been tested so far and in my opinion, we come into the test underdone. Whatever the real story is behind the official social media call for half of Auckland to get tested this weekend, I believe it’s indicative of underlying tension that many of us are unaware of. I believe that the Ministry would have liked to have tested half of Auckland.  I bet that’s where the messaging first came from.  I believe they would have extended the heightened alert levels.  I believe the Ministry and Ashley believe that this is a risky call and the chances of failure and a situation like Melbourne are not inconsiderable.  In this whole process, I have not believed the myth that the Ministry of Health under Ashley Bloomfield has enjoyed a tension-free relationship with the Government under Jacinda Ardern. They are not some united team, bonded at the hip, imploring the team of 5 million to crack on.   The government are politicians and politicians are attuned to public sentiment.  Throughout the Covid battle, the government has mitigated the health professionals desires.  If Ashley was in sole charge, we would have gone down earlier, we would have gone down harder, we would have gone down longer. But the politicians realise there is a limit to the public’s patience.  And we are at that limit. The well expected bottoming out of the economy is here.  The wage subsidy ending. The people whose businesses and jobs have been hanging on by their fingertips are losing grip. Egged on by a constant level of exaggerated of criticism and comment that says everything’s a shambles, or a disaster, or a science experiment, or a conspiracy, the country has had enough and we are prepared to take the risks and the government knows it. But are we really? To avoid a Melbourne we are going to have to take a level of personal responsibility that we have never done so far.  We are going to have to social distance, we are going to have to mask up in crowds, we’re going to have to use the Covid app.  We’re going to have to accept some personal hassle to prevent a much greater imposition. But crowds at beaches and the running battles I have witnessed at supermarkets when people are asked to register do not bode well. The news that members of a church in the middle of the outbreak had been holding secret prayer meetings is even more concerning.  What on earth were they praying for?  If it was an end to the pandemic then their prayers failed at an epic level. Mistakes by the Government have created a small but vocal group of opponents who believe the whole approach is wrong.  And all it takes is a small group to become infected and six months of work flies out the window. Today is the first day of the most critical battle yet.  Let’s hope we’re up for it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS DETAILS WHICH READERS MIGHT FIND UPSETTINGA victim of the Christchurch terror attacks saved lives by tackling the rampaging gunman before he was shot dead.Naeem Rashid, 50, ran at Brenton Harrison Tarrant as he methodically murdered people inside Masjid Al Noor mosque on March 15 last year.Rashid's bravery was revealed in the Crown summary of facts – the official narrative of events – on the first day of Tarrant's sentencing at the High Court in Christchurch.As fellow worshippers fell dead and wounded around him, Rashid ran at Tarrant from the southeastern corner of Al Noor's main prayer room where at least 120 people were gathered.Rashid was about 1m from Tarrant when he swung the AR-15 gun around and fired four shots at point blank range with one shot hitting Rashid's left shoulder.Rashid crashed into the gunman, sending him down to one knee.The impact dislodged one of the ammunition magazines from his tactical vest.Rashid lay on his back and in an attempt to shield his body pulled his arms and knees up to his chest. Tarrant fired at him, the summary says.The shooter got up, withdrew a few steps and fired a further three aimed shots at Rashid, hitting him in the chest, hand and arm. Rashid remained in that position and was later pronounced dead at the scene."Mr Rashid's actions allowed a number of other worshippers to escape," the summary says.The killer reloaded and stepped over Rashid's body, walking back into the main prayer room.He stood in the middle of the room and fired 32 rapid-aimed shots into the southeastern corner and then seven rapid-aimed shots into the northeastern corner."Both of these areas had many victims lying on the floor trying to hide or trying to escape through the single doorways," the summary says.The sentencing hearing is ongoing and scheduled to last four days.Tarrant initially pleaded not guilty to his offending but later changed his tune and admitted 51 charges of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one of engaging in a terrorist act laid under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002.He will be sentenced to life in prison.- text by Anna Leask and Kurt Bayer, NZ HeraldSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last night I watched the Sunday programme which concentrated on Covid 19 in Australia and New Zealand. I wondered beforehand  whether it was going to be a dramatic scaremongering propaganda piece. It was not by design, but it was by effect. First we saw the tale of two New Zealanders who had been through a Covid infection and the effect it had on them. Jenene Crossan was enlightening.  A 42 year old entrepreneur who returned from overseas.  She was fit and healthy and surprised by the infection and the force of it.  She talked about the debilitating cough and the pain and the exhaustion and the fear of breathlessness.   She also talked about how she continues to be affected by the infection. From becoming allergic to dogs, to being continually tired and having a vicious cough that strikes from nowhere. This is the thing about viruses.  They’re whole body experience.  One of my friends died in his 40s of heart disease caused by damage from a tropical virus he caught in his 20s.  Covid will live on long after the pandemic is over Jenene Crossan was at great lengths to say that her Covid infection was not just a cold or flu but something far more violent. That tallies with one of my friends in France who has beaten the Covid.  He is late 40s, a skier, an amateur  mountaineer, a tramper, a fit man.  He described Covid to me as trying to climb Mt Everest - without oxygen. Meet the Kiwi faces of Covid-19 and why they say complacency is not an option. THIS WEEK.Plus why Melbourne is doing it tough. @Jenene @taniapage @MavaEnoka #Sunday pic.twitter.com/pCgcpWhpgw— Sunday (@SundayTVNZ) August 20, 2020Another episode was fly on the wall coverage of a Melbourne Emergency Department dedicated to Covid patients. It was a scene from a nuclear fallout apocalypse with all the PPE’s  buzzing around. Doctors who were seeing the effect of the virus were telling the camera that this is not something to be underestimated. But the take away that stuck with me is something we don’t mention often. Covid is so new there is no treatment for it. If you can’t fight it off yourself all we can do is calm you down and stick a hose down your throat to help you breathe. This is why the globe is so concerned.  We can treat cancer, we can prevent car crashes, but Covid has no enemy or foe. But the doctor at the centre of the piece gave me hope.  With every case they’re learning more and bit by bit they’re learning how to fight this.  The same way we learnt to make HIV non fatal. And the final piece was on the total shambles that was the Melbourne isolation regime.  It made our problems at the border seem trivial.  At the heart of Melbourne’s problem was the private security force.  By giving the power for sub contractor’s to hire it gave them a profit motive to hire as cheap as possible resulting in an untrained and ill prepared staff who took outrageous risks and that has been a city’s death sentence. The provision of some public services by the private sector are always vulnerable to profit taking.  We need look no further than Serco prisons in this country or the Public Private Partnership disaster that is Transmission Gully, now years late and half a billion over budget. I thought it was an illuminating programme to remind us that complacence and underestimation of Covid is a fatal mistake and that will kill not just your people but your economy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A pair of spectacles thought to belong to Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi are set to be auctioned for more than $19,000 -- after being left "hanging out" of a letterbox on a busy industrial estate.Around four weeks ago on a Monday morning, auctioneer Andy Stowe headed into work and was checking the letterboxes at his office on an industrial estate in Bristol, southwest England."I saw an envelope hanging out of our letterbox -- really, literally, just hanging out," he told CNN.When a colleague opened the envelope, they discovered the unusual contents -- a pair of gold-rimmed, circular spectacles."They had a little note in there saying 'These belonged to Gandhi, and my uncle was given them,'" he said.Stowe told CNN he called the phone number on the note, and traced the item's seller, who was an elderly man who lived locally.The man told Stowe that the glasses had been passed to him from his uncle, who told him they were given to him by Gandhi while he was employed in South Africa."The uncle [was] working for British Petroleum at the time and was stationed in South Africa, and it can be presumed that these were gifted by way of thanks from Gandhi for some good deed," auctioneers East Bristol Auctions said in an item guide."We started doing some research and realized they were worth quite a considerable amount of money," Stowe told CNN, adding that the glasses have been valued at between £10,000 and £15,000 (from $13,000 to $19,500). They are expected to sell for "a considerable amount" more, he added."I gave him a call back later that day, and I think he nearly fell off of his chair when he learned how much we were going to value them at," he said.Stowe told CNN that auctioneers researched the item's timeline, and are confident that the story -- and the glasses' provenance -- checked out."The dates and the facts match up fine. The guy is an 80-year-old man -- I don't think he concocted it up in his head," he said."From our point of view, the history and the story matches up completely fine," he added. "The fact that the gentleman told me that if they weren't worth anything, I could throw them in the bin -- I'm quite sure he had no idea how much they were worth."The glasses will be auctioned on August 21.text by Amy Woodyatt, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well here we are in August already.  Six weeks after the solstice and so apparently we are in the deepest depths of winter We’ve also just past the four month mark in the battle against the great contagion of our time. It is worth re-iterating that.  The battle is still in it’s infancy. It’s only just started. At the beginning we were told it would be two years at least before a return to some sort of normal might happen.  We’re less than a sixth of the way to that point. But the ferocity of the debates and the dominance of Covid in the news has made us all seem as though it has been a lot longer.  That things and time has passed and changed and we can move on.  It’s completely understandable as we’re keen to get out of this slow suffocating hell.  But we do seem to be in an unseemly hurry.  The call to open borders started only 8 weeks after we closed them.  What on earth were people thinking back then? But outside our borders, things have been getting worse and worse and worse.  Victoria is facing a wildfire of fatalities.  Our Prime Minister confirming that a trans-Tasman bubble is now months away. The UK are heading back towards lockdowns. Mexico has joined the leaders board of infection.  And on it goes. The battle has only just begun So the battle against the virus and the economic carnage it is wreaking now reach an interesting stage. Having completed the short term, we are now into the beginning of the medium term.  It is now just four weeks away from the end of the wage subsidy on September 1st The $11.9 billion scheme has been in place since March, and has helped insulate 1.7 million workers and their employers from some of the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. In announcing the end the Prime Minister said they’ve clearly signalled that a wage subsidy is not something that can continue on in the never-never.  She also said it would delay the critical work that businesses may need to do to pivot in the new Covid environment, and businesses themselves have said that they think that continuing for too long, could run the risk of being harmful for the long term resilience of some of those businesses. I wonder if businesses still feel that way. An international report over the weekend said that governments should continue subsidising businesses or else the money spent so far would be all for nothing.  Australia meanwhile is continuing it’s corporate welfarism they call Jobkeeper until March 2021 But critics of this Labour-led Government are constantly criticising them for throwing money at Covid problems we just don’t have.  The support for user pays quarantining was in reaction to it’s half billion dollar cost to taxpayers. And so we face a real dilemma.  This government is acting like hard arsed capitalists saying the subsidy ends in a month and if businesses haven’t found a way to survive over the past 4 months that’s just tough.  If you’re true to the belief that the government can’t keep borrowing to plug the holes in a sinking ship then there shouldn’t be any extension But if you don’t want the baby thrown out with the bathwater should we go the socialist path and throw money at business that we just don’t have. What would you do?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

COMMENT:I’ve never been a fan of polls.I find them to be very unhelpful for democracy. Actually they’re worse than that.  Tthey deeply undermine democracy.They reduce the competition of ideas and beliefs and principles to a ranking game without analysis or cogent thought.They are lazy journalism which is why they are supported by media outlets.  It’s easier to write about someone’s popularity and how it has plunged or rocketed than it is to investigate the policies that person represents.They have no context and so they mislead.Parties enjoying  a high poll number can see their supporters become complacent. Their opponents can be convinced to give up because what’s the point? Parties riding high can attract votes simply because of a human desire to be on the side of the winners.So as everyone always says.  There’s only 1 poll that matters so let’s just have that one.  Give the world some mystery.  Let’s find out on the night of September the 19th.Meanwhile, last Sunday I had brunch with a respected QC. The conversation naturally truned to the globe and Covid.He said that he regrets Covid’s rise because it detracts from the real crisis facing humanity which is climate change.So I asked him what sort of crisis that might look like.He said that the first impact of climate change on humanity will not be from the climate changing but from humans fighting each other.As a lawyer he is already seeing businesses preparing to minimise their exposure.  To move the liabilities.Insurers wanting to increase premiums or refuse insurance.He’s seeing developers preparing briefs in case developments are flooded or profits diminished by droughts that should have been expected by regulatory authorities.Activists looking to sue the super polluters.He said it doesn’t matter if you believe in climate change or not, this will happen.Meanwhile he has seen little concrete change of behaviour or energy use that will prevent it growing in importance.So while Covid has distracted us from the looming challengers there’s no way they’ve gone away. And with many economises struggling the carbon fires that provide the energy to grow are being ramped back up.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Judith Collins’ first weekend in charge of the National Party has passed and she has faced the weekend media. And shock horror, the 61-year-old veteran politician handled the questions from Tova O’Brien and others with aplomb causing an outbreak of yahooing that the tide has turned. It shows you how far our expectations of our politicians has fallen over recent times. We’ve got used to the struggles of the David Clarks and the Todd Mullers and the Phil Twyfords of this world to answer straight questions.  We’ve got used to politicians pretending to have convictions and positions and then flannelling when push comes to shove. But it all bounced straight off Judith Collins because she knows what she believes and thinks and what she will hold to. It surprised me how much relief and energy and belief swept through the National Party and its supporters because, to be frank, the policies announced were less than inspired. Collins announced a $31 billion infrastructure spend that even at first look appears to have been drawn up on the back of an envelope over a few beers. Further, more it was Muller’s scheme but presented by Collins so it marks no difference in leadership, just a different voice presenting it.  Its biggest weakness is that it did nothing for New Zealanders in the short term. With the wage subsidies and other pandemic economic responses coming to an end over the next 6 months, New Zealanders are worried about an economic carnage emerging in the near future.  The reason they’re worried is that they can see it with their own two eyes and they’ve heard about it constantly from National. The government has no idea of the economic carnage coming our way was the constant refrain of Todd Muller over his 53-day reign.  So what do we get?  Some unconsented road and rail projects that may get off the ground in a decade. How will a second Auckland Harbour crossing arriving in 2030 or 2040 help a family of four with the breadwinner who becomes unemployed next March? It is as pie in the sky as Labour’s light rail. The second Harbour crossing has been discussed for years without decision.  Chris Bishop was asked last week where it will be.  He couldn’t answer that because there is no designated route. It’s a reckon. Just like the four-lane, 60-kilometre expressway between Ashburton and Christchurch that they think they could build for $1.5 billion. If they can do that, I’ll eat my hat.   Last week, Jim Bolger said the country wants specific policy approaches to address the economic issues brought about by Covid-19. He said the public want politics that address their bread and butter issues, job and income, and a future for their children.  Instead, we’re getting ghost roads and ghost trams and policies reducing immigration, which is a dead issue in these Covid days.  Maybe the fact is no politician seems to have a clue about how to get through Christmas because it’s just too hard for them.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With my new working life I now get to do news and talkback just one day a week on a Monday. This gives me a terrific chance to step back and look at the fuller news cycle rather than just the day by day cascade of stories that dominate the day but not necessarily the week.  It reminds you that a lot of stories that seemed so pressing at the time are often barely remembered past a month.So this time last Monday we were in the midst of a crisis in our quarantining. Escapees, a lack of testing amongst those released under compassionate grounds. The contact tracing app near to useless.  Add to that the appointment of Megan Woods as Minister of Isolation on June 19, and then the resignation of David Clark on July 2, and the weekend papers were full of opining on the SHAMBLES of our border security and primarily of the Government.One week later and a cursory investigation of the weekend’s papers and you’ll see the SHAMBLES now apparently belongs to the opposition.Southland brat Hamish Walker is no more after an extraordinarily ignorant release of confidential health information of those who have tested positive to Covid. The source of his leak, a former National Party President who obtained the information through her position as the head of a rescue helicopter trust and who should have known better. This was dumb dirty politics. Trying to lay the blame of security lapses on the government when in fact it belonged on the opposition. National took aim and shot itself in the foot.It has laid bare Todd Muller as a lightweight. He took days to make a decisive statement or action that should have taken seconds.It has laid bare Michael Woodhouse, who also had the information from Boag.  While his leader was flailing around trying to blame the government, Woodhouse knew all along where the information had come from.  A real candidate for Health Minister would have dobbed Boag in the moment she emailed him the details.Stop the rot was Andrea Vance’s editorial stance this weekend towards Muller.  He didn’t even seem to know there was rot.Meanwhile, Rio Tinto announced it would pull out of Tiwai Point. This has been obvious for a long time. Bill English signalled the end of government subsidisation four years ago.  The price of aluminium is not good. Rio Tinto has better options elsewhere and Meridian offered them a lot but that was still turned downYet the opposition lambasted the government for letting it happen.  If Muller knew his way around a balance sheet, then he’d know it was inevitable.  David Seymour also blamed the government even though he has long fought against corporate welfarism.  Even worse Seymour called the government student politicians.David needs to know that he is no better.  A bachelor of Electrical Engineering and a BA in Philosophy, then 5 years as a public policy analyst in Canada before entering politics.  He’s a career politician. He’s no better qualified in balance sheets and business than anyone in the government.And while this sideshow continues we have no community transmission and all the cases found recently have been found in the managed isolation, which while under pressure, is sign that it’s working.No matter your political persuasion, the last week seems to suggest that the Opposition is more interested in fighting the Government than it is in fighting Covid. That’s not a good look in my book.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nine Kiwi families are in mourning after a horror weekend on the roads.Hawke's Bay Police have confirmed one person has died, after crashing their vehicle on Springfield Road in Taradale just before midnight.It follows seven other fatal accidents across the country over the weekend, which killed another eight people.A pedestrian was struck while walking on High St, in Masterton, just after 7pm yesterday.Emergency crews were called to the scene at 7.13pm and the victim was taken to Wellington Hospital in a critical condition.Police confirmed that the person had since died.Two of the crashes happened in the Canterbury region within about 10 minutes of each other.About 9.20pm, crews were called to North Parade in Richmond, Christchurch, after a report that a motorcyclist had crashed into a fence.The victim was said to have suffered serious injuries, initially.The road was closed for some time as authorities worked at the scene. A police investigation is said to be ongoing.Another person who died was also initially seriously injured in a single-vehicle crash at the intersection of State Highway 75 (Christchurch-Akaroa Rd) and McQueens Spur Rd last night.Emergency staff were sent to the scene about 9.30pm after reports that a car had rolled there.Two people were killed in Dunedon after a 3:30am crash involving a car and a truck. After colliding with the truck, the car caught fire.Police confirmed later that the driver and a passenger inside the car both died at the scene. Another passenger in the car suffered serious injuries and was taken to Dunedin Hospital for treatment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here we are on Day 1 of the July School holidays and, of course, the weather is atrocious in many places and will be all week.  As if we haven’t already been through enough in 2020.But with holiday towns feeling the love from domestic tourism there is a feeling, which may be temporary that a new normal, related to the old normal, has returned.If we’re employed, we’re employed.  The vast majority of us are still working. We congregate in stadiums to watch world-class sport.  We eat and drink together in crowded venues. We’re almost like we used to be, although I wonder if there is some underlying Post Traumatic Stress Disorders waiting to erupt.In our measured calm approach to the global pandemic, kindness was a key motivating concept. But how close are some of us to resorting to the rule of the jungle.I read Greg Bruce’s article in the Herald this weekend about the appalling social media abuse directed at Dr Siouxsie Wiles over the course of the lockdown.Dr Wiles along with others like Michael Baker and Shaun Hendy were used by the Government and the Media to help explain the scientific thinking behind our national response.But the response to Siouxsie Wiles comments was often extreme.This so-called scientist, many called her.  An intellectual lemming, a nitwit.  People were claiming she had no credibility.  That she was a fake science lady.Of course she nothing of the sort.  She is a microbiologist and infectious diseases expert.  He university education makes her better qualified on a disease like Covid 19 than any of your common or garden epidemiologists or someone like Shaun Hendy, who is, in fact, a physicist. But Hendy who was saying exactly the same thing received no abuse whatsoever.Siouxsie Wiles was awarded the Prime Ministers Science Media Communication Prize in 2013 by John Key, she was a nominee for KiwiBank New Zealander of the Year and last year she was appointed a Member for the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to microbiology and science.But the abuse of her intellectual credibility pales into insignificance of her personally.  As she says herself, she’s middle-aged, she’s fat and she has long bright pink hair. Cue the nastiest cruellest comments through every platform that I’m not going to repeat because I’d have to wash my mouth out with bleach to get rid of the filth.All because she dared to be a woman with an opinion, a woman with a bright and bold personality but without having the image of ideal femininity, like Michelle Dickenson.It revealed a deep vein of sexism that I was revolted by and I can’t understand who thinks this way. When I was younger I might have shrugged it off as the burblings of the conservative oldies who can’t handle an educated woman with dyed hair.But the 60 and 70-year-olds that are our new oldies are not old at all and grew up through the 70s and 80s.  Siouxsie shouldn’t shock a soul.It’s very similar as to when Taika Waititi said that New Zealand has much racism, it’s fair to say that the treatment of Siouxsie Wiles through the pandemic shows that a large number of New Zealanders are sexist as, bro, and more than proud to flaunt their ignorance and prejudices.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Arthur Conan Doyle's estate is suing Netflix, among others, over its upcoming film "Enola Holmes" -- arguing that the show's depiction of Sherlock Holmes as kind, caring and respectful of women is a violation of the author's copyright.The film, based on a series of novels by Nancy Springer and set for release on Netflix in September, follows the legendary detective's younger sister, a character created by Springer.But the late author's estate has objected to the way Holmes is portrayed in the series, arguing that the sleuth was only ever kind and emotional in books that are still under the author's copyright. In earlier works, now in the public domain, his aloofness and lack of empathy are crucial aspects of his character and must be respected in any adaptation, the estate claims.Many later Sherlock Holmes titles are still protected under US copyright protection law.The estate has filed a case against Netflix, the US-based producers, Springer, her publisher Penguin Random House, and others in the US District Court for the District of New Mexico, just three months before the movie -- starring Henry Cavill as Sherlock and Millie Bobby Brown as the title character, Enola -- is set to premiere on the video platform."While Sherlock Holmes is famous for his great powers of observation and logic, he is almost as famous for being aloof and unemotional," the filing argues, citing an extract from a Conan Doyle story in which his long-time friend and assistant Dr. John Watson describes Holmes as being "as deficient in human sympathy as he was pre-eminent in intelligence.""(T)o Holmes, Watson was utilitarian -- to be employed when useful, then set aside," the filing goes on. "Holmes did not treat Watson with warmth."While most of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories are available in the public domain and can therefore be adapted by anyone, a series of later stories -- written after World War I, which had a profound impact on the author -- are still under copyright.The estate, which has gone after other alleged infringements over the years, argues that it was only in those later, copyrighted stories that the detective softened up -- and that by using those gentler character traits, the "Enola Holmes" books and film are therefore infringing copyright.CNN has contacted Netflix, Springer and Penguin Random House, the books' publisher, for comment."Holmes needed to be human," the filing says, after describing the impact of the war on Conan Doyle. "He became capable of friendship. He could express emotion. He began to respect women.""[T]he Springer novels make extensive infringing use of Conan Doyle's transformation of Holmes from cold and critical to warm, respectful, and kind in his relationships," the estate claims."Springer places Enola Holmes at the center of the novels and has (Sherlock) Holmes initially treat her coolly, then change to respond to her with warmth and kindness," it adds.It cites a passage from Springer's 2008 book "The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets," in which Holmes worries about Watson after he goes missing. "Nowhere in the public domain stories does Holmes express such emotion," the filing argues.The filing claims neither Springer nor her publisher nor the producers of the Netflix adaptation requested permission to use Conan Doyle's copyrighted stories.Conan Doyle died in 1930 after publishing dozens of stories about his legendary detective. Since his death, "Sherlock Holmes" has formed the basis of numerous films and TV series, including the popular BBC version, "Sherlock," which starred Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role.In its promotional material in April, Netflix said the new film "tells the story of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes' rebellious teen sister Enola, a gifted super-sleuth in her own right who often outsmarts her brilliant siblings."It added that the film "puts a dynamic new female twist on the...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is anyone really surprised that Paula Bennett has zipped it sweetie and ridden into the sunset?After all, the horse she tied her cart to is languishing at the bottom of the party list.  The tone of the party she helped create has changed. Muller is a moderate centrist conservative who probably hates her leopard-skin coats. The National Party is no longer an easy fit for an animal like Paula. It’s only humane to let her go free to roam her savannahs looking for fresh meat. But it leaves the National Party weakened.  She was the campaign manager and the campaign has only days to go.  And I worry that National is losing too many of what I call the velociraptors.  The heavy hitters who like the thrill of competition in politics and do not just want a job as an administrator of this country.It’s the Amy, Nikki, Todd and Paul show now and frankly, that’s pretty bland. Meanwhile, over the weekend I saw an opinion piece from Gordon Campbell, the left-leaning former Listener writer.He was questioning why the media was so critical of the border botch ups over the past week. He accused us of following National Party attack lines.  He then went on to say how bad National would have been at managing the pandemic.  He believes National would have gone late and gone soft and that we’d be suffering similar numbers as Melbourne right now.I feel the need to answer.Unfortunately, Gordon, the media has to report on what’s actually happening and not on what might have happened under another fictional government.  There’s been far too many “what ifs” in this debate. You can imagine that National would have been terrible as much as you like but it’s still imaginary.The media reported what happened and it wasn’t good. People did wriggle through the net.  Particularly the 55 given compassionate exemptions but not a test.With the report into the weaknesses of our border system released over the weekend, we saw more headlines talking of strain and breaking points.I read the report and I could see the problems. But I also read the report and marvelled at how much had been done so quickly.20,000 people housed. 6500 beds found. A staff of 600 including 238 defence workers assembled, trained and deployed.  The logistics of beds and PPE and tests and food and transport and isolation.  It is a massive exercise and for the vast majority of cases we have succeeded.Media always concentrate on the failures to help fix them.  They make better headlines.So today I thought I’d concentrate on the positives.  All our Covid cases are being found in the managed isolation units showing that they work. There is no community transmission yet and every day is a blessing.  We have the most open domestic economy in the world. We have stadiums full of crowds and bars full of people.We have been great. But not perfect.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So if we don’t go to Level 1 at 3 this afternoon, there will be a riot.There are some who are good little scouts who believe in the crushing the virus like a sledgehammer crushes a butterfly, but I think there is a sizable majority who are feeling the pain and need the country to go back to work.And if the government has been listening that’s what they’ll say. There is no need for a transition period.  We all get Level 1. Business as normal. But no tourists, no student and no overseas trips. Wash your hands. We already know and we’re ready.All we need to hear is “It’s 3pm, go back to work and let’s fix up this mess.” And then we have to start talking about recovering rather than just surviving.The interesting thing about National’s policy announcements over the past fortnight is that they were ahead of the curve. They are recovery policies, not survival policies.The GST holiday on capital expenditure for instance.  One business said to me on air that would not help for a while because they are not looking to buy more kit anytime soon. In fact, they’re more likely to be selling it as the demand has dropped. But when we turn to corner and start growing then that will be welcome. And by growth, that means growth that exceeds the capacity we had before Covid raised it’s ugly head.The wage incentive of $10,000 for new jobs is also a good recovery policy, but again it would have little impact until firms are growing. At the moment they’re shedding workers not hiring new ones so until a corner is turned that money would stay in the government’s pocket.There’s little wonder that these policies are being put forward by National because the soonest they could come into play is if National gets the treasury benches back.  They can’t realistically be in place until the end of the year, which doesn’t really help through this winter of economic carnage.But they’re on the right track and they are aspirational.Yet, in this time of survival, we need to be careful with where the money gets pumped into. The announcement today by the Warehouse that six stores will close resulting in the loss of 1080 jobs including 130 jobs from their head officeIn their statement the company said that shopping habits are changing and the impacts of Covid-19 have accelerated the process of putting planned changes into action.In other words we have been paying wage subsidies to maintain jobs that were already on the chopping block before the world had even heard of Covid. That's more than a little cheeky from The Warehouse, to be fair. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At the end of yesterday’s programme I asked the question , “What are you looking forward to doing most under Level 2”Of course many said “get a haircut”.  It’s sort of the standard answer the same way getting KFC and Maccas was the instant response when we went from 4 to 3. It’s not my go to.  I’m quite enjoying my fuzziness particularly the longest beard I’ve ever grown.Other’s talked about sharing a bottle of Pinot Noir with their Dad, who they hadn’t seen since before lockdown.  One wanted to cross Cook Strait.  For no particular reason other than to enjoy a journey they took for granted before lockdown and Covid.One of my favourite responses was the fella who simply said, “see my chiropractor”. I can relate.  3 years ago I stuffed my neck up skiing and I need it crunched back in place and a good session of acupuncture of the seized up muscles.  I’d quite like to look right without wincing.There must be many people tolerating a low level hum of pain who can’t wait for a massage or a manipulation. I saw no protocols for masseurs yesterday and it will be an occupation that will have to think carefully on how to “play it safe” but I’m sure they’ll find a way.  I presume they’ve been thinking about how they can do their craft in the new normal for weeks now and they’ll be ready.  I hope they kept their fingers and thumbs in good shape.When I got home I found my son and Helen in conversation about returning to Wellington so he can edit his film on India which has been sitting in the can for a couple of months now.  He was on the web looking to book a flight next week as they’re listed at $129, which seems a very reasonable price considering the situation.So of course I had to say hold your horses young fella. We’re still at Level 3 and we will be at least until Thursday because the PM has said there will be a 48 hour transition.  Add all that to Ashley Bloomfield’s evidence to the Pandemic Response Committee where he said he’d prefer a 3 week Level 3 then we can safely say that not a lot will change in real terms next week.The poor little poppet looked crushed.And this is a thing.  Yesterday’s rule announcement was greeted by tourism people literally jumping for joy.  The expectation is now huge. Add to that the Prime Minister’s warning that some sectors are going to require very complex changes to ensure public health safety therefore we may see some sectors come back later than others then you have a recipe for huge disappointment on Monday.And for a government that has seen it’s approval fraying this week as horror stories emerged of families being divided in sickness and death, large scale disappointment is not going to be a good thing politically.I know they had to tell us the rules before the change, but you wonder whether it might have been prudent to have told us 2 weeks ago rather than inflaming passions so close to the D day that Monday has become.Not for the first time this country and this government has found itself between a rock and a hard place and it feels like it’s all of our own making.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As many of you will know I moved to a new house and new suburb just a couple of weeks before lockdown.We sold our house last year and over summer we found a 3 bedroom apartment so this was the big downsize.  Of course, it didn’t work because all the kids promptly moved home for lockdown so it’s a snug downsized family home.So over the past few weeks, I have revealed that I now live in the Auckland suburb of Devonport.  For those who don’t know the city, Devonport a small suburb at the south end of the North Shores.  There’s one road in and out called Lake Road.It’s a pretty beachside suburb with five beaches within one kilometre.  It’s got the navy base which is always full of action.  It’s got two volcanic mountains which my dog loves walking up. It’s a lovely place to be locked down in. But it’s also fair to say everybody is a bit dismissive of Devonport because it’s just a little too pretty and twee and shall we say bourgeois.  It’s also very white with nearly 93% of the population of European descent, which is the highest figure in the nation.Now I didn’t move there to be bourgeois and beachy in a white enclave. I moved there because I never want to be stuck in traffic in Auckland getting to work. Which meant finding a place to live on an efficient public transport route.Devonport has a ferry.  In 11 minutes you’re in Auckland’s CBD. So it’s like an inner-city apartment which magically is not in the city.But at the moment the ferries run very rarely and mostly completely empty.  I’m not using them because the motorways are empty and the drive to work is a breeze.But come Level 2 and 1 as we return to a new normal and the roads jam up again the question arises on how I’m going to feel safe.Professor Michael Baker, the University of Otago epidemiologist says "mass masking" should be part of New Zealand's fight against Covid-19 as the country moves to alert level 2 making social distancing more difficult.Particularly is you’re in crowds such as on public transport, or in CBDs, or malls, or bars when they open. He reckons you could use homemade fabric masks.New Zealand could look to Asian countries, including Taiwan, which had used masks as part of successful efforts to contain the virus.Currently, Dr Bloomfield says in higher-risk environments, such as public transport, people may wish to wear a mask, but they will not be compelled to.I’m not a fan of masks particularly when you see people wearing them all day and in safe environments.  You wonder about the efficacy of that.  I do believe it’s good to stop people spreading droplets and bugs, but if you’re sick how about just not going out at all.But if next week I’m back on the ferry my question will be should I wear one just in case.  If not for me but to make my fellow passengers feel safe.And of course, for all those people thinking of using masks when they go to cafes, I ask this: have you considered how on earth you’re going to drink or eat anything with a mask on?  There was a notable story this week about a woman who had cut a hole in her mask to fit a straw. I wish I was joking.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was fascinating to hear Winston Peters in conversation with Mike Hosking today.It’s been easy to forget with the extraordinary powers granted to Ashley Bloomfield, the Director of Civil Defence and the Police Commissioner to make decisions. Decisions which are then enacted by the Cabinet and sold to us by the Prime Minister and Finance Minister. That Winston is still Deputy PM, Foreign Minister and the leader of a party separate to Labour.That gives him insight.  He’s got a dog in the fight, along with a different point of view.While he’s made some headlines with the trans-Tasman bubble, this is obviously just an aspirational goal rather than a hook to hang your hat on.  As Mike pointed out this morning there’s no way that Scott Morrison is looking at flights between Queenstown and Sydney when Australians still can’t fly from Melbourne to Brisbane for a holiday in the sun.You get the feeling that was always a diversion to keep us fantasising about the happier future to come.Conversation then turned to debate about when we can reduce our alert level.  While Winston said that he would never break the confidentiality of cabinet debate, you were also left in no doubt that he is advocating for a reduction.  And that’s reassuring.  With Cabinet having all the power in rule setting right now, it is good to know that there is a plurality of voices around the table.He also gave an indication that nothing will change until May 11th.  Which is exactly what Ardern said in parliament yesterday in response to Simon Bridges asking why she didn’t consider it every day.Mike then asked why we shouldn’t reduce the limitations on business to be more like Australia.  To which Winston said that Australia is not as open as you might like to think, which Mike didn’t challenge.  Winston then said to come back in eight days and compare Australia and New Zealand then.  Which also gave me hope that things are changing next week for the better.But it also made me wonder just how free Australia is right now. It’s a popular perception that they’ve been freer to trade than us. So I’ve been checking this morning.The first thing to remember is that Australia is a Commonwealth. The federal government makes guidelines and restrictions, but how they’re applied varies between each state.So the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia are much freer than us but then again they have had much fewer cases and the presumption is because of their climate and low population density.But the rest of the States are much like we are in Level 3 and have been for as long as we have been in lockdowns. New South Wales urged retail to stay open while simultaneously urging people to only leave the house for food and essential services. Sydneysiders may be buying cars but malls and the CBDs are just as empty as oursBig Box retail is still marginally open is some states but they report that most business has moved online and people are wary of going out and trade is heavily down.Today, the ABC has reported that 1 million Australians are out of work because of the virus. Analysing payroll data from the tax office, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) found the number of jobs slumped by 7.5 per cent between March 14 and April 18.The data only measures those workers on the payroll of their employer, of which there are about 10 million in Australia. The presumption is that level of carnage will also be seen amongst the self employed and contractors.The point is that Australia is not markedly better off economically than us because some States were more lenient. It’s also worth remembering that at the start of this pandemic, Australia had a debt level over 40% compared to us at 20. So we’re better placed to provide stimulus.I heard a talkback caller the other day saying that the Covid debates have been full of comparisons between oranges and apples and I think that’s...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, here we are in Week 7 of a nationwide lockdown to contain and eliminate the virus known as Covid 19.  A new or novel virus for which the world has no cure or vaccine. I think it’s fair to say that our patience for the lockdown has now broken. Our determination has wavered. Our resolve has weakened.The moment we broke was yesterday when we learnt of the case of Oliver Christianson and his successful legal challenge against the Ministry of Health.We all know the story.  His father dying from brain cancer, Oliver flew from the UK, a Covid hotspot, to spend as much time as he could with his Dad. He arrived and went into isolation as per our regulations but Dad started to fade away quicker than expected. So he applied to the Ministry of Health for an exemption so he could see his father and he was refused.In the end, it was the ruling of a High Court judge, Justice Tracey Walker, that interceded last Friday. Oliver got to see his Dad for his last 36 hours.One of the important things for me was Oliver’s good faith with our lockdown regulations.  He returned and was originally prepared to comply and waited eight days but then circumstances changed.His Dad began to slip away.  He then looked for empathy and mercy and found none until he went to a judge. A judge who exercised common decency and common sense.The Ministry had offered no exemptions in 100 per cent of the applications. 24 in total.  The problem being the Ministry wrote the ability to grant exemptions into its law and regulation. If their intention was to go hard and heartless then they should never have written the exemption clauses in the first place.But the effect of the ruling has been to open the floodgates of emotion that many of us had been holding back. While everyone empathises with the Christiansen case there have been hundreds more that you will never hear of.Like my mate whose Mum died a few weeks ago in lockdown. Due to the regulations, he waited for her death in the room next door separated by a few millimetres of jib and framing. Even though he had not been overseas, had no close contacts and was not unwell.  The three leading indicators. They couldn’t see each other as she took her last breath.  Other families were banned from being present. He never saw her body.And with emotion comes anger.  And the anger is dissolving the voluntary compliance that the Ministry of Health has relied upon.  The halo of Saint Ashley Bloomfield has been tarnished and it’s starting to fall off.  He’s been accused of being complicit in politicking, even though he is the supposedly apolitical unelected professional in charge of health provision.If Dr Bloomfield is capable of reading the mood of the country, he should know this. If he doesn’t then the empathetic Prime Minister should tell him.It’s time to move on and he should not be disappointed.  Through human history, the concept of quarantine has been used successfully against pandemic after pandemic.  Quarantine comes from an Italian word Quaranta, which means 40. It refers to the 40 days that people were isolated for in the 1300s as we fought the Black Plague.Yesterday was Day 40 of the Great New Zealand Covid Lockdown. You got us there, Ashley.  Now let us go.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So this is awkward.I go a flu jab this morning. And what makes it even more awkward is that I never even asked for it.This doesn't bode well for the narrative that the government has lost 700,000 vaccinationsSo last week I got a text from my medical centre telling me that I was eligible for a funded jab and would I like to come in on Monday morning.  I phoned the centre and said yes and then asked why I was getting a funded flu jab.  Have I suddenly become old or elderly of frail?  Is it some sort of mistake.  The receptionist had no idea.  I took up the offer after all, just like Damian Grant taking up a wage subsidy he didn't need.You don't look a gift vax in the mouth.So I turned up this morning and found out that the reason I got offered the vax was that I had cancer and surgery last year. The practice had looked through it's records and determined the perceived vulnerable, made their order quite early in the piece and then the jabs came through.Their first tranche was a bit slow but since then everything has been fine. To give you a perspective, this medical centre with six doctors identified and administered the vaccinations to 12,000 clients.So I asked my nurse if the government lost half a million jabs.  She didn’t think so.  She reckons some DHBs and their distribution networks just aren’t as good as others.  Welcome to post code medical care. It must be so frustrating as a government to be constantly disappointed by the civil servants at the ground level. It’s much like how the police failed to check up on the self-isolated inside three days.And speaking of the police, the question has been asked whether they had the legal power to enforce the lockdown and the closure of businesses after a leak of an email from the Deputy Police Commissioner that showed the police were concerned.This is a question that Simon Bridges was putting to Commissioner Andy Coster last week in the Pandemic Response Committee.  He never got an answer to it because Coster ran rings around him.  Coster is a lawyer too and Bridges just never got the right question together.If the emails are correct, it doesn’t look so.  It appears Ashley Bloomfield used the wrong Act to issue the specific regulations.  He used the Health Act and not the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act.I had been wondering why Ashley announced three revisions of section 71.  It turns out he was floundering around trying to get the law right.I find that amazing.  Saint Ashley Bloomfield didn’t know how to legally enforce the lockdown he ordered.  You would have thought that would have been sorted out decades ago.  The law should have been ready to go at a moment’s notice.  It’s called having a Pandemic Plan.  You get the feeling that the Department of Health was making it up as they went along. That's not good enough.There will have to be an inquiry and a very hard look at our health civil servants to figure out how they got the very basic things wrong.And again, it must be so frustrating as a government to be constantly disappointed by the civil servants at the ground level.So did the police break the law enforcing the lockdown?  It doesn’t look so.  Because it seems like they just didn’t enforce it for two weeks until it was fixed.The phrase is non-coercive community policing powers. In other words, they just asked us to shut the country down, nicely.  And being good and polite Kiwis, we just did. Incredible, really.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well it’s been a week where some voices from the past have been offering their comforting and discomforting voices. So what did we get? And are there any tricks we’re missing.John Key has spoken a couple of times and there was some comfort to be found in his predictions.  He, like all of us, knows the rest of the year is going to be extremely tough financially for all businesses and some in particular.But he believes we’ll start recovering faster than some people have said.  He thinks the regions will be hard hit. That Auckland will continue to grow slowly because of it’s economy of scale. He believes unemployment will reach double figures but not the 25 per cents that some predicts He believes property prices will slump but crawl back relatively well.He said that businesses will take advantage of the crisis to trim fat from their employees, which is brutal but accurate.  Never waste a crisis.  He also thinks commercial property will flounder as staff numbers drop and more of us continue to work from homeHis biggest concern was access to finance particularly to developers.  And this is the big one. You need cash to oil the wheels of business and if it’s not coming in the front door then you have to borrow it from somewhere.But his only concrete advice about what to do right now was to wake up each day and figure out another business that could go to work.  In other words Level 2 the country or at least some sectors that could trade safely.Today the pleasant baritone of former Finance Minister Stephen Joyce graced the airwaves.He was asked what is the government missing.  He too, like most of National politicians thinks we should go to Level 2.Stephen praised the quick implementation of the wage subsidy, but that needs to be extended now because of the simple reason that firms that are not going to make it need to give thie employees 4 weeks notice.  Which is a good point point.  The 12 week wage subsidy started on March 17 so we’re in the 7th week and there are 5 to go. We really need to know this week and before May 11 or the Budget which is on May 14. 2 weeks from now.He said the government has done a good job stimulating the manufacturing, forestry and  construction  sectors and he said that farming is still doing well.  But he says the government needs to focus more on retail, hospitality, personal services, tourism, accommodation and international education sectors who are hurting more every day.  He says the government is showing a bias towards the traditional trades and the traditional exports which is no bad thing but it’s not enough.This is where we come to the uncomfortable truth. Most of the sectors he mentioned are not suffering because of the lockdown and when the lockdown ends they will not be in the clear.  They’ve been smashed by the border shutdown killing overseas visitors.  Tourism and  accommodation are hardest hit and the hospitality that catered to travellers.  You can’t have much of an international education sector if international students can’t enter the country.No one is asking for the border controls to be eased and no-one will.So what is the answer to that.  Well Stephen didn’t say. Earlier in the week Mark Mitchell couldn’t tell us what his party would do to save the laundry dependent on washing motel’s linen.  That’s because no-one knows what to do about that.  Including the opposition So far the only policy National seems to be pushing is a change in levels which will do little to fix the endangered sectorsIt appears as though the government is picking winners.  The way Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson did in dark days gone past.  It appears that the harsh truth is that some sectors will not be saved.  But nobody, particularly a politician, is prepared to say that out loud.So from this week of wisdom from the titans of the past, the concrete proposals are these.Extend the wage subsidy now and drop the...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Andrew Dickens has shared his experience of online funerals - after attending his third such funeral since the Covid-19 pandemic began. After reading a text from a listener who's mother is working in England and signing death certificates, Dickens spoke of witnessing the funeral of his sister-in-law's mother from the other side of the world. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We have a saying in our family: No-one needs a could have/should have conversation right now.We pull that one out at moments of high stress when everything is going wrong and it’s bleedingly obvious that the reason it’s going all wrong is because of a poor choice in the past.The Covid 19 debate is full of could have/should have conversations with people more than happy to tell us what we should have done in the past.  But we didn’t.So the latest was Professor Des Gorman. The former dean of the Auckland Medical School was talking to the Epidemic Response Committee yesterday. His hot take reckon was that we should have closed our borders in mid-February rather than late March.  He reckons that we weren’t resourced to do it.He’s right, obviously, and wrong all at the same time.  Actually, if we closed the borders in mid-January like Taiwan we could have been in an even stronger situation.But no-one was seriously mentioning or considering a full shut down of that at the time.  Including Professor Des.  I’ve gone back and checked the stories.  The pressure came on early March.And the reason the lockdown has worked is because of buy in by New Zealanders.In my opinion, any leader who closed New Zealand at the height of tourism season when there was not one case on our shores would have been pilloried for economic sabotage even more so that the government is being criticised now.So bless you, Professor Gorman, for your profound 20/20 hindsight at this difficult time. How about you tell us your wisdom going forward, rather than looking back.Which he has.  His other hot take reckon is that based on the numbers, we could be at Level 2 now and if we’re not he reckons that’s because the Ministry of Health is worried about something that they haven’t told us about yet. Which could very well be the case.But this is not the time or place backwards-looking blamestorming.  Instead of upsetting people over things we can’t change we might want to urge them to get up off the floor and get us going again.And I thought the same thing when Foreign Minister Winston Peters started grumbling that New Zealand might join Australia in an inquiry as to whether China told us the truth in a timely manner about the virus.  Scott Morrison has already gone full ham on an inquiry and the word is that the China/Australia relationship is much rockier now than most people realise.We don’t need to be part of this fight right now.  We need China to buy some of our stuff.  Finding out how China screwed up does nothing for the situation we are currently in.  In my opinion, the Foreign Minister is committing a little bit of economic sabotage by mentioning it.  I guess it makes him seem tough but it’s not smart.I’m sure China didn’t tell us the whole truth but knowing that changes nothing.  Right now I think it might be wise to hold your nose and take a march on Australia and sell China as much of our milk, beef and lobsters as we can right now. We’ll sort out the screw ups when we’re back on our two feet.So Winston. Zip it sweetie.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So the pressure cooker that our businesses have been in due to our response to Covid 19 yesterday exploded.It was the turn of small business to appear before the Pandemic Response committee and it was a heartbreaking litany of broken hopes and dreams from the sector that employs a quarter of all New Zealanders.Amongst all of them, there was a commonality.Ever since we closed our borders, which killed hospitality and accommodation, and then the lockdown, our small businesses have experienced a dramatic reduction in cashflow that will be fatal for many enterprises.The committee heard that while the government’s wage subsidy has helped them meet one of their liabilities, namely paying the people who do their work, there are many other costs that are sucking their reserves dry.They’ve got no money coming in but they still face debts around rates, insurance, rent, utilities, equipment leases, and all sorts of other business costs.They’re going to the wall and they want the government to do something about it.In their grief, many small business owners believe that the rest of us and the government don’t understand their plight.Can I assure small business that we do.  That we care.  But the thing we all need to know is what should we do and what do you need.  Our problem is that we've hit a wall and no-one knows what to doSo, this morning Stuart Nash and Mark Mitchell faced off about it.  Nash is the Minister for Small Business. Mitchell ran through the pain our small business is feeling and then made the blindingly arrogant assumption that the Minister of Small Business has no idea how small business is feeling.I’m pretty sure Nash has been yelled at by enough small businesses to know how they’re feeling.Mitchell’s sweeping assumption is part of a common complaint against the Coalition.  They’re academics and have never run businesses.Well ,I don’t know whether you watched yesterday’s committee but the best questions came from Tamati Coffey.  He is a small business owner.Take our current Minister of Economic Development and Trade David Parker.  He’s been involved in starting the bio-tech export start-ups A2 Corporation, BLIS Technologies, Botryzen and Pharmazen. He is an experienced CEO and company director.Compare that to Paul Goldsmith who in an alternative world would be Finance Minister now. He’s been a press secretary and speech writer for Phil Goff, Simon Upton and John Banks  In 2000 he got into PR and worked for Tranz Rail and the University of Auckland.  For three years he was an Auckland City Councillor. He’s got an MA in history.  You can say he had his own business.  He wrote 10 books. He’s basically a writer and a spin doctor.People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.  Based on a lot of the aimless questions from our parliamentarians from both sides I would say lack of business acumen is widespread in parliament.What really bugged me about this morning’s debate is how short it was of ideas.Nash tells us somethings coming next week.  They better hurry up because temperatures rising.Meanwhile, Mitchell runs through the story of a laundromat operator who’s business has dropped 70 per cent since in the pandemic who sits in his office with his head in his hands.  But never says what he thinks we should do.And I tell you why.  Because the Mark Mitchell and the Opposition don’t know either.70 per cent of the laundromat’s business came from doing motel and hotel laundry.  That business is gone until borders are opened and domestic tourism restarts. He could borrow money from a bank with a 20 per cent guarantee from the government.  But the bank would take a look at the business and its prospects going forward and say you model is shot so we don’t want to lend you money.  Harsh but true.So what did Mark Mitchell want Stuart Nash to do.? Throw government money at a failing business so it fails a...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I know I’m about to be judgemental. I know that some people will say you shouldn’t impose your beliefs and values on other people who are doing nothing wrong.But - I think the people who thought it was a valuable exercise to queue at 4 in the morning at a Merivale McDonalds would be well advised to go home, look in the mirror, and reappraise their life goals and aspirations.I know you’re a burger aficionado, I know it’s been a long five weeks, but seriously? Stressing your body and it’s immune system to wake outside your temporal zone to ingest a tasty snack of debatable nutritional quality just seems to be nuts to me.Speaking of judgemental, I am over the pile on to Deborah Russell. Not because I approve of her inappropriate question asked at an inappropriate time but because it’s an insignificant scuffle as part of personality politics and not at all helpful to getting back on track.To make the claim that her question in a committee, that was promptly shot down by the man in charge of our finances, is indicative that an entire party does not understand small business is drawing a longbow.In front of the same committee, the Leader of the Opposition also said something stupid when he asked the CEO of TVNZ why the Government funds them. TVNZ is, of course, a self-funding commercial entity. In fact, it funds the government through any dividend that they pay in a good year.Using the Deborah Russell example we could say the National Party is too incompetent to run a government because they don’t understand the basics of Government finances.But we didn’t. We said silly old Simon made a mistake. So did silly old Deborah.But all this judgemental assumptive flannel took up so much time this morning that the most critical question was never asked.What will happen to get to Level 2? Yesterday the PM said we’ll review the levels on May 11. Two weeks from now.But if conditions are appropriate to drop to Level 2, will we be able to do that on May 12?I ask this because when we went from 4 to 3 there was a five day transition period which extended the lockdown period. If there is a similar transition period it will effectively extend the lockdown from 7 to 8 weeks.In my opinion that extension would be even more damaging to business than the one we’ve just had. And for businesses planning for the transition, this sort of surety is necessary.We know we won’t know whether we can go to Level 2 until May 11. But if we can I want to know we can do that on May 12.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So here we are.  After what seems both an eternity and the blink of an eye we come to the time to decide the next step in the battle against Covid 19.The choice is simple and stark and yet so complicated and fuzzy. It is, as we are prone to say these days, unprecedented.Do we extend the Level 4 lockdown or do we ease the strict rules and move to Level 3? There is no right answer because the cases for both are powerful.  The consequences of both are also potentially calamitous.On one hand, the business people of this country are right to fear an extension of the lockdown.  Every day that goes by sees more life ebbing out of our economy. An extension will be the straw that breaks many enterprises backs. Meanwhile, the health cost of a failed economy should not be discounted. A recession is bad for you.  A depression is worse.  It means a lift in poverty. Poverty means bad food, bad houses, bad mental health. Poverty kills you.  It’s been estimated last week that the global Covid slowdown has put the global fight against poverty back 30 years.On the other hand, lifting the isolation measures too soon could see wave after wave of infections meaning that in the lockdown could come back for an even longer period of time.  Causing even more economic damage and killing more people in the process.Health experts naturally tend to favour more conservative measures, because they have proof it worked throughout history. The word quarantine was invented during the Black Plague in the mid-1300s. It was defeated when everyone was told to stay in their houses for 40 days.  Sailors arriving in port were confined to the boat for 40 days. No argument. Quarantino.  40 days.Guess what?  A fortnight extension would bring our lockdown up to 42 days.Both scenarios carry risk.  Any decision will be a calculated list.So, on one hand, people like Rob Fyfe will be pushing for an easement of measures.  Health officials will be advocating for an extension.This has always been a pragmatic government. And in that, there is an argument that they will go halfway between the opposing points of view which would see an extension of five days until we’re past the Anzac weekend. Giving the country another week to truly figure out how to do Level 3 properly.  Because I believe the concept of Level 3 is not well ingrained in our heads as yet.But the risk in that is that both sides will be unsatisfied and the airwaves will be full of accusations of indecision and a lack of leadership.And that is why, I think there is a very real chance the lockdown status will be changed.And then the ball is in our court.  You and me. If we go crazy, pile the whole family in the car, scream off to a KFC 20 kilometres away and then picnic in the park, en masse, then Level 4 will be back quick smart.  And you’ll have to ask yourself whether that family bucket was really worth it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Day 12 and things are getting real.People are losing their jobs and people are worried about losing their homes. For many it's a surprise as to just how close to the edge their businesses and jobs were.Budget advisors have always warned that too many New Zealanders were only one wage packet away from insolvency and we're seeing this happen, from individuals and families through businesses and corporations. And it took just 12 days.It took just a week to kill magazines. Magazines and periodicals are very vulnerable all the time. They have to pay their staff to write the stories. Then they have to pay the printers. Then a punter has to buy the product and only then can they bill the advertisers. Magazines and community papers were dead in the water pretty much as soon as the government decided that they weren't an essential service.A friend of mine runs a monthly community magazine. She was just about to distribute the April issue when the lockdown hit. She's got 12,000 copies sitting in her garage. No money to pay a month's worth of costs.It makes a mockery of the claim that Bauer offered the government their business for $1 as a going concern. Because it wasn't a going concern. Otherwise they would have made a go of it. But that's because they're German and they're not in this with us. They're in it for themselves.Which brings me to my point. We're all in this together so let's spread the pain.If your business is going to the wall then remember your employees are going to the wall too. So be fair. Our redundancy laws on compensation and notice are loose. They merely prescribe that employers act in good faith and reasonably. So act in good faith and be reasonable and strike a deal that, while still heartbreaking for everyone, is the fairest you can do. Because we're all in this together.If you're asking for staff to cut their wages do it fairly. I was impressed by Mediaworks solution. CEO Michael Anderson has the company's workers to take a voluntary pay cut of 15 percent. The executive team is taking a 20 percent pay cut, he would be taking a 25 percent pay cut, and the Board will take a 50 percent pay cut.Because the guys at the top of the tree can wear it. A 25 per cent cut to people being paid a million means they still getting 750k but a 25 per cent cut to, say, a Newshub trainee on 40 grand is a death knell. And make it temporary. To give us hope. Because we're all in this togetherAnd finally, buy New Zealand. It amazes me that Kiwis are online buying buying clothes and stuff made in Australia during lockdown. Buy from New Zealanders. So what if they can't deliver today. The lockdown won't last forever. So you'll get your blouse or your sneakers in a month, and you'll have helped keep a New Zealand business and a New Zealand business owner and New Zealand families last a little bit longerIt's your duty. Because we're all in this together.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It seems counter-intuitive to be in the middle of a public health crisis and to hear that one of the first financial victims of the pandemic will be our doctors and their practices.Many GPs will be making the decision today and in the following days to close up shop because of a whirlwind of situations that has made them deeply unprofitable.In the days before the lockdown GPs were besieged by clients seeking medications and treatments before they were confined to barracks.  The doctors worked huge hours and in many cases took on new staff to cope.Meanwhile, they were busy investing in pandemic equipment. Perspex screens, portacabins outside their practice for Covid patients to keep them apart from others, and of course scrubs and masks and gloves.Then there was the decision to move to virtual consulting so doctors invested in phones and laptops and applications.And then the country shut down. And no-one went to the doctors.30 to 40 per cent of a practice's income comes from the co-payments from you and I. So the cashflow immediately plummeted. The extra staff still need pay and the porta cabin still needs its rent paid.So here we are five days in and doctors are falling. Financially.It doesn't seem right, does it? A pandemic has always been predicted. They come with regularity amongst human populations. Smallpox ravaged the Roman empire killing over five million. The flu after the First World War, the TB, the polio and SARS not so long ago. We should be ready but we're not.  Pandemic preparation seems to be a no brainer for any healthcare community and yet we fail to invest time and time again. This morning we heard the opinion of a French public health expert called Jean Dominique Michel. He talked about much we already know about. How no-one really tests enough, the stupidity of wet markets and the blame of modern lifestyle for creating under-lying symptoms.If you look at Italy half the people who died had three or more other diseases. Only 0.8% had just Covid. He lays the blame of these underlying symptoms squarely on four factors. Junk food, pollution, stress and physical activity.But he also lay much of the blame on the elephant in the economy room. Italy's shocking level of fatalities was partly due to an under-investment in healthcare facilities. There were just not enough hospital bedsHe points out that Germany has 6 ICU beds per 1000 people. Switzerland 3.5. France 3. Italy had just 2. But all those nations had seen the ratio falling over the past 20 years. It's been a modern structural disease. Population has swelled but the infrastructure to care for that population has been left to deteriorate.So to our New Zealand doctors going to the wall, I wonder why they were not prepared for a pandemic and why successive governments did not ensure an adequate pandemic plan including the provision of kit for the practices? They should not have had to pay for porta cabins and PPE.And I don't really want to tell you how many ICU beds we have. OK I will. We have just under 5 per 100,000. Australia has just under 9. The European average is just under 12 and Germany has 30. That's embarrassingA recent audit of our medical facilities found 11,000 to be poor or substandard. Palmerston North's operating theatres are 50 years old. That's bordering on criminal.You can't run the sort of immigration and birth rates that we have over the past 20 years and not spend proportionately on your health infrastructure. But we did. And now we have tents in hospital carparks and GPs going bust in five days.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I don’t want to discuss whether our coronavirus restrictions are right or wrong, or if they’re too early or too late, or whether they’re too harsh or too lax.Because now is no longer the time or place. It’s time to just do this and any argument that might weaken people’s resolve and personal responsibility will only weaken the fight against mitigating the virus’ effect.It is what it is and it’s time to do our bit.This morning Mike Hosking was talking to the Prime Minister about the travel bans.  One of the first questions was about some friends of Mike’s who arrived recently from Italy via Doha and waltzed through the airport.  Mike questioned the PM as to whether our borders are truly closed.Now the first thing I thought was how much responsibility Mike’s friends took for their actions.Say they arrived a day or two ago, before the blanket ban.  The authorities would only know that they had flown from Doha, which had no restrictions.  At the time the e-passport gates were still operating so Mike’s friends could then just waltz into the country.I wonder if they feel they got away with it. It was only later in the programme, he informed us that they did self-isolate because they’re not stupid.To me, anyone who’s been in Italy at any time over the past two or three weeks has a responsibility to self-declare their travels to authorities and they have a responsibility to self-isolate.  Maybe Mike can tell us if his friends did that.  That would be more informative rather than informing the PM that people allegedly sneaked in.Because that’s what thing is all about.New words have entered our language. Flatten the curve. Social Distance. Self-declaration.  Self-isolation.  And the active word in that phrase is SELF.A number of people have already phoned talkback asking how self-isolation can be policed. The fact of the matter is that it can’t be, completely. It's SELF isolation.There are procedures in place so that health authorities can phone the self isolaters to check that they’re doing it properly, but if the infection rate rises even a little, it will be a tsunami and not everyone will get a call.This is the ultimate age of personal responsibility. The information is there and you need to make decisions for yourself.  If you will only isolate because an authority told you to then in essence you’re asking for a nanny state and ultimately a police state.We need to drop our selfishness. We need to think about everyone and not just ourselves and any inconvenience might be caused.As someone texted me yesterday, it’s time for us to stick together. Two metres apart.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I had a week off due to a number of personal reasons including moving house so I have had a merciful break.For a week I haven’t had to say the c word.  It’s got so ubiquitous that I think it should be the second c word to be banned on the radio.The word of course is Coronavirus. There is a third c word we could ban and that’s Covid-19.Now I hate to say I told you so but I told you so. A month ago I wrote that that you and I are highly unlikely to catch this new viral bug, but it’s effect on the world will be enormous because of the effect on the global economy. An effect that was totally predictable as entire regions of countries are shut and production halted for 14 days or more.And so it’s been proven.The front page of any news website today highlights that hundreds of jobs have already been lost in the tourism industry.  The Air New Zealand boss has today taken a pay cut and suspended earnings guidance as people stop travelling here and New Zealanders stop travelling abroad. I personally know of three kids on three separate overseas school trips that have been cancelled in the past week.Meanwhile, business after business are preparing for a more widespread arrival of the virus in this country making sure that work from home provisions have been made. I know of one business where all the staff have been issued the Zoom app on their home computers and work laptops to enable video conferencing in the event of self-quarantining.So we’re getting there but now attention focuses on the Government. A lot of people have been having their two cents worth and one of the frequently mentioned ideas is the suspension of GST until the economic impact of the virus has passed.The thinking is that with more money in their pockets, New Zealanders will spend more on services and stuff, keeping the economy moving.But I don’t understand the thinking behind this because what’s the point of having more money to spend on stuff and services when there’s no stuff or services to be bought?All along I and others like Liam Dann have been saying this is a new type of economic crisis. It’s not like the GFC where money and demand fell down,This is a supply side crisis. The quarantining has stopped stuff being made in China and now Italy.  They can’t supply us with products so we can’t buy it.  If a TV retailer suddenly has no TVs to sell it doesn’t matter how rich his customers are or how big their tax cuts are.  He’s got nothing to sell.It’s like the tourism sector. The supply of tourists has dried up. A GST cut will not fix that.The ongoing repercussions of a GST cut and then a reinstatement after the crisis will be large and of course it impoverishes the Government’s purse and their ability to provide targeted support through the tough times.Tough times that I hope are short. China has already restarted 40 per cent of the productivity it lost through their epidemic .To me a restructuring of the country’s tax system in response to this virus would be a massive over-reaction. Way more so than all the people who said the travel bans and self-quarantining was an over-reaction.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a remarkable time of self-regulation and personal responsibility we’ve entered.First and foremost is the coronavirus kerfuffle that has engulfed the world. In the battle against the bug the populace has been given the word to take care of themselves. To be sensible and to be responsible.So no hugs, no hongis, no handshakes.  Wash your hands. Feel ill? Call a doctor and then self-quarantine. Make sure you have a plan to make sure you could spend a fortnight at home.So how fascinating is it that so many people have blundered on through.  The infected who ran straight to GPs and the Emergency Departments in Italy without prior warning, immediately forcing emergency staff and doctors to self-quarantine and further weaken the response.How remarkable that a handful of supermarkets saw panicked buying as people hoarded stuff meaning that those who came after them were left with nothing.  So selfish and irrational.The run on facemasks amuses me.  Facemasks stop the infected spluttering the bug out.  They're not very good at stopping the bug getting in.  It just rocks up through your eyes or from your hands after you take the facemasks off. So why on earth are all these people hoarding and wearing facemasks.You can’t write some of this stuff.  The stupidity and selfishness of peopleBut then we come to the drought in the North which is now at quite remarkable levels.  People are being asked to save water.  Some are being responsible, particularly old people who know about self-sacrifice but most are not.Paihia has not saved a drop.  Partly because of cruise ships arriving but also because the residents have nicer properties with thirstier gardens.  And for some nobody tells you how long to shower for.  It’s what lost Helen Clark an election.Last week in Auckland as the Council funded advertising urging Aucklanders to conserve we had three days of the highest consumption ever recorded.The house two doors down for me has an automated watering system for their garden of palms and tussocks which are drought hardy yet that system faithfully fires up twice a dayI was swimming at a beach the other day.  It’s the famous beach that Rod Duke has built a helipad next to that has everyone up at arms.  Rod has built a massive mansion.  Last week I watched a gang of workers dutifully washing and scrubbing all his garden stairs. I thought someone’s not thinking, or maybe they just don’t care.And then there’s Auckland’s traffic congestion because of the multiple rebuilds to get the city ready for APEC and the Americas Cup in 2021 and the future afterwards.  It has astounded me how many people have refused to change their commuting patterns and then have the gall to complain about it. By the way Victoria Street is now back to four lanes and its lovely and so it the bigger footpath but have you heard anybody commenting on that.  No.  But they couldn’t shut up about it during the 1 month build.So three things we needed to do for our community.  Our health and support for those affected by a new threat.  Our water and our traffic flows. It’s fair to say we didn’t do well.But we’ve been saying that New Zealanders ability to take personal responsibility has been slack for ages now and how depressing that we continue to underperform.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the wake of the murders of Hannah Clarke and her three children by a former New Zealander who burnt his family to death and then killed himself with a knife, which takes a lot of doing, there has been much wringing of hands.But some are saying we must do something to prevent this from happening to one more woman, one more child.In Australia, Heather Nancarrow, the chief executive of the Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety, proposed a dramatic policy.She reckons that during the period of separation, every man must be put on a program. Their mental health should be checked and scrutinised for signs of violence.  All to make sure he is making the transition safely and does not become a risk to women, children or themselves.Even Heather Nancarrow admits her idea is a radical one and it’s easy to pull it apart on logistics only.  And when we concentrate on one gender only in the relationship transition process, we’re ignoring the vast majority of people going through this highly stressful and emotional time.The proof of this was during morning talk back where we instantly had men saying that women were not blameless or just as bad but in different ways or just as capable of killing if they put their mind to it.  And then the whole battle of the sexes resumes.Heather Nancarrow has viewed this solely from the point of view of women’s safety and safety from male violence. All of which exists and deserves attention.But in my 30 years of being around relationships, I’ve seen many break ups and some that were hugely traumatic.  None of the break ups of people I have known has devolved into interpersonal violence.  But that’s not to say there weren’t victims. Amongst my acquaintances, two people have lost their lives after a relationship dissolution.But their death didn’t come at the hands of another but from their own hand. They committed suicide. Both were the wronged party, the one left behind by their partner. Both found it intolerable to live after the betrayal, impossible to carry on without the love of their life who had left them. One was a woman.  One was a man.Heather Nancarrow is right that men kill their partners at a worrying rate during separations and we need to be watching out for the men whose switch has flipped.  She’s right to be concerned about people’s mental state at a time of separation.  She is right that we should be on alert for our family and friends at these times.  She’s right that if we’re concerned there should be a pathway or a resource we can access to help steer people away from the dark side.What she got wrong is leaving out women from the monitoring.  Separation stress and trauma doesn’t just drive men crazy.  It’s not gender specific.Where to get help:If you are worried about your or someone else's mental health, the best place to get help is your GP or local mental health provider. However, if you or someone else is in danger or endangering others, call police immediately on 111.Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor.Or if you need to talk to someone else:Lifeline – 0800 543 354Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)Youthline – 0800 376 633 or free text 234Kidsline – 0800 54 37 54 (for under 18s)What's Up – 0800 942 8787 (for 5–18 year olds 1pm–10pm weekdays and 3pm–10pm weekends)Depression Helpline – 0800 111 757 or free text 4202Samaritans – 0800 726 666OUTLine NZ – 0800 688 5463Healthline – 0800 611 116How to get helpIf you're in danger now:• Phone the police on 111 or ask neighbours of friends to ring for you.• Run outside and head for where there are other people.• Scream for help so that your neighbours can hear you.• If you are being abused, remember it's not your fault. Violence is never okay.Where to go for help or more information:• NZ Police• The Harbour, for those affected by...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Each day I’m getting a little more concerned about the coronavirus outbreak of Covid 19.I’ve always bit a bit concerned but optimistic that this will pass quickly and life and trade will go back to normal.After all the last coronavirus, SARS, came and went.  A virus that was more deadly than this current one.But there’s a couple of things that have got me more worried.When I interviewed Health Minister David Clark yesterday on the extension of Chinese visitor bans,  I said the often quoted argument that influenza kills more people but we don’t ban visits from infected areas.  David agreed but said the difference is that we have vaccines for flu.Until we create a medical wall against the spread of the virus, then the physical wall of visitor bans will have to stay in place unless the virus peters out, which it doesn’t look like doing.And then there was a piece in the South China Morning Post that warned that Covid 19 was going to be more damaging to the Chinese economy than SARS.Put simply, the virus may be less deadly but it’s more catchy and it’s therefore not petering out and the quarantining, which is what hurts the economy, is going to go on for longer.SARS killed 800 quickly. It cut two percentage points from China’s real GDP growth in the second quarter of 2003 and caused US$50 billion of damage to the global economy.These days the Chinese economy is four times bigger than it was 17 years ago and we’re all a lot more connected and dependent on China.The outbreak happened in the Lunar New Year holiday when everyone was travelling spreading this catchy little virus far and wide.  More Chinese holiday now than 17 years ago, making it harder to quarantine it out of existence.Hospitality, retail, air travel, transport, entertainment and tourism will be among the sectors hardest hit, sectors that have grown the fastest in China as they move away from manufacturing into services and consumption.Add all this into the continuing friction with the US with the tariff wars, the number of moribund economies around the globe and the forthcoming Brexit bubble and the South China Morning Post thinks the chance of a Chinese economic meltdown are higher now than ever before.You and I are not going to die of Covid 19.  We’ll probably not even catch it.  But the economy will be getting a chill if not a full blown illness.Meanwhile, I heard Simon Bridges this morning promising 3 per cent growth under National because he says his party are just better at this economy stuff. Good luck with that, Simon.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Newshub poll last night confirmed what we all know.  This election is going to be very very close.This poll suggest Labour and the Greens could lead alone together.  Earlier polls suggest that national and Act could lead alone. So it’s swinging back on forth on a knife edge.  The swinging voters and the strategic voters have never been more important.  As few as 10,000 voters will effectively decide the next government.So there was debate on the radio this morning about the government and time and time again callers returned to the old fallacy that somehow this government is undemocratic because the party that got the most votes last election did not form a government.When National Party voters get that resentment out of their system, they will have a clearer mind on how to support their party. To make it perfectly clear, a sizeable majority of New Zealand voters last election voted against a National Government. Labour and the Greens campaigned against the government.  But so did New Zealand First. They campaigned against high immigration numbers, just like Labour, unlike National. They campaigned for rail, just like Labour, unlike National. And on many other fronts.To make it perfectly clear to you, the New Zealand First slogan was “Had Enough?”. Obviously of a National Government and the constant refrain was that it was time, after nine years of National, for a change.Throughout it was clear they were going to change the National Government’s policies. Either by joining them in a coalition and effecting change that way.  Or joining another coalition and getting rid of them entirely. Which is what they did.From what I heard, National was very loathe to change their policy settings for New Zealand First so there was never a point to it so off they went to a party they had more in common with..But this makes the next election fascinating in that New Zealand First will be campaigning against change. They’ll be campaigning for their policies rather than against someone else’s. That’s not their natural position so what will they do? We’ll find out.Meanwhile, rather than moaning about New Zealand First’s decision two years ago I wish that National and it’s supporters got over it.  Realise where they went wrong.  Stop blaming others and start figuring out a way to ensure they get back on the treasury benchesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, here we go again with another virtue signalling stoush between greenies and progress.A battle is brewing between Auckland’s Watercare and environmentalists over a plan to replace an ageing processing plant in the Waitakere Ranges.The plant processes 20 per cent of Auckland’s water and it’s been doing the job for 100 years. Obviously, it’s come to an end of its days and it’s time to update it and future proof it for another 100 years.  This is a $400 million project that has to happen.So this is the second time Watercare has tried to do this. Back in 2017 the plan was to put the plant in Oratia. It meant taking 18 homes and properties and the locals rebelled. So everything was put on hold.Watercare has considered four sites and decided on one in Huia way out west in the Ranges and on the harbour.  But this is facing problems principally from environmentalists because of fears of spreading kauri dieback, a newly discovered  flightless wasp that lives in the area.  Some Argentine ants also live there and they could be spread further and then there’s all the trucks that would have to go through pretty little Titirangi for a year.For goodness sake.  We’re talking about a fifth of Auckland’s water here. It can’t just not happen.  It’s necessary. But once again concerns, valid concerns but still relatively minor, are stopping things.I’m as green as anyone and I try to leave as little impact on the environment as I can, but some things are unavoidable.Environmentalists are preventing extensions to wharves in Auckland because it encroaches on the Harbour.  But the downside of this is that giant boats now moor right in the middle of a pretty harbour, belching smoke as they self power, creating a flotilla of environment producing tenders chugging back and forth with passengers, meanwhile ferries are playing dodgems with the lot of them.  I pretty sure the Harbour is worse off.Dams in Hawkes Bay and Westland have been stopped even though they future proof populations from drought and earthquakes.Roads have been stopped and you have to wonder how on earth electric cars and trucks are going to get from town to town without them.A skilift at Cardrona has been cancelled because of native skinks.  I don't mind that.  No-one needs a skilift, but everyone needs water.I hope these people stopping the work on the plant that processes 20 per cent of Auckland’s water are prepared to drink 20 per cent less water. Because it seems like that is the only option that is acceptable to them.Nothing is 100 per cent green and never will be.  Human activity impacts the environment.  It does everyday.  Mitigate it, sure, but you can’t stop it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government has ordered a review of defence spending.  They say they’re looking for efficiencies and to ensure the spending is of the highest quality and they swear they’re not looking at cutting the defence spend.The first question you have is; do we believe Grant Robertson?I ask this because similar reviews of Ministry of Social Develoment spending in 2017 and 2018 ended out in savings of one per cent with little proof the money was in fact re-deployed within the Ministry.I also ask this because Grant Robertson has been working to build a big pot of money for an election year spend up, and while the perception is that Labour is the spendy party, most will tell you that Grant Robertson guards the taxpayers’ money as hard as any Finance Minister has of any political colour.You can’t help but feel that at the end of the day there will be less money spent on defence than before.So I have more questions for you.If you are a government that believes that climate change is coming.  And if you are a government that believes it can be a world leader in the sphere of coping and mitigating any future climate change.  And if you’re a government that wants to protect the wellbeing of your population.  Then surely you would be a government who want to increase the defence spend dramatically. Wouldn’t you?Might sound counter intuitive but here’s my reasoningWhen you mention defence spending people automatically think of guns and soldiers and bombs and tanks and battlefields and hotpots.  And yet the New Zealand Defence Force has barely been involved in that sort of warfare since last Century and the Vietnam war.Our modern defence force is more involved in things like rebuilding, such as in Iraq, peacekeeping and defending our borders.  Most notably our economic borders and interests. One of the defence forces longest deployments was patrolling the red zone after the Christchurch earthquakes.It’s in these areas that we are most likely to come under attack and defending our population is part of our wellbeing.If climate change lives up to its hype the world will see the greatest migrations of refugees in world history as people leave newly inhospitable lands.  Our temperate, breezy and isolated islands in the middle of a sea will be a very coveted location for this new wave of nomadic people. We need to prepare for this with a vigilant defence force who are also there to help New Zealanders affected by increasing natural climate disastersThis government says it’s a world leader in climate change policy and yet it’s actions all seems to be insignificant gestures.  The conversion of the government’s fleet to EVs will do little to the world’s emissions and yet cost a significant amount.  If you believe that the world is going to become increasingly inhospitable then shouldn’t that money be spent protecting New Zealanders?Where is the investment in seawalls to protect low lying areas? Where are the subsidies to help people move out of areas under threat from heat, fire and flood?  How about giving induction hobs a subsidy to reduce our usage of gas?Our climate change policies are the result of what Jordan Petersen calls low resolution thinking. Higher resolution thinking is that to counter the effects of climate change we are going to need a substantial increase in defence spending and we have to start now.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg and Germany's national railway company created a tweetstorm Sunday after she posted a photo of herself sitting on the floor of a train surrounded by lots of bags.The image has drawn plenty of comment online about the performance of German railways.Thunberg posted the tweet late Saturday with the comment "travelling on overcrowded trains through Germany. And I'm finally on my way home!"But German railway company Deutsche Bahn suggested that Thunberg may not have spent the whole time sitting on the floor. And the 16-year-old Swedish activist later sought to draw a line under the matter by tweeting that she eventually got a seat and that overcrowded trains are a good thing.Some Twitter users expressed pity for Thunberg for not being able to get a proper seat on the train for the long ride home from Madrid, where she was attending the U.N. climate change conference. Others wished her a safe trip home after months of traveling by trains and boats to different climate events in Europe and the United States.Greta Thunberg listens to speeches before addressing the U.N. climate conference in Madrid. Photo / APThunberg doesn't fly on planes because it's considered harmful to the climate. Last week, she was named Time magazine's Person of the Year for her efforts to prod government and others to take faster actions in fighting climate change.Deutsche Bahn, which used to be famous for its punctuality, has come under fire in recent years for delays, last-minute train cancellations and expensive ticket fares.In Deutsche Bahn's first reply to the teenager's initial tweet, the company wished her a good trip back home and adding that "we continue working hard on getting more trains, connections and seats."Later, however, the railway company wrote in a statement to the media that Thunberg had a seat in first class between Kassel and Hamburg and that other members of her team were already sitting in first class from Frankfurt onwards.In the photo on Twitter, Thunberg is sitting on the floor at the end of a rail car with her back leaning against a suitcase, staring out of a window. There's an empty food box next to her and more suitcases and backpacks piled up by her side.Later on Sunday, Deutsche Bahn tweeted twice more in regard to Thunberg's train travels through Germany.In the first tweet, the company thanks the teenager for supporting Deutsche Bahn's battle against climate change and pointed out that the train she used had been running 100% on eco-friendly electricity.In the second tweet, however, Deutsche Bahn seemed to suggest that Thunberg hadn't spent the entire train ride sitting on the floor.The company pointed out to the teenager that "it would have been even nicer if you had also reported how friendly and competently our team served you at your seat in first class."Thunberg later tweeted that the fact she didn't first sit in a seat wasn't meant as a knock against Deutsche Bahn.She wrote that "this is no problem of course and I never said it was. Overcrowded trains is a great sign because it means the demand for train travel is high!"See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So after the Faafoi fiasco the question is who were the winners and who were the losers.To my mind, the biggest loser was the celebrity who leaked his own pleading texts while the big winner is Simon Bridges. There’s been a lot of chatter that Kris Faafoi should resign because he broke the Cabinet Manual and intervened in an immigration case for a celebrity friend.  The only problem with that is that he didn’t.At that is self evident in a number of ways.  Firstly, the celebrity’s step dad is still fighting immigration for a visa. If there was an intervention, it failed. There’s no proof of an actual intervention.  All there is are some texts.Secondly, the fact that the leaker of the texts was the celebrity himself.  Now he didn’t do it for the good of New Zealand democracy as a whole.  He did it out of anger that his pleas for some help in his family’s immigration case had gone unheeded.Faafoi was guilty of something we all do.  Not saying no but saying maybe.  “We should work together on a project in the future”. “Yeah maybe”We all know that maybe really means no. Faafoi said he’d see what he could do when he knew that there was nothing he could do.  He made a mistake.  Not one that needs him to be fired.The celebrity meanwhile comes out looking like a spoilt brat who dobbed in a mate because a mate wouldn’t do what he asked.  That makes him the biggest loser because before this fiasco he was perceived as an all round nice guy.But Simon Bridges wins the day because of how well he jumped on the issue.He hasn’t joined the resign or fire mob because he knows full well that almost every MP has been guilty of the “See What I Can Do” text.  What he did do was come up with some quick and easy slogans. Firstly, he starting chanting that Jacinda is a weak leader. That’s all.  Not how she’s weak.  Just a flat out statement.He also said this government falls under celebrity influence.  Even though of course the case showed that the celebrity had no influence at all.  But never mind that.  Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good political slogan. Weak leader influenced by celebrity. And repeat until it becomes a reality in voters’ mindsSimon Bridges and his team are getting very good at this. He has a crack social media team as we saw with the question time mini videos that Trevor Mallard cracked down on.  They come up with good hashtag slogans that stick.  One of the first was Part Time PM. He infuriates interviewers by repeating the same pat phrases over and over but he’s just making sure the voters get it stuck in their head.Simon is a street brawler and he’s getting better at it.  He’s no gentleman politician like Bill English. He likes it in the gutter.Add this to Winston Peters and New Zealand First fighting for their survival then as Audrey Young noted in the weekend, this election is going to be brutal and that’s just the way Simon Bridges likes it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did Grant Robertson die and go to heaven? After a winter of discontent, a new spring has sprung for the Finance Minister.Grumpy old ANZ, the bank that has always had the worst business confidence figures, has reported what they call a changing of the vibe in November."The improvement in the ANZ Business Outlook survey this month was broad and consistent," according to Sharon Zollner, their chief economist.  She reckons the significant easing in both interest rates and the exchange rate is clearly working its way through the economy, and the remarkable resilience of New Zealand's commodity prices is providing an invaluable buffer to the world's woes.No kidding. For the past two years people have been worried about what this Government might do rather than what they’ve actually done. Thankfully the mob in charge are very slack at actually doing anything.Then there’s the fillip of the stabilisation of property prices in a positive way.  Prices are still rising but not excessively so any doom merchants saying a crash is coming can stop chirruping their negativity.This summer is forecast to be hot, employment is full, immigration is still strong at 50,000 people a year stimulating demand.  If this is what an economy going to hell in a handcart looks like then why have we been so worried?So combine all that with historic low interest rates, historically low debt, a succession of surpluses and the fact that all our stuff is either too old or too small, then finally it’s time for a period of infrastructure investment.This is something apolitical people have been talking about for five years. The capacity constraints in transport, health and education infrastructure, freight, water reticulation and waste disposal have become infuriating for us all.  But in the business of seeming prudent with the nation’s spending all political parties have avoided fixing the problems in front of our very eyes.So now we have a government signalling they’re about to invest in New Zealand Inc. Next week in Grant Robertson’s acid test: what does he want to invest in?His Achilles heel is roads. We all want roads. Especially to Northland, especially on State Highway 2 in the Bay of Plenty and especially through Mount Victoria in Wellington.But if the Minister caves to the ideologues who believe we can survive without internal combustion he will have shown the weakness in infrastructure decision making that New Zealand has suffered from since Day One.This is not about good politics. This must be about good business and, dare I say it, well-being.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealanders have always been good at looking after the little guy.We’ve prided ourselves on our charity. Remember Telethons? We’ve reached out to the dispossessed.Remember it was John Key who first offered to take Manus Island refugees off Australia’s hands, and now we have a refugee from the Papua New Guinea island here.  Berhouz Boochani is revelling in his first week of freedom in six years.At the UN we’ve stood up to the superpowers on the Security Council who use their veto powers to keep smaller nations in misery.Around the world our Prime Minister and our country are lauded for the way we reacted to a terrible atrocity against a minority.  And our Government has been studied by other countries as we introduce wellbeing into our budgetary system.We give goodwill goodwill to the downtrodden and dispossessed and the suffering. Yet we have limited compassion for our own disabled people.A new report on funding for disability support shows we give limited and rationed help to 60,000 families. It also finds that 15,000 more families need funding and help and yet receive nothing.The people who receive nothing are predominantly poor or rural, or Maori and Pasifika. The system focuses on rationing demand rather than reaching out to help. The report calculated that the funding shortfall is over half a billion dollars.The Government’s mantra when it comes to disability is “Enabling Good Lives” yet the report shows when a disabled person’s need rises the funding stays the same and when it stays the same the funding decreases.Wellbeing, this Government crows. Well, how about the disabled people’s wellbeing. Just as the previous government’s funding priorities were benchmarked by the money they blew on the flag debate, this government’s benchmark is their first year free tertiary.Over 600 million has spent so fat to help 47,000 students.  Over the first year of the scheme, just more than 47,000 students and trainees received free tertiary education.Among those were 74 students who had their Scuba training funded at a cost of $909,041. all up, 52 students who received their Certificate in DJ and Electronic Music Production, and five students who completed a Diploma of Yoga for $30,000.The same money would help 75,000 families struggling with disabilities. I know where I’d rather have money go.It’s an outrage really. The Wellbeing Government needs to match action with their words.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We seem to have got into a bit of a muddle over guns and it seems to be getting worse.After the March terror attacks using the infamous AR 15, a semi-automatic military style weapon, the nation has reacted in all sorts of ways and I’m not sure any of them really work.Last week we entered the final days of the government’s buyback scheme. With six weeks left we have so far collected 32,000 guns from 19,000 people which has cost us $62 million.If people don’t hand in the other prohibited firearms and parts by 20 December they will get no money and will face up to five years in prison and the loss of their firearms licence.Now 32,000 guns off the street is better than nothing but let’s compare that with Australia’s buyback programme in 1996 where over  660,000 firearms were retrieved from gun owners with a cost estimated at half a billion dollars. Australia has five times the population so taking that into account New Zealand will be lucky to end out with a third of the guns.Why is anybody’s guess. Perhaps the government didn’t structure it well enough because they were in a hurry. There’s also considerable pushback from the law abiding gun owning community who don’t like that their preference for guns will automatically criminalise them after December 20.Whatever. For all those who don’t like guns, which is the majority, the result has to be seen as less than impressive.Then we have the ridiculous situation surrounding the antique gun fanciers of Taranaki who have been told that they can’t advertise their upcoming exhibition show in their local paper because there’s a ban on all advertising surrounding guns.  Stuff put the nationwide ban on all mastheads back in March.Now this is even though every gun in the forthcoming gun show is legal. Imagine if Stuff decided to have a nationwide blanket ban on other legal activities. Such as banning any advertising from someone like say, Destiny Church.  Wouldn’t there be an enormous freedom of speech fracas around that?  It makes the Lauren Southern dust-up on free speech look like chicken feed.And while all this anti-gun stuff is flying around we have police starting to call for the permanent arming of police officers after figures that said 179 officers have had guns aimed at them in the past 6 months.So where are we New Zealand?  Anti gun or pro gun? If you own them you know what side you’re on.  If you don’t you seem torn.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ousted Justin Lester has officially called for a mayoral vote recount in Wellington.It comes after results put Mayor Andy Foster just 62 votes ahead of Lester to claim the city's top job.Lester was at the Wellington District Court this afternoon to lodge a request with a judge to recount the mayoral votes.Outside of court, he said he believed there was a "strong likelihood" there should be a manual recount.It would now be up to a judge to decide but there had been no indication of a timeframe, Lester said.Justin Lester and Graeme Edgeler outside Wellington District Court. Photo / Emme McKayWellington City Council uses the STV voting system, which sees voters rank their mayoral preferences.There were at least 302 partially informal votes which were excluded because voters filled the form out incorrectly.In Lester's formal application, it said 193 of the partially informal votes were in Lester's favour and 109 in Foster's."The 84-vote difference here would be enough to change the result, if on a close inspection of the votes they were held to express a valid preference between Mr Foster and Mr Lester," it reads.In response to people telling Lester to move on, he said they needed to make sure "they got it right.""This is a sliding doors moment for the city, there's a potential to end up with a New Zealand First mayor with Andy Foster verses a Labour mayor with very different values."I owe it to the 27,000 people who have voted for me, who have come out in large numbers and supported me and said we want you to do this recount and we want to make sure that democracy works and the election is transparent."Lester's legal counsel Graeme Edgeler said they had asked for a manual recount of the votes."How do you know that the computers got it right? The one way you do is someone has to look to check the computers were right."There had been instances in the United States with computer counts were they had done recounts and several hundred votes had changed, he said.There was also Winston Peters' recount from the 1978 general election.Edgeler said they would try and tell the judge it was the voter's "intent" that mattered and showing what the voters intended to do, particularly with the 302 partially informal votes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I suppose I should start the show talking about the game.How incredible is it that all I have to say is the game and we know what I’m going to talk about, even though there are other games on this weekend.For goodness sake the Kiwis play Australia in League tonight in Woolongong. Not that you’d know from the coverage. But I’m picking a great match and a Kiwi surprise.Back to rugby, there are other games except for THE game.  Tomorrow Tasman play Wellington in Nelson for the Mitre 10 Premiership, while tonight Bay of Plenty play Hawkes Bay in Rotorua for the Championship title. In the Meads Cup in Oamaru tomorrow it’s North Otago versus Wanganui. Meanwhile in Greymouth on Sunday West Coast play South Canterbury for the Lochore Cup.I’d love to be at any of those games. For the players it’s their World Cup. I like the teams. Most of them are the biggest thing in their town. I like the venues. I’m sure I’d like the crowds who will be happy in a long weekend watching games with stuff up for stakes.This is bedrock stuff for New Zealanders. Not all of them of course. But I’m sure most of us at some stage or another have put on the scarf and greatcoat and sensible shoes and pottered off to watch 80 minutes of footy.So to the game.It will be the best game in a long while. I believe it could be the best game in the World Cup ever. It will be close. It features two happy, relaxed and supremely skilled sides. Who are coached by two smart, funny human beings.Neither side seems to have nerves, just joy at the prospect of trying their best. It will be a game of millimetres and split seconds.And it will be watched by an enormous audience. Because it’s live. At 9pm. And free to air on TVNZ.I am predicting a massive audience for the state broadcaster and this is a huge fillip for free to air TV. As Mediaworks struggles and TVNZ faces a 17 million dollar loss we’ve heard that the days of free to air are over.  That no longer do we hunger for that feeling of communal participation. All of us seeing the same thing at the same time and reacting together.Tomorrow might be the last hurrah of a nation glued to TV1 but if it is what a way to go out. And here’s a question. Who’ll bother to go on the new fangled streaming newcomer when it’s there in all it’s hi def quality on humble old UHF and VHF.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dear me.This Year of Delivery is just getting worse.  Here we are 10 months down and nothing is coming through the letter boxToday the Government dumped plans to bring farming into the Emissions Trading Scheme.  Reminding you that agriculture has been exempt since the scheme started in 2008. Now the government has opted for a sector-led plan to address agricultural emissions. This is what farmers had been asking for all along.I think this is sensible because a penalty scheme does nothing to encourage buy in and long term reductions.  The ETS has always been an artificial scheme to me that does nothing except irritate and squash the economy.This is all round awkward because the Government has always said climate change is our nuclear free moment and because the Emission Trading Scheme has always been part of it’s arsenal.As late as July they were trumpeting a break through in calculating emissions at a farm level and they were proposing a 5 per cent tax on emissions.But today all that is gone and the government will instead work with the farmers on reducing the emissions instead of penalising them. Which is what the farmers were saying all alongSo we’re right back where we started after an awful lot of argy bargy and concern and insecurity that was damaging. Farmers have decided the government was against them.  Dairy farm sales have tanked.  All for no reasonAnd this happens all the time.It’s like the Capital Gains Tax furore. The proposed tax scared investors.  People sold rental properties.  Housing stock decreased as the fear spread and people tried to realise a gain before they got taxed and then at the end of it all nothing happened.We have a government with a load of principles who when push comes to shove doesn’t have the gumption to go through with them. Leaving many people saying thank heavens and then asking what was that all about?Talk is cheap and this government has talked very cheaply.  We’ll build 100,000 houses.  We’ll build light rail by 2021.But governments should not be spouting cheap talk.  You’re not in opposition now.  If you say you favour a 5 per cent tax on emissions then we believe you’re going to do it. If you say you favour labour law reform then we think you’re going to do it.  If you say you want to lower immigration then we think you will.  The we start making plans to cope.But these things have not happened.  We’ve worried unnecessarily and we’ve talked our prospects down. But worse for the government is that no-one believes you anymore.The Year of Delivery has failed and I don’t think anybody minds.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was a very strange commute to work today.Coming in from the west on my motorcycle I stopped across the valley from the burning Sky City Convention Centre. It was a scene from an apocalypse. Four jets of water from snorkels from four corners of the building. Orange Flames to the south and the city shrouded in smokeSo I stopped and took a photo that I’ve now posted on my Facebook page and then I marvelled at the fact that I was driving voluntarily towards that.Because our studios are about 150 metres from this fire. But because of the vicious sou’wester the city is being battered with we are clear of smoke and danger.It’s bizarre because this morning a lawyer friend messaged me. Even though his office is half a kilometre away to the East. Far away really but  the strong wind has blown smoke right at his building which has been closed as a health hazard.When I arrived at work I went to the corner and looked up Nelson Street.  There I was at nearly the base of the fire fighting efforts. I took a video which I’ve also posted on Facebook.  And due to the wind I was soaked by water from the snorkel blown back to the North.A few moments ago when I took a last look I saw water jets being aimed away from the building but such was the wind the water was being blown back on the roof fire.It is extreme conditions for firefighting. Storms and rain and gales and hail and high temperatures and difficult access and it’s been going on for 24 hours now.And it’s impact will be felt for years. Such a disaster. It’s no Notre Dame. But don’t underestimate it. Just the cost of rehousing all the Sky City Hotel guests will be massive. It’s a piece of infrastructure Auckland has waited for forever and now it’s delayed again.Today we have the next stage of Act Leader David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill. Politicians will have to decide whether the final decision should be put to the public in a referendum if it passes a third reading. This is a New Zealand First clause.  If a referendum is not granted then the bill itself may wither on the vine as NZ First does not support the decision being in the hand of politicians alone.But this morning an interesting point was made. These sorts of votes are conscience votes.  This morning we heard that politicians like Stuart Nash and Mark Mitchell have canvassed or polled their electorate to find out how their people feel.But half our politicians are list MPs. Voted in by party committees. Who do they consult? Whose conscience do they represent other than their own.  They can’t vote on party lines because that’s the entire point of a conscience vote.It raises a question as to whether list MPs have a right to a conscience vote or whether conscience votes are unworkable in a MMP environment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Herald property editor Anne Gibson says the Sky City Convention Centre project's been marred with controversy from day one.She says it begins with the original deal to build the centre back in 2013.Since then there have been disputes involving SkyCity gaming machines, Fletchers Construction being fined 40-million-dollars for project delays - and now today's fire.Anne Gibson told Andrew Dickens just last week, SkyCity chief executive Graeme Stephens said it will open in October 2020. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I have an announcement to make.I have prostate cancer. I will be having a radical prostatectomy to remove my prostate on November 20.I’m not telling you this to gain your sympathy or angle for gifts and free stuff and hugs and kisses.I’m telling you this because I think hearing about my journey might be useful for you or a loved one you know. In my business I ask you to share your stories and the quid pro quo of that is that I need to share back. But I also know the difference between the personal and the private.Some people find the tale of their illnesses and diseases and medical battles to be something that should be kept private.I’ve decided that my little thing is something that’s very widespread and yet the processes are rarely discussed in public.Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. 3100 registrations every year. 1 in 8 kiwi blokes. 650 men die from it a year. We need to talk about it.So here’s my story.I’ve been in the media all my life and there’s some trite lines we dole out. One of them has been, “Men. Man up and check yourself out and go to the doctor if anything is wrong”So when I turned 40 I decided to have a yearly Warrant of Fitness on my body. That included all sorts of things including of course a digital rectal examination and a suite of blood tests.16 years ago I had a debate with my doctor about whether a PSA test should be included. A PSA test gives you a sign that a cancer might be developing in the prostate. She was against it because it was inaccurate and you could get false positives.  My attitude was that I’d rather have a false positive that I could then rule out than having no test or indication or clue at all.So when I went off for my first blood test I secretly ticked the PSA box. And once you start monitoring that there’s no point in stopping.In July I had my blood test. My doctor called and asked me to come in. That’s a horrible call because you know something’s wrong but you don’t know until you see the doc. My PSA came back at 4.8. It shouldn’t be above 4. Some men record PSAs in their hundreds.My doctor had a feel of my prostate. It felt fine apparently. I had absolutely no symptoms at all other than a blood test. So it was off to a specialist. I have a urologist now. He had a feel and an ultrasound and found nothing.So it was off to have an MRI. The MRI guy found a very small shadow at the bottom of the gland. He thought we should check it out.So it was off to have  biopsy where my urologist stuck 30 needles through my perineum to see if he could find some cancer.He did. He found a small group of cells in one of those needles. I have cancer. Found very early. Still very small. But not benign. If left alone it’d get me in 10 years.  Maybe 15.   So it came down to what do with it. Zap with radiotherapy. Or take it out.I decided to take it out with keyhole surgery. I don’t need it anymore. And my urologist also pointed out that the rest of my bloods and health is excellent and there’s no reason why I couldn’t live another 30 or even 40 years. I’m 56 by the way.There are risks, principally incontinence or impotence. Risks I’m prepared to take.So there’s a lot more to unpack about all this, such as how happy am I to have health insurance. How even though I’m in a rush this whole process has already taken 4 months.But here’s the thing. I have been shocked at the reaction of many of my peers. Men in their 50s who have never had a digital examination let alone a blood test.There’s another group of men who have diligently had a finger up their bum but no blood test who think they’ve been good boys. They’ve been genuinely shocked to find I have cancer and the digital exam has never found a thing.Other men have been chagrined and finally got some bloods done. They haven’t got prostate cancer but one guy found diabetes and another...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a landmark judgment released by the Court of Appeal, meth dealers who can prove their addiction caused their offending could have their sentences cut.An offender's role in a drug network will also have a greater bearing on the length of a prison sentence, or if they're jailed at all.What's more, a drug dealer's poverty and deprivation will be considered as potential mitigating factors.CEO of The Drug Detection Agency Kirk Harding, who informs workplace drug policy and testing, told Andrew Dickens with so many factors it will end up coming down to the judge’s discretion.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This weekend saw the New Zealand First conference, which was surprisingly entertaining. I’ve always quite like New Zealand First as a true centrist party. Slightly conservative, slightly socialist, not liberal but still with a heart towards the less well off - particularly if they’re elderly or come from Northland.Winston is the great campaigner and he has started his election campaign one year out on the second anniversary of the coalition he helped form. His role as king maker has always rubbed people up the wrong way. They don’t like the tail wagging the dog event though every coalition has a dog wagging tail. For the National Party, that was the Maori Party who made the Nats do all sorts of things in social spending and introduce Whanu Ora. Tail wagging dog is the price of MMP and always has been.And New Zealand First has mitigated many of Labour’s policies as Winston pointed out.  As they would have if they went into coalition with National. And I don’t think National would have avoided having to agree to the Provincial Growth Fund eitherBut the criticism that has always followed New Zealand First is that it is a one man band and when Winston goes the party will fold. But Shane Jones seems there for the long haul. Ron Mark is still rattling in his cage. Tracey Martin is a determined woman. And Jenny Marcroft is slowly mitigating the baby boomer conservatism and bringing the party into the present.We saw that when the New Zealand First Youth wing managed to influence the leaders on festival drug testing.The question has always been is New Zealand First a sideshow or the real deal. Well, they’re much more than a sideshow as they’ve proved time and time again and probably will into the future.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week it was announced that the Nobel Peace Prize has gone to the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. The man who brokered a peace deal to the 20 year war with Eritrea.  A man who changed the face of Ethiopia, all of a sudden half their cabinet are female, bans on opposition parties have been lifted and thousands of political prisoners freed. Most remarkably he achieved that in the first eight months of his leadership. He thoroughly deserves the honour.Far more so than 16 year old Greta Thurnberg, who was also nominated. Greta has staged a remarkable protest but that is principally because her parents allowed her to protest everyday outside her country’s parliament. As a PR stunt it’s a good one, but it was just that, a stunt and it is failing to produce any positive change other than infuriating baby boomers.  If that’s all that it takes to win a Peace Prize then how about giving it to the Falun Gong protesters who spent nine months outside our offices because of something Kerre said.Greta doesn’t infuriate me because you can’t be angry at people protesting.  It’s the free speech thing we love so much about democracy. But nor am I so impressed that I thought she should be in the running.Now we know that Greta Thurnberg was nominated because her nominator went public.  But what about Jacinda Ardern who was also reportedly nominated?  I’ve always wondered about that because the Nobel committee never reveals nominees until 50 years after the award.  So who nominated the PM and blabbed?  The other peculiar thing is nominations close on the first day of February.  Any nominations after that are forwarded to the next year.  The mosque attacks were in March.  So what exactly was Jacinda Ardern being nominated for apart from being young, female, liberal and telegenic.So where did this story come from? Time magazine featured her in a list of favourites to win the Peace Prize at the beginning of October and then a UK betting agency picked that up and installed her as fourth favourite. But you know I doubt she was even nominated and if she has been it will be for next year’s prize. Hopefully the 80,000 people who have signed a petition calling for her to get the award can wait a year.Some people got very excited that this was a piece of fake news spread by the left to lift Jacinda Ardern’s poll figures. I don’t think so. I reckon it was a slap dash reckon written by a staff writer in a magazine who failed to do research, and other media followed their lead.Meanwhile a poll came out last night and her poll figures dived nearly 10 per cent so if that was the plan then that didn’t work. Tova O’Brien stood on the Newshub set and breathlessly said the Jacinda magic was over. Well that’s a bit of a reckon too as her poll figures are now exactly the same as they were two years ago when the term Jacindamania was coined. But what is also true is that her popularity is lower than a couple of months ago because of a perception that the government she runs is out of their depth.And that could be based on the reckons of commentators who have been saying that this is the worst government ever for the past two years of their existence. Fake News, Polls and Peace Prizes eh?What I make of it all is to take everything with a grain of salt and make your own mind up based on facts. If you can find them.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ginger Baker, the volatile and propulsive British musician who was best known for his time with the power trio Cream, died Sunday at age 80, his family said.Baker wielded his blues power and jazz technique to help break open popular music and become one of the world's most admired and feared musicians.With blazing eyes, orange-red hair and a temperament to match, the London native ranked with The Who's Keith Moon and Led Zeppelin's John Bonham as the embodiment of musical and personal fury. Using twin bass drums, Baker fashioned a pounding, poly-rhythmic style uncommonly swift and heavy that inspired and intimidated countless musicians. But every beat seemed to mirror an offstage eruption — whether his violent dislike of Cream bandmate Jack Bruce or his on-camera assault of a documentary maker, Jay Bulger, whom he smashed in the nose with his walking stick.Bulger would call the film, released in 2012, "Beware of Mr. Baker."Baker's family said on Twitter that he died Sunday: "We are very sad to say that Ginger has passed away peacefully in hospital this morning."His daughter Nettie confirmed that Baker died in Britain but gave no other details. The family had said on Sept. 25 that Baker was critically ill in the hospital.While Rolling Stone magazine once ranked him the third-greatest rock drummer of all time, behind Moon and Bonham, Baker had contempt for Moon and others he dismissed as "bashers" without style or background. Baker and his many admirers saw him as a rounded, sophisticated musician — an arranger, composer and student of the craft, absorbing sounds from around the world. He had been playing jazz since he was a teenager and spent years in Africa in the 1970s, forming a close friendship with the Nigerian musician-activist Fela Kuti.Ginger Baker (c) with Cream in 1967. Photo / AP"He was so unique and had such a distinctive personality," Stewart Copeland of the Police told www.musicradar.com in 2013. "Nobody else followed in his footsteps. Everybody tried to be John Bonham and copy his licks, but it's rare that you hear anybody doing the Ginger Baker thing."But many fans thought of Baker as a rock star, who teamed with Eric Clapton and Bruce in the mid-1960s to become Cream — one of the first supergroups and first power trios. All three were known individually in the London blues scene and together they helped make rock history by elevating instrumental prowess above the songs themselves, even as they had hits with "Sunshine of Your Love," ''I Feel Free" and "White Room."Cream was among the most successful acts of its time, selling more than 10 million records. But by 1968 Baker and Bruce had worn each other out and even Clapton had tired of their deafening, marathon jams, including the Baker showcase "Toad," one of rock's first extended drum solos. Cream split up at the end of the year, departing with two sold-out shows at London's Albert Hall. When told by Bulger that he was a founding father of heavy metal, Baker snarled that the genre "should have been aborted."To the surprise of many, especially Clapton, he and Baker were soon part of another super group, Blind Faith, which also featured singer-keyboardist Stevie Winwood and bassist Ric Grech.As Clapton would recall, he and Winwood had been playing informally when Baker turned up (Baker would allege that Clapton invited him). Named Blind Faith by a rueful Clapton, the band was overwhelmed by expectations from the moment it debuted in June 1969 before some 100,000 at a concert in London's Hyde Park. It split up after completing just one, self-titled album, as notable for its cover photo of a topless young girl as for its music. A highlight from the record: Baker's cymbal splashes on Winwood's lyrical ballad "Can't Find My Way Home."From the 1970s on, Baker was ever more unpredictable. He moved to Nigeria, took up polo,...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s a common factor to the stories that made the headlines over the past few days and that commonality is drugs.Firstly the immense growth in numbers of gang members in New Zealand. According to the police there are 6729 patched or prospect gang members in this country. That’s a rise of nearly 26 per cent over the last two years.It’s an incredible number. 1386 new gang members in just two years. Simon Bridges says it’s because the Labour led government is soft on crime, which I find personally to be the most laughable thing he’s said lately. They’re soft on some crime but it ain’t gangs. Look at what happened over those same 2 years.There have been 10 per cent more officers added over that time. By next year 700 officers will be specifically assigned to police organised crime and gangs. Add to that the 1200 offenders deported from Australia in those same 2 years many of whom are gang members. The Comancheros have been formed in that time.The fact is we have more police fighting more gang members. But the other driver is that the gang’s core business of selling methamphetamine has gone through the roof. Police estimate the gangs sell half a billion dollars of P a year. One and a half tonnes of meth have been seized this year alone.Our predilection for speed and it’s variants is one of the highest in the world and that breeds the gangs.Drugs were also to blame for the hospitalisation of five and insanely dangerous behaviour at an Auckland dance party on Friday. The floor of Mount Smart Stadium was littered with the evidence of of little plastic bags that held the pills that are rotting our society.Then there was the terrible tragedy of the Dunedin house party. The house was packed to bursting point with 600 people and when the police arrived there was a panic. You don’t panic unless you’re doing something wrong. I’m picking there were a lot of kids there with stuff in their pockets they didn’t want the cops to find. While this is speculation from my part at the same time the past five years I have had numerous people contacting me concerned about the rise of drugs at tertiary institutions.We have a double standard around drugs as seen by the push for a cannabis referendum.We tolerate and even enjoy their presence in our society while being blind to the way they drive on the undesirable sectors in our country. We really need to get straight. The country needs to go to rehab.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another milestone for families of the Pike River Mine victims.The agency has accompanied family members 170 metres in the mine's drift.It's the closest they've come to their loved ones, since they perished almost nine years ago.Newstalk ZB reporter Rachel Das told Andrew Dickens it was a very emotional day for the families. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the most consistent criticisms of the government is that they keep coming up with ideas that sound nice in theory but in reality are completely unworkable.The obvious one is their belief that electric vehicles will save the planet because they’re not burning petrol.  We should all drive one and thus climate change will be mitigated.Now while that’s true when a few people drive electric cars, it’s not the silver bullet answer for all. It ignores the amount of emissions required to build the car, the oil in the plastics and the mining of the material for the batteries. It also ignores the disposal of the spent batteries which is an environmental catastrophe in itself.It’s the same when it comes to blind faith in the value of cycleways. If we’re offered safe cycling highways we will choose to avoid the car congestion and get on a bike.  But that ignores the sheer size of our cities.  Our average commutes are some of the longest in the world because we’re so spread out. And we’re hilly.  The image of demure ladies pedaling their designer bikes alongside the canals of Amsterdam ain’t happening here.Cycleways are valuable in dangerous stretches of road  (by the way Island bay was not a dangerous road for cyclists), but not the answer in our non intensive cities.But it’s not just this lot who like to say things that sound good but won’t work.This morning I woke to the news that the National Party is looking into fining the parents of young people who leave school early, and don't go into education or training. Up to $3000 apparently.Damn right the dim-witted might say.  Parental Responsibility.  There’s 18,000 16 to 18 year olds on the benefit.  How could parents ever let their kids embark on worthless lives.But honestly, if a parent is the type who has been unable to inspire their children in to a productive lifestyle in the first 16 years of their life do you think they’re really the type to happily pay a 3 grand fine.David Seymour ripped it apart in seconds this morning.  Kids in poor areas, with dropkick students, with no jobs, no polytechs, no trade training. And then you fine their family for the systemic failure.It joins the fine line of unworkable stuff that’s easy to say on talkback like sterilising the serial single mums or issuing parental licences.  One of the other ideas national is thinking about is getting gang members to declare their illegal income before they can receive a benefit. I mean really.  Excuse me Mister Mongrel Mob, how much do you make from meth?It’s dumb dog whistle politics and it’s more and more popular ever since Boris won Brexit with a lie on a bus and an orange skinned businessman starting saying whatever popped into his head or on a Fox News feed.And they do because they think we’re dumb enough to swallow and yet they think we’ll then respect them enough to give them our vote.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A basketball hoop that raised the ire of a neighbour in Napier is being moved a few metres to meet council rules, but it's not enough for the neighbour who wants it gone completely.The trouble began when the Suzie Hiha, a basketball coach, installed a basketball hoop for their boys in the Te Awa subdivision.Within a few weeks the Hihas were visited by Napier City Council staff who had fielded a complaint by a neighbour and on inspection deemed the hoop to be a structure, meaning it had to be more than 3 metres from the road boundary fence.Despite feeling the council's request was unreasonable, the family agreed to move it.Suzie Hiha told Andrew Dickens they’re getting on with their lives, and have extended an olive branch by inviting said neighbour over for a community BBQ.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can you hear it. The chatter of real estate.It’s been a bit quiet all winter, the Auckland market dropped 2.4 per cent,  but now it’s starting to buzz just a bit. There are reports of busy open homes and houses going above CV.  Better weather, low interest rates and a pent up pressure will do that.New figures for the year to last month show the biggest house price rises were in Central Hawkes bay, up 16.7 per cent and Manawatu/Whanganui up 16.3 per cent. Nationally prices are up 2.72 per centThe biggest market is in the 750,00 to 1 million dollar band which makes up 44.5 per cent of the national market.Isn’t interesting that people are coming back to the market just as the worst business confidence figures are out.  But that just shows you the vagaries in emotion.But what really struck my eye was that Dunedin is the biggest mover in house prices amongst all our cities, up over 12 per cent in the year.Having just spent 9 days in Central Otago, reading the ODT I can tell you there’s a buzz about the whole regionA week ago the ODT reported that  Dunedin's GDP growth was 2.6% last year, job growth was up 8% and residential building consents up 3.3% as at June 2019, according to Enterprise Dunedin.There’s been a 4.2% increase in the number of people enrolled with local health providers which says the population is growing.The story had a picture of the Fleetwood Mac concert at Forsyth Barr and the implication was the so called white elephant stadium was helping paint a picture that Dunedin was booming and becoming more and more attractive.Well to tell the truth it always has been.  Back in the day when I was in management I was looking at the pay of our sales reps in Otago and seeing that it was exactly the same as the pay we were giving our reps in Auckland.  But of course the cost of living was dramatically lower.  If you’re a teacher or anyone else covered by collective agreements, you get the same pay in Dunedin as any other city so why not stretch your dollar in a funky province.But as the slow rebalancing of our population spread continues it comes with warnings. Local authorities have to plan ahead to avoid the pitfalls our bigger cities have struck.I saw that in Queenstown where debate rages over the struggling infrastructure serving the tourists and the residents.  And I saw that in Wanaka where the surging population means a drive to increase tourism which means there’s been aa vicious debate over developing the airport between the newbies who need jobs and the nimbies who think Wanaka can stay the same as it always has.It’s all proof that even in slow times change is always happeningSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Whether it's mince and cheese, smoked fish, butter chicken - Maketu Pies is an iconic brand many Kiwis have grown to know and love.Nestled in a small town on the Bay of Plenty coast is where the pies are made. Almost everyone who lives there has worked there, or still does.Now, the Maketu community has been devastated by the news the company has gone into receivership. Reporter Zoe Hunter talks to residents and the receivers.Bay of Plenty Times reporter Zoe Hunter told Andrew Dickens it's rocked the tight-knit community to its core. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well the Prime Minister is back and all the glamour of her week abroad has quickly evaporated.Let me just say for the record that she did very well in Japan and New York. She avoided the gnarly politics surrounding Donald Trump and Boris Johnson.  Both men were very welcoming to our country and our future trade and this bodes well.She was charming in chat shows and a good ambassador for New Zealand and it seems we’re a well liked country at the moment.But back home this morning she was asked by all and sundry about the poor business confidence figures.  Based on the mood of the boardroom you’d think we were back in the bad black days of the GFC where the fear of not just recession but depression stalked the hallways of parliaments and businesses.But we’re not.We’ve slowed. But we’re ticking on. And most of our fundamentals are rock solid yet we do have a government that has put a stop to some plans and is taking an age to institute new ones.  This has been perceived as indecision and indecision breeds insecurity and doubt and when that happens you shut the wallet.There appears to be just one commentator fighting against the rumours and that is the Herald’s business editor at large, Liam Dann.As he says most economists say we’ve slipped, most say it will get a little worse and most say it will start improving at the beginning of next year.  Nobody is predicting a recession.So asked what she’s going to do about the trough we’ve found herself the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister play a game of look over thereAs they point out GDP growth at 2.1 per cent - or even 1.9 per cent - still puts us ahead of Australia, Canada, Japan, the UK, Europe or the OECD average.But all these comparisons of growth are relative.  North Korea is growing at 7 per cent under the Rocketman.  But they’re starting at Stone Age levels and 7 per cent of little is still little.The point I’d like to make is the same as Liam Dann’s.  Talking yourself into a funk because of the government is self fulfilling.  This government prefer to spend on alternative transport options and not on roads and they want to tinker with Labour laws but that will not wreck the economy.This morning the Prime Minister had the chance to calm the horses and she did not take it.She needs to put the international spotlight to one side and get down to brass tacks and be a star at home.  As Liam Dann said yesterday she needs to use her verbal skills to reassert the Government's economic plan, to reassure on its execution and to remind New Zealanders that the outlook is not really so grim.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a rare and exciting event it was this morning to hear Phil Twyford on the Newstalk ZB breakfast show.  It’d been so long I’d almost forgotten his voice.So when I walked into work I asked the breakfast producer how long it had been since Phil was on his programme.  He looked back on his records and by his reckoning Phil was last on the programme in February on the Kiwibuild reset. 7 months ago.This despite repeated invitations from the breakfast show.  Most recently to answer question about the support the government can give to the retailers affected by the rail infrastructure development.But he never comes on.  Until the day when Mike Hosking is away and Mike Yardley is hosting.Now we don’t know whether that was purposeful.  Whether when we asked him to talk to us his press secretary asked who with and as soon as it was revealed that it was Yardley not Hosking he agreed, having not agreed for 7 months.Whatever the truth it’s just a bad look and politics is all about looks.  The most open, honest and transparent government now chooses when and where and with whom they will be open honest and transparent with.Meanwhile what was he saying.  Well on the compensation for the retailers we heard nothing.  He talked about material support, which means exactly what.  Financial support is still being considered and will be announced in a couple of months.  If Hosking was on he would have blown his fu fu valve.Secondly on the procurement rules to help the struggling construction industry he was asked how it worked and he replied by telling us why it’s needed which we already know. And on it went. It was PR politician speak and it’s tiring.So I took a  look at the new procurement guidelines on the government website.  The rules are there to support government agencies to improve the fairness and efficacy of their construction  projects.  If the project is over 50 million dollars then they have to engage with the Infrastructure Transactions Unit.But at the end of the day the guidelines are just some guidelines.  It’s a checklist and there’s no talk about how this will be enforced or how it will stop private companies continuing to lo-ball for government work.It’s a suggestion at the end of the day.  A very good suggestion but still a suggestion.This is this government’s playbook.  Grant Robertson has suggested to a handful of SOEs that they mitigate the pay for their bosses.  It’s still only a suggestion.It’s the same as Jacinda Ardern suggesting the internet companies crackdown on dodgy posts.  A very good suggestion but still just a suggestion.I think that the government would do very well top start delivering some concrete policy rather than all these suggestions because there is a suggestion growing that they don’t know what to doLISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When it comes to roads, this Government is confused.National went into the last election with plans for ten big roads. Some were pie in the sky election promises which is not often mentioned but the majority were solid infrastructure for the long term. Roads were their major infrastructural push. But they didn’t form the government. The Government we got had different priorities. They wanted to resurrect rail which had seen decades of neglect, which was a false economy. Why build something and then break it. I don’t mind rail investment as trains powered by alternate energy sources will be traversing this country long after he diesel truck becomes extinct. So a billion odd went Kiwirail’s way.They also decided to spend $1.4 billion making some of the roads we’ve already made safer.  I don’t mind that either because we did a shoddy job in too many places.  Drive a tourist down State Highway 1, 2 and 3 or 5 into Rotorua or 6 into Nelson and watch the whites of their eyes get larger.But big roads can’t be put on the backburner.There’s a big stink brewing in Levin.  A decade ago under another government the people of Levin were promised that they would be attached to the grand Kapiti Expressway.  The 40 kmilometres between Levin and Otaki is dangerous. When the 4 lane expressway hits Otaki and then turns into 2 lanes to Levin then there will be massive bottlenecks. The expressway will only get you to the traffic jam faster.But the NZTA has told the people of Horowhenua that there is no money available for that 40 k stretch. Not until at least 2024. This is nuts. It’s a no brainer road.It is the gateway from Wellington the Manawatu and vice versa. It would be the making of Levin that has suffered a number of business closures. It joins a small list of other no brainer roads waiting to be funded. Like State Highway 2 in Tauranga. Like putting a proper motorway through Hamilton.Some ideological zealots will argue that the car is on it’s last legs. That might be so but it will still be easier to ride your horse, or your bicycle  to the cities and the motorways could easily be converted to alternative energy public transit options.Here’s a little factoid to digest.  Laying rail tracks in Germany costs a quarter of laying rail tracks in Britain.  Because they have a policy to lay 200 kilometres every year. So the work is never ending. The supply chains are in. You don’t faff around tendering. IP is retained.This country needs to subscribe to a long term bipartisan approach to road and rail spending.  And the Government needs to find some money for Otaki to Levin today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Conversations about money can be difficult. We don’t like talking about it.According to research from Sorted, over half of us would rather talk about sex, drugs or politics than the dreaded M word.As we kick into Money Week, Sorted Editor Tom Hartmann joined Andrew Dickens to discuss how not talking about money can be a source of stress, anxiety and unnecessary problems for many families. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With all the talkback about the year fees free this morning the underlying issue was spending.  More specifically, wasteful spending.The first part of the Government billion dollar free tertiary fee programme was $340 million dollars on the Year One 2018 students.  Over the weekend we discovered that a third of the students in that cohort quit, which raised heckles.But the fact remains that a third of first years always quit or fail or suffer circumstances that mean they leave study.  In fact less people left tertiary education last year that in 2017 before the policy came in.The $340 million spent didn’t create more students.  Nor did it make the ones who did take up the offer stay.  So the real shame is that we spent $340 million dollars on nothing.  Though all the kids of 2018 who get their education for a third less are very thankful.  My son who started in uni in 2017 is not best pleased.Spending also made the news with the allocation of $6 million to extend mental health services at 20 clinics around the country. I was less than impressed. In May $1.9 billion was allocated to mental health services. The government is currently figuring out how to spend that money. This was the first announcement.Frankly $6 million to extend existing services is not worth a headline or a mention. It’s vastly underwhelming when a pot of $1.9 billion was put aside. And at the glacial speed this government takes to make concrete decisions you have to wonder if anything will be committed before next November.It joins a lot of other vastly underwhelming spending promises. The Provincial Growth Fund has a budget of $1 billion a year to spend.  It’s not going to get anywhere near that before the next election.Infrastructure spending on road was cut and in its place other promises. Money was then put aside for trams and trains and the Sky Bridge, all of which seems stagnant due to planning paralysis.Last week we also learnt of home loan provisions created as part of KiwiBuild that have not been subscribed to at all. Another $400 million has been promised to KiwiBuild but when pressed last week Megan Woods had no detail and promised some before the end of the year.Last night of the telly Paula Bennett called the extra spending of $6 million on mental health a fail. It’s not a complete fail because this is more than was spent before.The thing about spending is that you’ve actually got to spend it. And that’s the fail.There’s only one thing worse that promising something. It’s not delivering it. But then again, every dollar not spent is a dollar saved.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A view that prisoners should be encouraged to be an active part of society, rather than shut out.A Waitangi Tribunal report says the 2010 law change which bans prisoners from voting, goes against the Crown's treaty obligations. It says it leads to a significant prejudice against Maori.Newstalkzb's political editor Barry Soper told Andrew Dickens while many rights are denied to prisoners, the right to vote shouldn't be one of them.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s not often when you’re watching television when you see a news item and you cheer and think 'well that’s about time', but it happened last night.I was watching TVNZ's Sunday programme and Jehan Casinader was presenting a piece on Oranga Tamariki.  But it wasn’t like the media we’ve been seeing on the child agency lately.  It was covering the thorny issue of child uplifts but this time from the point of view of social workers.This is something that has been sorely missing ever since Melanie Reid's 40 minute video of an attempted uplift in Hawkes Bay in June. That video shocked many and provoked a series of protests around the country.At these protests social workers have been labelled as baby snatchers and kidnappers and accused of creating a new “stolen generation”.  It’s become a nationwide movement calling for the state to stop stealing Maori children and the protests are being led by Maori including elders such as Tariana Turia.We now have 4, count them 4, reviews of Oranga Tamariki and most are centring on the role of Maori whanau in these children’s survival.So Jehan’s piece showed a Bay Of Plenty Oranga Tamariki agency going into lockdown because of protesters threats and the fears for the social workers safety. This  is a deep irony. Our kids are safe in our hands but social workers are not. Violence runs deep.But what made me whoop is when we finally heard from Maori social workers who were defending themselves and the agency against the non stop negative press the protesters and the media have summoned against them.In their own words these Maori social workers explained how they are proud to work for Oranga Tamariki.How they are developing new models of care, built on tikanga Māori. How they support vulnerable children and reunite them, safely, with their whanau.And how they already partner with iwi to allow children from those iwi to be diverted away from the state-run system.  Another programme is being launched this week with Tainui.We see the danger they put themselves in by caring for kids in dangerous homes. The fear and the dread as they approach a broken home.One social worker on the programme said that social workers are accused of destroying families.  But, she says, families are already destroyed when we get there. Another said that if Maori really what to improve the situation for vulnerable kids then they should direct their anger towards the real cause of child abuse which he said was the 3 Ps: poverty piss and P not Oranga TamarikiThe media on this has all been one sided from Melanie Reid's documentary which purposefully left out half the story and then the coverage of all the protests. The squeaky wheel of the protesters has been heard far too much on this issue as if we forgot that there’s two sides to every story.So well done to Jehan and the brave social workers he spoke to. And to the social workers that are making a positive difference in New Zealand, I thank you. Because it is thankless work that not enough people acknowledge.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Greens conference was over the weekend and it highlighted a party for whom confusion is always their middle name.The Greens: two leaders, two strands.  A party is split between the social justice side of things and the environmental side of things, with the two leaders standing for the different halves of the party.So moderate James Shaw used his Saturday address to get stuck into Simon Bridges and National. He called Mr Bridges a climate change denier.  He said calling climate change an emergency or a crisis is not an exaggeration but an accurate description about the situation. And then he announced the climate change policy for the Government which is to adopt 43 of the Productivity Commission’s recommendations which include reforming the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme rather than replace it with a carbon tax.So far, so green.Then Social Justice Warrior Marama Davidson spoke on Sunday and announced a proposal for a state run rent to own scheme.  Which is a lovely idea if the state owned enough homes to rent out to buyers but they obviously don’t.  And I guess housing is about the environment since it is the environment humans live in, but it’s this sort of thing that muddys the Greens waters. Rent to own schemes doesn’t save kauris or endangered snails.James Shaw seems more green that many of the greens. Yet many of the Greens don't think so.Some bloke called Jack MacDonald, a man I’ve barely heard of but someone who is a big cheese in the party, comes out and stands down because James Shaw is too centrist for him.  Mr MacDonald describes himself as an indigenous eco-socialist.  Yikes. He says because of the impending climate catastrophe in 12 years time, we simply don't have time for centrism, moderation or fiscal austerity.So in reply he’s just not going to stand for parliament anymore or do anything.  This is very similar to a petulant toddler who sits in the corner, refuses to move and cries until he gets his way.  I just don’t get his attitude at all. When the going gets tough, Jack, the tough stand up and get going, they don’t run away complaining and grizzling.Meanwhile every time the Greens actually do something like increase the DOC budget or ban plastic bags former members like Russell Norman and Kevin Hague jump into the media and diss them.  With friends like those, who need enemies.But there is a point here.  The Greens could write themselves a long term pass to parliament if they ditched the preaching, the moralistic high ground taking and the ideological bump they often spout.The biggest ecological crisis this country faced this year was the Fox River dump disaster.  A disaster that Eugenie Sage appeared to ignore for months. Then there’s all the imported coal to keep the power networks and Fonterra going. They're great on theory but not on concrete steps to help the ecology.It’s almost as if the Greens are not green enough.  It’s not James Shaw’s moderatism that’s taking the party off focus.  It’s the social justice division that has taken their focus away.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is no doubt that Simon Bridges had a good weekend at the National Party Conference.Saturday was a bit wobbly as he announced the new slogan 'Our bottom line is you'. I understand what they’re trying to say but it’s just a bit obtuse and awkward and includes the word bottom which some cringe worthy people find titillating. And I see that people are already drawing cartoons and making jokes along the lines that Mr Bridges knows all about the bottom line because that’s where his personal polling is at.But Sunday he came out charging with some strong TV interviews and a keynote address where he announced a policy that gave $200 million to the fight against cancer.  The money is there to fund drugs and to form an agency to co-ordinate cancer treatment around the nation. No one is against fighting cancer.  In fact the whole idea of an agency is something that Labour campaigned on in 2017.  So in essence, National was taking Labour’s policy and pointing out how tardy and slow they are in delivering change.But there’s a little piece of me that found the whole thing a little distasteful and cynical. A cancer agency is not something that National has ever campaigned on or talked about including in the 9 years of it’s last term.  In fact, in 2015 they actually cancelled the independent cancer committee which was charged with overseeing and improving nationwide cancer services.  National has always been leery of centralisation and nationalisation of anything including health services.But they’ve been watching Blair Vining making headlines for a month as he brought in an extraordinary petition calling for improvements in the way we fight cancer and you get the feeling that they thought they’d just ride along on the coat tails.Health Minister David Clark criticised the national policy as being short on detail which I believe is true. On the National Party website I can only find two A4 pages with details on how the $200 million will be utilised. In essence $50 miilion a year will be ring fenced for cancer drugs for four years which to be honest is a drop in the ocean and very close to inflation adjustment anyway.  Meanwhile it estimates the cancer agency will cost $10 million a year to implement.  That’s $40 million over 4 years which is on top of the $200 million. And let’s just stop for a minute and consider Blair Vining’s case. New drug funding wouldn’t have helped Blair. What he needed was better screening and faster consultation. If we’re serious about the battle against cancer, we need to be catching it earlier with efficient screening programmes, not funding expensive and experimental drugs to fund late stage cancer suffering that should have been caught quicker.I don’t think National’s thought this out at all and I have no proof that Labour has either even though David Clark says he’s going to announce their strategy within weeks. Sure you are. - you have to because National called your bluff.Labour’s just as bad at playing a cynical game with health funding and people’s lives. 'Mental Health' was the buzzword around budget time and they gave $1.9 billion to it. But now they’ve got roadshows going round the country trying to work out what to do with the money. How can you decide a budget when you don’t even know what it’s for?This politicisation of health care infuriates me. The structure and quality of healthcare should not be dependent  on whatever party is in power. Healthcare is not a philosophy. Healthcare is a science and an exercise in logistics. All politicians should be doing is ensuring the funding based on expert advice.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A reminder to the Black Caps and their fans that a game is just a game.The Black Caps have lost to England in the Cricket World Cup final on a technicality, after pulling off the first tie in World Cup history.A number of people around the Newstalk ZB newsroom are still coming to terms with what transpired. Psychotherapist Kyle MacDonald says it will take a while for the team to come to terms with the loss.But he says both players, and fans, need to keep the game in perspective."It's incredibly meaningful for anyone who follows it, but ultimately it's completely meaningless. It's a great time to be philosophical!" For a different perspective, NZ Herald Business Editor Liam Dann told Andrew Dickens that a new report from the Harvard Business Review can put the loss into perspective. "It's often not possible to write a failure, correct a failure, especially not when you are a spectator in a sporting game, but it is always possible to make things worse by overreacting."Try telling that to all those still fuming over the overthrows rule...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff proposes cheaper fares for families, children on Auckland's public transport.Meanwhile Hamilton mayor Andrew King wants free public transport for all city residentsJessica called Andrew Dickens to talk about the rising cost of paying for her children's transport.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People caring for disabled family no longer have to be employed by the person they care for.It's part of changes to Funded Family Care policy, which will allow partners to be paid to look after their disabled or ill loved ones.The policy had required the person with high needs to employ their carer.Newstalkzb's political editor Barry Soper told Andrew Dickens it's a more realistic way to cover a very difficult time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was with some expectation that the family and I sat down in front of the television last night to watch the first part of a two-part documentary series called “That’s a Bit Racist”.It takes a lot to get people to turn on the free to air TV these days.  It needs to be appointment viewing. It needs to be something where you feel you want to be part of a community viewing and experiencing something simultaneously. That’s why the TV that we still watch in any numbers anymore is something like the news, which constantly pulls half a million of us.  Or sports finals.  Or The Chase, just because Bradley and the Chasers are just so good – and we’re waiting for the news.So we were keen to see this programme.  The timing was right.  The Mosque shooting, even though by an Australian, was racism writ large and it followed Taika Waititi’s blunt assessment of us in front to the world’s media last year as a nation that is “racist as f…!”.  It was time for a reappraisal of race relations in New Zealand.I was keen to see an investigation into how racism manifests itself in 2019 because it has changed.  40 years of the Waitangi Tribunal, 40 years of positive action, 40 years of education has succeeded in convincing most people that racism is a nasty, vindictive and destructive force in society.  But in doing so it has forced racism underground.  In my opinion, racism in 2019 is not blatant, but subtle and nuanced and insidious. Casual racism is rife.  Blatant racism is hidden.  So how does racism work today.That is not what we got.  What we got was a dumbed down, biased and selective history of racism in New Zealand.We got a foul mouthed man screaming down the camera about the Settlements Act of 1863 as though it happened yesterday.  We got Oscar Kightley reminiscing about the Dawn Raids of the 70s. We find out that most of the people the programme stopped in the street had no idea of who Sir Apirana Ngata is even though he’s on $50 note But worse still was the sops to entertainment.  The casually racist comedian dropping racist tropes but we’re allowed to laugh at those jokes because the joke teller was brown.  The tongue in cheek Play School where poor old Manu always got the raw deal, which reached its climax when the presenter just casually threw the doll away.The whole thing seemed to be achieving the opposite of its intention.  In reiterating the dark acts of racism past and showing that behaviour it perpetuated those bad days. I posted on Facebook right after the programme and said as much and asked people what they thought of it.All were disappointed.  All hated the simplistic and biased nature of it.  One person said “I feel like as a Pakeha I’m meant to go flog myself hundred times with a horsehair whip”.Billie said this “It's probably one of the worst things I've watched.   Stirring racial disharmony, and attempting to get laughs out of a serious and touchy topic in a very patronising way. NZ doesn't need this hatred. TV1 should be ashamed.”I spoke to Alan Duff on my Sunday programme and he made a very good point.  He says there’s money in continuing victimhood.  There’s money for academics who write reports saying events from 200 years ago are still responsible for outcomes today.  There’s money for people who keep telling their people they’re useless. There’s money for TV programmes that tell the white majority they’re  terrible people.  A lot was spent last night on a very poor show.There’s another episode next week.  Is it too much to hope that they consider the improvements this nation has made and offer a road map for the future?  Based on last night’s waste of money, I doubt it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

OPINIONSo what dispiriting news.Turns out the emissions of households in New Zealand have risen by 20% in a decade.We’re using more cars.  Our households consume and dispose more stuff.  We fly everywhere more often because it’s never been cheaper.  Meanwhile down on the farms emission from sheep, beef, deer and poultry are down very slightly on 10 years ago.  Well done lads. But dear old dairy is up contributing more emissions than the manufacturing and electricity and gas supply industries combined, rising 27 per cent over a decade.This is the reality.  Despite all the awareness and all the well meaning changes we’ve had a crack at we’re worse than ever. That includes all the greenies who hector us.  That includes all the striking school children who say nobody’s listening or acting and then pop off with Mum and Dad in the July school holidays for a carbon belching  road trip or Pacific Island holiday. Talk is cheap and walking the walk is hard.  That said, we would have been even dirtier if we hadn’t made the changes I know many of us have made.  It would be easy to take this disappointing news and give up.  But one thing I’ve realised as time goes by is that the best change is achieved through evolution and not revolution.  The people who claim they can turn the supertanker that is society are dreamers.  You know the ones.  The ones who bellow about transformation.  We’re always transforming, the important thing is to transform the right way.  There’s a Japanese word for that.  Kaizen.  Basically it means improvement but it’s improvement that is continuous.  A constant process of getting better and better. And in business the Japnese use Kaizen to say that the continuous improvement of functions extend from the CEO to the assembly line workers. That’s what we need to do as a community in all things. Every dayIn this job I see too many people finding a chink in any argument and then using that chink to dismiss the whole idea.  That’s the recipe for standing still and everyone and everything that stands still is in fact falling behind.I guess what I’m saying is that for a better country.  A better planet.  A better family.  A better job.  A better everything.  Then you have to keep making yourself better every dayLeighton always used to worry that little by little, bit by bit, our society was getting worse.  But the opposite is also true.  Little by little, bit by bit we can be better.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If I have one fault it’s that I’m too nice. That and my obvious lack of humility.My mum always used to say 'you’re so even, Andrew'. That was because I never really get angry and I don’t want to cause unnecessary bother for anyone.But Dad used to say that was a weakness. 'The squeaky wheel gets the oil, Andrew'. But I just can’t do that. I’m not good at stamping my feet or saying no.But I’m learning that the squeaky wheels do get attention.  And that most people are like me. Good people who don’t want to cause a fuss or be a burden.And it’s led me to wonder whether everything is what it seems.  I was thinking that yesterday when we saw a Wellness survey which showed only 1.1 per cent of New Zealanders identified themselves as gay or lesbian and 2 per cent as bisexual.  Presumable people who identify as other colours of the rainbow are even fewer. I was genuinely surprised by that finding.But considering how much of the national conversation centres around  LGBTIQ issues, despite the low numbers, you have to say that they are definitely a squeaky wheel and they definitely get oil. Not that I hold that against them since the overwhelming majority have been pretty horrible to them through the centuries.But it also made me wonder how many other issues are fired on by a vocal minority (otherwise known as the squeaky wheels) and how many national perceptions have been skewed by them. And then in turn how that makes government actions impotent.For instance, there is no doubt that Maori are disproportionately represented in the bad statistics such as prisoners, child abuse and substance abuse.  But that is not a true picture of the entire population who on the whole are hard working, productive, decent members of society and their families, hapu and iwi. The hardcore are hardcore and not many in numberThere is also no doubt that there are pockets of poverty in this country and there are people and children in material deprivation. But when the government came in and lifted the welfare spend by $5.5 billion a few months after they assumed office it seemed to make no difference to the poverty statistics. Food banks and social housing providers are still run off their feet. But overwhelmingly most people have a roof over their head and a meal in their belly. The hardcore are the hardcore but not many in numberAnd then we have the revelation from a select committee yesterday that most schools will be worse off under the new measures announced by the government to get rid of school donations. We also know that the measure is threatening things like school camps.  The gestation of the policy came because of the perception that school donations were a step too far for too many families in the lower decile areas.  But this does not seem to be the case.  Because most people even if poor are willing to help fund their child’s education.  The donation defaulters are the hardcore but not many in numbers.It all goes towards the government’s moves to help the hardcore. The perception of the breadth of problems means they apply universal aid.  Universal aid to help pensioners heat their homes.  Universal aid to help poor people go to uni.  But the problems are not universal.I have always said that Bill English was on to something with his social investment model.  It means targeting and some sensitive souls take offence at that.  But it would have meant the money and the aid would go to the hardcore and not those who don’t need it.And I’ve also always said that the vast majority of New Zealanders live responsibly and well in a fantastic country.  So don’t let the hardcore convince you we don’t.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People who identify as bisexual are more likely to have worse mental wellbeing than heterosexual Kiwis, according to new data.For the first time, Statistics New Zealand's General Social Survey (GSS) included information about people's sexual identity.The figures show that 1.9 per cent of Kiwis identify as bisexual and 1.1 per cent said they were gay or lesbian.Almost seven in 10 of those who identified as bisexual were female, while six in 10 people who identified as gay/lesbian were male.Some 96.5 per cent of New Zealanders identified as being heterosexual.The remaining 0.5 per cent of people identified as other identities, including either takatāpui, asexual and pansexual.LISTEN ABOVE AS ANDREW DICKENS TALKS TO CALLER MICHAEL Stats NZ's general manager Jason Attewell said the new data highlights wellbeing disparities and will help the Government to better address some of the concerns.When it comes to measuring overall life satisfaction, people who identified as bisexual were the least satisfied with life.Stats NZ data showed that close to 8 out of 10 adults rated their overall life satisfaction at 7 out of 10 or higher.But, on the same measure, just 6 out of 10 bisexual people rated their life satisfaction as a seven or above."The lower life satisfaction rating for people identifying as bisexual was reflected across a number of wellbeing measures," the report said.For example, a third of people who identified as bisexual reported having poor mental wellbeing.That compares to roughly a fifth of adults who reported having poor mental wellbeing.Meanwhile, the data showed that people who identified as gay/lesbian or bisexual found it "significantly harder to express their identity than Kiwis who identified as heterosexual.Some 74 per cent of gay/lesbian, and 70 per cent of bisexual people, found it "very easy" to express their identity.That number is 85 per cent compared with heterosexual people.Stats NZ officials say that the next GSS – which will be released in 2020 – will include statistics on gender identity and people's "sex at birth".In terms of New Zealander's overall wellbeing, the majority of Kiwis – some 80 per cent – rated their life satisfaction highly, a 7 out of 10 or higher on the wellbeing scale.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does it look like when ACC gives the gun buy back $40 million dollars?On the ACC website it says they estimate that removing these prohibited firearms will reduce potential claims for firearm injuries.They reckon they’re going to save $70.5 million over the next 20 years. After the Australian buy-back homicide rates fell by 42 per cent and suicide rates fell by 57 per cent in the seven years after the scheme was introduced.But I think you’ll find that most homicides and suicides by firearms in this country are with guns that will remain legal and in wide circulation.But do you see their logic?  Maybe. But was there any real need for the ACC to step in to fund these savings if the government was already committed to doing it in their policy. ACC thinks it looks good. Nice try, guys. I think it looks like the government using the ACC to as a piggy bank to fund policies they know they can’t affordSo what does it look like when a senior opposition politician loses a portfolio in a caucus reshuffle?  Without prior knowledge because apparently her leader and the politician in question were playing telephone tag because she’s in court in Nelson sorting out a property stoush from years ago. Simon was walking parliament yesterday with a smile like a Cheshire cat, one observer suggesting he was pinging. He was certainly happy about something. Well, Simon Bridges and Judith Collins say it means nothing, that it’s not a demotion and she’s still number four on the list.Nice try, guys. It looks like a smack on the risk for Crusher for daring to poll higher than Simon. Bad girl.So what does it look like when an opposition MP threatens a bill in select committee with over 100 amendments?  She thinks it looks like a caring person making an incredibly flawed bill better. Nice try, Maggie. It looks to me like you’re trying to stall the bill.  It looks to me that you don’t understand democracy and you can’t just unilaterally use any tactic to get your own way.Finally, what does it look like when a cricket side chooses a whole lot of sloggers and quicks, forgetting that English summers are muggy and wet and pitches get gluggy?  England says their aggressive style will work and they ain’t changing it.Nice try guys.  It looks to me like you’re about to be humiliatingly dumped from your own tournament.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new documentary series has shone a light on the plight of mental health amongst Kiwi men.In My Mind centres around prominent Kiwis, Paul Whatuira, Willy de Wit and David Downs as they examine their mental health issues and their own difficulties. The two-part documentary aired on TVNZ this month and is still available for streaming, and is split into two parts: Breaking Point and Mid-Life Crisis.Comedians Willy de Wit and David Downs have suffered their own medical issues - de Wit suffered from a stroke in 2016, and Downs was diagnosed with cancer in late 2017, which was meant to be terminal. The two joined Andrew Dickens to discuss their involvement in Mid-Life Crisis and how they have fought back against their demons. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Israel Folau has once again faced setbacks in his battle against Rugby Australia - but will this latest move hurt or help his cause? GoFundMe has removed Folau's fundraising page from its website and is issuing refunds to all his donors, saying the campaign breached its terms of service."Today we will be closing Israel Folau's campaign and issuing full refunds to all donors. After a routine period of evaluation, we have concluded that this campaign violates our terms of service," said Nicola Britton, GoFundMe's Australia Regional Manager."As a company, we are absolutely committed to the fight for equality for LGBTIQ people and fostering an environment of inclusivity. While we welcome GoFundMe's engaging in diverse civil debate, we do not tolerate the promotion of discrimination or exclusion."In the days since Mr Folau's campaign launched, more than one million dollars have been donated to hundreds of other campaigns, large and small, across Australia. Those acts of kindness are the heart of GoFundMe.Folau launched the campaign on Friday. He asked for support to fund his legal battle against Rugby Australia, which terminated his $4 million contract in May after a post he made on social media was deemed homophobic. It followed a similar incident last year.His April post on Instagram said: "WARNING Drunks, Homosexuals, Adulterers, Liars, Fornicators, Thieves, Atheists, Idolaters HELL AWAITS YOU Repent! Only Jesus Saves".Folau has launched legal proceedings with the Fair Work Commission against Rugby Australia and is seeking up to $10 million in damages.The former Wallaby and committed Christian thanked donors over the weekend, and said he was "unsurprised" by criticism from RA and others over his decision to set up the page."The money that is donated will be used to fund my legal battle, which could take years. While the attacks against me have shown I have a big fight on my hands, I will stand strong," Folau wrote on social media. "Your support and my faith in Jesus Christ will give me strength."While many relished in the result, others feared the heavy-handed response could work in Folau's favour.Others encouraged Folau to continue to fight. "GoFundMe bends a knee to the LBG mob and joins the pack attack on Folau," columnist Lawrence Money tweeted. "He should set up his own fund. He'd collect even more after this."Daily Telegraph columnist Miranda Devine added: "The haters and Christophobes have forced Israel Folau's church into hiding and GoFundMe appears to have closed his account, in the usual illiberal way of woke corporates. Did you know GoFundMe takes 5 per cent of donations? So it's reaped $40,000 from Folau."Talkback callers to Andrew Dickens were mixed in their support, with some questioning whether this will add credence to Folau's claims around free speech and prejudice, while others asked argued that he is simply facing the consequences for his actions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hands down the greatest moment of the weekend came during the Tonga league test.The crowd once again was electric, the Sipi Tau and the Haka magnificent and the league was great, particularly young Brandon Smith who scurried and scampered and electrified the backs.  Someone described him as a ball in a pinball machine who knows only one way, forward. Yes all these things were good but for me the pinnacle was Benji Marshall’s tears during the anthem.Seven long years after donning the black jersey, Benji was back and you saw what it meant to him. You saw his pride in representing his country. I shared in that and I realised that I hadn’t felt a good bit of pride in the country for a while. That’s the problem with being a talkback host.  You often explore the bits of the country that you’re not proud of.  The situations and the people who have gone wrong. So it was refreshing to see pride in New Zealand and it’s fair to say my eyes went a little sweaty watching Benji.  And then he came out and played brilliantly.But I felt pride at the Tongan supporters as well who obviously love their home country immensely, yet when their adopted country started rolling over their team they kept their espirit de corps, their positivity.  You could tell that the Tongan supporters loved both the countries playing.  Really they couldn’t lose.  Which, funny enough, is the way I felt when Tonga rolled us in Hamilton.The second greatest moment was when the Blackcaps pipped the Windies at the post at the Cricket World Cup.  Such an exciting morning.  And what would we be without our captain who has now won us 2 games in a row.  Kane Williamson’s 148 was imperious.  King Kane indeed.  Steady the Ship. But what was great was the way he was so quickly on the pitch to console Brathwaite, the West Indian batsman who nearly did the impossible. The New Zealand team is impressing everyone with their no nonsense team play and generous spirit and sportsmanship. We have much to be proud of.Yet compare the behaviour of our elite players with the boorish behaviour that made the front page of the Sunday paper. Refs threatened by players. One forced to hide in changing rooms fearing for his safety. Refs threatened by spectators and told they were cheats.It’s a story that raises its head every year, particularly in winter and particularly in football, rugby and league.  Weekend Warriors and their mates who lose all perspective on local sporting fields.And as a former football ref myself who’s had his fair share of abuse, I have to say rein it back.  Most refs are volunteers. They’re not paid for this sort of rubbish.  They’re not paid at all.  Always remember without them you don’t have your fun on a Saturday. So grow up and play fair.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Work's begun to control the rat and wild chicken population in West Auckland.Locals have recently raised concerns about an infestation of huge rats scurrying about in the Titirangi village centre.Many believe the problem is  overfeeding of the village chickens which is giving the rats plenty to feast on.Auckland Council says it's increasing its rodent control activity in local parks and facilities.It's also commissioned a report on chicken control options and is warning residents not to feed the birds.Rats are also on the run in leafy east Auckland, with hundreds of households tooled up and hunting the furry vermin.Today, Kit Parkinson, chairman of the Ōrākei Local Board, which helps fund rat-trapping, told of large numbers of rats plaguing the city's eastern waterfront."We've had a huge inundation of rats in Selwyn Reserve at Mission Bay. It's been reported by dozens of constituents plus businesspeople down there. Our contractors are reporting it as well."Contractors were using bait and traps to control the vermin.Parkinson has a trap in the backyard of his home, near Kohimarama's Mary Atkin Reserve, which had caught a number of rats, but not as many as the cat.The aim of the Eastern Bays Songbird Project, funded mainly by Parkinson's board, Auckland Council, Kiwibank, Predator Free NZ Trust and the Department of Conservation, is to have traps in a quarter of east Auckland's 30,000 backyards.Since it began in late 2017 it had lent out 1083 rat traps and 189 possum traps, said project manager Kerry Lukies.Most of the rat traps were at people's homes, but there were also many on Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei land.The predator control group asked trap users to report catches and the tally to date was 687 rats and 267 possums.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Three of Newstalk ZB's newly crowned radio award winners have reacted to their wins. Political Editor Barry Soper claimed Best News or Sports Journalist for his work over the last year. Sportstalk host D'Arcy Waldgrave picked up Best Sportsreader, Presenter or Commentator for his eponymous show on Radio Sport, alongside Goran Paladin. And Raylene Ramsay won Best Newsreader on her third nomination for the prize.All three joined Andrew Dickens for their regular slots on The Hour, and were pressed for their reactions to their wins. Soper says that his contact book is the secret to his success. "It's about working your contacts, and hopefully keeping the public well informed." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My Dad died 24 years ago this month and my Mum died two years ago in July.  Winter has not been kind to my family.24 years ago my Dad’s death was quite hard to take.  I was young, he was young.  Only two years older than I am now.  With hindsight I know that Dad missed so much by leaving so early.  All his family’s adult acheivements.  The birth of four grand children.My Dad’s death was one of the first amongst my mates so they all turned up and Dad’s wake turned epic.  But my friend’s Dad had died even younger and so my mate gave me a word of advice that I have passed on to everyone because it was bang on.He said call me in a six weeks and I’ll come and help.The point of that was that at the time of a death, the adrenaline kicks in.  There’s a funeral to organise. Photos to be found, coffins bought, making an order of service.  The phone is ringing off the hook with well wishers.  People popping round with frozen meals.  She’s all go.Then there’s the funeral.  Then there’s the slow return to normal habits and patterns.  And then the growing realisation that a certain someone is not there anymore and will never be there and there’s nothing you can do about it.My mate reckons that around 6 to 8 weeks after a death or a traumatic event the victims and survivors are at their lowest but the supporters have moved on. Which is why he makes sure that he reaches out to those grieving a couple of months later.It’s been three months and one week since the Christchurch Mosque Massacre and today the Herald has a New York Times  article where survivors are talking of their growing frustration and anger with the government as they feel ignored and forgottenThe survivors believe that officials simply do not understand the magnitude of the challenges they face: the trauma, the injuries, the inability to financially support themselves. Immigration is acting slowly as injured people try to get family in the country to care for them.Then there’s the continuing slow drip feed of public donations to survivors, partly caused by the fact that many have no comprehension of the sheer number of people affected by the events of March 15. It’s not just the 51 shot dead and the hundred injured, but also their wider families, their financial responsibilities. The number seems to be overwhelming Victim SupportAt the time of massacre New Zealand moved quickly.  Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said "We feel a huge duty of care to them. We have so much we feel the need to say and to do."Three days later, she announced a ban on military style weapons. This week the government announced $208 million to buy back the guns.The world praised our quick and compassionate reaction but now they’re reading that the victims are being left alone, injured, unemployed and depressed and poor.Kate Gilmore, the United Nations deputy high commissioner for human rights, who visited Christchurch in April, has questioned the government's decision to prioritise gun reform and an inquiry into possible intelligence failures before making it clear to the families how they would be cared for.She’s right on the money. For myself, I would rather the $150 million the government found in the Budget to buy firearms off law abiding owners would have been far better spent looking after the victims.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We have a government in power right now who right from the get go have been proud to call themselves transformative.The impression they are trying to give is that they are willing to deliberately change things to make things better; to transform the way we do things for the good.But of course that’s not the way things work.  Any act of transformation will have some aspect of it that will come at a price and some things will take a turn for the worse.  The trick is to balance things and so more is improved by the transformation than is damaged. Transformation runs into the law of unintended consequences and the second law that everything is connected.One of the things this government is most proud of transforming is the oil and gas exploration business in New Zealand.  But the fact is they don’t want to transform it.  They just want to eliminate it which is a different thing.So yesterday I got an email from Greenpeace telling me about something that had not been widely reported.Oil majors Chevron and Equinor have abandoned their oil and gas exploration permits off the east coast of the North Island, leaving just Austrian oil company OMV as the last remaining oil giant in New Zealand.Greenpeace senior campaigner, Steve Abel, was super chuffed saying  “we’ve seen the rats fleeing New Zealand’s sinking oil industry for years, but we’re really down to the dregs now with these two majors quitting New Zealand, leaving OMV isolated.”"Unrelenting peaceful protest, civil disobedience, and iwi opposition up and down the country has already forced the withdrawal of Anadarko, Petrobras, and Shell, and saw Equinor give up their Northland permits.", he boasted.But maybe he should just hold his horses.  Firstly the Northland exploration area and permits have always been considered to be marginal.  In fact the only commercial hydro-carbon area in New Zealand remains Taranaki unless we get lucky. So it's no big thingBut the second thing he should tai hoa on is the departure of Equinor.  As Pattrick Smellie points out this morning in the Herald, this Norwegian gas explorer is a world leader in transitioning towards decarbonisation.  They realise you don’t just stop mining hydrocarbons, you use the proceeds to fund a transition to a new world.  We could learn much from them but they’re now gone.The other thing about chasing the explorers out is our dwindling supply of natural gas.  Gas fires our industry.  Fonterra and milk production is heavily dependent on natural gas but so are heaps of other industries. If we don’t find new gas we’ll have to fire up the industries with a different fuel.  At the moment the only option is to import coal. Or stop making milk with the obvious impact on our economyDid you hear that Greenpeace and the government? Your decision to stop oil and gas will bring back coal.  A far dirtier thing. Is that the unintended consequence? Or are you also wanting to end dairy as so many accuse you of which would be political and economic suicide.Transformation needs a start but it also needs an end.  Stopping oil and gas is a start.  But where do we end out? There is no solution in hand so we don’t know where we’re heading. Transformation can’t be abrupt.  It’s about evolution not revolution. This government seems determined to break stuff without knowing how to make stuff in return.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I hate to bang on about the Oranga Tamariki baby uplift story again but daily I am reminded how one sided the whole debate has become.By allowing Melanie Reid into the hospital room to film the attempted uplift from Hastings Hospital, the family lifted the secrecy on actions that happen 5 times every week.  Maori and non-Maori.  Understandably it’s unsettling and shocking and difficult.  But it’s the reality in a country whose child abuse statistics are amongst the worst in the world. In that regard the video did a good job of reminding us of this dishonour.But it did a terrible job of addressing all of the issues and it’s done a dishonour to Oranga Tamariki. Last week I said that we need a look at Oranga Tamariki’s side of the story before we should comment.  But the child agency is constrained from telling their story due to privacy law and concerns. That hasn’t stopped Maori elders and social workers have a good crack at the processes even though Oranga Tamariki is powerless to respond publically.A family lawyer has written an opinion piece this week, though that talks about the agency’s side of the story in general terms.She reminds us the decision to uplift is never made by one person acting alone, or without professional consultation. It's never made without genuine care and protection concerns.Children must first come to the attention of Oranga Tamariki via a report of concern – schools, doctors, or people within the community are making these reports, which social workers are tasked with investigating.  Attempts are made to engage with families. But if families refuse to engage, and concerns are substantiated, little choice is left for Oranga Tamariki.In serious cases, a "without notice" application is made to the Family Court, for a decision on an uplift before the parents have a chance to be heard by the judge. An order without notice has to reach a very high threshold, so many things have to happen before that point. Oranga Tamariki don’t just walk into hospitals and take babies just because they’re Maori which is what is being insinuated by activists.So today I saw the aims of the review of this case which is being done by a representative of Oranga Tamariki and the local iwi.  Firstly it’s being done on whanau time.  In other words the family and iwi will decide the pace of the review. This family seems to be given a lot of sway.Meanwhile the three objectives of the review are:- To understand what occurred from the perspective of the mother, father, whānau, Oranga Tamariki staff, iwi and other professionals- To identify what can be learned from a local and national perspective.- To strengthen local relationships and ways of working together.But here’s the kicker.  The decision about whether to make the findings public will be made after consultation with the family and the iwi. I think they forfeited that right when they invited the cameras into the hospital room to film their side of the story.  The public needs to know ALL the story if confidence in Oranga Tamariki can be restored after this one sided debate.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The moves yesterday to enlarge the marine sanctuary for Maui and Hector’s dolphins comes with a side order of irony.The Government announced plans to extend the area where set netting and trawl nets are banned to most of the lower west coast of the North Island and the areas around Banks Peninsula.The move is to protect the two native species of dolphins.  Apparently, there are only 63 Maui dolphins left in the world.  The Hector’s dolphin has better numbers with their population estimated at 15,000.  Currently, it’s thought that commercial fishing kills 40 odd Hector’s dolphins a year as part of the bycatch.It’s harder to know what’s killing the Maui dolphin because there’s so little of them.  One fisher who phoned my programme yesterday, Curly from New Plymouth, contended that biological factors are a greater factor in the slow demise of the Maui dolphin. They like the murky water at the mouth of rivers and it’s estimated that two Maui dolphins die every year from toxoplasmosis that comes from sheep and cats on the mainland which is washed into the sea. He’s not wrong on that, surprising as it seems.  He also said that in all his years at sea he has never seen a Maui dolphin in a net. Of course, commercial fishers are up in arms at the move because of the impact on their trade. The environmentalists are unhappy as well because the measures don’t go far enough.  They want the anti-netting zone extended and to include gill nets as well as set nets and trawling.The side order of irony in all of this is the defunct Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary.  Back in 2015, the National Prime Minister John Key announced the 620,000 square kilometre sanctuary to the UN and the world applauded.It was all go until Labour and New Zealand First formed their coalition and the price Winston and Shane wanted was dropping the sanctuary, which Labour agreed to much to the Greens disgust. New Zealand First argued it adversely affected commercial iwi fishing which was granted as part of Treaty claims. This despite the fact that Ngati Kuri, the tangata whenua of the Kermadecs, strongly supports the reserve.So we have a crazy scenario where the Government want to place a sanctuary in our coastal waters but not one in our oceans.Myself, I believe in the Kermadec Sanctuary.  It will make our fishing sustainable. It will give a zone where numbers can recover. Our commercial fishers have depleted too many species through greed or shoddy management through the years and this would be an insurance policy. So man up Labour and make it happenMeanwhile, the dolphin policy seems heavy handed.  The current scenario does not fundamentally threaten the Hectors dolphin population. Unfortunately for the Maui dolphin population everything fundamentally threatens it due to their extreme low numbers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An advocacy group has called for a ban on the imports of certain vehicles, and talkback callers have a mixed reaction. Older Suzuki Swifts and Toyota Corollas could be banned from entering the country, under suggested changes to vehicle safety rules.The Government's set to consider a reference group's recommendations which include banning vehicles with fewer than three safety stars from entering the fleet.These are some of the most popular imported models.The Motor Trade Association is part of the reference group it says the import ban would create a level playing field for vehicle safety.The MTA says the number of fatal crashes caused by vehicle faults has been on the rise since 2015.Other recommendations from the reference group include getting unsafe vehicles off the road quicker, and promoting vehicle features that better protect pedestrians.Callers to Andrew Dickens made their thoughts very clear on the matter. Caller Marie says she doesn’t think this is the right thing to do, but does see the government’s point of wanting to get people into safer cars.“Making moves to try and educate people about car safety would be a much better strategy. This feels like another smack towards the poor, by telling them you can have that cheaper car, you need a more expensive one which is safer.”Caller Steve says that there are so many variances between certain car models and individual cars, that this idea is ridiculous. LISTEN TO THE AUDIO ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last night I chose to watch Melanie Reid’s 40 minute documentary of the uplifting of a baby from her parents by Oranga Tamariki at Hawkes Bay hospital.It is a very tough watch.There were at least three attempts by the child welfare agency to take the baby from her 18-year-old mother who was cuddling the baby in her hospital bed. The attempts went on until the early hours of the morning.  The room was full of the baby's whānau, midwives, iwi leaders and the Melanie Reid.  Everyone was filming with their phones.  The baby’s 17-year-old father was there throughout quietly sitting.The case workers from Oranga Tamariki were in and out of the room constantly calling back to their own lawyers.  The whanau were also getting legal advice.Eventually, Oranga Tamariki gave up and instead the mother was allowed to go with her baby to a care facility while the matter was further discussed ahead of a new Family Court hearing next week.It was traumatic and dramatic but it is important to watch to understand what families and children and social workers go through when the state steps in.  These sorts of uplifts happen three times a week.This is the scale of the issue.  According to the boss of Oranga Tamariki, the agency got 90,000 reports of concern for 64,000 children in the last year. Of those 64,000 children, the agency is working with 30,000 of them and 1750 were bought into care.That's less than three percent, but that’s still a big number.But I’d warn that in my opinion the video is very one sided. Oranga Tamariki’s side is not represented at all.  The piece doubts the veracity of the court order because the child was so young but that’s their opinion, the court order had been granted.  Oranga Tamariki are unable to defend themselves due to privacy concerns that it appears the documentary makers aren’t subject to.It was briefly mentioned that the 18-year-old mother and the 17-year-old father had already had another child who had earlier been uplifted and placed with an English couple.  The reason for that was never explained.The fact that this extremely young couple had created another child when they hadn’t regained custody of their first child is concerning.It was mentioned that the 17-year-old father has issues but it was claimed that he was getting on top of them but we don’t know what those issues are.The fact that the European couple who had the first child and would have looked after the second  prompted calls that this was similar to the Australian stolen generation. That seems disingenuous considering the Oranga Tamariki social workers attempting the uplift were both Maori themselves.A kaumatua who was in the room and in the documentary says Oranga Tamariki goes too far.  He says it’s about Maori whānau, Maori, Maori solutions, a Maori way.  He says Oranga Tamariki have occupied this space for too long and not brought the outcomes Māori seek and he wants the agency to cede it’s responsibility to Maori.While it was impressive to see the number of whanau in the room supporting the baby and the mum and resisting the uplift you can’t help but wonder where that whanau were as this 18-year-old and 17-year-old brought two children into the world and they’ve already lost one.What this all says to me is that Oranga Tamariki are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. It says that uplifting children into state care is very difficult.  It says that many people criticise Oranga Tamariki either for uplifting or not uplifting in any particular case and they just can’t win.It also says to me that I hope Melanie Reid documents a different uplift but this time from Oranga Tamariki’s point of view so we get a proper picture of the issues.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With all the positives and negatives that come attached with it, intergenerational living is fast becoming the new norm for many Kiwi families.Intergenerational living is when family members of all ages - from grandparents to young children - are living together under one roof. A TVNZ investigation for What's Next has examined how medical advances and longer life expectancy has influenced this, but other factors such as the rising cost of living and housing unaffordability has seen this impact multiple families.Andrew Dickens put the message out to his listeners, and several came back with their own experiences, from German-inspired living to boarding with grandmothers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government is investing almost $30 million into maternity services.Minister of Health David Clark has made the announcement at a Health Select Committee meeting .The $29.7 million package is part of Budget 2019 and its wider four billion dollar health package.Clark says it will continue the investment into community midwives.It comes as amid growing criticism aimed at the government over the closure of the Lumsden maternity centre, which has led to numerous reports of women having to give birth in less than ideal circumstances.Earlier today, the New Zealand Herald reported that 90 per cent of maternity wards in New Zealand hospitals have no senior doctors or consultants on site at night.A midwife and a Lumsden local whose wife had two difficult births shared their takes on these latest developments with Andrew Dickens. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The campaign by bureaucrats to lower the speed limits on New Zealand roads because they believe the roads are just not good enough to support a 100km an hour speed limit continues to bubble away.But now opponents have found a real life situation that appears to sink the idea.On State Highway 1 in the South Island, there’s a section of about 12km linking Cheviot and Kaikōura over the Hundalee Hills.  It’s tricky and windy and prone to crashes. The average speed through the section is 55 to 59 kmh.So after the 2016 quake which further degraded the road the NZTA lowered the speed limit to 80kmh and then again to 60kmh.Which makes sense because that’s the speed your average driver drives at through that bit of road and with a speed limit it might make the fools who drive too fast slow down and stay on their side of the road - actually, stay on the road full stop.But according to the local fire chief it has made absolutely no difference at all to the number of incidents on the road. In fact it might have made it worse.There’s a local truck driver called Owen who knows why.  It’s all down to impatience.  He trucks through the section at 60 k and most of the time it’s fine but then there’s some who scream up behind him, can’t stand 60 k so try to pass him on a windy road.  He says they try to pass on blind corners.  They scream past him at 20 and 30ks over the speed limit.So there are some they say this is proof that lowered speed limits don’t work.  To me it’s proof not the speed limit’s fault but the idiot drivers who flout the law and common sense.I would like these guys to rein it in or stop driving but that’s a forlorn hope.  So there’s a part of me that doesn’t care if they hurtle off the road to their death as long as they don’t take anyone else with them.The Government is on a three-year mission to improve road safety.Some $1.4 billion is being invested in improvements like new barriers, passing lanes and wider shoulders, with the hope of upgrading 870km of high-risk state highways by 2021.I say hurry up and keep the idiots away from my side of the road.Meanwhile, NZTA is expected to announce a list of areas for proposed lower speed limits in the next week or so, and the public will be consulted. I’m not opposed to this, theoretically, as long as the speed limits make sense taking into account the road and the risk factors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Talkback callers have made clear their dissatisfaction with the minimum and living wage.K-Mart has agreed to pay its unionised workforce the living wage, following a similar commitment from Bunnings last year.The living wage is currently set at $21.15 an hour, with the adult minimum wage $17.70.Andrew Dickens raised the topic with callers today, and the general consensus was that the higher wage is too costly for businesses and ultimately not worthwhile. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are no rational reasons for why Maori are treated differently in the justice system, a lawyer says. The criminal justice system has come under fire after a damning report that laid bare the many issues throughout the system. An advisory group report recommends a complete overhaul of the system, which it says is failing offenders, victims, and communities.Kingi, who works as a defence lawyer in Manukau, told Andrew Dickens that this is an area New Zealand has been lacking coverage on.He says that, until things change, unconscious bias and colonisation have played a big part of these issues. "The legacy of colonisation is still alive today. The fact that if you are a Maori person charged with the same crime as a non-Maori person, you are more likely to be arrested for that crime, you are more likely to face charges in the court, you are more likely to go to jail. There's evidence to suggest that Maori are treated differently."Kingi wants to see fewer people end up in the justice system, as young Maori men in the system “more often than not” they graduate to prison.“Once you’re in prison, that’s real university for becoming a seasoned criminal.”He says that it is easy for people to say that they simply need to stop committing crimes, and it's easy for people who have never suffered prejudice. "If you are Maori or Pasifika, you are treated differently, and the Police have admitted that."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

COMMENT:The Safe and Effective Justice Advisory Group has finished its tour of New Zealand and reported back to the Government.The working group is chaired by former National MP Chester Borrows. He’s an interesting chap, Chester. Firstly Chester in not his name, it’s a nickname. It took him three goes to get the Whanganui seat. He’s a lay preacher who gave Israel Folau a serve in 2018. He proposed a softening of the smacking law and after a visit to Parihaka had a road to Damascus experience regarding the teaching of Māori history in our schools, which will become obvious soon.So the Advisory Group has had a good hard look at our justice system and come up with the hardly surprising conclusion that the system is broken, and that we need to transform it into something better and fairer.Chester Borrows told us the report is particularly critical of how victims are treated within the system, saying people have a lack of faith in it, and that suggests it is not fit for purpose.Victims are interrogated and presumed as guilty as the accused. Outcomes vary the more you spend on a lawyer. The justice system takes forever, it’s confusing and alienating and favours people with money and education.There’s criticism that the system focuses on punishment, rather than rehabilitation and there is widespread frustration that mental illness, addiction, and drug and alcohol abuse are treated as criminal justice issues, not health issues.Borrows says the group is most worried about how the justice system affects Māori - who make up 51 per cent of those in prisons, but only about 15 per cent of the population. The group says Māori are bearing the brunt of the legacy of colonisation. One of the group went as far to say that if Māori knew the justice system they were going to get they would have never signed the Treaty of Waitangi.This is where the group starts to lose me.Our justice and legal system is based on centuries of development, from the setting of common law after the Norman Conquest in 1066, through the Magna Carta, to today. One-third of the world exists under these principles.I find the suggestion that the worldwide convention of law and its application is somehow unsuitable to Māori to be vaguely insulting to Māori, who by the way have shown themselves to be very good at law if they want to be. Māori have a strong oral culture and they like a good kōrero on everything including innocence and guilt.No, the problem with this justice system for Māori is fundamentally socio-economic and that’s where things have to change. If we’re going to have a conversation about our justice system, I don’t want to hear the blame being put on events of 177 years ago. This sort of blame-storming on the Treaty fixes nothing.The real problem with our justice system is that it is adversarial. All the parties are adversaries, fighting each other, disagreeing with each other, trying to beat each other. And with adversaries then there will be participants who suffer adversely. No matter what the colour of their skin. If we can fix that then the whole world will beat a path to our door.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

COMMENT:So I’ve kept out of the speed limit debate because there’s no point in debating something that so many seem to disagree with.I don’t need to open the lines and have people mansplain to me that it’s actually slow drivers that cause all these high-speed crashes. That it’s people from other countries or even races that are at fault. Or the National Party’s response this week which seemed to say make every road a four-lane, gold plated highway. How they afford that, pay the teachers, loosen Pharmac’s purse strings, and lower taxes all at the same time is a magic trick I’d like to see.But the nation is reacting to the news that the NZTA reckons only five per cent of our roads are safe at 100km/h and that we need to lower speed limits, as a nanny state gone mad and they have a point.I think they’ve exaggerated the risk, but that’s not to say the risk isn’t there.I think we all can go through the New Zealand atlas and mark the roads that you would drive at 90km/h or 80km/h or 60km/h or even less - because we’re grown up.I’ve heard people say the speed limit is not the target, that is true. Many say that but don’t drive that way, and every second they spend under 100km/h you can feel their blood pressure rising.I think everyone would agree that matching speeds to individual road conditions makes sense and would help reduce our road toll. But you can’t have the speed limits changing every five minutes of a journey depending on risk factors, because New Zealand drivers are not aware enough to cope.Meanwhile, the debate has veered onto our continued use of cellphones and, in particular, texting when driving.The first time I ever tried to do that was also the last time I ever did it because it scared the pants off me, but it appears there are many who think differently. Don’t tell them that New Zealanders can’t multitask.Then there’s the continued battle against drink driving. You know you could lower the drink drive limit to zero and there will always be a hardcore that will continue to drink, drive, and kill.And here’s a point I’d like to mansplain back at you, firstly, consider the number of people who believe that 100km/h is the targe, not the limit, that too many rules on the road are too hard to follow, that it is your human right and productive need to be able to text and drive, and that drink and drugs don’t impair your driving. Then ask yourself what we can do about it?The reason governments and regulators come up with laws and regulations that makes them seem like nanny states is because they’re dealing with a minority who behave like children ... Can we just send them to their room?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A service of commemoration was held in southern England to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, with a  notable absence.Queen Elizabeth II, U.S. President Donald Trump, other leaders of the wartime Allies such as Theresa May, Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau — as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel — joined some 300 World War II veterans at the seaside ceremony in Portsmouth Wednesday.The service was held to mark 75 years since troops began to embark from Portsmouth on June 5, 1944, landing in Normandy the next morning.The ceremony kicked off with the recollections of those who took part in the landings, broadcast from a giant screen, setting the tone for a ceremony meant to focus on veterans' sacrifices.New Zealand’s Governor General Dame Patsy Reddy attended on behalf of the New Zealand Government, with no appearance from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern or Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters.Andrew Dickens asked why neither of them had gone to the event, when other world leaders – including Australia’s Scott Morrison – had attended.Dickens noted that, as far as he could see, Ardern had not attended a D-Day events in New Zealand, which left him "surprised and horrified". "I want to find out what she thinks is so important on the 75th anniversary of D-Day that she should be in Marlborough talking about her budget and not at the National War Memorial. It seems like the call is getting worse." Callers in response agreed with his calls, with one saying that it was "appalling" that she was not there."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

COMMENT:Hello, my name is Andrew Dickens and today I took a bus to work.I thought I’d run you through the reason I chose public transportation today and can I stress it was my choice.So the reason is highly bourgeois. Tonight I’m going to the Opera. The performance starts at 7.30 and if you’re not seated by then you miss half the opera. So I’ve booked a little Japanese place I know for Yakitori at 5.45pm. Here’s the plan - I’ll leave work at 5pm, walk to the restaurant, meet my date, eat my skewers, go to the Opera and Uber home.So why did I bus in?Total transportation cost for me will be $1.95 on the bus and I know that on a Thursday at 10pm it’ll cost $12 on the Uber. So that comes to $14. I know from last night when I went to the cinema that a car park for the Opera costs $16 for the night. So I’ve saved $2. But I also don’t have to worry about daytime carpark costs, or the running costs of the car. It was an economic choice to bus in and Uber home.I’m saying this because with transportation issues in the news this week, I’ve got irritated with the ideologues who are trying to convince you that there is a conspiracy to get you out of your car. There is a propaganda stream against public transport, buses and trains and ferries, and bus lanes and cycle lanes which ignores a basic fact - no one forces people out of cars. People choose alternative transport.Sometimes they choose it because they have no choice.My sons bike to uni because they can’t afford a car. The cost, the maintenance, the petrol, the insurance, the parking. They chose bicycles. Jack biked yesterday in the big storm. I told him to take a bus but he really doesn’t like them. All he did was put a coat on. Cost him nothing.On my bus at 9.45 this morning there were 34 seats and 25 people were on the bus. By the way that’s 25 cars not on the road, thank you very much. So the passengers were basically either young, old or minorities. Basically, they were poor.I asked the lady beside me why she took the bus. She said she was divorced, working part-time and couldn’t afford the parking. I’m picking that most of the opponents of public transport investment have a car park at work. They’ve not had to rush out the door to get the Early Bird parking. Or turned up at 8.45am after a snarl up on the motorway to find the car park full and then spend an hour circling town for a park. I’m picking they’ve never had to leave work every hour to feed a meter and then found you’re 10 minutes late and you have a $12 ticket on top of your existing parking fees. I’m picking they’ve never driven in for four hours of part-time work and paid $25 for the privilege of parking.A week of that and choosing a bus or bike starts looking good.I’ve noticed a lot of people parking in inner-city suburbs and pulling an electric scooter out of the boot to scoot to work. Pays for itself in a month. People are choosing to do this. A lot of people are choosing to do this. On Sunday 23rd June, buses trains and ferries in Auckland will be free for the day to celebrate 100 million trips taken on public transport in a year. That’s 100 million cars off the road, thank you very much.By the way, 3000 people work in my building. There are 240 parks. Do the parkers have any idea how the other 2750 adults in the building get to work?I guess I get angry at the claim that public transport is an ideology because it is anti-freedom of choice. No one is forcing you out of your car but the opponents of public transport infrastructure spend are trying to force you back into a car when it's increasingly not working. It’s all a bit Marie Antoinette. The peasants are starving. Well, let them eat cake. They can drive into town do it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is 5pm too early in the day for a dating 'hook-up' show to screen on television?The latest season of the UK reality sensation Love Island premieres on Three this afternoon.NZ Herald TV reviewer Anna Murray wrote that the show is about a "group of young, confident, conventionally good-looking Brits hit a Majorcan villa in the hope of finding love and/or winning a cash prize of £50,000. "With dozens of cameras fixed on them around the compound, the group's mission is clearly spelled out: Couple up or go home."Andrew Dickens says that the timing is an obvious attempt to compete with the ratings juggernaut of The Chase, a quiz show that airs on TVNZ 1 at the same time. He says it is a "raunchy overly provactive festival of millennials making out or fighting", that has led to a "pornification of 5'o'clock". Dickens wants to know why the show isn't rated to be on later at night."Most of these hook-up programmes go on after 8pm. Why is this on at 5pm?" The news of the timeslot sparked outrage and derision by a number of talkback callers, with many saying that it should nopt be on that early. However, one caller, Clare, says that the timeslot may be pointless, as streaming services and DVR's means that anyone can watch anything at any time. "You do wonder how the Broadcasting Standards Authority can ever implement anything in the future based on that."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well here we go again.  More proof that the Law of Unintended Consequences has hit again in the rural sector.Government forestry incentives have seen a 45 per cent increase in forestry farm prices over the past year.Figures released this week by the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand showed the median price of forestry farms had increased from $6487ha to $9394ha.At the same time though, less forestry land has been up for sale.  70 farms in the 2018 year down to 50 in the year ending April 2019.So there are two things here.  People are hanging on to their forestry land and other people are prepared to pay heaps to get their hand on some. And this is all because they can see money in it all due to government policies.Firstly, Shane Jones’ Billion Trees programme means people can almost be paid to increase their forest holding, thank you very much.Secondly, now that foreigners, except Australians and Singaporeans, can’t buy existing residential or lifestyle properties, their money is now gravitating to an investment that they’re allowed into like forestry assets. An investment that the Government provides incentives for. 75 per cent of forestry companies operating in New Zealand are already foreign owned.  Many of the sales are to foreign companies to plant trees to get carbon credits to offset their filth in their neck of the woods.Which brings on the third factor which is the Ponzi scheme that is the Emissions Trading Scheme.  Putting a dollar price on this scientific theory automatically introduces profit motives.  Currently, the New Zealand Carbon Price is capped at $25 a tonne of CO2.  In Europe it’s $44 a tonne.   Last a review recommended lifting the cap and putting in an auction system. The price will go up and that’s a dollar sign attracting the investors.It’s a perfect storm of government policy that makes it as near as can be a sure fire investment.Last week farmers went to talk to Cabinet ministers about their concerns.  30,000 hectares in the North Island alone has been sold to forestry companies. It’s estimated that means 300,000 stock units will be replaced by trees. That means a loss of jobs, people and services in places like Gisborne, Tararua, Wairoa and Wairarapa.And once you replace farmland with tress there’s no going back.  Cows and sheep don’t go back, Crops will never be planted.  The land is a forest for a generation or more.  This is a big price to pay to give Shane Jones and his nephews a job and foreign polluters a get out of jail free card.Shane Jones has commented on the situation and he has sympathy for farmers for what he calls the “shiny arses coming out of Auckland to cover Wairoa in trees”, but he says that was not the policies intention.That may be so Shane, but that doesn’t mean it ain’t happening and it’s partly your fault.There are some that believe that this policy triple punch is part of the Greens plan to de-farm this country but I don’t think they’re that smart and calculating and a lot of the factors were in play with the National Government.Ill thought out blanket policies full of virtue signalling with dollars connected kindly donated by you and me in our taxes has artificially distorted the market. Foreigners are cashing in and rural areas are dying a slow death.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back to work after the last long weekend for a while.I’ve always thought there was a design failure in the year when Queens Birthday happens in June and then the long haul of winter commences and the next  long weekend is Labour weekend in October.  For your information, that is 21 weeks away.  Or nearly half a year with the coldest and most brutal weather. It’s ridiculous.So if you cast your mind back you may remember I wasn’t here on Friday.  It’s because Helen and I have reached that age where things fall off and need to be stuck back on again so we were away having what they like to call a procedure.  Which also meant that we took the long weekend easy with a slow staycation.  And it was glorious.I listened to no radio and watched no TV news the whole weekend. After last week’s horror show featuring  allegations or rape, hacking and cover ups in the political world it was a relief.  I didn’t hear the yapping of the commentariat about the strengths and failings of the budget.  I didn’t hear the wailing of those who think this country is on a one way descent into economic failure.  I didn’t hear the kumbaya crowd hailing the first so called wellbeing budget.We walked the dog on beaches and heard the lapping of the sea and the call of sea birds and the laughter of children.  I watched Liverpool win and the Junior All Whites come oh so close, the Blackcaps destroy Sri Lanka, the French Open, the end of the Giro d’Italia and two episodes in a row of What We Do In The Shadows. We ate a Fish curry, some lamb caps and a chicken chorizo pasta.Basically, we decompressed and cheered up.  Last week depressed me greatly.  Not just the visit to a surgeon but also the deplorable behaviour of all our politicians.Which brings me back to the budget, which to me was just another budget whose saving grace was the investment in mental health.  Something we have ignored for so long. The way I feel today after a good weekend is proof that mental wellbeing is important for economic progress.In 2016 the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists did a thorough investigation into the cost of mental health in our countries.  In New Zealand the cost to the economy due to the burden of mental illness in New Zealand is NZ$17.0 billion a year, or 7.2% of GDP, if opioid dependence is included.  If opioid use is excluded the cost is still NZ$12.0 billion or 5.0% of GDP. On top of that it is estimated that for every dollar invested in mental illness will return $2.30. That's a $4.4 billion return based on this budget announcement. Happy workers are harder workers.I think that’s a good riposte to all those who thought the budget was too touch feely and lacking a financial focus.  Now how about having another long weekend in August?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government’s investing $10.7 billion in Budget 2019 to improve New Zealanders’ wellbeing in a world-first budget, but are the numbers good enough? Andrew Dickens is joined by KPMG's Director Harriet Dempsey and Tax Advisor Bruce Bernacchi, alongside ZB political editor, to discuss this year's budget.Finance Minister Grant Robertson says the Government’s delivered critical investments needed to help address long-term challenges, while sticking to its self-imposed Budget Responsibility Rules.That means net core Crown debt as a percentage of GDP is forecast to be 19.9 percent in 2021/22.And the surplus will grow to $6.1 billion by 2022/23.Bernacchi told Andrew Dickens he's sceptical."I would be surprised if we ever get to the point that the Government has a $6 billion surplus and hasn't found a way to spend it. If you look at these numbers, there's a lot of extra spending planned there, there's nothing about raising any new revenues."He says that they the Government is hoping for three per cent GDP growth year on year in order to drive economic activity and drive the taxes to pay for this budget. Dempsey says that the planned infrastructure commission will be beneficial to the economy and business, with new incentives that will encourage working together. "That body is there, and now has the funding to promote good infrastructure."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Air New Zealand's chairman is dismissing claims the company's chief executive is considering a move to politics.Newstalk ZB political editor Barry Soper says he understands that Christopher Luxon wants to get into politics.It comes after National list MP Alfred Ngaro decided against splitting away from the party to form a Christian-focused group.Soper told Andrew Dickens that one reason why Ngaro has decided against this was that the Botany seat, which he was eyeing as a possibility, is instead being reserved for Luxon."The head of Air New Zealand wants to get into politics. He's a relatively young man. He's approaching 50, and I believe he probably has leadership aspirations."He says that Ngaro has seen that he is safer in National, now that Botany is out of the question.The Botany seat is held by Independent MP Jami-Lee Ross.It had been held by National since it was first contested in 2008 - up until Ross left the party last year.However, Air New Zealand board chair Tony Carter told NewstalkZB Luxon has confirmed he remains committed to Air New Zealand.New Zealand Herald aviation editor Grant Bradley told Andrew Dickens that there have been political rumours surrounding Luxon for years."He was meant to be standing at Northcote last year, but that didn't happen."Bradley says that it is a matter of timing for Luxon.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

COMMENT:What a mess. The report into bullying at Parliament and the Speaker's behaviour after it's release.This morning, the Prime Minister infuriated many by refusing to comment on the schemozzle. In her defence, that was the only professional response in the affair so far. Here's why.The report was only meant to determine whether there was a culture of bullying and harassment in Parliament. There is, and that's all it was for. All submissions were confidential and anonymous and were destroyed after the report was written. It was commissioned for the Speaker. Its purpose was to convince the Speaker whether a review of the processes in Parliament for dealing with bad behaviour was necessary. Which it obviously is.The allegations of sexual impropriety were all without identity. It was not an investigation to root out therapists and bullies in Bowen Street. It was not a naming and shaming.And there it ends.But in the hours after receiving the report, which detailed anonymous behaviour famously described as tantamount to rape by the Speaker, Trevor Mallard went and suspended some guy who had been investigated before. Only Mallard can tell us why he did that and now he's not talking.Now whether by design or by stupidity, Mallard's actions have tainted the man currently under investigation. Presumed guilty in public opinion before proven innocent or not, and that's just not on.My only guess is that having hyped up and blabbed about a confidential report, the Speaker needed a scapegoat to prevent the whole of Parliament being under suspicion. If that is the case, having made a mistake he then went and doubled down and made an even bigger one.So what should happen next?Well firstly, Trevor Mallard has to come out and explain his actions. If not, Chris Hipkins and Paula Bennett, the respective leaders of the house, might want to get together and discuss a vote of confidence in the Speaker.When the Prime Minister was asked whether the Speaker should go she couldn't answer that question. It's a decision for the whole house.Meanwhile, the investigation into the man needs to continue. While he contends that he's been investigated before that does not negate the current investigation. It should continue confidentially.This affair was in response to a report that contained confidential and anonymous allegations, and they should have stayed that way until concrete allegations can be made through the correct process.While she drove Mike and the audience bonkers this morning, the Prime Minister was bang on.What a pity the Speaker didn't get that before blundering in.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's fair to say that the Newstalk ZB newsroom made some fresh discoveries about our colleagues today.A viral Twitter topic, sparked by comic writer Gail Simone, has seen tens of thousands of people around the world share their first character crushes.Simone asked a simple question: "Which animated character did you first think was super kissable, even if it sounds weird now?"She has been flooded with responses, and the topic is now the top trending subject on Twitter as people reveal the Disney, Nickelodeon and anime characters that first stole their hearts.Producer Antz put the question to the newsroom, as well as Andrew Dickens, and some interesting results were unveiled. Stupid Question Of The Day:Name the first animated character you ever had a crush on. Which animated character did you first think was super kissable, even if it sounds weird now? Please use hashtag#1stCartoonCrush— GAIL SIMONE Thinks the Punisher Should Smile More (@GailSimone) May 21, 2019Someone call the police! This man is guilty of stealing My 9 year old heart around 11 years ago #1stCartoonCrush pic.twitter.com/P0feaHEOIu— big momma (@bigmomma69_) May 22, 2019you’re lying if simba didn’t make you feel some type of way #1stCartoonCrush pic.twitter.com/nDq5d3ufc2— adi🌪 (@uhdeetea) May 22, 2019#1stCartoonCrush Are you really that surprised? pic.twitter.com/nds9rWvUaI— JoeyWaggoner (Commissions OPEN!) (@JW_Cartoonist) May 21, 2019See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you think your mum is laying it on thick about producing grandchildren, take heart: At least you're not a male bonobo.Bonobo mothers have been seen performing a variety of behaviours that seem to lend their sons an advantage when it comes to fathering babies, according to a study published Monday in Current Biology Magazine.What kind of behaviours? Well, when a male bonobo is mating with a female, his mother will sometimes run interference against any other males that come too close and try to interrupt the love-making.Wingman? How about wingmum?Bonobo mothers have also been observed actively breaking up copulations between females and other males who aren't their sons, calling to mind the title of a certain crudely named, big-screen comedy released last year.Sometimes a bonobo mum will even team up with with her son to beat up sexual rivals and help him rise in their social group's hierarchy.Scientists have long known that mother bonobos do all of these things, but until now, they've never been able to provide evidence that the meddling actually gave their sons an advantage that led to more grand-bonobos. The new research, however, documented that wild male bonobos in the Democratic Republic of Congo father three times as many offspring when their moms are still in the picture than bonobos whose mothers have died or left their group.By comparison, the same researchers found no such significant advantages for wild male chimpanzees in Côte d'Ivoire, Tanzania, and Uganda. This is important because bonobos and chimpanzees are very closely related. But chimpanzee mothers don't typically display any of these matchmaking - or, rather, match-defending -- behaviours for their sons. This suggests the boost in baby bonobos is at least partly due to the mothers' son-assisting behaviour and not simply good genetics.But there's also a social component. In chimpanzee groups, males always retain dominance. In bonobo groups, males and females share dominance, and females are usually protected from violence from males."I am pretty sure we see these effects in bonobos because females have these high social ranks," said Martin Surbeck, a biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and lead author of the study. "Where we are less sure is the actual mechanism by which the presence of mums helps their sons."And the mothers' presence alone is important.In a 2010 study, Surbeck and his coauthors observed that bonobo males tend to remain on the outskirts of the group when they don't have their mothers nearby. That's bad news for those males' reproduction rates, because the centre of the group is where the most reproductively available females congregate. On the contrary, even low- and mid-ranking males were able to safely enter the centre of the group when their mums accompanied them."They act as social passport allowing males to 'enter' the female core of the bonobo society," Surbeck wrote in an email.Mothers also seem to influence the rank of their sons, with more powerful mothers having more powerful sons. "And once mothers lose their high ranks, this can affect their sons ranks as well," Surbeck said.Ammie Kalan, a primatologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology who was not involved in the new study, called it "fascinating" for the way it invokes comparisons to the so-called grandmother hypothesis for human evolution.The grandmother hypothesis attempts to explain why female humans are among the very few animals that experience menopause. After all, if evolution is all about passing on your genes, what benefit would there be in hanging up your reproductive ability?The answer, according to the hypothesis, is that after a certain age, grandmothers actually have a better chance of passing on their genes by helping their offspring rather than by creating more offspring themselves."That being said,...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How easy are we?Last week, Alfred Ngaro was some half remembered former Cabinet Minister who had slunk into invisibility in opposition.  From time to time pictures came out of the opposition benches and Alfred Ngaro would catch the eye with his shock of silver hair, looking just  like Mike McRoberts long lost twin brother. But that was last week.  How things have changed while we’ve been played.Barry Soper wrote an article bringing to light the rumours that had swirled for a while. That Alfred would split off from the National Party and form a conservative Christian party.It made sense. Alfred has always trumpeted his Christianity, called himself a Zionist and claimed to have been a pastor.But Barry’s article went further, suggesting that National could cut a deal for Alfred and his new party along the lines of the deal with ACT.  The electorate of Botany was mentioned. And this also made sense as National is desperate for coalition partners.Now, the Botany deal has been gently denied by National but that doesn’t matter because mentioning Botany was a stroke of genius.  It fired up the incumbent independent Jami-Lee Ross who dutifully went into attack mode against the party that isolated him. Ross scanned Alfred’s social media for a weapon and he found it: Alfred lightly conflated abortion with the word holocaust.  A powerful, emotionally laden word that rises heckles in many.So bang.  Alfred’s in the paper again for a second day.  He refuses to apologise but mitigates the word saying he should have said the tragedy of abortion and then double downs on his long held belief that abortion is a crime.  He has always opposed moving abortion out of the Crimes Act.So bang again. Many feminists rail against that attitude and put their argument, seemingly oblivious to the fact that people whose mind is set on keeping abortion criminal will never change their view. Alfred doesn’t mind.  His name is in the public sphere again.Meanwhile, Simon Bridges is on the radio with Mike Hosking talking about Alfred.This is all politics 101.  The trick is to get other people talking about you and Alfred has done that all week long. Holey Moley.  I’m doing it now!But it’s all so seemingly calculating.  It doesn’t feel as though this so called party has emerged organically from a significant sector of like-minded individuals. It feels like a political party you order from a catalogue.While Alfred may get the 500 members needed and the organisation together in the 18 months he has before the next election, it will still seem to me like a ruse from the National Party. And if it works and three or so members of this new party take a seat in parliament, there will still be a feeling that all the other people who started parties themselves were gypped.  The Colin Craigs and the Gareth Morgans.  That their two or three per cent of supporters were democratically disenfranchised.So personally, if you think a conservative party is needed and you’d like to support one, then the one I like is the New Conservatives who have done the hard yards by themselves and look pretty prepared really and are not some party you buy in a flat pack and assemble yourself or a party you buy from a takeaways.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Formula One legend Niki Lauda has died aged 70 after a period of ill health, according to reports.The Austrian Press Agency reported the news this morning.Lauda, who had kidney transplants in 1997 and 2005, had reportedly been in hostpital for dialysis treatment after kidney issues."Due to kidney problems, he had to be transferred from the rehabilitation centre to a private clinic for dialysis," Lauda's brother Florian confirmed to Austrian media.According to Austrian newspaper Volksblatt, the motorsport great passed away accompanied by his family."The 70-year-old three-time Formula 1 world champion and flight entrepreneur had peacefully fallen asleep with his family on Monday, the family said on Tuesday night," said the report.Lauda, who was badly burned during a Formula One race in 1976 and later became an airline entrepreneur, underwent a double lung transplant in August last year.The former driver was a world champion three times, taking the title for Ferrari in 1975 and 1977, and in 1984 for McClaren.He was non-executive chairmain of Mercedes and had a close relationship with five-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, and was involved in helping sign the British driver from McClaren in 2013.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why are we giving immigrants superannuation, asked a nationally broadcast current affairs host who should know better this morning.Well, Mr Populism, preying on people’s basic instincts, it’s because they’re New Zealand citizens or residents.  But obviously in his eyes there two types of New Zealanders: the ones he thinks deserve to be here and the ones he thinks don’t deserve to be here, even if they’re totally legal. This is the worst dog whistle broadcasting and it’s also the worst dog whistle politics.Honestly, if you don’t like older immigrants who qualify getting the super, then don’t let them in in the first place. This is an immigration debate, not a superannuation debate.  If we’re going to have a superannuation debate, then let’s talk about the elephant in the room.NZ Super is a universal social welfare benefit paid to older New Zealand Citizens and Residents. Universal. It has been since the day it started.  $800 a fortnight for a single and $1300 for a couple.It has nothing to do with how much tax you’ve paid before you turn 65. If it was then the people who paid the most tax would get back more super than the ones who paid less tax, further exacerbating the divide between rich and poor.The taxpayers of today pay a universal benefit to ensure the older generation does not starve or freeze. Which is why it gets difficult when the proportion of taxpayers reduce and the number of pensioners increase, which is exactly what is happening now with the baby boomers hitting retirement age.To combat that problem, some countries started to raise the age of the pension to 67. It also takes into account that we live longer these days. But in New Zealand, we refuse to countenance this. It was John Key who drew the line in the sand and said he’d never raise the age. All while allowing hundreds of thousands of immigrants into the country, many close to pension age, ironically putting even more pressure on his stand.It’s only been two years but it’s turned into political poison. Jacinda Ardern made a commitment to 65 before the election.  In 2017, PM Bill English said the age would start to slowly rise. In 20 years time. Or 2037. Or when the baby boom bulge is starting to peter out. That was a policy that was not really a policy.  A stand that was not a stand.No party will come out and say let’s raise the age now even when the argument makes perfect sense. Because New Zealanders are too married to their own entitlements no matter how hard it becomes for the entire system. They say millennials are entitled but there’s nobody more entitled than someone who’s within coo-eee of the super.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lost your passport in Austria? In need of assistance? If you're a US citizen, there's a new way to deal with common travel problems.Under the terms of a new partnership between McDonald's Austria and the US Embassy in Vienna, staff at the fast food restaurants will help travellers in need."American citizens travelling in Austria who find themselves in distress and without a way to contact the U.S. Embassy can enter -- as of Wednesday, May 15, 2019 -- any McDonald's in Austria, and staff will assist them in making contact with the U.S. Embassy for consular services," reads a post on the US Embassy's Facebook page announcing the move.These services include providing solutions for a lost or stolen passport, and offering travel assistance, according to the post.A Memorandum of Agreement was signed on Friday, and the new arrangement came into force on Wednesday.Some Facebook users were supportive of the move, while others were less enthusiastic."Because apparently we are too incompetent to look up the us embassy online??" wrote one, while another asked if the McDonald's partnership would replace a staffed embassy."Certainly not. Our Embassy is fully staffed and ready to assist American citizens in need," responded the embassy account."This partnership is only one extra way for Americans to connect to the Embassy when they are in an emergency situation."CNN has attempted to contact both McDonald's Austria and the US Embassy in Vienna for comment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A film director says his crews have met families of mosque attack victims in preparation for making a movie about the March 15 shootings.UK-based Egyptian director Moez Masoud says he plans to make a film, tentatively titled “Hello Brother”, the words spoken to the accused gunman as he entered Christchurch's Al Noor mosque.He says his goal is to help the audience with the healing process and make people understand each other better.But Al Noor Masjid spokesman Anthony Green found the movie talk "a little bit staggering".He also briefly met co-writer Rick Castaneda yesterday and found him "sketchy" on details."No proper discussion has taken place. Just how it's got to this point is quite surprising, to be honest," Green said."I'm not interested in movies. The last thing I want is a Hollywood treatment or dramatisation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Drama continues in Parliament after Nick Smith was named and suspended from Parliament. National MP Nick Smith has been relegated to being a spectator at a Justice Select Committee in Parliament this morning.Smith is meant to be on the committee looking at our general and local elections - including the issue of foreign interference.However, he was named and suspended from the debating chamber for 24 hours yesterday, after clashing with Police Minister Stuart Nash and Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard.There was a flurry of activity between the clerks and Smith at the start of submissions, and a Labour MP questioned his attendance, but he’s remained in the public seating area at the back of the room.ZB political editor Barry Soper says that even though Smith won't be in the debating chamber today, he expects to see the incident come up amongst politicians. Soper told Andrew Dickens that this all started after Smith tried to seek leave for a National bill around roadside drug testing to be moved to the top of the order paper at the next Private Member's Day."The Speaker said no, leave is not granted. It's really not for the Speaker to deny leave. What he's duty bound to do is put the question to the House and let the MPs decide, and he overruled that." Soper says that this all happened after some disorder in the public gallery."After Karen Dow, who's son was killed by a drunk driver, and she called out from the public gallery, and she yelled at Stuart Nash, the Police Minister."She had brought a petition for roadside drug testing to Parliament. When she launched that petition at the end of last year,  Stuart Nash had said a discussion document had already been approved by Cabinet and would go to consultation early this year."Nash denied making the comment yesterday, but Smith still intended to move on his bill. "He mouthed something at the Speaker, he was sent on his way, and on his way he said 'soft on drugs, just like the Government'," which is the comment that saw Smith being named and barred from Parliament.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It gives me no pleasure at all to gloat over the government's apparent failure with Kiwibuild.There are some opponents of this coalition who almost seem gleeful when recounting the disappointments of one of the government's principal policy planks. There are no winners when a bad idea is ripped apart but no-one has an alternative option.The reason I'm not cheering in the street is that I was hoping that the state could have helped in what I've always considered is a generational disaster.There are just not enough houses, in the right places, at the right quality and with the right design in this country. It goes back to just after the second world war. From time to time we tried like the state house expansion, but again the sprawling suburbs, the acres of unused land, the absence of transport options only added to our problems.When this government said it would help with something called Kiwibuild, I wondered how it would work. I'm still wondering. It appears to be subsidising plans that were already happening. The worst part of their promise was not the ridiculously ambitious number but the adjective. They said 100,000 EXTRA houses in 10 years. Extra. I haven't seen extra houses. Actually, I've barely seen any houses at all.Attacking Kiwibuild is like shooting fish in a tank. What I'm wondering about is the new Housing and Urban Development Authority. What's happening there.Just to remind you, last November Phil Twyford announced the creation of the new Crown agency with "cut-through powers" to consolidate both Housing New Zealand and KiwiBuild in a bid to tackle housing shortages of all types.It will have broad powers, including being able to ignore existing council designations, amend or write its own by-laws and grant its own resource consent, and councils will have no veto power. "It's going to be a tooled-up agency that can cut through the red tape." It's main goal was to make brownfield and intensification projects possible which at the moment are being stymied by NIMBYs and Council bylaws.It's actually quite a good crisis measure. Phil Twyford promised legislation this year and the agency up and running by 2020. Haven't heard a peep yet.If this is a crisis, then get a move on. It opens up this government to more accusations of talking the talk and not walking the walk.Meanwhile, the fires keep burning. Yesterday, the Reserve Bank cut interest rates to a record low. They say the economy is looking tepid. Why? The global economy and all the talk coming out of the government.Bank deposit rates will drop and there's a generation of savers looking to make the most of their nest egg in an environment of cheap loan money, now that the threat of Capital Gains Tax has disappeared.I opened the lines yesterday and asked what are you going to do in this low interest rate environment? Virtually all said invest in property. It's always been a winner because there's never been enough.Some are already saying a new wave of property inflation is building up and it will take off next year. Welcome back to the so called crisis. And it is not beyond the pale to blame the current government for it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

French beauty retailer Sephora has today confirmed its plans for expansion in New Zealand and that it will open its first store in Auckland this year.Sephora's first local store - a flagship three-storey fitout - will open at 146-152 Queen Street this year. It has not announced when exactly it will open but is reportedly spending more than $5 million on the retail space.The large store will be housed in a heritage building and will be similar in concept to other flagship stores it has located in major cities around the world. The fitout includes an elevator, interesting lighting fixtures, an outside canopy and elaborate signage.The store will "pay homage to the retailer's global brand by incorporating iconic black and white striped" designs, Sephora said."It will definitely stick out," a source told the Herald last month when news of Sephora's first store broke.The first New Zealand Sephora store follows further expansion into the Asian markets. The retailer currently operates in 12 countries it classifies in the region including Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and Korea.Sephora launched its New Zealand e-commerce store at the end of 2015 and has had a local company registered with Companies Office for quite some time.Pedro Coutinho, interim general manager of Sephora Australia and New Zealand, said the Auckland store would be a "destination like no other"."We are so excited to introduce our renowned service offering, a suite of the most sought after beauty brands from around the world and a fun place for our clients to experience and explore their own beauty journey," Coutinho said."We've listened to what our online clients want from Sephora, and this newAuckland location will help us deliver it."Sephora Asia president Benjamin Vuchot said New Zealand will be a key market for building the brands presence in its Asian region."This expansion to a new market will allow Sephora to continue to amplify global beauty trends locally, elevate what our clients expect of the in-store experience and bring fresh, digital touch points to the retail environment to create a virtual, client-centric cycle."The Herald has been pressing Sephora for information on its New Zealand launch for quite some time but the retailer has remained tight-lipped until now.It is also understood that Sephora is working on the fitout for a second Auckland store in Sylvia Park in Mount Wellington, New Zealand's largest mall. It is yet to confirm these plans.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Too often I hear news that concerns me, that a decent society seems to become harder to achieve year after year.Too often I hear about the behaviour of parents and leaders which provide the wrong example for the next generations.Today it’s the assaults and physical violence that school principals and teachers are experiencing and it’s how its getting worse.The findings of the New Zealand Primary School Leaders' Occupational Health and Wellbeing Survey were released this morning. Over 1400 principals have contributed to it.It found principals, deputies and associates were almost 12 times more likely to be subjected to physical violence compared to the rest of the general population last year – up from seven times in 2016.Most of the assaults were from challenged students and that’s a legacy of mainstreaming, which is not something that worries me, but it is representative of the extra societal responsibilities that have been laid on teachers' laps over the past 30 years. But the NZEI is already saying this shows that our schools need more resources to deal with a tide of challenged students that appears to grow.But it’s also notable to see that threats and violence against school leaders by parents are increasing. It’s part of the general disregard for authority that has grown through the years. And how bad is the example being set when parents are attacking or threatening principals and teachers. It’s very hard to get kids to respect and obey their teachers when their parents are prepared to unleash on educators.It joins a long list of atrociously inappropriate behaviour, most notably the violence statistics that emerged out of our emergency departments at hospitals. People charged with saving life are getting clobbered by fools. Just a week ago a report came out that showed that lives have been lost as ambulance officers wait for safe conditions to enter a scene. Again the very people there to help are being hindered for no good reason.And it’s all strata of society. Concerns have been raised at the outflux of civil servants at parliament. Allegations of bullying have been levelled at managers, senior secretaries and even MPs.When the bullying of our kids makes a headline, we get all outraged and hissy but to be honest the kids are just doing what they learnt. New Zealand has a forthright, hierarchical and assertive culture and it means bullying is endemic. To all of us. If we’re worried about bullying sometimes you just need to look at the man in the mirror and make that change.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new documentary has shed new light on the 'second wave' of New Zealand's meth crisis. On June 12, 2016 police seized almost 500kg of methamphetamine at a remote beach in Northland. That single find, with a street value of $450 million, was bigger than the total seizures of the previous two years combined. The find sparked the origins of Fighting the Demon, a new documentary from the New Zealand Herald that looks into the new era of meth addiction in New Zealand. For 20 years, law enforcement had fought to eradicate the drug and lost. Now meth is purer and more available than ever before. Reporter Kirsty Johnston joined Andrew Dickens to discuss the documentary and what she discovered while working on it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As we worry about the environment and the human species’ effect on it, I find the debate is so easily derailed.Yesterday, Raylene Ramsay talked with us in this show about the lack of sunscreen in Tuvalu, the Pacific Nation north of Fiji.  Quoting from a Guardian story she repeated the old mantra that Tuvalu is sinking under the waves because of climate change. Tuvalu is often touted as the country most likely to disappear through sea level rise.Well, that prompted a mad flurry of texts and emails from listeners claiming that was fake news used to promote the global conspiracy of human caused climate change.Of course it is a fallacy.  Firstly Tuvalu is not one island, it’s a collection of nine sparsely populated atolls. Being atolls they are barely above sea level, but they’re also dynamic evolving land masses.  And the unfortunate fact is that they are growing because of organic accumulation.A University of Auckland study examined changes in the geography of Tuvalu's nine atolls and 101 reef islands between 1971 and 2014, using aerial photographs and satellite imagery.It found eight of the atolls and almost three-quarters of the islands actually grew during the study period, lifting Tuvalu's total land area by 2.9 percent, even though sea levels in the country rose at twice the global average.  Tuvalu’s islands are growing faster than the sea is rising.But the study does confirm that sea levels are rising.  Which they are.  Just not as much as the climate change activists would like.The whole problem with the CO2 emission, Global Warming, Sea Rising Crisis is that most of us can see almost no real evidence of it with our own two eyes. Tuvalu is not sinking. If Wellington harbour was 10 centimetres higher than it was a generation ago I’m pretty sure we’d all be more freaked out than we are.So, overnight we saw the most comprehensive report on the global state of biodiversity to date which found one million species are threatened with extinction.  If comes from the UN which raises denier suspicion and people are cynical after the whole global warming shouting match. But once you get beyond the neat and tidy statements that were simplified for effect, it is a sobering document because you can actually see the changes it mentions with your own eyes.It points out the rate of species extinctions is accelerating.  Humans have significantly altered three-quarters of the land-based environment.  More than a third of the world's land surface and nearly three-quarters of freshwater resources are devoted to crop or livestock production.  Our insatiable appetites are producing a mountain of waste.  Plastic pollution has increased ten-fold since 1980.Every year we dump 300-400 million tonnes of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge and other wastes into the waters of the world.  It says this will have grave effects on us.Let’s take the emotion out of it. Drive this country and see how we’ve altered it.  We have created a new balance. If we pretend we haven’t then there’s trouble.We are dirty polluting scavengers.  Don’t worry about global warming and the seas rising.  We’re already drowning in a sea of waste.  If there’s a crisis it’s this one, not the fossil fuels. Sure ride a bike if you want, but for goodness sake, Be a Tidy KiwiSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rowena Duncum joins Andrew Dickens to talk about duck shooting as the hunting season gets underway.It'll be the first season since the Christchurch mosque attacks on March 15.Duncum says the season overall shouldn't be affected too much by the attacks, but a few things have been noted."This year they've (Fish and Game) pushed the message that hunters just need to be extra sensitive to the public's reaction."Duncum adds that those participating need to remember things such as how they transport their firearms and the potential reaction to gun shot sounds.LISTEN TO ROWENA DUNCUM TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVE.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Destiny Church leader Bishop Brian Tamaki's tweet that he was the victim of an attempted "political gang rape" by senior Government ministers is offensive, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis called it "disgusting".Tamaki today ramped up his war of words with the Government, tweeting that it looked like Ardern, Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Davis had tried a "political gang rape" on him.The tweet was his latest response in a battle over Destiny Church's Man Up programme, which Tamaki wants to introduce into the country's prisons.Tamaki told the Herald today his reference to gang rape was nothing to do with the experience of people who had been raped but referred instead to a "planned assault by Labour's top MPs on his character".He said that to liken his use of the phrase to the act of gang rape was to "pervert what my real meaning is there because that's nothing to do with that at all"."The term is about three senior Cabinet Ministers … ranting about a prison reform programme, a successful one at that – Man Up – ranting on social media and one of them criticising me. Don't you think that's a bit more than coincidence?Finance Minister Grant Robertson ridicules Destiny Church's Brian Tamaki https://t.co/ZLvVReEmj5 pic.twitter.com/lvDHCSBv7P— Newshub (@NewshubNZ) April 29, 2019"Our prison system is in a serious condition and Kelvin's got no answers to it."Ardern told reporters today she had not seen Tamaki's latest tweet but said the use of the phrase "gang rape" to describe his treatment by the Government was offensive."If he wants his programme in prisons, if he wants to do good, then he should engage with us, not send offensive tweets."He's certainly not helping himself," Ardern said of Tamaki's attempts to get the Man Up programme in prisons.Davis called the tweet "disgusting. It's offensive on every level. If that's his form of Christianity I don't think many people want that"."I think it speaks volumes about the sort of person he is. Who writes that sort of stuff? First of all trying to incite violence, revolts in prison, then expect me to allow him to go in there. There's no way that's going to happen."Davis said he was seeking advice from Corrections on Tamaki's access to prisons but said he had "blown it"."It would just be irresponsible of me to say 'away you go Brian, all is forgiven'."He said Tamaki had produced a "Bingo sheet" of numbers on a piece of paper as proof that the Man Up programme worked."Just numbers on it, pretty random."Justice Minister Andrew Little said any decision on the use of the Man Up programme in prisons was a matter for Davis. He called Tamaki's tweets "hot-headed stuff" and out of line."He says he's committed to doing his bit to address the issue of family violence, domestic violence and try to turn lives around. You don't do that by what looked like threats."Little did not rule out the use of the Man Up programme to address family violence but said if Destiny Church wanted public money, it had to be open to scrutiny.Tamaki warned yesterday of revolts in prisons if the Government continued to deny access to the programme.The Government and Corrections have repeatedly said Destiny Church has never made an application to run the course in Corrections' facilities.We will plan thru Private Visits to inmates in every Prison to bring ManUp in nd cause inmate revolts in evey prison..The Human Rights Commission is nxt visit MP Jacinda Ardern..My People Maori r denied access to an Indigenous Progm that works..Im Warning You pic.twitter.com/GwkBrFeRVh— Bishop Brian Tamaki (@BishopTamaki) April 28, 2019Ardern said yesterday it was "irresponsible" for Tamaki to incite violence in prisons."We've made the...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was sobering yesterday to turn on my phone and see a news alert that eight people had died in a car crash on State highway one at Atiamuri in the middle of the North Island. Sobering because I had driven that very stretch of road not days before.The scene was reportedly horrific, with two doctors by chance first on the scene. One man received 30 minutes of CPR but still died at the scene. One of the cars had crossed the centre line. An investigation has started as to why?The Taupo Mayor, David Trewavas, told Mike Hosking this morning, “you come across the mighty Waikato, at Atiamuri you come across a pretty new bridge, come up a double passing lane and around an easy left-hand corner, so what can I say?” You can tell his disbelief. After that description, I know exactly where the accident happened and I’m in disbelief. One of the drivers has made a small, catastrophic mistake.There’s nothing wrong with the road. Except for the obvious design fault. A fault that for all her own virtue signalling, pregnant pedalling pomp, Julie Anne Genter has correctly identified and the sooner work starts on it the better.This is a nation whose main highway linking North and South is, for the most part, a winding two-lane, sometimes three-lane, road. Unlike most of the world, we drive on the right side of the car and I wasn’t surprised to hear this happened on a left-hand bend.Genter wants to put median barriers on the black spots. She’ll get $1.4 billion in the budget to do that. The sooner SH1 gets a basic common sense safety update, the sooner we won’t be ruing the loss of eight lives in one second's worth of inattentionAnd there’s that word. Budget. Just one month to go until the very first well-being Budget in history and there is a lot in play. Today we started a five-day junior doctors' strike. Five days! They want better hours but the only way they’ll get that is with more doctors which won’t come cheap. Add that to the sector-wide industrial action amongst teachers from early childhood to secondary with all of them putting their hands out for a billion or more. Add that to Chris Hipkins revamp of Tomorrow’s Schools estimated today to cost $2 billion. Add that aged care workers and nurses complaints. Add that to Pharmac dissatisfaction of their drug rationing. Add it all to a raft of funding crisesBoy, there’s a lot on this Government’s plate, some of their own ideological making and some they’ve inherited from the tightwads who underinvested before them. So this Budget is a biggie and can anyone else feel a fiscal hole starting to open up or will Grant Robertson’s Budget Responsibility Rules mean that we’re going to carry on with underpaid people and half-arsed infrastructure, which seems to be the New Zealand way. We'll see. Fascinating timesWith all this in play, what is the Leader of the Opposition worried about? Slushies for prison guards, of course. Now maybe a million was too much to spend but in the scheme of things, this was a petty piece of political click bait. At the regional conferences, Simon Bridges has been demanding loyalty and his people have been demanding leadership. Slushies ain't cutting it.Leave the slushies for your Corrections spokesperson Simon (a guy named David Bennett by the way) and get stuck into the big stuff because you’re starting to appear strangely irrelevant.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So on Wednesday, I started the show saying that Jacinda Ardern and Emmanuel Macrons little social media summit idea was a good play. After the events of March the 15th and the complicity of social media platforms, I think everyone agrees that something needs to be done so calling the social media gurus to a please explain seems as good a thing as any.So after my thoughts were published on our social media platforms I was very surprised and slightly horrified to see the outpouring of disdain and negativity towards the idea and most notably the Prime Minister.“It will achieve nothing other than further the global profile of Princess Jacinda” was the general gist. It’s a stunt. Many took the opportunity to say that she should stay at home and sort out all our domestic problems. And there was the hyperbolic belief that she is a communist who will eventually take all our freedom of speech and this is the start.It was surprisingly vehement and also quite wrong.After the shooter used Facebook Live, Australia’s reaction under Scott Morrison was to hastily draw up legislation to restrict such a misuse of social media. Now that was an overreaction and a substantial attack on freedoms.Our friendly neighbourhood socialist is being far more realistic. Social Media has been allowed to do what it wants for so long now that the genie can’t be put back in the bottle. But we can ask it to behave decently. Ardern and Macron have parlayed our position at the centre of this horrible story to force Zuckerberg to meet and what on earth is wrong with that.To all those who say it will achieve nothing, I say you’re probably right. But it will achieve more than sitting on our hands waiting for the next massacre, rape and murder to be live-streamed onto your Facebook feed. I didn’t realise you were such surrender monkeysAnd to those who harbour such anger at Ardern’s popularity, both here and internationally, all I have to say is grow up and stop snivelling. Honestly, the anti-Jacinda banshees are sounding more cry baby than all the cry baby wailing over Trump.If you’re so vehemently against this government and its popular leader then you might want to start helping the opposition which is in dire straits. As Matthew Hooten points out today the combined polling of the coalition versus the opposition is now 18 points ahead. There hasn’t been a gap like that since Bill English’s disastrous campaign in 2002.But when not hating on Jacinda it appears the opposition is hating on Simon Bridges which is helping no-one. This past week Simon Bridges has tabled a members bill to inflation link the tax thresholds. This is a good move. If the government votes it down then they’re anti-tax cuts. This is a good move and yet no-one is talking about it, even National supporters.You know if you want a change in government then just hating on Jacinda ain’t going to cut it. It’s time you found some love for the party you support.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the eve of Anzac Day, there remains a division of public opinion over the cancellation of multiple events. Around the country, 60 events have been cancelled so police can better guard the remaining events in the wake of the Christchurch attacks.Nearly 70 per cent of Auckland's services have been cut, with only 26 taking place instead of the regular 84.Former ACT MP Heather Roy told Andrew Dickens that it is "wrong" for the police to have cancelled these events. She has launched a petition to share the public's anger, though has only garnered around 2,000 signatures so far. "At a timer we should be looking for public unity, for the police to be saying not to go to these events is wrong.”She says that it is generating fear through the community, and that it goes against what our veterans fought for.One veteran, Roger, called in to express his annoyance, saying that he has quit his local RSA over what has happened. "We don't need the police to march, we don't need a band to march, we've all marched the route before." He feels that people should have been given the option to march. However, another caller, Kiri, says that we should trust the police. She was from Christchurch who went to Sri Lanka for a short holiday to recover, and ended up being caught up in this weekend's explosions as she was at the airport. She says that they are the experts and we should trust their advice. "Of course we don't want to do this, but we are living in an unusual, unsafe time, and if this is what they are asking to keep us safe, get over it."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is the point of having a minimum wage if a Government department can simply ignore it?Apparently, about 60 teachers are being paid below the minimum wage and the union has already referred three cases, relating to overseas teachers recruited to fill the teacher shortage, to the Labour Department’s Migrant Exploitation Inspectorate.This is astounding. Firstly these are teachers. Secondly, these are teachers who have taken a big personal risk and costs to travel from their home country to help us out.Apparently, the problem is that the Ministry of Education is still assessing the teacher’s qualifications and experience. Once they get through all that the teachers will be back paid and they hope to get it done by May. May!  The year started in February!The overseas teachers caught up in this are understandably gobsmacked. A Singaporean teacher, who came here with her lawyer husband, last year did a post-grad teaching diploma at Victoria University but even that’s not enough to convince the bureaucratic teachers. She’s teaching in New Lynn and getting paid $622 a week, or $15.56 an hour. That's $2.14 below the minimum wage. And the whole lot is before tax!She is quoted as saying, "I never imagined a profession that moulds the future generation of a nation to receive such ill treatment from so many stakeholders here".An American is on the same deal. She gets under $500 a week after tax and is paying $250 a week in rent. She has used up all her savings and her family is wiring her money from the States.We put out a worldwide call for teachers to help with our teaching crisis. These teachers took the punt and what happened? We reward them with breadline conditions. Whoever the functionary was who decided this was an appropriate response to the issues that came over their desk is a fool. A rule-based robot with no common sense or humanity at all.This is the worst advertisement for New Zealand as a place to bring skills as you could hope for.There is something deeply wrong in the teaching profession. It is hierarchical, bureaucratic, ideological and it’s own worst enemy. For a while, I’ve been of the opinion that the teacher’s staffing woes have been exaggerated as I hear of many teachers who struggle to find jobs despite the dire warnings of crisis. Teachers and their administrators are often their own worst enemy.But there’s something even deeper than this concern. As I started this story I asked the question, “what is the point of having a minimum wage if a Government department can simply ignore it?”Surely there should never be a Government employee paid under the minimum wage. Certainly not teachers. Some functionary is muttering about changes to the minimum wage on April 1. This is waffle. The minimum wage hasn’t been as low as $15.56 for at least four years.If a Government department can choose to pay a skilled worker $15.56 an hour, then why shouldn’t the private sector just do what they please as well?The whole thing is just not on and something that the Ministry of Education should be ashamed of.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So no Capital Gains Tax.An old French philosopher once said: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"It means the more things change the more they stay the same.  We have a Labour led coalition government that came in with a coalition partner saying that capitalism had failed.  They called themselves a transformational government and this year was the year of delivery. The spooked  the busness sector with a minimum wage rise and a halt to future oil and gas exploration and gave beneficiaries a payrise and then……Nothing.Labour law reform stymied.  Immigration is back on the rise. Teachers pay dispute deadlocked.  The Zero Carbon Bill marooned in a rising tide of scepticism.  Vulnerable children on the rise.  Mental Health and State Care Abuse reports still eons away. Quietly this week Grant Robertson reiterated the Budget Responsibility Rules so there will be no spending greater than revenue.I am now finding it hard to find any concrete evidence that this government is fundamentally differing from the previous two governments.  Pragmatic, poll driven compromisers.  Ardern and Key are two sides of the same coin and not wildly different in action but only in rhetoric.And that doesn’t worry me.  I’ll just get on with being the best I can be and so should you.Meanwhile, Auckland’s underground rail development just blew it’s budget by a billion and could be late in completion.  Gee what a surprise.  Who didn’t see that coming?We can’t cry over blown budgets because we’re too far gone now and in 20 years’ time we’ll be thankful for the infrastructure and I’ve always said what a pity we didn’t do this in the 50s.But the Auckland mayor now has to find 500 mill.  He wants to keep his promise not to increase the rates.  So he’s got a plan.That plan may include selling or leasing the council’s 4500 city carparks.  Now I first greeted this with some despair as those carparks are the last affordable ones in town and then I stopped and wondered why they volunteered this idea so quickly.Is it part of their plan?  Give the car parks to private industry and watch the prices shoot up into the stratosphere and the result?   Force more people out of their cars.Depending on which way you stand this is either a genius idea or a new level of social engineering evil.  And it’s even more brilliant when you realise a lot of people who complain that Council’s are in too many businesses that should be in the private sector can’t complain unless they want to be seen as self-serving hypocrites.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It is quite something to walk into a kitchen at 6.30 in the morning to discover your partner in tears. And then, when asked why, for her to gasp out “Notre Dame is burning down”. There’s a mute moment after something like that. A flicker of time where you wonder if it’s all a joke and then a sinking feeling. The realisation that something of great beauty, something with 850 years of history, something extremely rare could be gone in an hour.I often used to wonder if you could take a resident of Athens from 2000 years ago and bring them into the present and showed them the Acropolis today, and see their shock of how that temple broke. The Roman Forum was a centre of all world civilisation and is now a rubble pit with ghosts.It’s a reminder that nothing lasts forever. There’s a transience to our existence. One we wilfully ignore. It’s human nature.It’s what the National Party is learning after the Key Years. So enamoured of their popular leader they thought nothing could spoil the party, so the shock at his sudden bailing out after just under a decade was profound and it’s hangover continues.Last night’s poll shows the National Party is stuck in an unenviable rut. It’s popularity is still high, but not high enough.  It’s leading politicians still register, but not enough.  And there are no friends to make a coalition partner.Some National Party supporters are saying the left wing celebrations at their dominant position are exaggerated but I don’t think they realise how deep in doo-doo they are.The Dominion Post’s opinion writer Dave Armstrong tweeted this out this morning “Hey all you celebrating Lefties. Bear in mind a Nats/Green/NZF/Act coalition would beat Labour 51/48”. As if that will ever happen!Meanwhile, their beleaguered leader on the telly last night cut a forlorn figure as he prayed for a white knight to save him and his party.  It was so desperate I transcribed it.Simon Bridges said: “There’s ah a new green party being talked of ah there is um ah ah the idea of a Māori party up and running again and there’s a variety of conservative-type parties there in the wings as well.”If this is the National Party strategy to regain the treasury benches then Grant Robertson is going to have a couple of terms at least to get a Capital Gains Tax over the line.There’s a quiet desperation in the thought that things might change for the party if they put Judith Collins in charge. She’s too polarising, she’s too abrasive, and there will always be what I call the “Chinese Whispers” about her. She’s no Mother of the Nation, more a grumpy Aunt who will tell you off when Mum wouldn’t.So not only is the party missing a coalition partner after a decades of condescension to New Zealand First, they are also lacking real leadership. Leadership is not something you turn on and off whenever the nation’s cameras are on you.  It’s not an act.  It’s something you either have or you don’t. I saw no leadership emerge out of the National Party through the terror crisis.It’s gone from an unbeatable juggernaut to a timid party full of middle managers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a fantastic weekend I had. Due to a couple of reasons I went for a big ramble all around the hinterland yesterday. Travelling from one side of the island to the other. I drove 200 kilometres and we visited four different beaches in the day. The dog didn’t know what was happening. Not just one beach walk Dad but four!!!!But as I drove around the place I noticed some atrocious driving and particularly some aggressive tailgating and then overtaking and the funny thing was that every time it was the same make of car.A Ford Ranger Double Cab Ute.That shouldn’t surprise me, after all, they are the biggest selling car in the land and diesel-powered double-cab utes are our car of choice. The statistics are incredible. Double-cab utes make up eight of the top ten new vehicles sold every month. The top five double cab utes are outselling the top five normal cars by a ratio of almost two to one right now. Our next favourites are SUVs and vans then way back in the field passenger cars.When it comes to electric vehicles the figures are even more overwhelming.  or every electric car we bought last year we bought 64 mostly-diesel double-cab utes! One electric car, 64 double-cab utes!This is all bad news for our carbon emissions from transport because we love our caravan towing, bike carrying weekend adventure machine with the 3.2-litre motor.There are 4.2 million vehicles in the fleet today, if you want to replace all those with electric vehicles you’d be doing so at a rate of 131,250 a year for the next 32 years! Every year you don’t replace them at that rate you have to add that to the following years. Last year we bought about 3,000 electric vehicles. So, only 128,250 short. We’re toast. No wonder the carbon emissions are going up over 2 per cent every year.Now I don’t know what the matter is with the drivers of the Ford Rangers on the open road, but something’s up. They may be driving what is essentially a small truck but their mindset is that they’re racing a Ford Escort rally car.Not content with demolishing the air quality they are also very keen on driving a foot behind you with their front bumper bars looming in your back window. Lights flashing because of course, they need to get ahead of you for some vitally important reason. I wouldn’t mind if I was poodling along at 7ok in an old Ford Anglia but when you’re in a Ford SUV yourself with cruise control set at 100k you have to wonder what they’re up to. You know I’m trying to figure out if buying a Ford Ranger turns you into a dick or whether it’s dicks who prefer Ford Rangers.But whatever it’s holiday time and I’d urge everyone just to chill out and enjoy the journey.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When we come to the end of the week, I often look back on all the events and developments that we’ve talked about on air and in society, and sometimes I wonder what really happened, if anything, at all?So we now have gun laws to get the really bad guns off our streets – though the funny thing is that the really bad guns have never been on the streets.  The illegal guns in the illegal hands have always been hidden and somehow I can’t see how a few new laws is going to stop what happened on the 15th of March happening again.This will be a cull of guns from those people who already wanted to cull their guns, and it’s going to cost an awful lot of money.  But it sends a good signal and the number of bad guns won’t increase but they’re not going to disappear either. By the way – the police would like you to know that if you're a bad  guy with a bad gun could you tai ho a while before you hand yourself in because they're not ready to deal with you.  Awesome.It’s like climate change measures.  Greenpeace released the latest New Zealand emission figures this week which showed that despite all our good intentions and conversations and debates the emissions still go up – in the last measured year over two per cent.  Since 1990 they’re up 23 per cent.  You could say things like the Emission Tradings Scheme and education programmes and incentive schemes for solar power and EVs have failed.  All that money, all that effort.  But then again, maybe without them things could be worse.And then there’s Brexit. The horror this week extended to Halloween.  On the 23rd of June 2016, 51.9 per cent of Britons voted to leave the EU.  Nearly three years later after billions of pounds, trillions of words, debates and articles, and zillions of hours of negotiation, absolutely nothing at all has changed.  Other than the reputation of the Brits which is shattered and nobody is buying the shares in their companies even though they’re at rock bottom prices.So much fire and brimstone and shock and awe in the world and yet no progress.  I think it could be sheeted home to the internet which has enabled so much information and misinformation to be spread to so many.  That has enabled all the sides a chance to put their case.  It’s harder than ever to pull the wool over our eyes and we have become paralysed.  Thankfully in a relatively stable and safe place.So it was great last night to go to the opening of the Mandela exhibition at Eden Park.  Mandela made something happen and Mandela made something change. For me the highlight was seeing Bob Burgess speak. In the early 70s Bob was a hairy hippy All Black First 5 who played 30 games for the Abs and 7 tests.  My Dad and I loved him.  He loved his work and Dad, who worked at IBM, said Bob reminded him of all the new-fangled guys called computer programmers he was working with. When he started flying down the field with his hair trailing behind him he looked greatAnd Bob Burgess was a man of values.  In 1970 Bob refused nomination for the All Black trials for the tour of South Africa as a protest against that country's apartheid regime, and in 1981 he actively campaigned against the 1981 South African tour of New Zealand.Bob took a personal hit for something he believed in.  Now aged 70, he looks as fit as a buckrat.  The hair is silver and now it’s short.  He’s still sporting facial hair.  And when he spoke you heard the determination and belief.  He blew the room away. It was refreshing to hear in these wishy washy days.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday I started the programme with an opinion piece where I said the government has offered the teachers as much as they can and they should be congratulated for it and that the teachers continued rejection of the pay offer was reminiscent of truculent children.When it was published on line that was one of the headlines.  Our teachers are starting to look like truculent children it said.Later, I got a message and it started like this:  ‘Mr Dickens, I am an ex-teacher’.  And I thought ‘uh-oh, here we go’. Ex-teacher outraged that I’m starting to side with the government and losing sympathy for the teachers.  So it went “Mr Dickens, I am an ex-teacher and may I congratulate you on the excellent use of the word truculent.”  Excellent!So today I thought I’s pay it forward and congratulate my old producer Alex Braae who now writes The Bulletin for the excellent use of the word ‘hyperbolic’  in his column today, which effectively describes much of the discourse that poses as debate these day.This is how he used hyperbolic. Alex wrote: “Environmental groups have reacted with fury to the news Austrian oil giant OMV might drill off the coast of Otago. The ODT reports OMV may end up drilling up to 10 wells, under existing permits. Environmental groups including Oil Free Otago, 350 Aotearoa and Greenpeace say there will be "resistance" to any rigs appearing off the coast. It rather underlines how hyperbolic some of the rhetoric around the oil and gas exploration ban got last year from both sides of the argument, given this situation appears to show that it's basically business as usual."And this is what I said all along.  Taranaki, as I understand it, still has over 80 consented exploration licences left to explore.  Effectively the ban was on future exploration and not what we’ve already okayed.  But the hype preferred us to say all oil and gas exploration is over. Taranaki is over.  Otago is over.  When they’re not.Now that’s not to say banning future oil and gas exploration was a good idea, because it’s not.  What we really need is a viable alternative so that oil and gas and fossil fuel goes the way of the very dinosaurs they originally came from. But let's not believe the hypeHyperbole of course goes both ways.  Politicians are fond of minimising the facts.  Like Simon Bridges and his team over their handling of the so called junior staffer who unilaterally took down an anti-UN migration pact petition from the National Party website on the night of the Christchurch mosque shooting.Turns out the so called junior staffer is in fact a former senior ministerial press advisor who’s been working for the party for six years and is a crucial part of their team coming up with agriculture and environmental policy. Anything but Junior.  Bridges and his team also told fibs about when the post was pulled downThis poor bugger is now on leave from his job for doing something that many people think was absolutely the right thing to do.  The fact that National, a pro-immigration party, was supporting the hyperbolic protests against the compact was strange in itself and many in the party are uncomfortable with it.  And what is not hyperbole is that Simon Bridges and his team have once again found to be wanting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the events of March 15th, I have been very impressed with the concern shown around our mental wellbeing by so many parties. It shows a positive shift in our cultural outlook. Rather than just putting on a stiff upper lip, gritting our teeth, bottling it up and just soldiering on we have accepted that a lot of people can’t just tough it out.So in that communal spirit, I’d just like to ask the Education Minister Chris Hipkins if he is alright. Does he need to take time out? Because I’ve been worried for a while about the amount of conflict he is in the middle of.It was something I noted a while back and it was absolutely evident last night on Q and A where he was interviewed and it was spread over two segments.I mean just look at what he’s trying to do. He was the first Minister to do anything getting the free tertiary policy off the ground. A policy that hasn’t seemed to have markedly changed a thing regarding enrolment and further education.But not content with that he is also on a mission to reform 30 years of educational thinking and development with fundamental changes to the Tomorrow’s Schools framework. That’s a lifetime’s work right there.But that’s not all for this Super Minister.  He’s also out to reform the entire Polytechnic and Industry Training Organisation structure at a time when our need for tradies is at an all-time high. Again this is a major project. One that could easily dominate all a Minister’s time.Meanwhile, there are little fires that need to be put out like Victoria University’s fevered and misguided wast of public money pursuing a name change.And if all that is not enough then there is the wage and condition standoff between the government and all the teachers in the country.  This is looking increasingly deadlocked and unsolvable and is building momentum until it will become the biggest industrial action of our age.To their credit, the government has done as much as they feel they can and certainly it far exceeds anything that the previous regime would have offered. And to his credit, Chris Hipkins is standing firm, guided by his Finance Minister’s edict that this government is not going to blow the budget but the pressure must be immense.Last night I kept wondering about Chris Hipkins days which must be a succession of massive meetings loaded with crises, big ideas, vested interests and enormous egos all plotting to stage a revolution in every sphere of our education system.And with so many balls in the air, there is no way that anyone could be sure of not dropping one or two.Chris Hipkins along with Phil Twyford are showing us what a decade in opposition does to a politician. It frustrates, and then you dream of what could be done better, and then, when, suddenly and surprisingly, given the opportunity to realise your dreams the 2 men have leapt in all guns blazing but with little aim. The latest dream for Mr Twyford to go sour is his precious light rail which this week was viciously savaged by Councillor Mike Lee who called it Kiwibuild with wobbly wheels.Dreams are great but trying to make too many dreams come true all at once is a recipe for nightmares.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I am the son of a teacher. One of the old fashioned kind. The teacher who left school at 17, went to Ardmore Teacher’s Training College and was back in front of a classroom of kids by the age of 18.A teacher who taught in Canada and the UK and came home destined to never climb up the rankings of teachers because she never went to university and got a degree.The sort of teacher who was still teaching kids late into her seventies. A 60 year career. A person who had a calling to be a teacher.These are the teachers that many principals say save the day. The ones they can call when there’s illness and staffing crises and this older generation would wade in and just get down and teach.And Mum was a teacher who lived in the nice part of town but taught in the poorest. My school was decile 10 while Mum drove miles teaching all through South Auckland and Flatbush until finally ending out at Panmure Bridge School - Decile Rating 1.There’s quite a few of these teachers around. and they’re the ones who have seen every fashion, every crackpot idea and every genius innovation in our education system and they know what they think.Mum was very forthright, and as I was in the media, I used to get the sermons on the state of education.And one thing she always said is that Wellington knew nothing. She saw enough inspectors come in and make instant judgements on difficult situations and destroy good teachers and good schemes.She would rail against the teacher experts who spoke only to other teachers until they led each other down a rabbit hole of ideology that was never based on fact.I remember asking her about the decile system back in Hekia Parata’s day. Nothing wrong with it, she’d bark.  Poor communities get a bit more funding.  But what about the stigma and the exodus of students from low deciles to high deciles Mum? Her response: Ridiculous, ignorant, middle class, misplaced elitism.Mum always said that the best teachers she had ever worked with were in the poorer schools. They were the ones who relished the challenge and could see the difference they made.So the New Zealand Initiative Report released today that looked at the results of 400,000 students and concluded that whatever school you went to makes little difference to educational outcomes would have been right up her alley. It shows that the inequality of education that we have been accused of is not because of the education system.But that’s nothing to be proud of because it highlights that our iniquitous education outcomes is because of wide social inequality throughout the wider society.  The blunt truth is if you’re born poor, you’ll stay poor and you’ll get a poor education unless your family decides to take advantage of what is on offer.But despite the empirical proof, comfy theoreticians like the Education Taskforce are talking about fixing problems in the education system that don’t actually exist. Let’s all play the fiddle while Rome burns.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday I was doing talkback on the Immigration Ministers proposed changes to the employer-led temporary work visa system for skilled migrants.In an attempt to stop the exploitation of migrant workers by paying low wages the Minister is thinking of setting a minimum wage for the migrants that’s in line with New Zealand’s median wage which is around $49,000. And for more highly skilled migrants a pay rate of 150 per cent of the median wage or $76,000.While this is well meaning it raises a number of consequences. Employers are worried it prices the necessary labour out of their reach particularly in the hospitality and aged care sectors. And if it does come to pass there is the fear of price rises that will be passed on to the consumer. $30 takeaway curries anyone? A number of people have since emailed and said where is the corresponding pay rise for Kiwis to match the migrants.But I was fascinated by one email which claims workplaces like minimum wage temporary visa migrants because they also don’t have to pay them Kiwisaver contributions saving the employer thousands and thousands of dollars.We have created a rod for our back due to our addiction to cheap immigrant labour and my fear is that reducing it will cause withdrawal pains to rival any braking of an addiction.It’s interesting that a proposed law to protect victims of insane offenders has been drawn and is set to go to Parliament.  The Bill, from National's Louise Upston, aims to ensure the victims of legally insane offenders "are treated the same as other victims of crime". If passed, it would rename the verdict of 'not guilty on account of insanity' to something that acknowledges that the offender committed a criminal act. Victims have whooped with joy that this change is coming and I support it too.But I’m not sure if the Mental Health Foundation will be as welcoming because the argument is that poor Mental Health can not be used as an excuse for extreme behaviour. I look forward to hearing the debate.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well it’s obvious that virtue signalling and political correctness is alive and well in this country, and it’s not where you expect it.As we rampage our way at great haste towards a new gun regime where military style and modified weapons are illegal, National’s police spokesperson Chris Bishop has rumbled into life.He’s brought up a private members bill that he drafted and presented to Parliament back in the old days when National was the government.It would bring in Firearm Protection Orders and warrantless searches and he thinks that’s necessary at this time.  With the gangs already saying you’ll be lucky to see us handing in our illegal weapons, Chris Bishop thinks that the police need more powers to target the gangs.The Firearm Protection Orders would allow Police Commissioners to designate certain gang members with violent offending histories to be subject to orders and allow the Police greater powers to search their cars and search their houses for illegal firearms, without having to seek a warrant.Now this was defeated last time it was presented to parliament and I can see why.  It makes the Police  judge, jury and executioner without legal oversight. Police already have the powers to search gang member houses and cars for illegal weapons, but they do have to get a warrant to establish they have a valid concern.  If Police Commissioners were given the power to search anyone they designate then we’re veering dangerously close to a police state.  We might be happy enough about that but civil rights campaigners and lawyers would have a field day.Chris Bishop was asked whether he was grandstanding which he denied.  But it did seem to me like a bit of empty virtue signalling to show that National is tougher on crime than the government who are currently running a type of crackdown that National never did.Meanwhile, the Crusaders and Steve Tew from the Rugby Union are now being accused of being politically correct. Who ever thought that rugby heads could be PC?It is difficult to see who is advocating a name change for the Crusaders other than the Crusaders themselves, but that’s their business.As I’ve always said, everyone is politically correct and everyone virtue signals, it’s just that the actual politics and virtues that differ.On a relared note, yesterday when we had some talkback on the Crusaders decision, we had some vehement and horrific texts and calls from people that could be described as Islamophobic, despite the fact that the Muslim community had never asked for a name change or been involved in the decision.As another emailer said; it didn’t take long for a veneer of unity to fall off and expose the dark heart of religious intolerance that runs in a sizable number of people in our country.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So now we have a new measure of child hardship and poverty in New Zealand.Stats NZ has come up with a survey that asked between 3000 and 5500 households how they are faring. Now already I’m confused because of how many households was it. 3000 or 5500?Anyway. They asked quite a few households how they’re faring and they found that about 183,000, or 16 percent of children currently live in poverty before housing costs are deducted. The figure jumps up to 23 percent, about 254,000 children after housing costs are deducted.Hell of a phrase that, child poverty. In this report, it’s defined as children living in households who earn less than 50 percent of the median national income. In 2018 the median wage was $49,000 so we’re talking about kids in households with about $25,000 coming in.That’s not a lot of money in modern New Zealand. In 2018 Trade Me told us that the median rent in New Zealand for a two to four bedroom house was $525 or $27,000 a year. Or $2000 more than the families of quarter of a million kids earn a year. No food, no shoes, no transport for that family.For a one to two bedroom place, it’s $390 or $20,000 a year, so if you can squeeze a family of three to four into one of those you may have $5,000 spare to eat with.It’s beyond the understanding of most New Zealanders. They can’t comprehend coping with that sort of situation and how people with children can end out in this situation. They believe that it must be all the parents choice. There’s anger at those parents that they let themselves get into that situation. The reality is that some poverty or hardship is because of stupid choices but a lot is wrong place, wrong time, wrong person stuff.There’s one comment that you hear all the time from the people who can't understand poverty or hardship. They say "Throwing money at the problem has never worked". Which I’ve always found to be the lamest argument ever because throwing money at problems is exactly what humans do.  Got a traffic congestion problem. Throw money at it and build a new road or a train track. Got a health problem? Throw money at it and pay for a doctor and treatment. Got a broken tap. Throw some money at it. The trick is not just throwing money at a problem but how you throw money at a problem.Take your tap problem. You could throw money at buying a new tap then fixing it your self. Or you could throw more money at hiring a plumber. Or you could take advantage of the situation and throw money at a whole new vanity unit.To have Stats NZ find a quarter of a million kids whose household income can’t even pay the rent is definitely a problem. And money definitely needs to be thrown at it, cleverly.But there are also questions that need answers that need to come from within society. Why do we continue to be a low wage, high housing cost nation? Why do we have parents who have children when they cannot afford them? And why do we have comfortable people who seem to have no empathy at all?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Families who have experienced Oranga Tamariki first-hand say the organisation is not doing enough to help families or the children in their care.It comes after a report last month, the first from Oranga Tamariki's new reporting system on child harm, found that more than 220 children who were removed from their families to keep them safe went on to be harmed in state care over a six-month period.In the worst cases, children had been raped or beaten. Several incidents led to criminal charges.Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry for Children, set up the new reporting system last year, to replace the patchy, narrowly-focused one used by its predecessor Child, Youth and Family.The new system is one of broadest and most detailed in any jurisdiction. It records abuse committed against a child by anyone, not just the caregiver, and in any location, not just within the child's placement. It records all incidents of harm, accidental and intentional, and ranging from over-zealous discipline of a child through to severe physical or sexual assaults.As of June last year, there were 6350 children and young people in state care in New Zealand. Between July and September, 130 of them were found to have been harmed. Between October and December, 97 were found to be been harmed.Some of the incidents were historical but were first reported during this period. A few children were harmed more than once. They were mostly likely to have been abused by caregivers, though many of the sexual assaults were committed by other young people or unrelated adults.Callers to Andrew Dickens Afternoon echoed the reports findings. Mohini told Andrew that she knows from personal experience Oranga Tamariki that they "are not getting any better", and are breaching their own policies.  "Once they take a kid off the parents, they do not allow any other family members who ever showed interest, who they should have contacted in the first place, to be able to assist the little kid anymore." She says that one of her nieces was taken off her sister, and that Mohini and her husband asked to get in touch with who was looking after her, but she was not allowed to make contact. "How come, in the time it took to give the kid away, no one contacted us to ask if we wanted to keep the child?" Bob, who has family that work for Oranga Tamariki, doubts Mohini's story."The most important part she left out is why the child was taken away from the family in the first place?"He says that his family members have seen horrific things through their line of work, and there are two sides to every story. Another caller, Sarah, says that her experience with the agency has been "amazing" and they have helped with her situation.She admits that some social workers don't give you as much information as you would like, and that you can sometimes not get along with them which can cause difficulty, but Sarah believes they have got better. "People who have had bad experiences with them aren't going to like anyone from Oranga Tamariki." Sarah says that few people will speak positively about the organisation as they have had their children taken away from them. "Back in the day, they were taken away for just any reason, but now they can't just take them away for a silly reason. They are actually getting more and more reports about a particular case."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I’ve had a gorgeous 30 hours in the Wellington catching up with my youngest and enjoying the capital’s street life.I know it wasn't your average weekend and that wasn't just the weather which was positively Mediterranean, I’ve got some classic shots on my Facebook page by the way.  It was also the weekend of the Cuba Dupa festival, the celebration of Cuba Street as the thriving beating heart of the Greater Wellington community.It was notable as this was a major event in a city outside of Christchurch that was compromised by the increased security level that is our new norm after the Christchurch Mosque attack.Two weeks after the event the organisers and police decided that the job of protecting 100,000 people on a street in Wellington was too great and so Cuba Street was not closed and most of the musical acts were moved into inside venues.At first, I thought that this was an over-reaction and that in changing our lives it was an example of the perpetrator winning, but I was wrong. The street may not have been closed but it was thronged. There were two outside venues I visited, Glover Park and the Heard Factory square. Yes, we were wanded and had bag checks but it didn’t kill the vibe. And the indoor shows were hot sweaty fun.This was a glorious middle finger to terror.But at the same time, the alleged shooter mumbled into life through the media after a Corrections source revealed he was making a complaint about his rights being denied.Many of us including myself and the Prime Minister have promised never to say his name, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about him. So, it would be nice if Corrections could plug these sources for the victims' sake. I can’t blame the media for reporting the truth because there is a market for this junk.I could have predicted that this would happen as the man is not stupid. So far he has been charged with only one murder. You can see why he believed that he is allowed his one private visitor a week, his legal advisor and his phone calls thinking that he has the same rights as any other charged with murder. But he's not as smart as he thinks he is, as Corrections believe they are within their rights to withhold privileges.So nothing to see here. But because of the leak, it ended out all over our Sunday front pages. Note to the Nation: Just turn your back on him because attention is what he craves.Now one final note on Wellington. Your traffic congestion from the airport to the city through the Mt Victoria tunnel is atrocious. Tailbacks from the tunnel to the airport roundabout all weekend long. Kent Terrace is a carpark, not a road.It beggars belief that the capital of our nation is linked to the airport by a two-lane tunnel built in 1931. A second tunnel has been mooted and a test boring made in the 80s but somehow the money was not available.It was ironic that the lead story in this weekend’s Wellington paper was about Save the Basin. The lobby group which helped bring down the Basin Reserve flyover proposal, preparing to stop a potential second Mt Victoria tunnel. One of their major concerns is the destruction of the character of the historical Mt Victoria suburb.Well newsflash Save The Basin, Mt Vic’s character is already in tatters with the amount of stationary traffic clogging the tunnel's feeder roads and I say this lovingly as a former resident of the suburb. This is a job that should have happened 40 years ago.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Adam Keown talks with Andrew Dickens around his immediate thoughts and feelings post the National Memorial service in Christchurch.LISTEN TO ADAM KEOWN TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVE.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the third Friday in a row tears have been shed as the nation mourns a crime than still amazes us happened here. The last fortnight has been incredible with each day packed with more and more to digest. The pace has been hectic. Of course we’ve seen that pace affect Winston Peters. It’s also an incredible feat of emotional endurance by our Prime Minister.But the people I most want to reach out to today are our police force. My producer and I are hearing stories of how this fortnight has stretched our officers and their families. From that first moment a fortnight ago the pressure was on and it would have been the hardest hour of the involved police’s life ever.What then happened was the largest police investigation in New Zealand’s history with 500 officers on the case. Police were flown into Christchurch from around the country. Plans were scrapped, families left behind.The security now required nationwide is also taxing on time, energy and capacity. So much so that many of the gatherings in towns to watch this morning’s Remembrance Service had to be cancelled.We’re hearing of eight day weeks, long hard days fully armed guarding the nation’s mosques. They’re working their butts off.This week we’ve also heard criticism of the police response from anti-terrorist experts from Australia which I felt was unwelcome. But pile that onto any guilt or sorrow the force is already feeling about that evil day and you know our thin blue line is being stretched. And yet they have responded day after day after day. To our police, I say thank you. Stay strong. It is appreciated.And I have to say something about Brexit. We now wait for a vote tomorrow on what is known as MV 3, the third modified version of the Theresa May deal, after the speaker finally allowed it through. PM May sweetened the deal for her parliament by offering to resign if the deal is approved, stepping aside to allow someone else to see it through to the end.Because of this sacrificial move the most stringent critics have indicated they may fall in behind the deal. World champion hypocrites like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees Mogg who have previously described the deal as plunging the UK into slavery are suddenly saying they’ll vote for it.The personal ambition is breathtaking and obvious. All these Brexiteers want to do is vote for cat vomit, watch May resign, stage their own coup and then tear the whole thing up. And this is what has coloured the whole sad affair. It’s a political parlour game played out in fantasy land by players only interested in their own power and not their country’s wellbeing.Meanwhile out in the real world, faced with such uncertainty, businesses and factories are abandoning the UK like rats from a sinking ship. The Brexiteers may indeed win the battle only to find the war has been lost and they’ve inherited a shattered and divided land.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Mongrel Mob has been making headlines lately. And some of those headlines have been what I think most would say “strangely out of normal”.First, they offered to guard mosques after the Christchurch terror attack. It was a strange act of charity in that it was offering a threat of violence to protect vulnerable people. But that said, some people gave them credit for joining the unity movement that New Zealand used to react to the outrage. For an organisation that is usually outside social mores, it was, to some a pleasant surprise.Then the world's biggest Mongrel Mob organisation, the Mongrel Mob Kingdom, told us that they were doing away with their Seig Heil greeting. A greeting that was sourced from Nazi Germany. A greeting that was always slightly ironic after all it was the ultimate white supremacists who coined it in their pursuit of Aryan purity. The mob started using the greeting 50 years ago not because they shared the Nazi’s goal of racial purification by because it posited them outside society. It was basically a big finger up to the post-war generation of New Zealanders who were shocked at the sound of it.Then this morning I woke up to an opinion piece by Jarrod Gilbert, the University of Canterbury sociologist who has made a name for himself studying and writing about the gangs.It’s headlined 'Boss taking Mongrel our od his mob', and it talks about the Mongrel Mob Kingdoms president, Paito Fatu, better known as Sonny.Sonny’s kingdom is 400 strong and based in the Waikato. Sonny and his sidekicks, Griff and Sarge have started preaching a lot of homely values to their mob. They’ve been throwing around words like compassion and family and the importance of looking after children. Sonny Fatu says the stance is part of a transition to a new cause, away from violent crime, domestic violence and drug abuse, and focusing on empowering whānau, women and children.Now the thing about Sonny and other leaders of the Mob these days is that they’re old men. Old battle-scarred men who are also very bright. You don’t survive that long or rise to the top without some smarts. So they’ve learnt some harsh lessons and they’re passing the lessons on to the young crowd. A young crowd who have grown up since the day they were born with the gang. But it was one of those young ones who told a reporter that dropping Seig Heil was weird because it was just their version of gidday. He also had no idea about Nazi Germany.So Jarrod Gilbert’s opinion piece ponders whether we’re seeing a changing point for gangs because of older wiser heads. He says if the gang is still up to their old tricks we can still police them but even in a worst-case scenario and they are dealing drugs there would be a positive if they’re not engaging in violence at home.He hopes we’re at a crossroad.I’m not so confident in fact, I’m actually more worried by the gang after this PR blitz. It is the fastest growing chapter in New Zealand, with more than 400 members locally. And it’s going global with 200 members around the world, including Canada, Russia, France and the Solomon Islands.To me, this seems like the gentrification of a crime organisation. Like the mafioso who start wearing nice suits. At least in the old days, they spent more time beating each other up than ripping society apart. I’m sorry to be negative but leopards never change their spots. Nor do BulldogsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A campaign's been launched against changing the school system. The Government last year launched a discussion around their Tomorrow's Schools plan, which proposes replacing community leadership such as school boards with regional 'hubs'. Today, 43 of the country's nearly 2500 schools announced that they have formed the Community Schools Alliance. Auckland Grammar Principal Tim O'Connor, who is one member of the Alliance, told Mike Hosking a new model won't work for every school.Andrew Dickens agrees. He thinks that the schools that are in trouble could go for this collective model, but 95% of the schools seem to be doing fine. "The schools that are not should not be forced into this system of one size fits all." Talkback callers were in agreement about the flaws in the system. One of the proposals would see principals hired on five year terms. Richard, who sits on a Catholic school board in Wellington, says that it's already difficult enough trying to find a Catholic principal at the moment as it is. "I'm not sure how hard it's going to be, if this does come to fruition, without talking to the Archdiocese." He says that there can be high, professional expectations placed on boards despite it being a volunteer position. Richard feels that they are already getting a collective level of knowledge. Another proposal would see teachers moved around between schools to spread their skills around. Another caller, Daryl, says that doesn't make any sense under current teaching standards, which views all teachers as equal.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Isn’t it great when you hear grown-ups talking about the issues of the day and making sense? It’s something you don’t hear too often in our media, which is full of simplified slogan shouting in 10-second soundbites.So this is what I was thinking about listening to the Auckland Grammar school headmaster, Tim O’Connor, talking on Newstalk ZB this morning. He is part of a group called the Community Schools Alliance made up of principals from 42 schools around the country.The group is opposing proposals made by the Tomorrow's Schools Review taskforce, which has recommended a system of hubs to oversee groups of schools and take over many of the responsibilities of school trustees.This centralisation of school management has been described as ideologically driven by the current government and therefore a bad idea.What I liked about Tim O’Connor is that he didn’t get into Government or Working Group bashing at all, despite being pushed to do so. While he admitted the hub plan was ideologically driven, he didn’t dismiss it completely saying all he wanted was flexibility and choice.As Tim points out, there are 2500 schools in our country. Most are very well run by their community and they want to stay that way. A lot of our schools these days are very big operations indeed, with student numbers in some cases exceeding 3000. Add all the grounds, the staff and the contingencies and they’re complex beasts that are best run with the eyes close to the game and not some distant bureaucracy with multiple other operations in play.But particularly in the primary sector, there are many schools with rolls as low as 100. With a limited community pool of governance skills and funds, a lot of them are crying out for a bit of help. And there’s also a number of schools that for one reason or another have lost the plot. These are schools that would benefit from the centralising hub model.He wants schools to have the choice and I agree with him. The schools that are experiencing governance trouble are the minority in this country, so why change what ain’t broke for the majority. As Tim points out one size fits all is the wrong model.So well done Tim O’Connor for looking at the idea on its merits and advocating flexibility. Maybe flexibility is his New Years resolution because nearly two weeks ago Grammar quietly abandoned its long-standing ban on afros after a criticism that it was institutional racism. Which it was, a kid can’t help his hair.But Bali Haque, the architect of the centralised hub model, seems the inflexible one. He’s travelling the country consulting with schools on the proposed changes but according to the Community Schools Alliance, when confronted by people who think the idea isn’t that great he becomes quite defensive and confrontational himself.I would have thought the Working Group’s brief is to consult not to confront and to give principals what they need rather than what his political masters want.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New data showing that more than 43,000 Aucklanders are directly threatened by rising seas has prompted warnings that home insurers may be forced in future to hike prices - or withdraw coverage altogether.An Auckland Council report gauged the region's exposure to varying scenarios of climate change-driven sea level rise – notably the 25cm projected for 2045, 50cm by 2060, 1m by 2100, 2m by 2160 and up to 3m beyond next century.Already, between 1.5 per cent and 4.5 per cent of the city's land area now sat in low-lying coastal areas that could be vulnerable.And the report found how, over the past decade, the population boomed in those areas vulnerable to sea level rise more than in the region overall, now leaving about three per cent of Aucklanders exposed.That equated to about 43,000 people - up from 34,700 people in 2001.By the end of the century, the report warned, up to 2.5 per cent of the Auckland region might be affected, with a further 3.7 per cent at risk being swamped by inundation from storm surge, high tides and large waves.It wasn't just peoples' homes in the firing line: up to six per cent of council-owned greenspaces were threatened - including 55 cemeteries – as were three per cent of buildings and dozens of public facilities.One Civil Defence building was exposed to two metres of sea level rise, while another building at Middlemore Hospital sat within the three-metre band.While less than two per cent of Auckland's CBD was at risk of what is projected for this century, the affected area jumped to 30 per cent with the 2m predicted for next century.On top of that, about one per cent of roads in the region were threatened by a sea level one metre higher – and some areas of Auckland International Airport were affected under every scenario, as was one wastewater treatment plant and pipes and manholes across the city.This graphic shows localised sea level rise projections over different time scales. Source / Auckland CouncilThe picture was also dire for rural coastal areas – and there was a risk that five per cent of the region's most fertile land could be at risk as early as the middle of the century.There were further obvious threats to many coastal ecosystems, and mangroves, which have ironically long offered protection against the sea, were singled out as the worst affected.It was a taste of what faced the rest of New Zealand, and which the insurance industry was acutely aware of.As house insurance was typically offered out 12 months ahead, the effects of climate change, 20 years down the track, weren't being signalled today, Insurance Council chief executive Tim Grafton said."What we can say is that if we ignore sea-level rise and permit more and more property to be at risk from climate change, then there will inevitably be a day when losses due to sea-level rise, storm surges and flooding become more and more frequent," he said."If we continue to do nothing, then insurers will respond by deciding whether they want to accept those risks and if they do, they will price to reflect the higher risk or increase the levels of excess or the initial amount an insured will have to pay when losses occur."Grafton said the sector was a strong advocate for society taking a long view of climate change risks and applying a risk framework, much like insurers long had."That means we need to assess the risk to people and their property, calculate the probable losses, make decisions about what level of risk we are prepared to tolerate," he said."We then need to assess what risks we will retain, what risks we can viably reduce and what risks we want to transfer to others, like insurers. By doing this, we can assess the full impact of climate change."Auckland Council's chief sustainability officer, John Mauro, said planning and consideration of sea level rise in Auckland had been happening for some time, from...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Whangārei man says Air New Zealand is being hypocritical after turning him down for a role because of his tā moko while covering their uniforms and planes with koru designs.Sydney Heremaia, 36, had applied for a customer service agent role last month with the national carrier at Whangārei Airport.While applying online he disclosed that he had a tā moko on his left shoulder, and tatau, a Samoan form of skin art, on his right forearm. Both were not visible while wearing a corporate shirt.Heremaia said he was then asked to provide photos and to explain the cultural significance of them, which he did.An Air New Zealand representative then sent him an email, viewed by the Herald, that said he was being turned down for the job because "the body art you have declared does not comply with our Uniform Standards for roles wearing the Koru Uniform".It was suggested he could apply for other roles that did not require the Koru uniform, but did not say if the tā moko and tatau would be an issue.Heremaia told the Herald they were not "body art" and reflected his culture and heritage."I have had the tā moko for 15 years, since my papa died. It reflects my iwi Ngāti Whātua, and my whānau. My tatau reflects my Pacific heritage."Heremaia said the whole process had made him feel "s*** for being Māori".Sydney (Hirini) Heremaia says he has been turned down for a job with Air NZ because of his Ta Moko. Photo / Michael Cunningham"I don't know if they have made a mistake, but I felt like s*** when they called it body art. I have had it since my papa died 15 years ago, he handed it to me. Whenever someone says, 'Cool tattoo bro', I explain it is tā moko. So to have Air New Zealand call it body art made me feel s*** for being Māori."Heremaia said the difference between tā moko and a tattoo was like comparing a hijab and a head scarf. One was integral to his culture and his identity, while the other was more of an accessory."It is not like a rose or a skull head."He had worked the past five years with the Ministry of Social Development.He left that job to start a bachelor's degree in social work at NorthTec, and was applying for the Air New Zealand role for some part-time work."I have never been asked about my tā moko before, it has never been an issue."Heremaia said it was hypocritical for Air New Zealand to not allow tā moko on staff when they used koru designs on their uniforms and planes."If they can put it on those things why can't we have it on our skin? It is almost like they are saying we embrace and celebrate te ao Māori, but only when it suits us."But for me te ao Māori is everywhere, I can't choose when and where I practise it."An Air NZ spokeswoman said the airline's uniform standard was well known. Uniformed customer facing staff are not permitted to have tattoos visible when wearing the uniform. The policy was clearly stated on the company's careers website, which advised applicants to declare their tattoos and the matter would be discussed.The spokeswoman also said privacy requirements meant the company could not comment specifically on an individual's employment application.A Human Rights Commission spokeswoman said a person of Māori descent could not be denied employment, entry to premises, or declined service because they wore moko visibly."Traditional Māori moko is an expression and celebration of Māori culture and identity."The Human Rights Act makes it unlawful to discriminate based on race or ethnicity."Some forms of tattoo are so closely associated with a particular ethnic or racial group that the marking is enough to identify a person as belonging to that group."Where there is a close or recognised link, like a facial moko, tā moko or tatau, then it can be discriminatory to deny the wearer the opportunity for employment.The commission's advice to...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All military-style semi-automatic rifles are being banned.The ban will also cover all assault rifles, high capacity magazine and parts that can convert a semi-automatic weapon to a military-style semi-automatic firearm.The Prime Minister says, in short, every semi-automatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on Friday will be banned in this country.And Jacinda Ardern says it will happen immediately, with her Government implementing a measure to stop the weapons being sold until the new laws can be implemented.Newstalk ZB political editor Barry Soper told Andrew Dickens he thought the decision from the government was the right one and will have strong public support."This is a tougher stance than many people expected but I totally agree they should be outlawed. It's not just because of the horrible events last Friday. For the last 25 years, they have grappled about doing something with these weapons."National says it will support the changes announced by the Prime Minister.Leader Simon Bridges says the public doesn’t need access to military-style semi-automatic weapons.He says National supports them being banned along with assault rifles - and says his party will work constructively with the government to get the changes through.The law to be in place within three weeks.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s been a long week. One of the longest I’ve ever experienced in talkback because of the roller coaster ride of our feelings that have triggered by the events of less than a week ago.In each three hour session, the basic topic has been the same, the Christchurch Mosque Massacre. But under that broad headline has been a myriad of big topics. It’s been rugged.The last half hour of yesterday’s show is a case in point.Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had given her daily press conference announcing two minutes of silence to be held on Friday, and then took questions from the media which has now be swollen by foreign correspondents. A British voice asked her to criticise Donald Trump. She refused, saying it was about New Zealand and the victims and Christchurch.Then she was asked to answer back to the words of President Erdoğan of Turkey. Again she demurred, saying her focus was Christchurch. It was a moment when a wee bit of the shine went off our glittering PM. All of a sudden the talkback turned and we had calls calling her weak. Which I totally understood.What President Erdoğan said about New Zealanders and Australians was beyond the pale. To show the killer's video at an election campaign meeting is disgusting. To tell his people that Anzacs were coming and if they wanted to do what a lone nutter did in Christchurch, then they will be sent home in caskets just like their grandfathers is unbelievably provocative. To do this a month before Anzac Day was worse than foolhardy. It was reckless, dangerous and frankly unhinged.What upsets me most is that what President Erdoğan said can’t be unsaid. There are 80 million people in Turkey, 98 per cent of them are Muslim. Let's just say one per cent of them are crazy and deranged then that’s 800,000 people who have just been given an idea for revenge.Erdoğan’s reply has been an opinion piece published in The Washington Post saying nice things about us. That’s not good enough. I bet he didn’t even write it. Winston Peters reply was that it wasn’t a New Zealander that committed the atrocity but an Australian. Scott Morrison must have been thinking, "gee thanks, mate". Winston is visiting Turkey and is going to give someone a stern talking to. I doubt he’ll get anywhere near ErdoğanI would have liked Jacinda Ardern to have said to President Erdoğan that he needs to apologise out of his own mouth, and talk to his people and ensure that they are calm because if anything happens next month then it will be all his responsibility.I would have liked her to say what a Turk said on twitter, that The President of the Republic of Turkey, by replying to the deranged words of a racist murderer, actually enhanced his so-called manifesto and elevated him. But she didn’t.Then the talkback turned again and our final caller of the day wanted to get stuck into all Islam. So I hung up. It was the wrong time. And this is why this week is so exhaustingBecause at that very moment, a person was being buried at the Memorial Cemetery. The third of 50. The scenes I’ve seen of yesterday were extraordinary. Crowds of Muslims, swirling dust, bodies swaddled in cloth, carried on shoulders. Survivors in wheelchairs.Shame on Erdoğan. Shame on that last caller. The Prime Minister may have been weak but she was also right. It’s not even a week. They’re not even buried. It’s still about Christchurch. It's still about the survivors. It's still about the 50 and their families.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So yesterday the Prime Minister stole my line. But she said it better."He sought many things from his act of terror, but one was notoriety. And that is why you will never hear me mention his name.He is a terrorist. He is a criminal. He is an extremist. But he will, when I speak, be nameless.And to others, I implore you. Speak the names of those who were lost, rather than the name of the man who took them."I’ve been saying that sort of thing since Friday when we learnt he planned to plead not guilty and I just knew he was going to take the chance to preach from the witness box to inspire others and to build a cult of personality around his name. But since then a number of people have been criticising the stance the Prime Minister and I have taken. As they say, justice needs to be seen to be done not just done, even though it will be brutal for the victims and carry its risks of perpetuating the violence. He needs to be named and he needs to present his defence and it has to be in public. Therefore in the media.Now I’d like to thank the people who have messaged and emailed me this argument. The PM obviously didn’t know that concept. And I obviously didn’t know that either, 32 years after I went to journalism school and 32 years since I was first a court reporter at the Auckland District Court. In the old building. Which is now a hotel. Which smelt of the worst bodily secretions.The PM and I just must be stupid.Well, of course, we’re not but we do understand the importance of words and names. On a journalist chat group, I’m a part of the same arguments have bounced back and forth until finally, I saw a great post. An old friend of mine who edits in television media in South East Asia has been using his name in every story because after he was named in open court the media had a duty to report it.But on reflection, she’s realised it’s not at all necessary and she avoids the name on every occasion. I take this as a little victory. It’s not hard. Everyone should try it.  This is all presaging the trial of the perpetrator himself when the media will be agonising as to whether we should bring the horror back to the nation every day and straight into their living room. It’s going to be an interesting debate because as much as all of us will say this is horrific and we don't need to see it or him on the telly, there’s more than enough evidence it would rate it’s socks off. And that's catnip to media who are just trying to give people what they want.And here’s a peculiar irony. Will Facebook want to live-stream it? Imagine that.It will be a test to see whether we actually mean what we say.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dame Anne Salmond, the historian and New Zealander of the Year in 2013, has come out with an opinion piece today in response to Friday's atrocity. It has been published by both the NZ Herald and Fairfax so she obviously wants it widely debated.In it, she says that white supremacy is part of us and she says in its soft version it can look bland and reasonable. A person saying that te reo Māori is a dead language, for instance. Of course, when you say that to Māori family who are fluent across generations then you’ve lost the high ground.It’s important to say this because the horrors of extremism are built on top of a base of smaller slights. And if there is is an undercurrent the extremists feel as though there are supporters out there waiting to be mobilised by their insane actions.A small example of this happened over the weekend when a well known, intelligent, conservative female blogger posted in social media. She said that no matter what you think of her, Jacinda Ardern is doing a great job. So far so good. But then she couldn’t help herself. She wrote pity about the headscarf.A small cultural slur which is not based on the scarf but more an inability to cope with a hijab or burka. Complaining about the scarf is like complaining about anyone wearing formal wear. I was very tempted to ask if she would say the same to the Queen who is also very fond of a headscarf on its day.But I say all this because that casual racism and culturism that has been a low buzz in our society has been absent for the past few days. Replaced by love and tolerance and frankly, it has been so refreshing. I wonder if we can keep it up as time goes on?Now I have received a lot of comments on my Facebook page regarding my pledge to refuse to say the perpetrator’s name and my wish that his forthcoming court case be held in closed court, with a judge and a jury and no coverage of his methods or motivations.I was further horrified when yesterday he fired his lawyer and said he would represent himself. We already know that his current intention is to plead not guilty.So I’m going to reiterate that pledge. So far I have never said his name and I’m intending not to, though given my job I may be forced to.But I don’t want this man’s name joining Anders Breivik as a superstar of the extremist movements they represent. I want him and his name and his evil to disappear.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So it comes to my time to give thoughts on the terrible events that started on Friday. There are two ways to do this. One is to talk about my feelings, but that seems redundant because we know how we all feel. Just because I have a microphone, I don’t have a monopoly on feeling. And those feelings could be a number of things including anger.On this day. Two and a half days on, it is the time to keep a lid on our most emotional impulses and begin a slower process towards coming to terms with this stuffThe other thing to do is look at what’s next. Gun laws, Monitoring of loose units. To me, it still seems too soon but it is at least a concrete angle to concentrate our minds.I’m still thinking about the victimsI was listening to the Jacinda Ardern’s interview this morning and I noticed that there was not one mention of the victims. There was talk about the impossibility of monitoring lone wolves, the strengthening of gun laws, even strengthening of security on regional flights. But nothing about the Muslim community of Christchurch. I’m not blaming anyone it’s just how people are. In a hurry to move on from something terrible but I’m not totally ready to move on yetI wanted to hear how the grave digging was going. Whether the state can give them help because time is of the essence. I was wondering about the victim’s families and how the government can help them. So many breadwinners gone from so many families. I’m wondering about long term support and so this date the 15th of March 2019 -15. 3. 19, is remembered as a time of ongoing kindness by the Muslim community rather than a date of martyrdom and revenge.It felt to me as though the event is still centred around the perpetrator. The more he is minimised, the less he can motivate similarly unbalanced minds.So I regret that he has ever been named. I understand the convention of law but this is not a conventional crime. I regret that any image of him is published, even the pixelated one. Because a paper in Australia published a photo of him in the dock flashing a sign well known to his admirers. I suppose they thought we’d be horrified but didn’t think that some people will be ecstatic.This man needs to disappear quietly and legally.Finally, the last time I was in front of a microphone was at 3:55pm on Friday, when a piece of paper was passed to me with the first confirmation of a fatality from Friday’s attack on a Mosque which I then read on air.That’s how proper media works. We had many reports from bystanders of fatalities but you wait for confirmation from multiple sources and official sources.Facebook is not proper media. Facebook Live even more so. Facebook could not have vetted something going out live. Facebook Live gives the power of anyone to broadcast anything. I’m surprised more atrocities haven’t already been unleashed. Don’t worry Mr Zuckerberg. Nobody will mind in the least. Get rid of Facebook Live right nowSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Despite being found guilty of sexually abusing two 13-year-old boys, Cardinal George Pell was today sentenced to just six years in prison.The light sentence has sparked division, with talkback callers firing up over the prominent Catholic's sentence. In his hour-long sentencing, Judge Peter Kidd revealed the three key factors he considered the 77-year-old's sentence. When outlining Pell's case for retribution, the judge noted while there was "no evidence of his remorse", the cardinal had "experienced an exceptional career within the Catholic Church".Judge Kidd said Pell's age and health status had particularly affected the his decision."Your age is a significant factor in my sentencing exercise," he said. "As I have indicated before, you are now in your late 70s. It is relevant in a number of ways."Of some real importance in my sentencing exercise is the fact that each year you spend in custody will represent a substantial portion of your remaining life expectancy."While it is a matter of speculation as to how long you will live, the fact is that you are of advanced years and are entering the last phase of your life.He noted Pell already had "some significant enough health issues", including hypertension and congestive heart failure."Facing jail at your age in these circumstances must be an awful state of affairs for you," the judge said.The court imposed a non-parole period of three years and eight months."I will impose a shorter non-parole period than I otherwise would have been inclined to impose, in recognition in particular of your age, so as to increase the prospect of your living out the last part of your life in the community," Judge Kidd said.Another contributing factor was Pell's risk of reoffending, which the Judge deemed negligible. He said Pell's age, his "otherwise good character" and the fact he has not been convicted of such an offence in the 22 years after his crime factored into his decision.However, he acknowledged for a second time that Pell had "shown no remorse or insight into your offending" and that there remained no explanation for it.During his final remarks, Judge Kidd noted Pell had no prior convictions and had not committed other sexual offences since this offending.He added that character references submitted to the court — including one written by former prime minister John Howard — described Pell as a "compassionate" and "generous" person.Acknowledging that victims of sexual abuse often did not come forward for many years, the judge said the delay had allowed Pell to lead an "otherwise blameless life".In the view of talkback caller Marie, the sentence is more than Cardinal Pell deserved. She told Andrew Dickens that there is no concrete evidence to back up the claims of the two boys who were abused, only one of whom is now alive. "I just think it's their word against his, which isn't good enough." She insists that people lie all the time, and does not believe Cardinal Pell has been proved guilty. The call sparked anger from other listeners. Claire, who is Catholic but works with sexual assault victims, and says that the children would have gone through hell. She says that only 20 per cent of sexual violence cases that go through court end in a guilty verdict, and a high amount of evidence is needed to prove people guilty. "To have someone to say we need more evidence, for it to have made it to court, they must have had heaps of evidence, because if they didn't have evidence, it just doesn't make it to court." Claire says that the number of false sexual assault complaints are tiny and are weeded out very quickly by police, and they never make it to court. "Genuine complaints don't make it to court in New Zealand!"See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, I hate to hark back to the Michael Jackson documentary one more time but there is one final observation I need to make.Yesterday, I wrote of my feelings after Part one of the doco and why I can no longer listen to Jackson’s music. I posted it online and I was disturbed by a number of comments.Many people questioned how I could declare Jackson guilty of sexual abuse based on a one-sided documentary that didn’t seek the views of Jackson’s side. The problem I have with that is that I never said that.My piece was very carefully worded. Nowhere in the piece did I say I believe that Jackson was guilty. But a grown-up will know that does not mean he’s innocent either. It’s just not proven beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law.I spent half of the piece throwing Wade Robson's credibility into doubt just as a journalist on Chris Lynch's programme did. I stressed that everyone in this story, from the kids to their parents to Michael Jackson are seriously screwed up people.But what I know to be a fact, that was illustrated graphically in the programme, is that Jackson groomed children and their parents and took a succession of boys aged seven through 12 to his bed. That is the truth, even Jackson admits that.If you think that’s okay, and that abuse only occurs if sexual activity then takes place and can be proven, then that’s a worry. After all, what seven-year-old enthralled with a 30-year-old billionaire and the biggest star in the world, takes a camera and a tape recorder to bed with him.Jackson’s proven behaviour is textbook paedophile. I called it a masterclass. Even more so if he did it because he got away with it. And that’s what the documentary was about. Not whether he was guilty or innocent but what abuse and grooming look likeI have found the vociferousness of the defence of Jackson to be concerning. It’s a demonstration on how so many abusers, bullies, perverts and murderers spend so long hidden in plain viewIt's how the George Pells' and all the other priests get away with it for so long. Using their power to keep victims silent and their influence to keep accusers at bay.It’s how the Michael Jacksons of this world get away with it. With their money and charm. Jackson had more to gain from keeping stuff quiet than his accusers had of blowing it open. Remember how he told every boy that if the secret was out the whole thing was over. He had billions of income to protect. Meanwhile, he amassed an army of supporters in the industry and around him that benefited from the circus staying on the road. He bought James Safechuck's family a house.It’s the way people like the Kahuis operate. Using fear and silence to ensure that the truth never comes out.I was thinking last night about that Rugby Coach who was recently convicted of 90 counts of sexual violation against multiple victims and I wondered how he got away with it for so long. Fear and silence and shame. The cards are always loaded against the victims.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So round one of the Michael Jackson evisceration is over and the nation is collectively having a shower.A nasty, brutal and graphic two hours and now another two hours to go. Imagine watching the whole thing in one go. No wonder people who saw the full doco at Sundance needed support afterwards.And now there’s been the debate. But it’s a complicated debate just like all real life. It’s not a case of arguing if Jackson did it or not, or if the men who were the boys are lying or not.One of the difficulties is that all parties were extremely damaged individuals.Michael Jackson’s abuse at the hands of his father is well documented as was his stolen childhood as his family exploited his incredible talent.The men at the heart of the documentary are also very compromised. It has to be remembered that Wade Robson, in particular, held his tongue for a very long time. I’ve read his testimony from a 2005 court case where he refutes ever being abused. That said the defence lawyer expertly framed the questions around whether the childhood Wade ever thought he was abused. Which is clever because that was the truth. The realisation of how advantage was taken came later.Robson’s path to the documentary started in 2012 when Jackson’s estate did not give him a job choreographing the Michael Jackson Cirque Du Soleil show. A job Robson thought he was owed, dare I say it, for services rendered. What followed was a nervous breakdown. A book about his relationship with Jackson that never found a publisher. A billion-dollar damages case against Jackson’s estate saying that he would never work again because of the abuse that was scuppered because he was in fact working.The documentary was his final chance to be paid off. It’s a nasty way of life being a grifter.So what I took from last night was a masterclass from Jackson in how to groom people and their parents to bend to his will. It was a lesson in how many people aided and abetted Jackson because they were in thrall to his talent, fame and money.It was a lesson in how when the advantage is taken of people, those victims don’t really see what’s happened to them until afterwards. It’s a lesson in how much abuse does not involve forcible coercion.As to what happens next. For me, it’s the end.I was a fan of Jackson’s music. I have four of his albums. Off the Wall is the best. I went to his one New Zealand concert. It was weird, unsettling and wonderful all at the same time. But I never warmed to man. And as we approach the 10th anniversary of his death this June his fame was wavering until this documentary brought him back into my attention.I played Rock With You this weekend to see how it made me feel. Once it brought joy but now only distaste. Even the title now sounds dirty.It makes me understand the music radio position. They haven’t banned Michael Jackson’s music. They’re just not playing it because enough people turn it off. Radio does not want you to find any reason to turn it off and there are plenty of other geniuses to listen to.Michael Jackson is over. He could never really Heal the World and make it a better place. His music now reminds me the world is a nasty, craven, grasping, selfish and narcissistic place full of danger.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another week, another litany of examples that we are a terrible country when it comes to forward thinking and planning.So I woke up this morning to Mike Hosking sighing and being concerned. The news that 40,000 people in rural and isolated New Zealand will never be able to stream the Rugby World Cup even if they wanted to. Their broadband is just not good enough.No kidding.Now I’m more confident than Mike about the whole thing. And I’m impressed at the way Crown Infrastructure Partners have been rolling out the ultra-fast broadband around the country because it’s a massive and expensive job.To give you an example just to do Milldale a new suburb for 9000 residents is going to cost $45 million.But the internet and broadband are not the newest technology on the planet. Decisions have been made to base everything on the internet such as the abortive census from last year. So the point is once we decided this is the way then throw everything at it.And here’s a great point. Last century our grandparents took sealed roads and electricity and telephones to almost every house in NZ. It'll be the same with fibre. We just need to pull our finger out and maybe get some of Shane Jones pot of cash off him.But I also woke up this morning to news that someone has decided that Auckland needs a light rail tunnel under their harbour and no new car lanes. I’m not going to talk about the pros and cons of this idea here. What I am going to note is that the last bridge was built 60 years ago. Two years later it was doubled in size. Surely after that experience planners back in the day should have realised we were going to need either a replacement or new capacity within the following 50 years. This sort of decision is one that should have been made a quarter of a CENTURY AGO.Then there’s Queenstown and their desire for a tourist levy. There are only 24,000 ratepayers in Queenstown but the town has one of the highest visitor-to-resident ratios in the world.As the mayor says "No other city or district in New Zealand experiences the ratio of 34 international visitors per resident. By comparison, the Auckland ratio is one to one and Christchurch is three to one,". So to fund all the infrastructure the tourists need is proving too much for the ratepayers.I get that but why didn’t anyone get that as more and more hotels and businesses were given approval. It appears Queenstown had a terrible 20-year plan 20 years ago.I know I’ve said this before and others have said it too but I’m just so tired of the reactive way we run this place instead of proactive.Could we please stop putting band-aids on our problems.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Talkback callers have shared their thoughts on working from home, after one company says they will soon make all employees work at home. BNY Melon in the UK has said they will stop people working from home. They say that if everyone worked in an office, it will lead to "better collaboration and quicker decision making".The company currently has a flexible working policy for their 3,000 workers, but believe that some of those employees working from home are misusing their trust. The move has been met with backlash from employees, with some saying they will have to quit and find a more flexible job, and another saying that it will not benefit people with children or family members to look after.Callers to Andrew Dickens were mostly in favour of working from home.Caller Mike says that he has worked at home for several years and he prefers the environment to being stuck in an office, and his productivity has not suffered.Tania points out that just because people are working in an office it does not mean they are being more productive. "I think eliminating the ability to work from home is like putting a bandaid in a wrong place. The issue is you have employed people that do not have enough respect for the company." However, caller Scott, who used to live in London and work for BNY Melon, he says that people often did not show up for the hours they were meant to. "If they are not managing people properly, it breaks down."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, I have really, really, really tried but I have failed. The same way I failed last year’s Dry July. I had the best intentions but it’s just too tempting. Or maybe I’m too addicted. Or maybe it’s too infuriating.I honestly thought I might get through this week without discussing the recent findings of the Tax Working Group. I imagined and visualised never uttering the words “Capital Gains Tax”. But I have now fallen.I was tempted to talk about it after Jacinda Ardern got stuck into the people who write columns in the Herald. People like me. The inference being that we were all ganging up against the CGT. That the proposals were slowly being picked apart like pulling at a loose thread on a jumper. The tax was dying a death of a thousand cuts. And that was unfair. And of course, this whole thing is about fairness.I took exception to that because what she was really complaining about is that nobody was coming out in favour of the tax. Apart from a few people writing emotional pleas about fairness and how it just feels right.Ask yourself. Who have you seen crusading for the biggest shakeup of our economy in a generation? Where are the crowds marching in the street? How many water cooler conversations have you had about the taxes? The only ones I’ve had is about how we could avoid paying any. Perhaps on factory floors and minimum wage sweatshops, there are mobs of supporters, but I haven’t seen any evidence of that.What the Prime Minister is really upset about is the Working Group’s ideas do not have a champion.Which brings me to why I’ve broken my silence.This week the government extended Sir Michael Cullen’s contract as Chairman of the Tax Working Group so he can defend the ideas his group presented to the Government. That’s a sweet gig. A grand a day to phone talkback stations or write letters to the editor to dispel any scaremongering that may or may not be going on.I’m afraid this is just not right. Sir Michael was paid to collate expert advice, which he’s done. Job over. His ideas need to defend themselves. If he wants to defend them now the job’s finished he can do it on his own coin.Then we come to David Seymour’s criticism today that this demonstrates the inability of Finance Minister Grant Robertson to articulate and defend his Government’s tax plan.That’s not strictly true because the Tax Working Group’s plan is not yet the government’s plan. They’ll tell us what their plan is next month. And that’s their political failure. To be honest they’ve lost this already. By failing to come out immediately and say what they like and don’t like about the groups that plan the government is just sitting there like a big lump, saying nothing and getting kicked. If I was a supporter of the Capital Gains Tax, I would very angry at the government right now.What all this is really saying is that the supporters of the Capital Gains Tax are so few and far between that this government is now paying people to support it and that just sounds a teensy bit corrupt.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australia's largest airline Qantas says the notice it gives customers as part of its Frequent Flyer programme is adequate and it won't introduce new measures for warnings before air points expire.This despite a number of complaints from customers who claim their points disappeared without warning.Yesterday it was reported a New Plymouth man who had been saving his Qantas air points for 16 years was horrified to discover all 400,000 of them had expired - despite being advised on multiple occasions that they would not.The points he had accumulated, according to Qantas' website, were enough to buy about nine one-way tickets between Melbourne and Los Angeles (excluding taxes).He was frustrated that when he contacted Qantas he was presented the option of being able to "buy back" the points through the further accumulation of points.The Herald's inbox was flooded with complaints and stories of people in similar situations, who claim their air points had expired without warning.Two Qantas Frequent Flyer customers contacted the Herald and said they had each had 100,000 points saved which they said had been wiped without notice.Another reader said she was in a similar situation having had over 90,000 points wiped "without warning or any kind of notice", and given the option to buy back the points.A handful of others complained about similar experiences on the Air New Zealand's air points programme.Qantas air points only expire if members do not use or earn at least one point within an 18 month period.A Qantas spokeswoman countered claims that the customers had not been notified."We do give everybody notice of points expiring so I think the people that are saying they didn't get any notice have again obviously not been engaged in the programme."She added that warnings to frequent flyers - by way of email, on the Qantas app and a banner on members' online accounts page - were sufficient.Qantas' air points programme was generous and its points did not expire after four years like other airlines' programmes, which is why Wallace was able to save his points for over 16 years, she said."There are obviously multiple different ways that you can contact somebody and these are the three ways we have selected to do so at the moment, and that's why we encourage people to keep their details updated," the spokeswoman said."We're always looking at ways we can improve the programme and so it may be something that does come up in the future but at the moment this is what we're doing."More than 12 million people are signed up to Qantas' Frequent Flyer programme.Offering buyback schemes to reinstate points was about getting customers to participate in the programme, she said.She said the airline gave customers a 60-day warning before their points are due to expire.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You have to wonder at the moment whether all Australian league players do is play with balls and then go home and make sex tapes which they send to their mates.This is after the Penrith Panthers five-eighth Tyrone May became the first player charged by police for his role in a sordid sex tape scandal. That said, he is just the latest in a line of leaguies whose sex tapes have been splashed all over the net.May turned himself into Penrith police station on Tuesday morning after featuring in numerous lurid videos leaked on social media last Friday.He was arrested and charged with two counts of allegedly filming and two counts of disseminating sexual acts with two women without their knowledge and consent.Just yuck. I mean, the sex was consensual but the sharing of the videos with teammates is just strange. Who wants to see your workmates doing the wild thing? Can you imagine Larry getting up to that sort of thing?But it was made even more yuck when his boss, the rugby league legend Phil Gould, then stated that the sort of behaviour that May has been caught at is, and I quote, “extremely widespread in League”.Gould said, "Talking to people who deal with this every day, court judges and police, this is in all walks of life. The real worrying thing is this is conditioned into kids in the schools. This age of mobile phones and cameras, it is commonplace."So it’s a bit of a relief to hear some sense coming out of another league legend Brad Fittler. The New South Wales Origin coach famously banned cellphones from the sheds at his camps in his first year.It freaked out the players, particularly Matt Prior who found his two days without a phone “startling and stressful” but eventually liberating.Now Fittler has gone further.Based on his experiences with his players and his kids and some research he wants the government to help parents. He reckons if governments step in on other addictive practices because they’re injurious to mental health, then they should be stepping in on phones which he thinks is one of the big drivers of bad mental health.He’s not wrong. The smartphone with its cameras and internet access is the conduit to social media which is being blamed for all sorts of social ills. And he wants us to learn to moderate our use at a younger age. He called on the government to "take the ball up" in censoring their use.Let’s not go all nanny state and ban them from kids hands but parents need to be aware. After seeing a friends 13 year old child suspended for three days for downloading porn on his phone at school we decided that our boys could have dumbphones but not smartphones until they’re 16. And to make them loathe us more we refused to buy smartphones for them. They had to use their own money.I’d be more than happy to see a campaign of social awareness around the use of smartphones by the under 16s. And hopefully, it might spark the league players to grow up as well.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Volvo Cars says it will limit the top speed of its new cars at 180 kilometres per hours (112 miles per hour) in all markets as of next year because "too many people get seriously injured or even killed because of excessive speeding."CEO Hakan Samuelsson says Monday that "while a speed limitation is not a cure-all, it's worth doing if we can even save one life."He adds there are two other major causes of traffic fatalities — intoxication and distraction.The company cited figures from the U.S. government's highway safety agency showing that 25 percent of all traffic fatalities in 2017 were caused by speeding.Volvo Cars is based in Goteborg, Sweden, but is owned by China's Geely holding company.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A New Zealand man's stint with ISIS has ended in a whimper.Mark Taylor, infamously dubbed the "bumbling Jihadi", has been captured in Northern Syria.Taylor, also known as Mohammad Daniel and Abu Abdul Rahman, burnt his New Zealand passport after going to Syria to fight for Isis.The 42-year-old surrendered to to Kurdish troops and is now in prison.Taylor told ABC news he constantly ran afoul of ISIS rules, and was locked up a number of times."The last time tey put me in prison was for a ridiculous reason, it was because I accused of drinking alcohol and making alcohol and smoking hashish."Taylor, who had two wives, says one of his biggest regrets is that he couldn't afford to buy a slave.The Kiwi gained notoriety after accidentally revealing his location in the Middle East on social media.Newstalk ZB political editor Barry Soper told Andrew Dickens that he surrendered because "there was no food, no money and the basic services were pretty much collapsed in ISIS"."He's a 42-year-old and he's known as a bumbling jihadi because over the recent years he let his location been known in the Middle East on social media."However, Soper said Taylor, who was born in Hamilton, could cause problems if he survives."We can't deny him his citizenship because he is a New Zealand citizen, but what do with him when he does return, other than keeping him under very careful surveillance."In 2014, Taylor, declared a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US, claimed he'd contacted the New Zealand government to try and get a new passport.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So a second summit between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump has ended before dessert with both parties storming out of Hanoi.I’d love to say I told you so except I didn’t tell you so. That’s because after my cynicism regarding the first summit I got attacked by a lot of you as a warmongering Trump hater who couldn’t bring himself to praise the greatest peacemaker of our time.But the failure of the second summit is proof to me that the first summit was a mistake.Kim came to Hanoi and demanded that sanctions were lifted. Trump said no and they all went home. But the problem is that Kim is framing everything and leading everything. Twice in nine months, he has roused the President of the United States out of the White House to make a sojourn to Asia.Twice Kim has been pictured shaking Trump’s hands and being treated as an equal rather than as the outlier despot he really is. While Kim will never say a bad thing about Trump, the real reflection of his attitude to the States is heard as he roundly slags off lower level representatives like Pompeo and Bolton.Meanwhile, Mr Trump kow-tows calling Kim an impressive man and ruminating about pausing military exercises in the area. With Chinese aspirations rising in the South China Seas I wouldn’t be pulling the fleet back.The timing was also terrible for the President as a propaganda event. Instead of being seen as a world leader he attended an abortive summit while world headlines concentrated on his former lawyer calling him names like racist and conman and reaffirming the idea that the President likes the company of pornstars.And all along Kim’s nukes sit waiting in a mountain somewhere. And while everything is on pause North Korea can potentially carry out further work on its nuclear and conventional weapons programs, upping the stakes in future talks.I never thought Kim has given anything so far. He has disestablished a launch facility that was broken and was going to be abandoned anyway. His tests had achieved what they needed to and I believe North Korea was going to pause it’s programme anyway.And while Trump scurries home, Kim is hanging out in Hanoi sightseeing and enjoying diplomatic relations that the Koreans have not enjoyed for decades.Much is made at home of Trump’s success in getting Kim to the table. That is ignorant of the US attitude of maximum pressure that has existed since the 50s. The Koreans have been begging for respect and a summit for 50 years. Mr Trump was the first of nine presidents to grant that to them and in doing so North Korea is enjoying better times with no relief for their own oppressed and starved people and no relinquishing of the nuclear arsenal.There was a better way of handling all this rather than Trump’s grandstanding for some grandiose clicks and tweets.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The number of arrests in New Zealand for strangulation could be just the tip of the iceberg. Figures this morning reveal that since a new violence law came into effect in December making strangling or suffocating a partner an criminal offence, police have arrested 416 - or the equivalent of five a day.The shocking figures have outraged Andrew Dickens, who says that the figures are "incredible"."This was a quarter of a year. Let's times that by four. It could be, at the end of this year, we will have found 1600 people arrested for strangling people in this country, they are only the ones we've arrested."We don't know about all the others in the privacy of their home doing their own version of domestic violence that nobody knows about."Dickens says that we have spent years on White Ribbon and domestic violence campaigns, but this shows that New Zealand is once again a nation of domestic violence. "It's such an insidious way of asserting power."Talkback callers shared their experiences with him, including how it is not just between male and female lovers, but how it happens between parents and children and same-sex partners.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here we go again - another debate about old buildings, history and legacy and of course, money.The Dominion Post reported today that the cost of Wellington’s Town Hall earthquake strengthening project looks set to expand to $130 million, as contractors are understood to be counting on a $20m contingency fund.It may officially stand at $112.4m as reported yesterday, but capital developers say the cost of Wellington’s Town Hall project will rise by a further $20m and that everyone I the construction industry knew that.Add to that the fact that the Council’s Chief Executive Kevin Lavery said last week that the price of the contract could not be fixed because of the high demand for construction and workers in the city, then you have to feel that the Town Hall project could end out being a never ending money pit.David Farrar figured out that if the project costs $130 million then that would force every household in Wellington to pay $1800 each. He reckons it’s a terrible idea and the money should be spent on libraries and parks and not a big hall for what he calls the elites.Another critic calls the hall an old dog and he reckons it would be better and cheaper to just keep the façade and build a new building to modern standards behind it.While I can understand that sentiment, I can also understand the desire to fix the building because it is a classic with a history.  Opened in 1904, it used to have a handsome 150 foot tall clock tower which was removed after the Napier Earthquake. Now that showed some forward thinking.  Such a pity they didn’t maintain the hall all through last century.There’s the famous story about when Kenny Rogers and the First Edition played in the 70s.  When they hit a big note the stage ceiling collapsed on them, dropping pigeon bodies, empty and dead eggs, nesting material and plaster rubble and dust all over the stage and the band's equipment.The Hall, by the way, has been rated one of the best in the world for acoustic quality. Indeed back in ’86, I saw Simply Red there.  The band lowered their volume and Mick Hucknell put aside the mic and sang without amplification and it sounded amazing and Mick said it was a hell of a room.Now, New Zealand is a young country and there’s not a lot of history or historical buildings anyway, and the ones we do have are ticking over 100 years old.  So of course they’re going to be expensive to maintain, but they become even more expensive the more they are delayed. And we would be far the poorer without the little history we have preserved. Maybe we could do this better.The Royal Albert Hall in London was built in 1871 and has undergone a slow and continual renovation programme since the 90s which so far has cost $80 million. It’s also a charitable trust supported by their lottery and the National Trust and not tax or ratepayers.They know a bit about history, the Brits, and they know how to preserve it.  It is something we were been terrible at through the 20th Century.  How about we just admit we’ve been dumb.  Fix the good stuff up and not make the same mistakes through the next 100 years.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Aucklanders will be able to have their say on a proposal to lower the speed limit on 10 per cent of the city's roads.Reducing speed limits will help towards ending Auckland's "road safety crisis".Auckland Transport is proposing to drop speeds on the majority of the streets in the central city from 50km/h to 30km/h.Chief executive Shane Ellison said safety was the primary concern for them."In 2017, over 800 people were killed or seriously injured on Auckland's roads. These are real people and the human cost of these tragedies are real as well."The proposed bylaw will be put out for public consultation from Thursday, February 28 until March 31 and could be in place by August.Hundreds of streets are on the list and the majority are in or around Auckland's CBD, including Wynyard Quarter and surrounding areas such as Freemans Bay and St Heliers.AT chairman Dr Lester Levy says lowering speeds is one of the quickest and most effective tools the organisation has to reduce road trauma."Auckland is facing a road safety crisis and our top priority is to address this," he said.While the Automobile Association supports efforts to bring down speeds on high-risk roads, it will be calling on AT to dial back its proposal.Spokesman Barney Irvine said the clear message from Auckland AA Members is that, in its current form, it's a step too far."People are pretty open to the idea of safer speeds in the central city, but a blanket 30km/h limit just doesn't pass the credibility test," he said."On top of that, the Transport Agency and its Speed Management Guide recommend 40km/h for most roads in the CBD, and AT has shown no evidence to say we need to go below that."The AA will therefore be calling on AT to instead opt for a 40km/h CBD limit.Ellison says if you are a pedestrian and you are hit by a car travelling at 50km/h your chance of dying is 80 per cent."If that speed is reduced to 30km/h and you're hit as a pedestrian - your chances of dying drops to 10 per cent."Levy said recent research from Monash University in Melbourne showed a significant difference between 40km/h and 30/km/h."In a trial they've undertaken in Melbourne, where they were going to do 40 - they've now reduced it to 30."He said the World Health Organisation also recommends 30km/h when there is a high residential population and high pedestrianisation."This is very much in line with research and international practice."There are also changes proposed outside of the central city.Rodney Local Board member Louise Johnston said they did not have footpaths, traffic lights or pedestrian crossings - but they have 80km/h roads next to schools.A crash on the motorway last year still haunts her.She says a year 12 girl is lucky to be alive after she was hit by a truck at the Coatesville and Riverhead Highway intersection.After that accident, she said AT changed the speed to 60km/h and there have been significantly fewer accidents there."I'll remember that, and everyone who was there and heard the screams will remember that for the rest of their lives as well."Public consultation on the proposed plans is open for submissions tomorrow until Sunday 31 March.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday my Facebook started pinging as the connections started sharing some sad news.  It’s always worrying when you feel your phone buzzing away in your pocket as the hive connects and gossips.The news was that Dmitri Edwards had died, before his time at 49.Dmitri. Dom. He did ZM nights and fill in shifts in Wellington back in the 90s. He was a sports editor at Radio New Zealand for 10 years and then worked at Beach FM on the Kapiti coast. After a restructure or two too many Dmitri quit the broadcasting game and went to work on the buses.I never worked with Dmitri but he worked with other mates of mine and we chatted whenever we met and had a couple of epic nights together.  When he died yesterday, I was shocked and so was everyone I knew. He’d had a stroke at work on Friday and while things looked ok for a day, his condition worsened and he slipped away.The reason I mention this is that I woke up this morning and saw his death had made the papers. His family had made the claim that the situation at NZ Bus in Wellington was so farcical and chaotic that the stress of Dmitri’s job was a contributing factor to his stroke.I can confirm this because I phoned Dmitri a few months ago knowing that his job was as an operation manager.  Knowing that the Wellington Bus service was a nightmare, I asked him about it. He confirmed it’s a nightmare: the schedule revamp that doesn’t work, the lack of drivers to fulfil the promises that NZ Bus made to Wellington. He was tearing his hair out.Dmitri had been there since 2012 running the ops, the schedules and the drivers. Last Friday he was midway through his shift.  He’d already made 85 changes to the schedules and drivers.A bad day normally involves 20 changes in an entire shift. A bad day. And then he had his ultimately fatal stroke.His family recognise that there are many factors behind strokes but say the working conditions at NZ Bus were the final straw.So, in the memory of Dmitri, I’m going to say enough is enough.  I know public transport operation is a devilishly complex beast, but the suits and the brains behind bus operations around the country keep getting it wrong. The schedule revamps that look good on paper but are beyond the capabilities of the companies that won the tender.  The driver shortages that are chronic spurred on by the low wages which you can sheet home to the cut rate tender the bus companies made in the first place to get the gig.  The shuffling of drivers from one area of shortage to another because the shortage is worse. Auckland has a driver shortage but drivers were siphoned off to Tauranga because their shortage was worse.The council and transport middle management who work their eight hour days at their desks staring at computer screens in a fantasy world of what is possible and have little idea of what’s going on on the street.This has got to stop.  Because public transport can work and has worked.  I’ve used it all my life.  But everytime we cock it up, it gives its critics another chance to put the boot in and that makes it worse for everyone - including the snobs in their cars.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Government is lurching towards another embarrassing stuff up, either based on their naiveté, or their incompetence, or a belief they can do whatever they like because they know best.Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin has announced that the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill will be deferred to deal with problems caused by the select committee process.This is the bill that streamlines these administrative processes as they try to make it easier to do the paperwork online.  But it also attracted some controversy when it outlined ways for transgender people to self-identify their gender. It’s a big change from the current regime which is a Family Court process that requires evidence of medical advice and treatment.This change caused a lot of surprise and condemnation when it came to light and a lot of mickey taking.  Callers to talkback were amazed that you might be able to change something as fundamental as your gender without a burden of third party impartial proof and assessment.  I had people texting me and asking that if they self-identified as wealthy or attractive would it work?So why has the whole idea been put on hold?  Did the government just get cold feet, the way they've been getting cold feet on all sorts of transformative policies they've floated?Tracey Martin said there has been inadequate public consultation given how significant the proposed changes are and the clauses were added at select committee after submissions on the bill had closed. Can I just repeat that - clauses added after submissions had closed!Frankly, this is worse than the Government thinking it went too far.  This is a fundamental cock up, if you’ll excuse the term, but it feels apt. The whole point of select committees is to raise some ideas, prepare some legislation and ask for submissions on the proposed rules and after three readings come up with some laws.  If you throw in un-notified changes after submissions close, you are flaunting the entire process of making law.At its worst, you could call it authoritarian and dictatorial.  We’ll just make up whatever law we like and enforce it. Well done to Crown Law for picking this up, but it raises some big questions about the way this Government is working.  Are they just stupid?  Or do they have a radical agenda they’re trying to sneak under the radar?Meanwhile, transgender activists are quite upset the whole things been put on hold.  What about all those people that have differing genders on their driving licences and their birth certificates when it comes to a situation where they need two IDs. Well frankly that’s not enough an excuse to throw away the democratic process.What about students forced to wear the wrong uniforms or go to the wrong toilet? One thing I know from the families I have known dealing with this stuff is that negotiation and communication amongst the affected parties is always what is needed most rather than a law.I also know from families facing these gender issues is that self-identification is obviously the first step. But before you can be granted the power to change legal documents, however you feel, there has to be a burden of proof and approval from an independent third party.  At the moment, that’s the family court.  That could change, but providing independent evidence should not.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The most amazing thing about this Tax Working Group report is just how much people want to talk about it. And that’s a good thing because the more we talk about things the more we can understand things and make the right decisions.Yesterday I opened the lines at one and then for three hours we have a never-ending stream of calls. I tried to change the subject to talk about zoos. But you wouldn’t have a bar of it.So imagine my surprise this morning as I was walking my dog that person after person came up to me and started talking tax. Do I look like an accountant?One dog walker used a good word and I warned her I’d use it this afternoon. She said the real reason for the Tax Working Group is for conditioning. To raise the spectre of a big old hairy chested broad and comprehensive Capital Gains tax to scare the bejesus out of us so that come April when the government releases a scaled-down property capital gains tax we’d breathe a sigh of relief.It’s a theory favoured by many, particularly in the business world.Of course, a lot of the scrutiny now falls on Winston Peters, who has the ability to boycott any move towards a CGT.  Yesterday Winston got a bit of heat from the farming community after appearing on thecountry.co.nz and telling Rowena Duncum that Farmers would not be hit by a Capital Gains Tax. But then lo and behold out comes a tax on farms apart from the farmhouse and an acre around it.People said that Winston has been telling mistruths.Or maybe he isn’t.It could be that Rowena got herself a scoop and the first indication that NZ First is not going to let a wholesale tax reformation happen. Let’s wait and see. So let’s remind ourselves that we already have a capital gains tax with the bright line test for property investors.Let’s also remind ourselves that this is a suggestion from a group and not concrete government policy.Let’s also dismiss the idea that the government sent the group back after the interim report with a directive to include a capital gains tax. The interim report had a CGT but also an indication it was going to be hard. The only real difference is that for this report 3 members of the Group have said they’re not in support of a comprehensive CGT but they are in favour of a tax on investment property.So my call on the whole thing is that we are being conditioned. Brace yourself for a stronger brightline test. And don’t panic yet.Meanwhile on zoos.  I can’t see them existing in 25 years time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another day, another storm in the gender identity teacup.To support Plunket, the chocolate company Whittakers has launched a gender reveal version of their coconut ice blocks.I know.  Already this sounds like a ridiculous story.  There are some people in marketing departments who really do over think things.Here’s the logic.  The new coconut Ice blocks normally come in pink.  So someone thought if we colour some blue, it would be like the baby colours. That led to someone thinking, why don’t we colour some blue and some pink but not label them as either pink or blue so when people open them up it’s a surprise as to what colour you get and that’s like the surprise when you hear what gender a baby is? And gender reveal parties that are all the rage right now, so that’s cool.  And since this is all about babies, let’s donate some money to Plunket at the same time we sell our pink and blue blocks of coconut ice.Imagine how horrific the brainstorming meeting that came up with this was.  The whole idea is clunky, antiquated, artificial and cynical.  To be honest, it doesn’t make me want to buy the product.  Just sell some coconut ice and give some money to Plunket.But then Twitter found out and things got weirder. The gender police got stuck into Whittakers. Firstly for their antiquated binary notions of gender. Someone from Rainbow Youth said it erases many of the identities that exist in the rainbow community. It ignores the intersex and the trans gender which as we know can make up two per cent of the population.A Victoria University sociologist who recently came out as intersex said that while she supports Whitaker’s supporting Plunket, the marketing move is one of many "small everyday reminders that me and trans people and gender fluid people are not included in society to its full extent. These things seem minor but they add up".Well, I’m sorry but it is minor.  Can the colour of a coconut ice bar truly erase the identities that exist in the rainbow community.  This is a level of hyperbole and exaggeration that does no one any favours at all.It’s very similar to the opinion piece in the paper the other day criticising the move to allow people to self-identify their gender which led to the writer claiming that men would do this to enable themselves to enter women’s changing roomsThis was shot down by the Privacy Commissioner John Edwards who said, “Are men really going to complete and file a statutory declaration to change their declared gender on official documents just so they can sit in a women’s changing room with their genitals on display? Really? I’m informed there are much more straightforward ways to be a perv.” Exactly.Both sides of the gender battlefield are as bad as each other in over egging the issues. Frankly  I’ve never understood the fascination with gender and sexuality issues.  It’s your business, nobody else’s.But a final word on gender reveal parties.  I remember the constant gender questioning when we were having children.  “What are you having?”  they’d say.  “A boy or a girl?” “ We’re having a baby”, I’d say.  That’s all that mattersSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

David Bain was "shocked to the core" to hear his groomsman had committed a second murder.Paul Wilson, 55, also known as Paul Tainui, has pleaded guilty to raping and murdering Christchurch 27-year-old Nicole Tuxford in Merivale last year.He raped and murdered 21-year-old West Coast woman, Kimberly Schroder, in 1994.Wilson met Bain in jail and was groomsman at Bain's 2014 wedding.Joe Karam, long-time advocate for Bain, says Bain is distressed Wilson inflicted such terrible disaster on the victim and her family.He says Bain thought his friend was managing life well and there was no indication he wasn't.Wilson lay in wait for eight hours overnight, before 27-year-old Nicole Marie Tuxford arrived back in her Merivale home – in April last year.Wilson has pleaded guilty to sexual violation in the High Court in Christchurch this morning.On talkback this afternoon, people shared their experiences with criminals – including one who knew Paul Wilson inCaller Lyall met Wilson while on a tour of Papamoa Prison. He had dinner with him as part of the tour, and that Wilson surprised him.“I couldn’t help himself and I asked him ‘what did you do’? He said ‘I won’t tell you that, but what I will say is that if this was France, I wouldn’t be here, as it was a crime of passion, I would have got off.”Lyall says that Wilson seemed like a nice guy, but when he got home, he Googled and was blown away by how horrific the crime was.“It reaffirmed my view that those people should never go to prison, they should go straight to the gallows.”Caller Susan added her take, with her experience of befriending a gentleman who raped her daughter.She said that at face value, he seemed like a really nice guy.“The thing is that he also offered to be the person where my children could go when I had a protection order, the person who was going to oversee that they were okay.”She says that she regularly appealed the parole as she did not feel he had been rehabilitated.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So Jordan Peterson, the Canadian self help clinical psychologist guru, has come to the country, sold out, talked to his disciples and harrumphed his way through a few interviews and caused little or no upset, outrage or unrest.  And that’s a good thing.There were a few who before his visit seemed to be willing the country into a free speech panic. The ones who were itching for someone to stand up and try and ban Jordan.  Not because they were against Jordan but because they hate the sort of people who get their knickers in a knot by people like Jordan.That did not come to pass with the exception of a few tut-tut remarks from the peculiar people at Auckland Peace Action. Even Rachel Stewart was as welcoming as she could be by saying that when people say things you dislike then that doesn’t mean they’re the devil incarnate.And here is the thing about Jordan Peterson.  He’s bland, really. His 12 rules that have been welcomed by many sound like just the things my Dad used to say to me when I was a kid. Stand up straight, make good friends. Discipline your kids with boundaries.  I like number nine: “Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't”.  Then to prove he is a fun guy he throws in a couple of wacky ones like pet a cat in the street and don’t bother kids when they’re skateboarding.But I’m not a huge fan of the book or the man due to a couple of things. Firstly, the books and his talks are very mellifluous, which I find surprising when one of his rules is be precise in your speech.  Particularly in his interview with Russell Brand, I found that some of his sentences were so convoluted that by the end of them he was contradicting himself and Russell was grinning.The other problem I have with him is that he’s so grumpy in interviews. His fame can be traced to a couple of incendiary interviews with interviewers who were trying to disprove and vilify him which he defended well.  But now he takes a wary and snappy attitude into almost every interview, particularly if he senses that the interviewer might be a lefty.  This is especially so in his interview with Simon Wilson where Simon quotes him and then Jordan says he’s been taken out of context but never provides his own context leaving Simon bemused.Many of his interviews now are not about his thoughts but the reaction to them. Which is a strange place for Jordan to be.  He hates collectivism both on the left and the right, and I love that because many on the right don’t seem to recognise the collectivism they exhibit when they behave like a mob with their practised lines.But when he defends himself against the reactions of a minority, he often makes broad collectivist statements which brands all feminists or opponents as the same, which is exactly what he preaches against.There’s a book written by Vox Day, a right winger, called Jordanetics, criticising him and his rise to become a generation’s Philosopher King. In an interview on Breakfast this week Jordan Peterson criticised Vox as being a man dreadfully  in love with his own voice. I laughed and hoped that underneath his steely facade that Jordan Peterson was laughing at the irony of his own words too.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you want your funeral to unfold?Death and funerals have been on Andrew Dickens mind after the loss of a family member last week.It has also been the subject of some discussion in the media, in light of a Stuff story that highlighted the benefits of a'DIY funeral'. Sue Allen wrote about the cheap funeral they arranged for her friend, Paul, after he asked for the money to be spent on food and wine rather than an expensive coffin or funeral director.Based on that, Andrew asked listeners what their funeral experiences had been like, and received some fascinating responses. Caller Ross spoke of how his father wanted to go from "hospital to the furnace", and it took just two days for them to get his ashes home with limited fuss involved. "Even doing it as simplistically as that, it was still a $5000 event, and I know dad would be cringing at the cost of that as he would have wanted it to be close to nothing." Caller Frenchie says that his family has measured everyone up in order to make makeshift coffins to save on the cost, as some can cost thousands of dollars. Vicki had a more colourful experience, as her father died while he was travelling on a cruise ship!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday a lot of the conversation of the world centred around Shamima Begum. The Islamic girl from Bethnal Green in the East End of London.  A girl who was radicalised, left the UK for Syria and the ISIS caliphate at 15 and now aged 19 is stranded in a refugee camp in the desert wanting to come home.It’s not something I did talkback on because really there’s no debate. A spokesperson from the Home Office said what I think we all think.  Shamima made her bed and she should lie in it.But, the law must prevail and the UK will probably have to let her back in.  Statehood is one of the hardest things to strip and if you’re going to deny it you’d be better off denying it as someone leaves and not as they try to returnSo things got interesting when Helen Clark waded in.  First on Twitter, and then on this radio station.  She said we should have more sympathy for Shamima because she was radicalised as a kid, and she’s made a terrible mistake and she should be allowed to go home under the closest security.I certainly agree with the last part.  I'd keep a very sharp eye on her.  She’s no reformed radical.  In the past four years she’s witnessed all sorts of things, she’s seen all sorts of horrors.  She’s had two children that have died and she’s pregnant with a third.  And she seems coldly calm and unrepentant about it all She’s only 19 for goodness sake.But Helen Clark’s statements got a lot of people’s noses out of joint. And some have emailed me.  They’re saying what right does Clark have to meddle in the business of another country. One said that Helen Clark should never be heard on issues and also questioned why Clark’s former advisor Heather Simpson has had an office at the Beehive. An allegation has been around the traps that Helen Clark and Heather Simpson are the real power behind the Labour Party and that they hold undue influence.So Heather Simpson first.  Or H2 as she’s known because of her close relationship with Helen Clark over decades.  She’s been her trusted advisor as Minister of Health and Prime Minister and her time at the UN.  A couple of years ago the Labour Party employed her to sort out their campaign and organisation.  She’s currently the chair of the review into our DHBs. Then there’s H1.  Helen Clark, who we know well.  A career politician.  PM for a decade.  Head of the United Nations Development Programme from 2009 to 2017. Both these women have a wealth of institutional experience and knowledge and you’d be silly to ignore that.  If anyone knows what they’re talking about on refugee issues it’s Helen Clark.  Simpson knows more about running an efficient government than most.Wanting these women to keep their traps shut is a strange position to take.  Because it’s against their freedom to speak.  Believing that they have undue influence is also weird. They’re paid up members of the labour Party and if they have an opinion on where it should go it’s their right.  Of course, that doesn’t mean you need to agree with anything they say but you do need to defend their right to say it.There’s a funny convention around regarding former leaders commenting on current issues which I’ve never understood fully.  Of course if they show up the current leaders then that’s unfortunate and embarrassing. But in the dialogue about our country I personally would like to hear from the people who know the most.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Viagogo have hit back over claims they are scamming people over Elton John tickets, saying that they offer better prices to his concerts than the legitimate re-seller site.Legendary rocket Elton John is set to play three shows in New Zealand early next year, with standard tickets ranging from $130 through to $330.Fans have been left distraught after tickets were snapped up quickly, with the Mission Estate concert in Napier selling out entirely during the pre-sale. Yesterday, promoter Michael Chugg told Andrew Dickens that those who miss out should not buy tickets from Viagogo as they would not be honoured."Half the time they don't even have the tickets. They're taking the money and speculating that they're going to get tickets."Viagogo today responded to Chugg's claim. In a statement, a spokesperson claims that "a majority of tickets" are being sold through the most expensive VIP and Platinum channels, shutting out most customers."In fact, last week so called “platinum tickets” were already on offer on Ticketmaster (ahead of the Elton John fan club presale) for upwards of $1,000 per ticket," the spokesperson said. He says that Viagogo provides a competitive price to those packages, "which are just window dressing to charge triple the face value for a cheap glass of wine and a lanyard". “The tickets sold on Viagogo’s platform are genuine tickets that have been sold on by the original ticket purchaser in good faith."Refusing people entry for using resold tickets is "unfair, unenforceable and illegal", the spokesperson said. A second Mission Estate concert has been announced.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Australian promoter of Elton John's upcoming New Zealand tour has addressed the ticketing problems that plagued yesterday's Napier sales and left fans who missed out feeling angry.Michael 'Chuggi' Chugg dispelled rumours of gremlins in the ticketing system or bugs instead saying that there was just too many people wanting to go to the show."I've seen a few complaints about people not being able to get tickets and all that stuff but when you've got a 25,000 capacity venue and there's 60,000 people trying to buy tickets obviously a lot are going to miss out," he said. "And that's what happened.""From the reports I'm seeing this morning it was basically just too many people."One particular source of ire for fans was waiting online to buy tickets and then finding themselves being bumped down the queue."When you sell out you need to tell the 15,000 to 20,000 people that are still online that you have sold out, rather than just all of a sudden there's zero tickets," he said. "But you know, everyone keeps learning from this procedure.""Hey, let's face it, an hour's sell out is pretty unusual and it just shows the incredible strength that Sir Elton's got and what these final shows mean to people."Chugg also had advice - and a warning - for all those who missed out on the Mission show and for any people who miss out when tickets go onsale for Dunedin and Auckland tomorrow morning at 9am."I'd say to people don't panic and don't go and pay $900 for a $300 ticket. We're a year away and with the size of the show and the production there's always going to be more tickets released," he said. "Your son could decide to get married on the day of the show and you're going to have to sell your tickets. You can officially resell your tickets if you can't go to the concert. So there will be tickets across the year. Don't panic."But don't go and buy tickets off Viagogo or any of the other reseller sites. The tickets won't be honoured. Half the time they don't even have the tickets. They're taking the money and speculating that they're going to get tickets."In response to the criticism, Viagogo reiterated it was a "marketplace and doesn't buy or sell tickets".A statement from the company said it was a platform for third party sellers to sell tickets to event goers and did not set ticket prices."Sellers set their own prices, which may be above or below the original face value. Where demand is high and tickets are limited, prices increase. All tickets on Viagogo are valid and it is perfectly legal to resell a ticket or give it to someone else if you want to.""The main concern for me is that people don't get ripped off," he said.Chugg also hinted that there is a possibility that Elton John may add an extra show or two to the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour."People are asking me if there's going to be other shows but the itineraries very tight. We're basically coming from Australia to New Zealand and then going back to Australia," he said. "But you never know. Elton loves playing and on this final world tour he really wants to make sure he gets to as many of the real music fans, his fans, as he can. So we'll see what happens."Mission Estate has admitted its ticketing system simply couldn't cope with "overwhelming" demand for tickets to next year's Elton John concert in Napier.The concert is now officially sold out, with all 25,000 tickets snapped up in less than an hour.Four per cent of fans in line were pushed to the back of the queue in the first 15 minutes of the sale, because the queuing system was "overrun", Mission Estate spokeswoman Sandra Roberts said.As the pre-sale site went live at 9am there were over 45,000 people waiting on the website to buy tickets."The Queue-it system is used to moderate the amount of people going on to the Mission Estate purchasing site and it was simply overwhelmed," said Roberts.There...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Education Minister Chris Hipkins has just released his review of our polytechnic education system. The blighted tertiary sector that seems to have lost its way and required you and me to stump up with $100 million to bail it out over recent years.So Chris Hipkins has decided that the 16 existing institutes of technology and polytechnics will be brought together under one entity - the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology.Education providers and Industry Training Organisations will also have their roles redefined.And the whole thing is now up for consultationI’m a graduate of the polytech system.Back in 1982, I was a graduate of the Auckland Technical Institute’s Certificate in Journalism, which was at the time the only journalism qualification.Over 18 weeks I was taught the basics of journalism; the writing styles, the law, how to type at 40 words per minute, how to take Teeline shorthand. I was seconded for a couple of fortnights to various media. I spent a week at the Northern Advocate in Whangarei and two weeks at Radio I in Auckland.At the end of it, we had the basic skills and then we were snapped up by outlets where we learnt our craft on the job and under the guidance of hardened seasoned journalists. In my case, I was shipped off to Whanganui to work on a radio station. Other graduates ended out in all sorts of small towns, from Stratford to Gore and even one guy in Te Kuiti.That’s how it worked, and it did work. It was heavily overseen by the industry we were supplying. The Technical Institute taught techniques and the industry sharpened the skills. It also understood that journalists were essentially born, not made and it's important for the industry to find the stars.But somewhere along the line, the polytechs got bigger ideas. These days the journalism courses are university level and take three years and obviously cost an enormous amount more. Three years of theory with little practical experience.It became a competitive, semi-privatised, neo-liberal experiment that measured itself by bums-on-seats, with the taxpayer underwriting the risk.People have been trained in skills that were not needed, for jobs that didn't exist purely because they and their parents, in their naivete and ignorance, were prepared to pay for it. To my mind a halfway pregnant dog of a model that was neither one thing or another.Now you hear a lot that the polytechs are to be blamed because of incompetence. But I’d remind you Governments were complicit with their policies and I’d remind you industries were complicit as well.This is vocational training and the people with the vocations need to be helping, rather than leaving it to the boffins who don’t know the full story, and then complaining when they get it wrong.So Chris Hipkins has decided to centralise the sector presumably under more Governmental control. Over the past week, critics have been saying that this would be ideology gone mad. The death of choice and private education. Maybe Simon Bridges will bring out his new favourite phrase that this Government is Venezuela-ing the education system.But I’d argue that the problems in our polytechnics are already the result of ideology gone mad. A neo-liberal experiment that was done extremely poorly and a blow against the idea that private industry can always do better than Government.Frankly, I don’t care what the ideology is. All I want is some proficiency.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Those who use medicinal cannabis illegally are concerned that their supplies are running out. Radio New Zealand reports that 1200 cannabis plants in Northland were poisoned last month in an aerial cull that has been blamed on police. Police have refused to comment on their involvement in the drops, but local growers say that they will continue as long as the drug remains a black market activity.The crops would have gone towards people who can't afford the high prices to obtain cannabis oil legally. Talkback callers told Andrew Dickens that cannabis has helped them or friends of theirs as they deal with pain. Caller Gee says that a friend of his uses the cannabis oil to help tend with seizures as he battled cancer.He says that he has seen a shortage over the last two weeks, and that it has become more difficult to obtain it. Gee says that they will have to go black market in order to "It sucks. Why can't we have it?" Chronic pain patient Lisa says that people like her need medicinal cannabis, and she is disappointed that Labour has not yet made it legal, and is not happy to wait for a referendum. "So people are going to get it for pleasure at the same time as I get it for pain?"She says that she can't wait until the end of 2019 for it to be legal, and that she cannot afford to obtain it either. That was a call echoed by many others, who say that the cost for the oil, around $900, is not affordable for them. The cost is particularly high for callers such as Susan, who is disabled and unable to work. She wants to see the Government subsidise the drugs so that people can actually use it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So if the first major poll of the year is to be believed then Labour is well loved. Prime MinisterJacinda Ardern is the best person to lead the nation by a country mile and Simon Bridges just can’t cut through when he’s being beaten by Judith Collins.That last finding is surprising because it’s not as though Judith Collins has been striding across the news and being very visible. A quick search shows that Simon Bridges has made the news 10 times as much as Judith Collins, who once a week fires off a Kiwibuild attack and once a week gets an opinion piece written about her as a possible leader.That all leads me to say that Judith Collins always had more base appeal than Simon Bridges and Mr Bridges, despite a wealth of time on our screens and our radios, has not grown his support. This poll is an indication of Bridges' weaknesses, not Judith Collins strengths.Then there’s the strength of the Prime Minister’s support which never fails to gobsmack her opponents.  I have often warned that National supporters are sounding a little too much like Democrats in the States. Still unbelieving that their party managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat they keep praying that Jacindamania will suddenly implode and she’ll disappear.Well, that still hasn’t happened and what this poll actually says to me, is that we have one of the poorest crops of politicians that I’ve seen on all sides of the house. The ones who are rating are the best of a bad bunch.I’ve been asking people lately which politicians they rate. Which ones they feel comfortable with and who they think is competent. Grant Robertson is coming up more and more. Mark Mitchell. Kris Faafoi. Stewart Nash has some traction for a while until he went nuts over some barbells and a friend of mine called him Trevor Mallard lite, which I thought was quite good.When Jacinda is mentioned much is made of her ability to sell her parties ideas. He so called PR speak and proficiency. Yet I’m not so sure she’s still got the knackWhat’s interesting looking back over the stories published by the media over the past 6 months is the absolute caning the government has got from what conservatives call the left wing biased mainstream media. Sroubech, Kiwibuild, Capital Gains Tax, the Provincial Growth Fund.  The Working Groups.So Jacinda and her team know that the knives are out on any slip-up and they should be ready to fight back. After Waitangi Day Mike Hosking pointed out that the Prime Minister had over-egged the Maori unemployment figures. It wasn’t a biggie, the figures are the lowest in a decade, but they haven’t been caused by this government, but as Mike said it went to credibility. So this morning he put it to Jacinda. She must have known it was coming, but she fudged and claimed not to know the context. Just as she also fudged the Wanaka Kiwibuild story.She got a caning from apoplectic opponents on the text machine.To me, it seems that someone isn’t keeping their eye on the ball. Either in her office when it comes to briefing or maybe the PM is believing her own Teflon press.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hungary's government is greatly increasing financial aid and subsidies for families with several children, the country's prime minister said Sunday.The measures announced by Viktor Orban during his "state of the nation" speech are meant to encourage women to have more children and reverse Hungary's population decline.The benefits include a lifetime personal income-tax exemption for women who give birth and raise at least four children; a subsidy of 2.5 million forints ($8,825) toward the purchase a seven-seat vehicle for families with three or more children; and a low-interest loan of 10 million forints ($35,300) for women under age 40 who are marrying for the first time.Orban, who has made "zero tolerance" for immigration his main theme in the past four years and was elected to a third consecutive term in April, said the initiative is meant to "ensure the survival of the Hungarian nation.""This is the Hungarians' answer, not immigration," Orban said.The prime minister also listed some of his government's economic achievements — such as low unemployment — and vowed to fight poverty.Orban then turned his attention to May's European Parliament elections, repeating his accusation that the leadership of the European Union wants to fill the continent with migrants, most of them Muslim."We have to understand that the European peoples have come to a historical crossroads," Orban said. "Those who decide in favor of immigration and migrants, no matter why they do so, are in fact creating a country with a mixed population."Europe's left-wing has become "the gravedigger of nations, the family and the Christian way of life," Orban said.After his speech, several hundred members and supporters of Hungary's main opposition parties held an anti-Orban rally that started in Buda Castle. The event also was aimed at protesting recent heavy fines the state audit office imposed on several opposition parties. A small group of protesters used their cars to block traffic from crossing the Chain Bridge over the Danube River for most of the day.Opposition leaders said the fines, which cannot be challenged in Hungarian courts, were politically motivated and meant to hinder their campaigns for the European Parliament and municipal elections in Hungary later this year.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I woke up this morning and turned on the radio at 6.15 and the first words I heard was Niva Retimanu saying, “café that wrote Asians on docket called racist, read more at NZHerald.co.nz".I thought here we go again. More excessive outrage, more calls for retribution, more explosive reaction back, more argument.Why are we all so up for a fight these days? Easily offended and then ready to fight back with no holds barred, often about relatively minuscule things. One can only suppose that we are so comfortable in our lives that the irritants in it get amplified. Mosquito bites become snake bites.So I’ve read the article. On Sunday, a café wrote Asians on their docket to identify the party that had ordered. The New Zealand born, Asian woman concerned has complained and posted to the cafes Facebook page. The paper has reported that the page was inundated with complaints.READ MORE: Racism row: Comment on Auckland restaurant receipt leaves woman shockedSo I wandered over to the café’s Facebook page. Funny sort of inundation. There was the original complaint and one other poster who was supporting her. So firstly this is not outrage but it’s worth a moment’s reflectionIs describing an Asian as Asian racism? If so here’s a question, was the film called Crazy Rich Asians racist? Should we have complained and got the thing called Crazy Rich Singaporeans?The thing about racism is that the victim gets treated worse or given some sort of prejudice based on their race. This looks as though all they were doing was trying to ensure the order went to the right people, and they wanted the most unique or differentiating aspect of the group to do it.The other thing about racism is that it has to be a slur. That the race offended has to be thought of as inferior. But there’s no suggestion of inferiority on the docket. There was another racist docket affair at the end of last year in New York but there the Asian was described by her eyes and a descriptor that I won’t use on the radio. So that was definitely a thingOn Friday, when we were discussing a bit of low-level sexism a guy phoned the show and said when trying to understand another’s point of view you need to put yourself in their shoes. So if I was the only European at a restaurant that serves Asian food and the waiting staff put European on the docket would I be offended? I don’t think so. If they called me white trash or honky or something I might for a moment.My problem with this story is the original complainant who found being described as her own race an insult. I wonder why that is? I presume that throughout her life she’s heard being described as an Asian as being part of a slur, and now it’s got to a point where in her own mind whenever she hears herself described as an Asian she takes offence.That is sad. The ultimate goal of racism is to reduce the power of a race and this complainant has just played along.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Should New Zealand change it's name to Aotearoa full time? A petition has been launched to officially include the Maori name in our official title. The possibilities were highlighted on Waitangi Day, when the New Zealand cricket teams wore Aotearoa on the shirts for their test against India.Andrew Dickens says that the change got him thinking about how things can progress slowly and eventually be accepted."Little by little, inch by inch, things change. When in the nineties, a woman decided to sing the New Zealand national anthem at Twickenham, first in Maori and then in English, there was shock and outrage, but now it's perfectly acceptable."Most talkback callers were in favour of the change, saying that it simply makes sense to incorporate it until our name. Caller Jamie says that if the flag referendum had included the option of a name change, he would have voted in support. However, callers were less enthusiastic about including more New Zealand history in our education.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two news stories are raising the profile of a growing movement to push back against having children.One Colombian couple, Natalie and Andres, took to Facebook to make a firm stand against having children, posing with a photo for his vasectomy appointment.Their reason? As well as the usual reasons around having disposable income, the two say they want to "contribute to the conservation of the planet that is so over-populated and damaged."Their claims raised eyebrows and propelled them into the global spotlight, with over 56,000 people sharing their post and over 1,600 commenting. It comes as one man has made global headlines for taking action against his parents for giving birth to him. Raphael Samuel, 27, from Mumbai, believes that his parents should have asked for his permission before conceiving him, likening the actions as being akin to kidnapping and slavery. His mother told the DailyMail she is pleased her son is a fearless, independent thinker, and will accept she is to blame if he can provide a "rational explanation" as to how they could have asked his permission.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a lovely Waitangi day. We spent the morning at the beach. Had a meal at a café and fell asleep in the afternoon. Then fired up the barbecue and sat down to watch the cricket in Wellington.It was a bit of a surprise to see everyone rugged up like it was autumn, but I’m sure the cool change was welcome, particularly in Nelson where two terrible fires were raging. Perhaps not so much at the Phil Collins concert in Hawkes Bay!It was a lovely night of cricket watching as both the men and women’s cricket teams took good revenge against the Indians.It was particularly pleasing to watch the women. The White Ferns posted a good enough 159 for four. But the Indians at the 12th over were cruising at 102 for one. We’d given up watching and were cooking in the kitchen, listening to the radio and then the collapse happened and it was riveting. The final nine wickets falling for just 34 runs.We’d rushed back to the TV. The crowd was in good voice. What a good thing for women’s sport. Sharing a big stage they showed that drama is drama, no matter who’s playing.Then the men came and completely conquered.  Seifert’s great opening knock. Given a surprise place at the top of the innings because of Guptill’s back injury he took the chance with both hands scoring 84 runs off 43 balls, featuring six sixes. Roy of the Rovers stuff and now he’s in fine contention for this year's world cup.The Black Caps went on to set a stadium record then skittled the Indians with Tim Southee, in particular, looking sharp.The whole time they were playing in a shirt that said Aotearoa. Both the White Ferns and the Black Caps had swapped out New Zealand for Aotearoa on the front of their shirts in commemoration of Waitangi Day.  This had passed me by during the week and so I was taken by surprise.  Apparently, it’s not the first time this has happened, they did during an ODI series against Zimbabwe in 2015The shirts looked great. I liked it. I wondered if NZ Cricket was brave enough to have the same shirts for the rest of the season, which they’re not. The shirts led to a conversation about why we’re called New Zealand from the boys, which horrified me to be fair. So I told them about Abel Tasman arriving in 1642 and naming us after a province in the Netherlands. It was priceless to see their faces and hear them asking what on earth Zealand has to do with us. It’s a fair point. It’s also a fair point that Simon Bridges made at Waitangi that we need more New Zealand history taught at schools.I told them I have some radical friends who reckon that within 10 to 20 years we’ll be called Aotearoa. That didn’t worry them but they said it would be sad to lose New Zealand as it was all they had ever known.Now I’m not going to suggest that we start changing the name of the country.  Anyone who lived through hosting talkback during the flag debate knows that’s never going to win friends or influence people.But I am going to say that when you step aside from your own personal history with the country and the flag, and you look at the reasons we made the decisions to be called New Zealand with a particular flag you realise that it’s bonkers in 2018. With a new generation coming up that is not as attached to these traditions and history, then perhaps my radical friends are right.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"I don't think this government has the leadership or communication to get a fair capital gains tax across the line."Andrew Dickens asked the question 'Can this government deliver a capital gains tax which is fair to all?' on his afternoon show.Callers into the show expressed their opinions on the issue.LISTEN TO THE AUDIO ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The record holder for the most liked image on Instagram is now using the popularity for good.world_record_egg was launched at the start of the year as a harmless attempt to claim Instagram's record, besting the 18 million likes that Kylie Jenner had racked up with a photo of her daughter, Stormi.View this post on InstagramLet’s set a world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram. Beating the current world record held by Kylie Jenner (18 million)! We got this 🙌 #LikeTheEgg #EggSoldiers #EggGangA post shared by EGG GANG 🌍 (@world_record_egg) on Jan 4, 2019 at 9:05am PSTThe campaign was successful, rapidly suprassing the target. The photo, of a simple egg, now has 52 million likes.Now, the team behind the egg have stepped into the spotlight as they use the fame for good. They have launched talkingegg.info, a site that collates links to various mental health services around the world.View this post on InstagramPhew! I feel so much better now 😊 If you’re feeling the pressure, visit talkingegg.info to find out more. Let’s build this list together 🙌 #EggGang #WeGotThis #TalkingEggA post shared by EGG GANG 🌍 (@world_record_egg) on Feb 4, 2019 at 4:06am PSTIn an ad to mark their new venture, the egg, known as Eugene, is shown cracking into pieces under the pressure of its fame, but is reformed after talking about it.Speaking about the campaigne, 29-year-old London-based advertising executive Chris Godfrey told the New York Times that he came up with the record-breaking idea as a way to challenge the title being held by a celebrity.As for why he picked an egg, Godfrey told the newspaper: “An egg has no gender, race or religion. An egg is an egg, it’s universal."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week at this time I criticised the Prime Minister for not appearing for her regular Tuesday state of the nation interviews with the country’s electronic media. She had a logic for it but I said it didn’t make political sense. Her government is under attack on many fronts and after near enough two months of silence I thought it time she stood up and defended her beleaguered policies.Well today she turned up for her first of the year. It’s February 5th. But anyway she’s back and I think it’s fair to say that she didn’t take advantage of the opportunity and re-energise her supporters or the country.This was most evident when Mike Hosking asked why how the government got the immigration numbers so wrong. If you missed the story, the statistical methodology has been changed and under the new method net migration is less than it was previously thought to be. Depending on which statistician you listen to the numbers are down 10 to 20 thousand people.What followed between Mike and Jacinda was a mind numbingly boring discussion on what the numbers were which reminded me of two statisticians arguing about how many eggs were in a carton. 12 or a dozen. You could hear the listeners up and down the country screaming at their radios.A more fluent leader would have had some fun with that one. “What’s the problems Mike? Less immigrants means we need to build less houses and the crisis will end sooner. Next question?”This bugs me because this is a self proclaimed transformational government. Labour governments often are. Savage’s welfare state, Douglsas’ neo liberal unbundling of the economy.  Meanwhile, National governments like to manage and keep their eyes on costs and not scare the horses. That’s why the last National government didn’t work that hard on RMA reform even though they went on about it for a decade.But this government is definitely transformational. They want change. But when confronted with change the electorate is often spooked. When the electorate hears change, in their head they think it won’t work.This is a government that has been talking change but promoting it terribly, just look at the Kiwibuild saga.But the biggest change of all could be their plans for a new tax system. The tax working group has presented it’s report in the past week and we’ll get to see it on February 21st.So far the only transformation talk we’ve heard is the introduction of a capital gains tax and that definitely spooks the electorate. And the government’s opponents have already started chanting More Tax, More Tax. Even though the government says it has to be revenue neutral. In other words the government can collect no more tax than it already does. This stipulation has been sold terribly.You know, the Taxpayers Union sent me a booklet the other day explaining their view on a capital gains tax and they actually said they could support it under five conditions and one of the five was revenue neutrality. It seemed amazing to me that the nations most organised haters of taxation have so far in this debate been the best promoters of a capital gains tax there has been.A well designed Fair Capital Gains tax could indeed be transformational. A well designed Fair Capital Gains Tax could be a very good thing. A well designed Fair Capital Gains Tax could send capital to where it’s needed like companies and jobs instead of into hidey holes like property. But at the moment I don’t think the government has the leadership or communication chops to get a Fair Capital Gains Tax across the line.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some Tauranga families living in hardship are struggling to provide school lunches for their children as back-to-school costs mount. responsibilities  KidsCan's data shows that one in every five children in low-decile schools around New Zealand will head back to class this year without enough food.Tauranga Budget Advisory Service manager Diane Bruin said there had been high demand for food parcels during the school holidays as allocated food money was paying for back to school costs."A number of young mothers have been seeking food assistance this week due to back to school costs," she said."We don't want to see children without food or school uniforms."Bruin said children going back to school without food and uniforms was a "growing issue" in Tauranga, as well as high accommodation costs.Tauranga principals were also noticing the back to school pressures on vulnerable children.Tom Paekau is the principal of Merivale School. Photo / FileMerivale School principal Tom Paekau said the decile 1 school was graded as the lowest decile school in the Western Bay of Plenty because of the "social inequities and underprivileged" in the community.However, the principal said, unfortunately, there were inequities and underprivileged children that existed in all Kiwi communities.Paekau said it was up to the school to provide the best pedagogical outcomes for their tamariki [children]."While there are pockets of struggle within the school, we try to alleviate some of the financial strain on our whanau through sponsorship and support from external agencies," he said.Children were provided food through the school's breakfast club, Milk For Schools, Fruit in Schools programmes and lunch donations, Paekau said."This means no child ever goes without food at Merivale."The school was also this year able to discount all back to school stationery packs.Greerton Village School principal Anne Mackintosh said schools had become more of a social agency by ensuring children had the necessities provided by volunteers such as KidsCan."Without their amazing hard work and generosity, some of our students would indeed go hungry and not have clothing, shoes etc either," she said."It is a grim state of affairs and a very sad indictment on what is happening socially, economically and politically to our children, our most vulnerable."Mackintosh said the school had extra food baskets in all classrooms for children to help themselves if they needed."We don't monitor it as it is a deeply personal thing and some children feel very embarrassed if they do not have food nor do they want to present their parents in a bad light. We respect this," she said.Platters with sandwiches, muesli bars and fruit were also available at lunchtime.KidsCan's chief executive Julie Chapman said this time of year can be overwhelming for families on the breadline."Every day they survive on very little. So there's no money for new stationery, or school bags, or expensive uniforms - many don't even know how they'll afford to put food in their child's lunch box," she said.Some parents won't send their children to school because they felt ashamed they can't make ends meet, Chapman said."Those that do go, start on the back foot because they don't have the right clothes, and they're hungry."How KidsCan helps:The charity helps to feed an average 20 per cent of the roll in 742 schoolsMore than 30,000 children a day are filled with baked beans, bread, spreads, yoghurt, fruit, scroggin, super grain bars, hot meals in winterLast year, KidsCan gave out 5.27 million food items, including 245,000 servings of baked beans, more than 130,000 loaves of bread and 1.6m packs of scrogginIn 2018 the charity clothed 47,350 kids in warm jackets, and distributed 27,886 new pairs of shoes and socks. Girls received 22,000 boxes of...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's unclear whether the initial incursion happened stealthily at night or brazenly during the day - though authorities are almost certain the invasion occurred by sea.And federal employees who returned from the month-long partial government shutdown decided that it was probably not worth the effort to relocate the roughly 90 individuals involved. That's because some of them were pregnant or newborns, and all of them were opportunistic elephant seals that have taken over what used to be the tourist area of Drakes Beach, California.Across the nation this week, returning federal workers slogged through backlogs of voice mails, sifted through bursting email inboxes and tried to remember the name of the childhood pet at the beginning of their log-in passwords.At Drakes Beach, part of the Point Reyes National Seashore, employees had a much bigger problem. Literally. Some of the elephant seal squatters weigh as much as a car.A colony of nearly 1,500 seals inhabits nearby Chimney Beach, which is protected from binocular-wearing tourists by 100-foot-tall cliffs. But Drakes Beach, with its wide swath of sand and spectacular views of the Pacific, has been claimed by humans. Park officials have used a decidedly low-tech method to enforce an armistice between the mammal species: They waved blue tarps to annoy the seals away from the areas most popular with the homo sapiens."It doesn't scare them, and it's a standard technique used with elephant seals," John Dell'Osso, chief of interpretation and resource education for the seashore, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "This would have kept them farther away from tourists."The annoying tarps were an effective plan, usually chasing all but a seal or two away from the beach, which is a 90-minute drive from San Francisco.But the federal government apparently does not regard the tarp-wavers as essential federal employees, so the workers who did it were among the 800,000 furloughed.During that time, according to the Chronicle, high tides and storms battered the seals' normal habitat.So the seals showed up to the suddenly-deserted Drakes Beach and brought friends, and apparently family, too. Seals give birth during the winter months, and the suddenly-deserted Drakes Beach appears to be an excellent place to raise pups.On Jan. 27, Point Reyes National Seashore notified eager would-be visitors that Drakes Beach and other popular locations would reopen after the shutdown. Then, four days later, officials posted this:"Drakes Beach and its access road from Sir Francis Drake Boulevard are temporarily closed to all vehicle, foot, & bicycle traffic due to elephant seal activity in the area."Pictures of the beach's newest residents showed seals of all sizes sunning themselves in the sand, basking on a beach that provides some of the best views in northern California.A few have made forays into more human territory. According to Vice, two adult males have been spotted in the parking lot, one on the ramp to the empty visitor center and another beneath a picnic table.Bulls can weigh as much as 4,500 pounds and, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns, "despite their sometimes docile and clumsy appearance, elephant seals can be extremely quick and sometimes vicious if humans, or their pets, get too close."For the humans of Drakes Beach, it might not be a total surrender. Dell'Osso said staff are exploring the possibility of offering guided tours of the Drakes Beach elephant seal colony. A similar program happens at Año Nuevo State Park. Visitors who wanted to see the seals at that park are encouraged to bring a warm jacket, water and sturdy walking shoes.At Drakes Beach, visitors might also consider carrying white flags.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was a beautiful summer’s weekend. Balmy temperatures that meant T-shirts all day and all night.  A pristine day in Wellington as India handed New Zealand another comprehensive lesson in how to play one day cricket. I watched the game with a beer and my youngest son who’s enjoying a fantastic summer before returning to university in the capital.So who can believe that pre season Super Rugby was being played and the official season is now less than two weeks away. Madness.But the Blues were playing the Chiefs in Kaikohe. To be honest the Blues were spanking the Chiefs in Kaikohe but that is not the news. The news was that 4000 people sold out the local ground and it was a great day. Simon Wilson has written a lovely story about the fun and festivities and the aroha that surrounded the players for an afternoon in February.But not all the story. He does mention that nobody stayed in the town. The Blues were in a hotel in Waitangi while the Chiefs bunked down in Whangarei. But what wasn’t mentioned was that there was a tangi happening the same weekend and the departed was big in gang circles.The main drag of Kaikohe was awash with gang members and their bikes. The pub was taking overnight guests but the publican had closed his bar, on a game day, for fear that the tangi commemorations might get, how shall we say, a little frenetic. But the weekend passed without incident.So it was another weekend where the two sides of the Kaikohe coin were once again plain. Good people, in a great place, celebrating a good community event but a meth and gang fuelled undercurrent never far from the surface.Simon Wilson also noticed another interesting aspect to the day. Throughout the official ceremonies and speechifying, and through all the proud moments of how awesome Kaikohe was, there appeared to be not one word of Maori spoken. Not even a kia ora from the mayor of the Far North, John Carter. As Simon says, “it was as if they were blind to the people they were talking to”. I don’t know if it was purposeful but if it wasn’t then that actually makes it even more insidious.It strikes me that a lot of this is about pride. Pride in people and pride in place. You can’t really expect the people to be proud of the place if there are other people still not proud of a people’s language.In this week of Waitangi, in 2019, it still amazes me that some people are still so dismissive of the Maori language. And now I’ll be besieged by people calling the language dead and irrelevant.And then there’ll be the people calling for us to become one people. I think all those advocates still haven’t realised that becoming one people cuts both ways.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a fascinating business section in the paper today.Firstly, the section had a wrap around. For those who don’t know, a wrap around is a full-page ad on the front page of a paper or a section of the paper.Todays’s wraparound was paid for by the Westpac bank and its headline was “minimum is not enough. It’s time.”Westpac has decided that the lowest wage to be paid in their corporation will be the living wage - not the minimum wage. The ad says the living wage will add at least $131 to the lowest paid’s weekly wage. They think it will make a world of difference. It’s an extra week's worth of groceries. Westpac currently employs 480 people on minimum wage.But they also say it will grow their business and will mean workers take more pride in their work, feel more valued and hence more enthusiastic. Then they challenge other big businesses to join them.So good on them, it’s their choice. The cynical amongst us might note that what with the Australian Banking Royal Commission and the FMA here snooping around banking practices, it is a good time for some positive press.But it’s interesting because then you look what’s on page seven of the business section, Employers warning that the Government’s Fair Pay Working Group recommendations could bring risks to business and the economy. The group wants minimum standards for industries or occupationsRight beside it is an article saying that the movement of big businesses adopting the living wage has been disappointingly slow.Then on page six, an infometric report says New Zealand’s poor productivity, low wages and capacity constraints means that we are not as well placed as we should be to ride out the economic slowdown that’s starting to loom.Putting all that together, you get the feeling that when it comes to wages and pay and investment in staff our industries are loathed to loosen their purse strings. And while that makes the short term bottom line look good for the shareholders, we’ve come to the end of the culdesac.We’ve run out of workers. We need more skills but there will be a lag while we train them, if we can find them. And then when we find them we’re not paying them very much.Add to that the high cost of living here at the edge of the world, then that’s a messy little scenario where people start thinking of bailing the country for greener pastures, where they’re more valued.Add to all that the automatic no that comes out of employers mouths when the government starts telling them to pay workers more, then we’re really in schtook.So on that negative note, let’s congratulate Westpac and others like AMP and Vector who have taken a standoff their own volition. I bet they’ll never regret it and the balance sheet will look just fine. Wages and productivity is not a government problem. It’s all of our problems and we can all do so much better.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Inland wastewater systems will be under huge pressure, if predicted sea level rise continues.A report from Local Government New Zealand shows predicted damage to council infrastructure nationwide would cost approximately $8 billion.Water New Zealand technical manager Noel Roberts says it will back the water level up inside the sewers.He says the infrastructure will be under pressure and it will have to cope with higher volumes.Andrew Dickens asked his listeners what they thought about this, especially in light of a recent story that the West Coast Regional Council demanded more information on climate change from the Government.One caller, Jake, says that people don't have the knowledge or time to appreciate the horror of these reports. But another, Gavin, questioned where all the water that would raise the sea levels is coming from. Pete drew the debate back to the recent talk of a heat wave, claiming the current temperatures are what he felt as a kid.He says that he owns a property in Fiji and a sea wall near his house has never once been breached. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s officially a heatwave is some parts of the country and coming to other parts within days. A heatwave is five days in a row five degrees over the average temperature.So it’s hot. But interestingly not as hot a January as last year. And we need to put the hot into perspective. It’s not Melbourne hot, or Alice Springs hot. It’s more Rarotonga hot or South of France hot so it’s actually quite pleasant. As long as you know how to cope.So a friend of mine is in the middle of a two room house renovation and the builders are in.  Normally they turn up at 7 to 7.30am and get working at 8am. But yesterday they turned up at 5am and started working by 6am. They knocked off work at 2pm because it only gets hotter as the day goes on. Smart.I don’t have to worry about peak heat because I’m indoors in air con. But yesterday Helen worked from home. I got home about 5pm to find her melting in a puddle. All the windows open. And that was her mistake. Our living room faces west. The sun and heat had been streaming into the house ever since the sun went over the yardarm. So around the house I went. Closing the west windows and drawing the curtains. The difference was incredible.It’s actually about keeping the heat out rather than letting the cool in and these are things that people in hotter climates know well. For instance, if you’re putting a fan in the window make sure it’s pointing out to blow the hot air away. Another trick is to hang a wet towel over the window to help cool the air.Some people have been putting cool face towels on your forehead to cool down. Now while that feels good it’s not actually the best place to do it. The idea is to find pulse points where the blood is close to the surface so you could that and the cooler blood heads off to your innards. So that your temple by the ear, your neck, your wrists. The insides of your elbows and knees are two other common pressure points, as well as the tops of your feet and insides of your ankle.I was thinking about the heat and my dog this morning. Today the dog has been locked indoors while we’re at work, with loads of water and all the curtains drawn and her bed placed at the eastern most side of the house for a hot afternoon nap in the cool.And today I got up a bit earlier than normal to walk the dog in the coolest temperatures. Even at 7.30am I walked on the shady side of the street. And while I was walking I came across some friends walking their little dog.  But they also have a big dog. By big I mean enormous. An eight foot long dog. I don’t know what it is but there’s some St Bernard in there with long, long shaggy hair.  When they stop at a café the dog lies on the footpath and covers all the footpath.Anyway I figured they left the old guy at home today because of the heat. So I asked after the dog and it was heartbreaking to hear the old fella died yesterday. Gently expired of a heart attack, panting away, despite everything they could do to cool him down.He was just too hot, he was just too old.So the heatwave is a thing and for some it’s very dangerous and it’s around for a couple of days yet, so use your common sense and drink loads of water.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Industries like tree planting and fruit picking are facing a shortage of workers, but are young people to blame?Fencing is the latest industry to reveal they are struggling to find workers, despite offering a high hourly pay. Young people are often blamed for not being attracted to physical work.A fencer who spoke with Mike Hosking says that education is too focused on going to university rather than pointing them towards trade sectors.However, Andrew Dickens raised his doubts about this. He says it's not up to young people or the Government to fill the vacancies, but the industries themselves. "Is it up to these industries to get out there and tell more people about this industry?"Putting the question to listeners, a swarm of callers shared their thoughts.Caller Jamie says that he has worked in fruit picking, and the industry hasn't evolved to adapt to modern work practices around working hours and pay. Another, Tom, says that the government should pay sports clubs to do these jobs as sponsorship for their activity.Helen says that one of her sons was involved in construction, but after three years he realised the industry wasn't for him after dealing with unsafe work practices and staff that avoided work due to the competition. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A tidying revolution has gripped the world.After Tidying Up with Marie Kondo launched on Netflix this month, people around the world have been inspired to clean up and scale down on their possessions.The trend was felt strongest by opshops, with many inundated with more donations than they could handle.But while Marie Kondo has everyone talking, she isn't the only cleaning superstar. 'Cleanfluencers' have become big on social media, with people racking up millions of followers as they show off their cleaning obsessions. The news had Andrew Dickens bemoaning about the real burden cleaning out can have on people, and many talkback callers were in agreement. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So has anyone seen the Prime Minister lately? If anyone sees Jacinda Ardern in the flesh, could you please contact authorities so we can return her to the people.This is an observation that has been brewing for a while. In fact Chris Trotter, a lefty, first wrote about it in the middle of December.But it wasn’t until today that I finally thought this is getting weird.Every Tuesday since Helen Clark’s day the Prime Minister has done the rounds of media in the morning. On ZB that means 7.35am for 10 minutes and we have a quick recap of the issues of the week and where the government is at.But we haven’t had one this year. Firstly she was on holiday for ages, which I didn’t resent because she does have a child under one who hasn’t seen a lot of her Mum. Then last week the PM was in Davos Switzerland but apparently was unable to use a phone.The suspicion is rising that Jacinda Ardern likes to be a spokesperson for a government and a figurehead for the world but when it comes down to the nitty gritty of being a leader the job is a little difficult.Chris Trotter last December noted the number of times that Jacinda Ardern seemed to be sidelined by her ministers seemingly making decisions without her knowing. Phil Twyford in particular seemed to change policies at a whim and when the Prime Minister was asked she seemed often unaware.Looking back at the last three Prime Ministers we’ve had; Clark, Key and English, none would ever tolerate finding out about policy from the news media. And if they did butts would be kicked.There is also the unwillingness to discipline the miscreants. Claire Curran took an age to be told off. Meka Whaitiri. Ian Lees Galloway.Then there is the plethora of working groups. At first I was tolerant but now the whole thing seems to be taking an age. Other people are charged with doing the thinking rather than the government.There appears to be a leadership vacuum.The Prime Minister we have seems happiest when selling other people’s ideas and I’m starting to wonder what her ideas are.And further to that there’s the fear that she might not have any ideas at all.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As New Zealanders across the country get out and enjoy a variety of music festival, the question around drug testing rears its head once again.Aucklanders today got to enjoy all that Laneway Festival had to offer, while One Love took over Tauranga this weekend.While most are there to enjoy the music, the festivals have turned into political fodder as the debate rages about whether drug testing should be legalised.Andrew Dickens says that while he has no issues with drugs such as marijuana, he finds pills such as ecstasy "evil chemistry" and should not be encouraged."This is not organic. As soon as someone starts talking about LSDs, MDMAs, popping pills, it gives me these heebie-jebbies. I've never done it, never will." However, he feels that people don't deserve to die over mistakes. Talkback callers were divided over the matter, with a mix of support for the move while others were strongly against. Caller Tom says that the performers should have to be tested as well, as they promote drug culture. While Dagan points out that there is a lot more information about drugs out there that makes them a lot safer. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ever wanted to live in an Italian village? This may be your opportunity. Airbnb wants to send four people to the small village of Grottole for three months later this year, in an effort to boost tourism. The site wants to send four people to live in the hilltop village, and will give them US$1,000 a month to spend on food and wine.The catch? It's not quite a free holiday, as the move is part of an effort to help revitalise the town and others throughout the Italian countryside.Currently, only 300 people live in Grottole, which has 600 empty houses. The abandoned feel is due to the mass exodus of young people heading to the bigger cities to find work. The four lucky people sent to the town will participate in traditional activities, such as harvesting honey and making olive oil and pasta.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Kiwi woman shared an inspirational message about promoting positive body image after some men "pointed and laughed" at her when she took her sarong off at Mt Maunganui Beach.Shelly Proebstel, from Waipa, posted to Facebook on her page Bald and Beautiful what happened and then listed reasons why people are insecure about their bodies.Shelly Proebstel said that for a split-second after the incident she thought about covering up, but then reminded herself about what she learnt from her journey. Photo / Bald and Beautiful Faceboook"To the guys who pointed and laughed when I took my sarong off today at Mt Maunganui Beach, bearing my soul (my bikini body) to the world, I just want to say (excuse my language but) f*** you!," she wrote."It's because of dickheads like you that people are so incredibly insecure about their body image.Callers to the Andrew Dickens Show shared there experiences of body shaming, with many asking the question why people feel the need to judge what others look like.One woman said throughout her childhood, she had been made fun of and constantly reminded to eat more food as she was underweight."When I was growing up as a kid, I used to be very, very skinny. As you get older, too many people seem to judge, but you learn to get over it and not worry what other people think. It would be boring if everybody was the same size."LISTEN TO THE AUDIO ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Numbers - they get you every time.The problem with numbers is that they don’t fudge.They’re definite. Exact. Numbers don’t lie. But people lie.People fudge. People lie about numbers. People fudge numbers. But numbers are the truth. Which is why any politician worth their weight in gold, which is an inexact number, will avoid them at any cost.It’s a lesson this government fails to learn. The numbers have been causing all sorts of bother this parliamentary term.This is obviously the very hard lesson Phil Twyford has learnt this week, as the numbers came to bite him on the bum.There’s no doubt that New Zealand doesn’t have enough housing stock.  There was always doubt as to whether the government should become a private housing developer. Nothing wrong with running a social housing programme, but KiwiBuild was always to supplement the private market. There was always uncertainty as to what affordable means. But all that was debatable and defendable.But as soon as Phil Twyford started putting numbers on it he drew a big target on his back. He promised 100,000 houses in 10 years and 1000 houses in the first year. And so the numbers have spoken and the project is failing and the government looks stupid. As Mr Twyford crumbled yesterday, his leader, the Prime Minister, was shining on the world stage. But not in the media in New Zealand. She must be ropable.But this government does it every time. Julie Anne Genter announces road safety improvements but she ties it to a zero road toll slogan. Which will never happen. She will fail.The Finance Minister is also fond of imposing numbers on fluid targets. His commitment to debt reduction and the 20 per cent target or instance. It’s meant for some accounting jiggery-pokery around core Crown Debt and various SOEs borrowing, while pretending not to be the government. Now there’s nothing out of the ordinary about that. Other governments have done it. But the imposition of such a definite, arbitrary target on the debt levels caught them out.They’ve done it with immigration numbers where apparently we’re aiming for 30,000. Considering our skilled labour shortages that will never happen, again giving the government’s opponents ammunition.It’s like our idealist politicians pluck numbers out of the air to make catchy slogans that are divorced from reality. I think there’s a political lesson here for this government. Watch the numbers or your number's up.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Andrew Dickens has exposed fellow ZB host Larry Williams and political editor Barry Soper as Lime e-scooter enthusiasts.The two were spotted by ZB staff zooming about Auckland's CBD during the break, and reportedly were big fans.Andrew confronted Barry about the incident, and how the two left their wives behind."You were supposed to double the wives, but you and Larry left them behind!"Barry admits that got "so excited by it". "Larry was such a curmudgeon when it came to Lime scooters., he didn't wasnt to have anything to do with them. But by the end of the day, did he enjoy them?"Barry says that he can see a time where congestion forces more people onto transport initiatives like this.It comes after Mike Hosking last year admitted his enjoyment for the e-scooters after taking one for a test spin. Larry has not yet commented on his newfound love for the Lime. LISTEN TO THE CHAT ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are hopes the public will opt for sustainable alternatives, as the country sits on the edge of a gas shortage.It comes as Genesis Energy reaches a five-year high in coal burning.READ MORE: Coal burning increases as NZ faces gas shortageThe company says it's due to low hydro storage, plant outages and the bleak outlook of longer term gas supplies because of the government's offshore exploration ban.Talkback callers to the Andrew Dickens Afternoons Show were mostly in favour of using solar panels. With the price decreasing of installing and operating solar panels, many have taken the opportunity to upgrade.Barbara told Andrew Dickens she had recently installed them, but she wasn't in favour of the government subsidising the product."I don’t think it is a good idea for the government to subsidise, and this is coming from someone who has installed solar panels. I put them in 6 months ago, and I love it, but its all about how you use it. You have to use the power during the daytime when you are at home."John says there are some real issues with the peak demand with using solar power, and he believes there is still much work to be done before it can become accessible and worthwhile for everyone."The consumers will just end up having to pay more in the long run. There is still a lot more work and infrastructure which needs to be implemented."LISTEN TO THE AUDIO ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was a very entertaining morning listening to our breakfast host lose a significant part of his rag over the well-meaning twaddle that comes out of the clean green mob.It started early just after the 6.30am news, when a hapless solar power enthusiast got a little casual with his language. He called an increase in sales of electric vehicles a “rapid uptake”.🠶 Mike's Minute: Why the lobbyists are wrong about EVsMike wasn’t having that. Electric Vehicle fleet numbers in New Zealand are still around 12,000.  Yes, that’s doubled but from a low base. He doesn’t call that a rapid uptake.That said to go from 6000 last year, to 12,000 this year is still not nothing.  And if you stuck those 12,000 vehicles in a line at a service station waiting for a fill up you wouldn’t call that a line little.So let’s just get accurate and call it what it is. It’s two per cent of our fleet that has been chosen by people because it fits their needs and outlooks and on the whole, all the EV owners feel very satisfied with their decision.It’s become an issue because yesterday, the government announced an $11 million increase in funding to support the EV fleet lifting their total commitment to around $60 million.What’s interesting about that is the funding of recharge stations around the country and the increase in funding will provide recharge stations in more remote locations like right through the MacKenzie Country and up to Mount Cook.I, like Mike, wonder why the funding of recharge stations is the taxpayers' responsibility. When cars took over from horses did the government fund service stations? If the EV industry can’t fund its own basic infrastructure then that’s a worry for its sustainability.One could say the same of public transport which cannot fund itself by fares alone. However, the governmental subsidies public transport receives is an investment that saves on the productivity costs. If everyone abandoned public transport and used their own transport, this country would grind to a halt.  I don’t think there’s the same imperative with EV charging stations.And the new age of renewable energy transport has to be able to stand on its own feet.I’ll give you an example, everyone knows I’m a bike riding hipster who’s used bicycles to commute with since I was 10.  I love the freedom from congestion and the freedom from parking hassles.  For journeys of five to 10 kilometres, I am substantially quicker than a car and it's funSo you’d think that I would be a prime contender for the electric bicycle revolution. Yet recently when faced with the need to get another form of transport due to a household capacity issue I did not buy an electric bike.Instead, I bought an emission belching, two-stroke, 50cc scooter, which, by the way, I’m loving. Why? Well, I picked up a doozy for $2000. To get a decent electric bike I’d have to spend considerably more than that. If I could have found a $1000 electric bike I would have been in like Flynn.So a message to the renewable energy transport people. It’s not happening until the cost of the clean vehicles is no more than the dirty ones.  And that’s not the government’s responsibility.  It’s the people who make the things in the first place.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday we discovered that the eighth most expensive city for housing in the world is Tauranga, where it takes more than nine times the median annual income to buy the median house. We also heard that Auckland was not too far behind. The lowest was Manawatu where the ration was five. Now, by the way, it was not widely reported that using the demographic rating system it is believed that the affordable level is three times and under.  Anything over five they class as severely unaffordable. Just about everywhere in this beautiful country is severely unaffordable. So the headlines were full of New Zealand’s housing affordability crisis.And then just like that, as I left the studio, I discovered that an Auckland councillor had come into our building and dropped off a copy of his book to every on-air staff member.The councillor’s name is Greg Sayers and his book is called "How to Fix Auckland’s Housing Crisis". But the problems he documents are spreading so I’d rename it New Zealand’s Housing crisis if you’re doing a reprint.It’s a pretty good read actually. In 166 pages it highlights the problems that have been caused by population growth, both natural and immigrated. The lack of foresight with planning and the excessive bureaucracy at both national and local level, that has made things so expensive. It also documents the social problems that come with it in terms of poverty, the elderly and the transport problems.But I think we’ve all become pretty good at talking about the problems. What we really need is a genius with some answers.So Greg’s book has four solutions in its conclusion. He wants homebuyers to be able to insure their property against poor workmanship. Which makes sense. At the moment the cautiousness of our councils over standards and consents is because they hold all the risk management.He would like to see developers given the option of developing their own infrastructure, rather than having to connect to the Council’s monopoly on services. In other words, deregulation. Whether that would create a workable citywide system is a little debatable and the other issue is whether you trust developers. Nothing personal but some developers might have been known, from time to time, to shave a little off budgets to help their margins.He’d like to see user pays infrastructure development such as at the Milldale suburb where homeowners pay a little off yearly for infrastructure to new builds rather than having it all piled onto initial purchase price. That’s a good idea. So good it’s already happening.But his main thing is getting rid of the rural-urban boundary. And that’s where he loses me. I’ve heard this trumpeted through the ages. That would make for sprawling raggedy development. Yes, it would give some short term relief but it would create long term problems. In fact, I’d argue that the transport problems we have in a number of our cities is entirely because of unfettered sprawl at the edges.  But good on Greg for raising the issues again. Councils have taken advantage of Phil Twyford’s desire to solve our housing woes singlehandedly and debates about their performance has ebbed away. The one thing I definitely know about our housing affordability crisis is that not one person caused it and not one person will solve it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A story about the country's southernmost bach has sparked a discussion on the necessity of a holiday property.Kidney Fern, a Stewart Island bach only accessible by water or by a lengthy hike, has gone on sale and could be yours for $500,000.However, Andrew Dickens asked baches are still worth the cost. When they are only used several days a year and come with the added taxes, is the idea of a Kiwi bach a thing of the past?Caller Neville shared his story of how owning one simply proved too costly for his family, due to issues like maintenance, and they ended up selling it off.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's usually women who are accused of dressing the same, but one shirt has proved the old theory wrong.An orange striped shirt has shown up at music festivals all across Australia, sparking much hilarity on social media.The men's shirt, ironically enough called 'Festival Shirt', costs just AU$29.99 from Cotton On, and is seemingly quite popular. One writer for website Junkee went out to find the shirt at the FOMO Festival, and came across dozens of people all adorned in the uniform-like shirtView this post on InstagramI’d like to introduce you to my new religion... 🙏 @fomoaus 📸 @jrdjmsA post shared by James Anthony (@namesjanthony) on Jan 12, 2019 at 12:43pm PSTThe unfortunate fashion trend sparked some debate between Tim and Raylene about festival culture and youth fashion. LISTEN TO RAYLENE TALK WITH TIM ROXBOROGH ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN TO MIKE KERNAGHAN TALK WITH TIM ROXBOROGH ABOVEAllergic reactions could be one reason why Cancer Society sunscreen didn't work on a young child, the organisation says. The mother of four-month-old baby Noah Watson went public about her son's severe burns over the weekend; even after his mother generously applied Cancer Society SPF50 sunscreen on him.Cancer Society NZ chief Mike Kernaghan said they were in the process of investigating up to 30 complaints from people and were also speaking with Noah’s family..Up to 60 complaints were received by the Cancer Society each year.The process investigated the complaint itself in the first instance, he said, rather than the product.Kernaghan told Tim Roxborogh that his gut response is that could have been some sort of allergic reaction.While he has no certainity around it, Kernaghan says that the fact the sunscreen is manufactured in Australia, where it is classed as a medicine, could have had an effect.“There are strict manufacturing processes around any medicine.”Kernaghan says that the sunscreen Lyndall Watson has complained about was recently tested and came back with positive results."We've very confident that we meet the SPF claims on the label."Four-month-old baby Noah suffered blister burns despite using SPF50 Cancer Society sunscreen. Photo / SuppliedKernaghan stressed they took every complaint seriously, but acknowledged that they were very confident with their available products and the SPF protection levels they carried.He says he wants to reassure everyone that Cancer Society sunscreen that it will provide the protection.“However, we are not all the same. Some of us have skin allergies that others don’t.”Kernaghan says that sunscreen is only one part of the process, and that wearing appropriate clothing and hats and finding shade.Noah’s experience has sparked many readers of the New Zealand Herald to come forward with their own experiences.Among some of the products blasted by readers are those from top brands Cancer Society, Banana Boat - which has a range specifically for children - Neutrogena and Coola.Larissa Thompson said her family had been put off using Cancer Society sunscreen products in future after her teenage daughter suffered burns to her back."I have had [to] apologise to my 15-year-old daughter, who came back from the beach looking like a pink flamingo, as I accused her of not using sunscreen."Lizzy has pale skin and very conscious of her susceptibility to being burnt if she didn't cover up."So she was applying thickly every half hour but it was completely useless. She may as well have applied moisturiser for all the good it did.Thompson said she had bought her girl a tube of the Cancer Society's SPF50+ sunscreen just before Christmas. It was a brand the family had always used and with no problems.A teenager shows off the aftermath of a day at the beach while wearing Cancer Society SPF50+ sunscreen. Photo / Supplied"She had very bad sunburn with a patch on her shoulder going down a few layers of skin.''Thompson said the family would not be using that brand of sunscreen again.Kelly Ryan, said she had been "burned like a crisp'' after applying Banana Boat sunscreen."It was almost as if I did the opposite and attracted the sun to my skin."She did not specify what SPF protection level her sunscreen had, but acknowledged she had not been out in the sun long enough to do that much damage."I was holidaying in Fiji and was only outside for an hour, as I had to catch a flight, so there wasn't any need to reapply.''Another woman, Lisa Bolt, said she was left severely burnt, blistered and peeled through three layers of skin over the Christmas holidays."As a nurse, I was horrified! I now have freckles all over the areas that weren't there before Christmas and the skin is now a...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you get your life back on track when everything seems set against you?That's the question Tim Roxborogh put to listeners today, after the tragic story of the fatal police pursuit crash in Christchurch.The three victims were all teenagers, two of them just 13. They died after fleeing police in a stolen car, their lives coming to a fiery end after crashing into a tree.An article today suggested that the one of the boys, Brooklyn Taylor, had his life course pre-determined from the age of four.Roxborogh asked listeners if their life had gone down the wrong path at any point, and how they got out of it. Multiple callers shared their stories of how they turned their lives around.Amongst them was Steve told of how he stopped fighting and stealing thanks to a generous man who took many troublesome youth under his wings, while Paul was taken off a similar path after meeting the love of his life. It was motherhood that helped Robyn, even though her child was conceived through sexual assault. She says she gained a lot of strength from her experiences. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVEWhere to get help:If you are worried about your or someone else's mental health, the best place to get help is your GP or local mental health provider. However, if you or someone else is in danger or endangering others, call police immediately on 111.Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor.Or if you need to talk to someone else:Lifeline – 0800 543 354Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)Youthline – 0800 376 633 or free text 234Kidsline – 0800 54 37 54 (for under 18s)What's Up – 0800 942 8787 (for 5–18 year olds 1pm–10pm weekdays and 3pm–10pm weekends)Depression Helpline – 0800 111 757 or free text 4202Samaritans – 0800 726 666OUTLine NZ – 0800 688 5463Healthline – 0800 611 116See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is much confusion on what the role of a god parent should involve.The boundaries of spoiling your godchildren  compared to keeping a respectable distance can often be blurred.The official definition of a godparent is person who presents a child at baptism and promises to take responsibility for their religious education.Prince Charles has at least 30 godchildren, while Sir Elton John has 10, including Brooklyn and Romeo Beckham and Liz Hurley's son, Damian. Prince Louis, fifth in line to the throne, has six godparents.Talkback callers told Tim Roxborogh it was usually a case by case basis, with different families requiring different styles.One caller said she and her husband were asked 13 years ago to be godparents, and they accepted but were not quite sure what was expected of them."Being a godparent is quite a difficult, especially when it comes to religion. When you have multiple religions in the family, the role of a godparent can become very confusing."LISTEN TO THE AUDIO ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Concertgoers have faced backlash over drunken behaviour at a Toto concert.The American soft rockers are in New Zealand for a series 'A Summer's Day Live' concerts.The Africa hitmakers were in New Plymouth on Friday, but their songs were overshadowed by the alcohol-fuelled antics of those in the crowd. Stuff reports that around 20 men were seen groping and pushing women in the crowd, with one women claiming she had to fight the men off.The behaviour became so messy that guitarist Steve Lukather called out the behaviour from the stage. Tim Roxborogh asked listeners if this is a sign that middle aged people are the ones we should be concerned about at concerts, rather than teenagers and young adults.He says that it could spark concerns that see venues adopting a dry policy.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

And so the messy two year saga that has been the appointment of Wally Haumaha to the #2 cop job in the country slithered back into the headlines one more time.This time the Independent Police Conduct Authority has upheld complaints from people under his command that he used bullying behaviour in the workplace. This sparked another round of people demanding he stand down from his job as Deputy Commissior, most vocally from Chris Bishop and the National Party.After consideration by the Government’s legal beagles Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern decided to take no action but expressed her disappointment in Wally’s behaviour. It was an understandable decision as the Commissioners behaviour was on a threshold and any attempt to remove him would have become an employment matter, which would have resulted in the loss of many taxpayer’s dollars into lawyer’s pockets, and you have to wonder the worth of that.I’ve always been torn about Wally Haumaha.  He is one of the last remaining echoes from the days when men were men, cops were cops, and crims were crims, and the lines between them were blurred. When there was only a sliver of moral difference between the good guys and the bad guys.I remember talking to a gang member in the 80s in the Fosters Tavern by the Whanganui River and the guy telling me the gangs thought the cops were just another gang running their own rackets.The cops are our last defence line for civil order and in such a cauldron the men and women involved used whatever means necessary to uphold that order, and sometimes they got it wrong.  And while this moral and physical battle raged the general law abiding population had no idea.During the Louise Nicholas saga most didn’t know that police involved were turning up to court from a jail cell.  That case unveiled the culture of the police that seemed to come straight out of a gritty Chicago crime movie.From the latest allegations, you can almost visualise the scene where Wally bellowed at people while thumping his foot up on a chair being enacted by Robert De Niro highlighting that this was a tough man not to be trifled with.Since yesterday, I have had a steady stream of correspondence from people disappointed that Wally still has the job. They include all sorts of allegations about him, his wife and his involvement in politics.Here’s the thing.  Wally was forged in tough times.  He has worked his way up from the street beat to the back offices and now the top floor. He is now in charge of a highly complex multi-million dollar business under intense scrutiny.  He’s done will.  He’s worked hard and he’s been determined.  So now it’s time to leave the street behind and win the battles not with your body but with your mind.It’s a tough transition but it has to happen.  But yesterday Wally’s lawyer was asked if Haumaha was apologetic for the bullying described in the report. He said: "I am able to say he's been bewildered by the events as they have unfolded."Well, it’s time to de-bewilder yourself, Commissioner.  You’re in the big leagues now and there will be no second chances.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A friend of Nathan Kraatskow's family has fired back at the lawyer of the woman charged with his death.Rouxle Le Roux was sentenced to home detention last week for killing the 15-year-old hit and run earlier this year.Kraatskow was riding his bike when he was hit by Le Roux, who was driving over the limit.The sentencing has proved controversial, with over 140,000 people signing a petition calling for the Crown to appeal the sentence.However, they announced today that they won't be pursuing the case.Adrian, who says he is friends with Nathan's parent, called Andrew Dickens to share his reaction. "It's their view that it's time to heal now. No one's giving any further thought to the matter."However, he wanted to hit back at comments made by Le Roux's lawyer on Tuesday.Belinda Sellars told Larry Williams that Le Roux was not solely to blame, pointing out that Nathan had ridden through a red light before the accident. Adrian says that the Kraatskow's have never denied that Nathan went through a red light, but it doesn't change what happened."He made a mistake, but should he have paid with his life? I don't think so." He says that the family's position has originally been that they won't to see two lives ruined and did not want to see Le Roux suffer. However, Adrian says that that changed after they learnt of Le Roux's apparent lack of remorse.The 19-year-old came under fire for posting a photo of herself in an orange jumpsuit with the caption 'Hide your children'. "That's not fair on family. They were happy to accept it was an accident, until the facts started to come out. That's when the dynamic changed."Adrian says he does not know why the witness testimonies never came up in court. LISTEN TO ADRIAN TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced New Zealand will support the United Nations Global Compact for safe, orderly and regular migration after receiving legal advice from Crown Law. We voted for it at the UN overnight along with 149 other countries. Five chose not to vote and we had a handful of nations including the US and Australia who pulled out of the process well beforehand.Now I agree with the Crown Law summation and it is broadly similar to the editorial I wrote about the Compact three weeks ago. I have said repeatedly there is nothing to fear in the compact. We already comply and if the compact ever compels us to take any migrants against our will and our laws, or supplants our sovereignty, I’ll eat my hat. And I’ll eat yours too.Speaking about the compact this morning, Winston Peters said there had been unwarranted fear mongering over the thing and he blamed the alt-right. Well, he got that wrong. There were plenty of lefties freaking out too. My thought is that the opponents co-opted the compact as part of their personal political battles against immigration and the UN in general.But as I said yesterday, my beef with the Government is that they have failed to lead us through the debate. In fact, they just did just the opposite and ran away from it, saying they were thinking about it.So I’ve looked at other countries who like us have supported the compact. Let’s look at the UK. A country who pulled out of the EU with one of their major concerns being migration. But the UK has voted for the compact.In the UK a petition was raised against it which gained 100,000 signatures, out of a country of 67 million. Nigel Farage has railed against it and has been the go-to for Fox News. There he said what the UN wants to do is to make migration a human right. Countless people have rubbished that including the UK government itself who said, “It does not establish a ‘human right to migrate’ or create any new legal categories of migrant.” Rather it says migrants have human rights. It's called English, Nigel.Mr Farage also claimed it makes refugees and migrants the same thing. The Government reminded Mr Farage that Refugees are defined by the Refugee Convention of 1951. Which is, by the way, legally binding. The compact changes nothing.Meanwhile, the UK's International Development Minister Alistair Burt has been arguing for the compact for weeks now. He’s said the UK was a leading voice in the negotiations and their interests were paramount.Five weeks ago he said the compact has a clear differentiation between refugees and migrants; it recognises a state’s right to control their borders. It has proposals to help states build capacity in controlling their borders. And there is an explicit acknowledgement of states’ responsibility to accept the return of their nationals who no longer have the right to remain elsewhere.In other words what he’s saying is, the compact is going to affect the countries where the migrants are coming from, not where they’re going to. Which is the complete opposite of the argument you’re hearing from opponents like Nigel Farage.One side has been telling fibs in the debate and I’m pretty sure I know which one.But here in New Zealand, we’ve had none of that from our politicians.The Foreign Minister, Winston Peters revealed the Crown Law legal advice and our support for the compact simultaneously giving us no chance for public debate.He did so in the last hour of the last day of Parliament, denying debate in the House.The Government led us to believe that they hadn’t made up their mind until the last minute and then presented a fait accompli.I found that untenable. So much for being the most open and transparent government ever. They’re starting to look a bit tricky dicky and devious.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It has been suggested that not enough is being down to curb drunk driving in New Zealand. Newly released figures from NZTA show that 41 per cent of fatal crashes in the first half of 2018 were caused by people under the influence of either drugs or alcohol. Road safety charity Brake told Stuff that they want to see the blood alcohol limit lowered to 20mg per 100ml for drivers. However, speaking to his listeners, Andrew Dickens says that he thinks there should be zero tolerance for anyone drinking and then driving. He says that there is a zero alcohol limit for people under 20, and people consider that acceptable. His suggestion was met with mixed reaction by listeners, with many saying it was too harsh. Caller Blair was in favour though, saying that he has seen first hand from his experience working in the emergency services that we need to make drastic changes. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’m surprised that more people aren’t up in arms after a report yesterday found an investigation firm have been spying on New Zealanders and invading their privacy on the behest of State agencies.Security company Thompson and Clark has been barred from doing any more work for the government after the investigation by the State Services Commission found it used an unlicensed private investigator and produced electronic recordings of closed meetings without the consent or knowledge of attendees.To me the report is eye opening.Two brothers who claimed they were physically, sexually and psychologically abused in state care were seeking legal redress and damages from the Government. But rather than taking responsibility the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and Crown Law hired private investigators to dig up dirt on witnesses.An entire government department, MBIE, has been found to have abandoned impartiality and become politicised.The report reveals Thompson and Clark also invaded the privacy of political parties like the Greens and Mana and various iwi groups around the country. And it had a peer into Greenpeace. The report says it was concerned that Thompson and Clark investigated so called “issue motivated groups” under the excuse that they raised security concerns. But then they stepped over the mark into information mining.And most disturbingly they invaded closed meetings of Christchurch earthquake victims to mine information for Southern Response, the government's insurance agency. This had led to the immediate resignation of the agency’s chairman Ross Butler.Now while we can call it spying it’s at the lower end of the scale but not in the eyes of some. Kim Dotcom was all over Twitter last night saying that New Zealanders pride themselves on being the least corrupt nation on earth but that’s a delusion. Of course he reckons the rot goes deep. After all the GCSB was found to have illegally spied on him. And on the face of it state agencies hiring private investigators to spy on New Zealand citizens going about their lawful business just sounds awful.My concern is how it demonstrates the deep polarity that exists in our society these days. The contest of ideas has grown so vicious that if we not for something we’re against it. And we’ll do anything to defeat our so called enemies and in doing so we lose all perspective.We saw it in Jami Lee Ross’s leaks of banal information. The rise of political strategists like Simon Lusk and the co-operation of bloggers to spread dirt. The whisper campaign against Clarke Gayford that caused the police to issue an extraordinary statement refuting the rumours. The way this morning when Russell Norman raised his concerns at being spied on most texts just waved them away because they just don’t like what Greenpeace stands for.It seems to me that some New Zealanders fervour in their own beliefs have caused them to lose their soul. So step back, take a chill pill and stand up for yourself, but do it honestly and openly.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Rouxle Le Roux case has generated a lot of feelings throughout the country, but for some, the incident hits close to home.Le Roux was sentenced to 11 months home detention last week after killing 15-year-old Nathan Kraatskow in a hit and run earlier this year. The 19-year-old has earned backlash over an apparent lack of remorse and her limited sentence.Caller Chris phoned in to Andrew Dickens Afternoons today, and says that his family has been through a similar situation.His son was killed by boy racers in Australia last year while crossing the road Chris said that they went to jail for two and half years, which doesn't change what happened but it made a difference.He explains why he's so angry about this Le Roux case.LISTEN TO CHRIS TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Canadian rap artist Drake has secured the top spot of the New Zealand 2018 singles chart with his single God's Plan, which spent nine consecutive weeks at number one. His album Scorpion came in at number six on the charts.Drake is also Spotify's most-streamed artist of all-time.Newstalk ZB host Andrew Dickens gave his best Drake impersonation a shot on the show today in respect to the rappers achievement. Not a bad effort Andrew! LISTEN TO THE AUDIO ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So this morning I listened to the Prime Minister’s last Tuesday morning slot with our breakfast show, today hosted by Mike Yardley. And I was under-impressed, to be honest. Now I know we’re all a little bit over it this week and it’s been a massive year for her, but I felt the fairy dust had fallen off. Princess Jacinda was absent. There was no echo of Jacindamania.It wasn’t that anything she was saying was particularly wrong, it was more that, she was just saying nothing at all.It started with questions about the Le Roux petition being presented to parliament. A petition complaining about overly lenient sentencing. Her answer was a long-winded conversation about the processes of lawmaking and how there needs to be an absence of political influence on the judicial system. It made me feel like she was talking to us like we were children.At the time of the interview, 134,000 New Zealanders had expressed a very real concern about the sentencing and she didn’t talk to those people at all. She didn’t empathise with those concerns. She didn’t say she’d pass those concerns onto the judiciary, perhaps at her next meeting with the new Chief Justice Helen Winkelmann. It was the sound of a bureaucrat flapping her gums, offending no-one.It reminded me of the strange ambivalence and lack of leadership she displayed through the Karol Sroubeck case. When the only person in the country supporting the bizarre decision was Richie Hardcore it would have been a simple step to say Iain Lees-Galloway screwed up so we’ll give the immigration job to someone else. In politics, it’s important to be seen to be doing something and she seemed inert.This morning’s interview then careered into the Global Compact on Migration, due to be signed today. For some reason known only to the PM, she refuses to confirm or deny our signing. She pointed out how the compact is not legally binding and how she will not surrender sovereignty. She also pointed out that our current policy setting is already compliant with the compacts aims. Yet at the same time gave the impression that she doesn’t even know if we’re going to sign it or not.How we yearned for a passionate statement that there is no way on Earth that the UN will ever dictate our migrant policy or numbers. If they do sign it the Prime Minister has shown no ability to lead us to an understanding or acceptance of the gesture.The suspicion that she’s not in control extends to other areas of foreign policy. This year Winston Peters has railed against China and re-exerted our influence in the Pacific. In Georgetown, USA, this weekend he urged America to get more involved in the Pacific.But when asked this week if the Foreign Minister’s speech indicates the Government is moving towards America, Jacinda Ardern said no. Absolutely not. It made people like Matthew Hooten wonder if she really knows what’s going on.Now before you say this is a National Party hit job, I should add that I could say just the same about Simon Bridges, who has been saying some remarkable dog-whistle things that appeared designed to appeal to only a 60-year-old conservative.As we come to the end of this first year of this term, I feel we have a new generation of political leaders on all sides who are underdone. Who have not got the trick yet of how to be grown ups and responsible and yet show clear and insightful leadership.To be honest it feels like we have an entire House of Representatives that is still on training wheels.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Forest and Bird is calling for the Hauraki Gulf-to-Bay of Plenty cray-fishery to be closed for three years to allow the species to start recovering.It says the crayfish population in the region has undergone a significant decline.The Minister of Fisheries Stuart Nash halved the total allowable catch in April. However, Forest and Bird marine conservation advocate Katrina Goddard says that while the quota reduction did have a small impact on some operators, but had no impact on a large majority.Talkback callers to Andrew Dickens shared their feelings, and most seemed in favour of the move if it means allowing more crayfish for future generations.Andrew called on people to spread out the types of fish and options that they eat so the pressure is not on one species to meet the demand, a call many listeners were in favour of. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who would have thought that on the first day I’d be waking up thinking, “Where’s Leighton Smith when you need him”.I thought of him as I heard the news that there was a breakthrough in the COP 24 talks on climate change in Poland. Leighton would have railed at the so-called breakthrough and continued his rearguard action to remove man-made climate change from the world’s consciousness and it would have been very entertaining indeed.But I come at this in another way. The so-called breakthrough in Poland is actually proof that the whole process is essentially powerless and is more about posturing than anything else.The language around the meeting was all about providing a rulebook for the control of emissions with the hope that controlling emissions may reduce the temperature on Earth over the next few decades. Yet by my reading, there are no rules here. All there is is a ruler.Rules are not rules unless they have consequences. Rules are not rules unless if they’re broken there are penalties. And the weakness of this agreement is that there is no consequences or penalties for those countries that choose not to achieve their goals.What they’ve agreed on is a common method to measure the promises that various Nations many have made in the process. We will now know what Nations have promised and whether they’ve done anything about it.But as the Sydney Morning Herald reports, like the landmark 2015 agreement in Paris, it does not legally bind countries to hit their targets. So countries can say what they like and yet do what they like.Alex Braae at the Spinoff wrote about it succinctly this morning. He said, “So if a country (for example Brazil, where the new President has threatened to log and exploit the Amazon rainforest) were to completely miss the targets they set at the Paris talks, they'd be subject to a lot of stern finger-wagging, and maybe some impolite remarks over dinner. But that's about where the sanctions would end”.The scientists are understandable hacked off about that but I think it shows the reality of emissions control. There is little political will anywhere in the world to change a thing.The COP 24 does urge nations to lift their ambition on emissions control and James Shaw has brought that language back with him, telling the TV yesterday that New Zealand should be a high ambition country.But let’s have a reality check on that. This government has been in power for a year. New Zealand is still the fifth highest emitter per head of capita on the planet. Meanwhile, the government is still pondering whether to bring agriculture into the emissions trading scheme. So far it doesn’t seem like a high priority for this supposedly lefty greenie government.My take is that the 196 countries that signed up to Paris nearly four-years ago are all talk and no action, including us. So If you’re anti-man-made climate change you could take comfort in the fact that so far you may not be winning the battles but you are winning the war.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Following up someone's final ever show on air after 33 years is no easy task.Still, the show must go on, though Andrew Dickens wasn't going to begin without recognising the man who came before him.Dickens told his audience that it had been lovely listening to all the good wishes being sent to Leighton Smith during his final show."I have little to be said about Leighton Smith that has not been said so well by you.  I’m a child of 1ZB It has murmured in the background of my family’s kitchen my whole life and so I have listened through Leighton’s entire 33 year tenure.  "A tenure of unrivalled quality, consistency and intelligence.  And I heard a listener this morning talk about Leighton being gentle and I thought that so very profound.  He could be grumpy angry or argumentative.  But he was always gentle.  Farewell mate."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two people have complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that vaping products have been promoted on TV.ASA chief executive Hilary Souter says both parties questioned why vaping ads were being shown when there's a blanket ban on advertising cigarettes.The complaints have sparked a furore of feedback on talkback over what sort of ads are acceptable.Callers to Andrew Dickens shot down the idea of vaping ads as promoting a dangerous product.However, callers Aiya and Tyson also raised concerns over ads for fast food and alcohol and whether those are acceptable. John said that putting these ads on television will only lead to an epidemic. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Donald Trump's eldest son says his father is a "regifter" who "may or may not" have once given him the same gift he presented to his dad the year before.Donald Trump Jr. says in an interview with the entertainment program "Extra" that because he is his father's namesake, he "got regifted all the things that were monogrammed for him at times". And he says that one Christmas he called his dad out on the regifting, explaining that he was the one who'd had the item monogrammed.Trump Jr. also says he'll be spending the holidays with his family and girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle at his dad's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.He also jokes that "it would be a wonderful thing" if he could tweet his father's holiday dinner commentary.LISTEN TO RAYLENE TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I woke up this morning and turned on my computer to check the news and my news agglomerator had this headline: Is Britain about to get a new PM?My instant response was who cares who the Prime Minister of Britain is. Because whoever it is is a lame duck.It’s something that’s been bugging me for months as I hear correspondent after correspondent opining whether Theresa May will keep her job ignoring the underlying issue which is what will happen to Britain come March.The two and a half year Brexit schemozzle and it’s coverage by the media has shown just how dumbed down the world is when it comes to debating complex issues. It all started right from the initial referendum which boiled it all down to two words. Remain or Leave. Even these two words had opponents. One school of thought was that the words should have been Leave or Stay. After all how many people tell their dog to remain. Some argue that the wimpyness of the word Remain was just one of many factors that nobbled the pro-Europeans.What followed was a debate of slogans peppered by alternative facts and loaded with reckons rather than facts. And then by a narrow margin the vote came down to leave.What then failed to come to pass was the political entities representing the leavers standing up and following through with vote.What actually came to pass was a remainer inheriting the mantle of power. Theresa May then negotiated with the EU in a way that was representative of the nation. The remainers have to concede that Britain is leaving. But the leavers also have to recognise that half the country doesn’t want to go. A middle way forward had to be found. Both parties refused to do so and here we are.The sticking point is the Ireland issue. What amazes me is how few people mentioned the issue at the time. A bit of research will find only a few opinion writers who recognised it. One at the time said that a hard border in Ireland will result in the destruction of the Good Friday Agreement , the agreement that ended the troubles.  This week John Major railed against the stupidity of no backstop reminding everyone that the troubles in Ireland started after the murder of a customs official on the border.But ask most Brits if they understand the backstop and they wouldn’t have a clue. All they’ve heard is that Theresa Mays deal is too soft.But the repercussions of a hard border could see a rise in the move towards devolution. Scotland has an out clause and at this rate may choose to leave the Union to join Europe. It seems logical that the move towards wresting sovereignty from a European Union could cause a move towards claiming sovereignty within the Home Unions. The United Kingdom faces becoming 4 countries rather than oneThe thing about negotiations is the swallowing of rats. Nobody in the United Kingdom seem prepared to swallow any rats and they seem more concerned about their personal power than their nation. Good luck to them because at this rate they’re heading towards a very hard landing indeed.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is real life, it's not just fantasy.Queen's iconic rock ballad Bohemian Rhapsody has become the most streamed song written in the 20th century.Buoyed by the success of the recent Freddie Mercury biopic, the song has been streamed 1.6 billion times across YouTube and Spotify.It beats the previous record holder, Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit.Reacting to the news, guitarist Brian May said in a statement: “So the river of rock music has metamorphosed into streams! Very happy that our music is still flowing to the max!” The song has seen a resurgence since the biopic of the same name was released earlier this year, with the song becoming the 11th most streamed in the world at the end of November. The song is currently 20th on the New Zealand singles charts.  Meanwhile, it has been announced that Ed Sheeran's Shape of You has become the first song to be streamed two billion times on Spotify.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chris called the Andrew Dickens Show today with an extremely powerful and emotional message in the wake of the Maori Santa Claus in Nelson a few weeks ago."The joy and emotion which is attached to Santa Claus is magical. Kids are growing up too fast, and there is too much happening to them. Kids just bright up when they see Santa dressed up, you can see it in their eyes."LISTEN ABOVE AS CHRIS SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you've listened to Newstalk ZB for the past 25 years you'll be very well aware of the Auckland problem.The growing pains of our largest city have been endlessly discussed and debated, opposed and supported. Throughout the rest of the country people rolled their eyes and snickered at the JAFAs and the bed of thorns they had constructed for themselves.But all along people with an eye to the future were warning that the Auckland problem would spread soon enough and we hope you're watching and learning.So payback time. Let's talk about Hamilton.The city is growing fast. Of course it is. Smack bang in the middle of the North Island. Smack bang in the middle of an immensely beautiful and fertile countryside brimming with jobs. Easy access to ports in Tauranga and Auckland. A couple of hours from splashing around in Lake Taupo. I've always wondered why it hasn't got bigger sooner.The Mayor is worried about where to stick all the people wanting to live there. So Andrew King wants the city to sprawl and he says it needs to because it's too cramped.He's quoted figures out of Massey University that show that Hamilton is NZ's fourth largest city by population, the third smallest territorial authority by area and has the highest population density.By 2043, its projected population will be more than 244,000 - up from the current population of 168,000.Andrew King says "We've got about 1500 people per square kilometre in Hamilton. There is no other city than Hamilton that has a population base of more than 1000 per square kilometre." And he’s right. Tauranga has about 900 people per square kilometre. Wellington 658 and Auckland a positively roomy 223 per square kilometre. Strangely enough the sprawlier you are the lower the density numbers. But the sprawlier you are the bigger the problems."In places like Christchurch, you can get in your car and drive for 30 minutes in any direction and your are still inside Christchurch. We're very constrained," King said. So he wants the city to spread but that’s against the wishes of the neighbouring Waipa and Waikato District Councils.I’m sorry Mayor King, I haven’t noticed a crush in Hamilton at all. What I have noticed is exactly the problem that Auckland had in the past.  I notice no transport infrastructure. No expressway through the city. The drive through the Southern Suburbs to get out of town is one of the worst in the country. Public transport infrastructure is bad. Now if you spread even further the congestion in the inner city will be worse than anything Auckland has ever seen. What Mayor King is suggesting is what Auckland did wrong 50 years ago. The rampant development of the Eastern Suburbs, Pakuranga and Botany without major arterial road or motorway access. With no public transport. 50 years after the establishment of Pakuranga the remedial work is still going on with a busway finally being constructed.Take a look at Tauranga Mr King where the Papamoa sprawl has created a congestion monster. Only now have they woken up and started to redevelop the city centre. The Mayors of Waipa and Waikato are right. Sort out what’s inside your borders before you start trying to expand them.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A plea from nearly 18,000 Kiwis to ban the retail fireworks sales.A petition's been handed to Government calling for legislation that bans the sale of fireworks and instead institute licensing for individuals and organisations to have public displays.Green Party MP Gareth Hughes received the petition on the steps of Parliament.He says in just the past month they've seen idiots shooting fireworks out of cars and a house nearly burn down."This is the same story that happens every year. We see hundreds of fire call outs, hundreds of accidents, hundreds of ACC claims costing hundreds of thousands of dollars."The petition has been rubbished by talkback callers and texters, saying that it is just a few nanny-state complainers. Though one caller, Sarah, says that one of the problems is that fireworks are not restricted to that one night. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You don’t often hear Meghan Markle, Vladimir Putin and Jamal Khashoggi mentioned in the same sentence. However, the three are on the shortlist to become Time’s Person of the Year.Other contenders for the prestigious include Donald Trump and the man investigating him for collusion, Robert Mueller.Families separated at the US border and the teenagers behind the March For Our Lives gun protests have also made the cut.The American magazine will unveil the winner overnight our time.  Previous years have seen the prize go to Adolf Hitler, Barack Obama and Mahatma Ghandi.The other full list for TIME’s 2018 Person of the Year is:Meghan Markle, Duchess of SussexUS President Donald Trump (who was previously chosen as Person of the Year in 2016)Separated Families at the US borderRussian President Vladimir Putin (who was previously chosen as Person of the Year in 2007)Special Counsel Robert MuellerBlack Panther director Ryan CooglerBrett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey FordSlain Saudi journalist Jamal KhashoggiMarch For Our Lives anti-gun activistsSouth Korean President Moon Jai-inLISTEN TO RAYLENE TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday, my talkback session was dominated by the nation’s reaction to the death of Grace Millane. The 22-year-old student from Essex in New Zealand on a backpackers trip fresh from graduating from university.The grief and anger has been striking.  Perhaps driven on not just by the horror of the crime, but also the feeling she was a good person, from a good family and this trip which should have been the stuff of dreams became that of nightmares and to cap it off it came so close to Christmas.  A time of peace and family.So for 3 hours we talked about our reaction as individuals, as men, as women and as a nation.There was an interesting debate about responsibility.  Of course ,the sole responsibility was that of the perpetrator.A friend of mine posted this on social media:"THIS IS SO SO SO SO SAD BUT LET'S RE WORD THIS GUYS AND GIRLS .. IT WAS NOT HER FAULT, IT WAS NOT TINDERS FAULT, IT WAS NOT BECAUSE OF ANYTHING SHE DID. NOT HER FAULT. A MAN KILLED HER. VIOLENCE TOWARDS WOMEN MUST BE SPOKEN ABOUT DIFFERENTLY. A MAN KILLED HER FULL STOP.But in that conversation about violence towards women, who has the responsibility to talk differently? I dared to suggest that men need to talk to other men to take the casual violence towards women out of their vocabulary. But, surprisingly, men phoned to complain that this was man bashing. To which I always counter that there’s little sympathy at this time for men who complain about verbal man bashing when women are getting literally killed and bashed.The conversation veered onto whether we are a violent society relatively and there were a few who did not want the nation to take responsibility for Grace’s death and yet later in the day the Prime Minister did exactly that at a press conference while on the verge of tears.I would suggest that while our homicide figures have been falling, the undertow of violence runs deep in our veins. My text machine was running hot with suggestions about the sort of justice that should be meted out to the killer. I couldn’t read many of them out.  Honestly, they’d turn your hair blue.We have an abhorrence of violence but we are violent punishers nonetheless.  And yesterday we were searching the closet for our pitchforks and burning torches and ready to form vigilante gangs.Due to the stupidity of overseas news services the name of the accused became easily discoverable online and then it was spread like wildfire. When I got home last night my sons showed me their Facebook feeds which were full of the mentions of the name, photographs of the man and suggestions of unspeakable acts of retribution.Has there ever been such a wide scale flaunting of name suppression in New Zealand’s legal history and it led to a warning from police to the public to stop breaking the law.Justice Minister Andrew Little said if we want justice to be done we need to leave the police to do their job, which is continue to gather the evidence. We want the police to present the strongest possible case.So I say this.  We all understand the depth of feeling but we all need to comply with a higher standard. Breaking the suppression law and suggesting violence on the perpetrator makes us no better than he is.My biggest fear is that due to a misplaced sense of justice the people of New Zealand could jeopardise the process of justice and that would be a huge crime and offence against the Millane family there could  be. A family who have already suffered in New Zealand more than we can bear.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A taskforce is proposing the biggest shake-up in the education system for 30 years, removing most of the powers currently held by school boards of trustees.The taskforce led by former principal Bali Haque proposes about 20 new regional education boards, or "hubs", to "assume all the legal responsibilities and liabilities currently held by school boards of trustees".Newstalk ZB political reporter Yvette McCullough told Andrew Dickens the proposal will hopefully address the inequalities in our schools which need to be addressed."Right now there is a huge disparity between kids from advantaged areas compared to kids from disadvantage areas.If we don't work out those social issues, we will never fix the problem. There needs to be a change because the current system isn't working"LISTEN ABOVE AS YVETTE MCCULLOUGH SPEAKS WITH ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN TO RAYLENE TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVEHave you ever tried to feed a fed horse?Come home with a big pay cheque and thought, "Man, I really brought home the bagels today!"?Or just . . . taken the flower by the thorns?Those, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, are the types of idioms humans should be using instead of "anti-animal language" - phrases like "beat a dead horse" or "take the bull by the horns".The high-profile animal rights nonprofit tweeted a simple chart in an effort to help people "remove speciesism from your daily conversations".Don't say "kill two birds with one stone," the group advised. Instead, try "feed two birds with one scone".Don't "be the guinea pig." Be . . . the test tube."Words matter, and as our understanding of social justice evolves, our language evolves along with it," tweeted PETA, which has a history of provocative campaigns,The chart of alternative idioms was accepted by humans online about as well as you might imagine.Which is to say, not at all.Immediately, Twitter users declared that PETA had truly "jumped the shark" this time.Didn't the group have bigger fish to fry? many asked."Well, this just looks like they are trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear," Twitter user Allyson Paynter replied.A small subset of readers took issue with the fact that "scone," as pronounced in Yorkshire, does not technically rhyme with "stone." And anyway, wouldn't scones be unhealthy for birds to eat? Scone the crows.Several others simply tweeted back with pictures of various meats on barbecue grills, or a GIF of Chris Pratt slowly raising his middle finger.Replied one woman: "Kiss my," with a picture of a donkey."That's it. I'm killing an armadillo for no reason," comedian Chris D'Elia wrote.Still others couldn't resist the opportunity to tweak common animal-centric idioms of their own."Don't put all your kale in one strainer," offered Daily Caller editorial director Vince Coglianese."Curiosity thrilled the cat!" wrote Jesse Hawken. (PETA retweeted that one.)A few admitted they weren't mad about "bring home the bagels."Some of the strongest backlash, though, came from people more upset about a follow-up tweet PETA posted after the chart, in which it compared "phrases that trivialise cruelty to animals" to racist or homophobic phrases that were no longer acceptable."PETA is always conflating their work with the struggles of black people, queer people, and other people of colour," writer and podcast host Ira Madison tweeted. "I'm so glad I just had steak for lunch."But PETA doesn't feel the exercise was a wild juice chase."This is not going to be our primary focus by any means," PETA spokeswoman Ashley Byrne told the Washington Post. "But, you know, if having this conversation makes people start to think about why PETA might not love a phrase like 'bring home the bacon' - and that would be because the pigs are leading miserable lives before they become bacon - then great."When asked about those who were upset PETA had seemed to conflate anti-animal language with racist and homophobic language, Byrne said "encouraging people to be kind" was not "a competition"."Our compassion does not need to be limited," she said. "Teaching people to be kind to animals only helps in terms of encouraging them to be practice kindness in general. As we become more educated about animals, as people are learning more about how intelligent and sensitive that animals are . . . I think most people are accepting that the way we treat animals absolutely is a social justice issue."In the lion's den that is Twitter, the group doubled down with a message for the "haters"."With so much negativity in the world, why not lighten up and use language in a way that encourages being kind to animals?" PETA tweeted - before encouraging...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two International issues today.This is going to sound a bit hypocritical considering I’m a talkback host, but I’m always intrigued at the number of people who know what’s wrong with the world but they have no idea how to fix it.We’ve been seeing that play out with Britain, who seem to know what they don’t want but have no idea what they do want.The country is in the middle of the most remarkable five-day debate on the Brexit deal, negotiated by Theresa May and her team. The Withdrawal Agreement is a 585-page document that outlines how the U.K. will leave the EU in March.Obviously, within those 585-pages there is something that will not go down well with everyone. Whether it’s the state of the customs union and the ability to pose tariffs or the form of the Northern Ireland border or the amount of compensation paid to the EU.Today, Britain is torn between the hardline Brexiteers, who just want to run away, and the remainers who still hope that the last two-years will disappear and it all turns into a bad dream. Stuck in the middle is May who’s just trying to make something happen.Sniping away are people like Mr Coffin Face, Dominic Grieve and Mr Showboater, Boris Johnson. Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn and Labour will say anything that causes the Tory Government to fall.These people seem more concerned with their own prospects rather than that of their nation.And do these people have any idea what the country should do if, in a few days time, they shoot down two-years of work. Of course, they don’t. It’s almost unbelievable.The in France, the Yellow Vests are revolting against Macron. It started on fuel taxes designed to wean France off their diesel addiction. There are a lot of people loving the People Power that France seems to be exerting. There’s many supporting the protests because they see Emmanuel Macron as a virtue signalling socialist.Donald Trump retweeted this tweet from an enemy of Socialism who said, “there are riots in socialist France because of radical leftist fuel taxes. The media is barely mentioning this. America is booming, Europe is burning. They want to cover up the middle-class rebellion against cultural Marxism”. Actually no.Macron is an ex-investment banker. The people are revolting because he’s actually starting to pull apart the Socialism that has been ingrained in their economy for 40 years. He’s loosening labour laws. He’s cutting social welfare. He’s cutting subsidies and he’s pruning 120,000 jobs from the Civil Service.Yes, he’s a liberal globalist, but he’s no cultural Marxist. He’s actually reminding me of Roger Douglas to be fair. And the riots in France would be the same as the riots in New Zealand if a government decided to dismantle Working For Families. Which I remind you John Key called communism by stealth and then did nothing about.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s back. The issue from the deep. The issue that has been round and round in circles so much that it’s dizzy. And it’s back with a one-two punch.First the Inquiry into mental health suggested it, and then a Coroner came out swinging after a teen death through drink driving.And now people are asking, "is it time to raise the alcohol purchasing age to 20-years-old?"The argument for the raise is pretty solid. The Law Commission has repeatedly suggested it. Medical evidence on accident probability and the effect on the brain and body of tends to supports it. There’s evidence that after the drinking age was lowered to 18-years-old in 1999, the number of alcohol related driving accidents amongst the 15-19-year-old age group had a corresponding rise.Allegedly, most of us support it. A nationwide poll by Curia Market Research, commissioned by Family First NZ in 2013, asked respondents, “do you think Parliament should have raised the drinking age to 20-years-old or kept it at 18-years-old?”The majority of people agreed with, 62 per cent of respondents saying Parliament should have voted to raise the drinking age to 20-years-old. Only 32 per cent agreed with the politicians that it should remain at 18-years-old.Other countries have higher ages, like the USA and Samoa at 21-years-old and Iceland, Sri Lanka and Paraquay at 20-years-old. Their young people haven’t rebelled.And frankly we’re appalling drinkers. Bingers and many unable to control their emotions under the influence. Then there’s the suburban explosion of outlets selling truckloads of RTDs to the neighbourhood teens.So it’s a no brainer.But then again, at 18-years-old you can vote, fight for your country and marry. So don’t you deserve a beer? You’ve left school, you’ve got a job, you’ve got a flat, you’re operating big machinery, but you can’t handle a glass of wine? Perhaps our childish attitude to booze stems from being treated like children.How can we possibly learn to integrate alcohol into our lives if the State prohibits it? While the majority of countries have an age limit of 18-years-old, there are many European States with age limits lower than that, like 15, 16 and 17-years-old and even some states with no age limit at all. In fact, most European States have no minimum limit for the consumption of alcohol in public and private. And do those countries have alcohol problems greater than ours?Like many of you, I flip and flop on this issue all the time. After another tale of teenage alcohol disaster your gut screams raise the age. But then on Christmas Day, when you serve your 17-year-old a Prosecco with Christmas lunch, it feels like 18-years-old is just about right.Is it time for a debate? Could it be time for a referendum? Probably. But after much toing and froing with myself, I believe we’ve come too far to wind back the clock. And the answer was in the coroners own words.He said the teens death, and untold others like it, could have been prevented by "individuals applying common sense". In the absence of drivers applying common sense the coroner said it was "incumbent on the State" to further restrict access to alcohol. No, it’s incumbent on the State to enforce the learning of common sense.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Six hot chips in one sitting is barely a meal, but according to one researcher, it’s the healthiest result.Harvard University’s Professor Eric Rim has told people that a half dozen fries is the most you should eat in one sitting.He says that they are ‘starch bombs’ and are a key contributor to hearth disease.Part of the problem is that many chips get rid of the nutrient-rich skins.However, there is some good news: people who don’t indulge in hot chips will only live on average six months longer than those that do indulge.  LISTEN TO RAYLENE TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fortnite has been the biggest game of 2018, though not always for the right reasons. The RPG game has made headlines both for its immense success but also for being shockingly addictive.A new article from The Washington Post has highlighted how American teenagers are having to enter video game rehab to curb their addiction to the game, which has over 200 million people registered.The problem is not confined to America. Callers to Andrew Dickens Afternoons revealed their Fortnite experiences, both personally and with their children.One caller, Harley, says he used to be obsessed with the game before he realised how much time he was wasting playing it.Another, James, says he had to cut up his brother's X-Box cord in order to stop him playing, but that only lasted a few days before he simply purchased another one.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After an epic and storied 45-year career that launched an era of rock n roll legends, KISS announced that they will launch their final tour ever in 2019, appropriately named END OF THE ROAD.KISS will play their only New Zealand show in Auckland at Spark Arena on 3 December 2019.Lead guitarist for the legendary rock band KISS, Tommy Thayer told Andrew Dickens he has been with the band since 2002."I get to live every kids dream, I would play the air guitar in my parents living room each day and dream about having a job like this. I get to tour the world while performing music, its honestly the best job in the world"LISTEN ABOVE AS TOMMY THAYE SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A recently released app lets you find out how much time you are spending (or wasting) on Facebook!To find out for yourself, go to "Settings" on either app. On the Facebook Android app, tap the three lines at the top of the page next to notifications and then scroll down to "Settings and Privacy." Could this be the warning sign you need to cut back on screen time and aimlessly scrolling through the addictive platform.Listen above as Newstalk ZB Producer Antz Milicich joins Bruce Russell to discuss the app.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Christmas is just around the corner, we hear that phrase every year at this time, and it is.But is it Christmas or is it happy holidays? Does the word Christmas have to be denigrated, abolished, replaced by other words because Christmas contains the word, Christ? These days, in what governments have decreed is a secular society, it's no longer appropriate. Helen Clark spent most of her prime ministership drumming that message in.Religion has no place in the business of the state, except to most of us who grew up with Christmas as the most magical exciting time of the year and something to look forward to all year as we ploughed our way through the three terms of school.Many resent the interference of the state in our celebration of Christmas, and the interference of the social engineers who would have us celebrate happy holidays, send greetings cards, enjoy the festive season, have a piece of festive cake, and go to the local Santa parade, not Christmas parade.It's parade season, and in most towns now it's the Santa Parade and Father Christmas is Santa Claus.In Auckland, the Council funding organisation ATEED is withdrawing public funding for the parade, which has been running every November for 85 years. Its long-term Destination Auckland 2025 Strategy aims to grow tourism and the local economy in a sustainable way.It says the Farmers' Santa parade no longer fits and is not a big driver of domestic tourism into Auckland.General manager of Destination, Steve Armitage says the Chinese lantern festival and the Diwali festival have programmes of activity sustained for a week or so and are more promotable and likelier to attract more visitors.In the 2016/17 financial year, those two festivals attracted 1450 and 2810 bed nights respectively. The Parade is no longer a priority event.Which is very sad for a city whose vibrancy and community spirit are enhanced by the parade, which attracts hundreds of thousands of families, of parents and their kids, into the usually virtually deserted CBD and lights up the faces of onlookers with delight, as they watch a colourful array of favourite characters, marching groups, bands, clowns, floats of every description, and of course Santa in his sleigh, the most identifiable icon of them all.  The grinches who would deny us Christmas, say it would offend those who subscribe to religions other than Christian ones in our new multicultural society. That's their excuse for shutting down the word Christmas, but their true agenda is that they themselves have decided Christmas is no longer an appropriate word and would have us wish each other Happy Holidays rather than Merry Christmas. People from those other religions and cultures phone me on talkback and tell me they are not at all offended. They are offended by the accusation that they are offended. They themselves take their kids to the parade to witness this Western heritage spectacle, just as we transpire welcome to participate in the lantern festival and Diwali.Steve Armitage says the Pride Parade is another example of an event seeing solid growth in terms of attracting visitors from outside of Auckland. But that parade is now in chaos and its future in doubt.He says the Santa parade runs for just a few hours on one day of the year and the mayor and council are looking for alternative revenue streams, to reduce the dependency on ratepayers.The parade this year was facing a $100,000 operating loss. Last year's loss was $78,000.That's despite the support of several sponsors and more than a 1000 volunteers.It's not only Auckland that has parade problems, Christchurch City councillors are also reportedly confused as to why a Santa parade was not classed as a major event and supported by that city's events agency.Do councils, known for spending millions on feasibility studies and expensive decorative mirrors and screens in libraries and...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The National Road Carriers Association predicts the New Zealand trucking industry will need about 28,000 drivers over the next decade to meet growth in demand from the freight industry.Newstalk ZB has a large audience of truck drivers who listen on the roads, and many of them rang The Andrew Dickens Afternoon Show with their stories.From why they got into trucking, what the future holds, and what initiatives should be put in place, everything was discussed. And a caller named Kelly who is one of the few women drivers around explained what she loved so much about a male dominated industry.LISTEN TO THE CALLERS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Spark says it has been notified by the Director-General of the GCSB that it cannot use Huawei gear for its pending 5G mobile network upgrade.The GCSB's apparent move comes after reports earlier this week that the US was pressuring allies to drop Huawei.Newstalk ZB Politcal Editor Barry Soper told Andrew Dickens it cannot be underestimated how important the announcement was yesterday."The decision made by Hauwai regarding the 5G network is a massive one, it will impact the country's economy for sure. Our traditional allies Australia and United States will be very pleased we stayed close to them."LISTEN ABOVE AS BARRY SOPER SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former New Zealander of the year Dr Lance O'Sullivan has slammed the health system, saying he's enraged at seeing "another brown kid" die in New Zealand.In an expletive laden online post, he says the three recent meningitis deaths in Northland have set him off, but his frustration had been brewing for a long time.The Government is now considering calling in the army to help Northland District Health Board run dozens of meningococcal vaccine clinics.O'Sullivan says he's ashamed at being part of a broken health system and angry at some of the incompetent officials that worked in it.His comments have been backed up by talkback callers to Andrew Dickens Afternoons.Several callers have revealed their experiences with doctors not diagnosing patients properly or relying on Google to get their information.One caller revealed how her daughter has only been out of med school for one week but has already been put in charge of 40 patients on one ward. Another caller revealed that his 11-month old daughter died just ten weeks ago while in the care of the local DHB. He says that doctors were withholding treatment and making assumptions about his daughter. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It can never be said scientists are afraid to put their bodies on the line for science. Six reserchers from Australia and the UK have revealed that they all swallowed the head of a Lego figure to show that they can pass through the human body without ill effect.The 10mm by 10mm heads are one of the most common items swallowed by children. However, the researchers showed that the pieces pass through the bowels within 1.7 days. They even developed a new score to prove this - Found and Retrieved Time (FART).Another score, Stool Hardness and Transit - or SHAT - found that the consistency of their stools did not change with the plastic in their bodies. The research says that most smooth plastics pass easily, and parents should only worry if kids swallow things that are sharp, longer than 5cm, wider than 2.5cm, or are items such as magnets and small batteries.LISTEN TO RAYLENE TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So is it time to stop harping on that we’re going to hell in a handcart?The past few months have been dubbed the winter of discontent as business confidence dropped and the most strident critics of the government said they were wrecking everything.  But while that narrative flowed conflicting data kept coming out suggesting the New Zealand train was still chuffing along happily in its tracks.  Whether it was the growing tax revenue from greater activity or historically low unemployment rates, there was a succession of cold hard facts that stood at odds to the sentiments and feelings of the business community.Today we hear that nearly two-thirds of small businesses are expecting to grow over the next 12 months. The Xero survey says our small businesses are  keen to take on more staff, invest in technology, introduce environmentally conscious initiatives, and tap into overseas markets. Two-thirds or 64 per cent are looking to grow in the next 12 months. I call that a pretty confident outlook.Which is not to say that everything is roses from now on.  The prolonged period of negativity means that we’ve fallen a little behind where we could have been.  And the world is at an interesting economic stage what with tariff wars and Brexit negotiations, Russian sabre rattling and Saudi stirring.And there is a second piece of news that means you should go into the summer thinking that you’ve wasted a lot of time worrying this winter, and that’s the watering down of the government’s proposed employment law changes.The modified laws will no longer see union officials wandering into workplaces at will but most importantly it will not see a return to the days of nationwide pay scales for professions.  A piece of ideological idiocy that actually would have seen discord and battles and in the end could very well have kept pay lower.Make no mistake: this is Winston Peters doing. Always remember he started in the National Party and he is a conservative with a small c.  He’d already kept the 90 day trial for small businesses and now he’s kept the unions from expanding.Now, I consider this a triumph of MMP.  The argument for proportional representation was always that the excesses of both the left and right would be moderated by centrist coalition partners and here is a prime example.There has been anger at MMP because New Zealand First and other coalition parties are perceived as kingmakers and the tail that wags the dog. Daily I get callers arguing that MMP has to go.  But under FPP you end out with extreme swings of philosophy when the real New Zealand is always somewhere in between.So with Labour not going crazy because Winston’s keeping watch, New Zealanders cracking on with things I think we can all safely go to the beach this summer and not worry that we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well another day and another set of examples that display that discrimination and unconscious bias is a fundamental part of the human psyche and we’ll never be rid of it.A week or two ago we heard about the café that demanded to know a job applicants medication. Considering the applicants medication was for treating ADHD and anxiety the applicant felt as though this would prejudice her application, so she lied.We had quite a conversation about it on the radio. Firstly there was the point of the employer. Several people said that it was the employers right to know itf there was any impediment to the applicant doing the job.That was countered by many who said that the medication was to treat the condition which might impact on the job, and so the condition no longer existed, so it was not the right of the employer to know.Many said these are the sorts of conversations that need to be had as part of the negotiation around the job and not at the application level.We wondered at the time whether this practice was widespread. Now we know of another employer making the demand. It’s Kathmandu.This time the question is part of an online application form. One mandatory question is: "Are you currently taking any prescribed drugs or medications?" If people select "yes", they are asked to provide details. If the box is left blank, a submission cannot be lodged. So if you wish to protect your privacy and refuse to answer the question the algorithm is automatically discriminating against you and forbidding you to apply.This is institutionalised discrimination in my book. And the Mental Health Foundation’s. The question can be asked but in a far fairer way.  It's okay to ask job applicants if there is anything that will impact on their ability to do a particular job ... it's not okay to ask general questions about medical history or medication that aren't directly relevant.Meanwhile the female Santa furore is rife with discrimination. Not on Father Christmas issue where even employment lawyers say you can specify it is a man.  But Neville Baker’s statements that Santa’s Little Helpers should wear short skirts is more than a little offensive to someone like me who has been one of Santa’s elves during a Santa Parade.The thing about all these stories is not rampant radicalisation and PC gone mad rants by the offended. The real issue is the disappearance of common sense and tolerance and the overwhelming desire of many to be offended. Neville Baker fired the first shot in the Santa story and it backfired.  Yes, the Parade Trust shouldn’t have gone ballistic but Neville Baker shouldn’t have either. Meanwhile Kathmandu and others who think that they can ask anything they want because they’re offering a job need to ask themselves whether employees can ask the same question of them.The Parade Trust, Neville Baker the Santa guy and Kathmandu actually do need to take medication.  They all need to take a chill pill and calm down.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After 27 years, an independent bookstore in England has finally parted with one of its longest serving residents.A children's biography on William the Conqueror has sat on the shelves at Broadhurts Bookshop in Southport since May 1991. A staff member excitedly announced on Twitter this week that they have finally managed to sell it. Staff member Joanne Ball told The Guardian that they always had faith the book would sell.She says they normally return books that aren't sold within 12 months, but they sometimes keep books that are on rarer subjects or one that are personal favourites.LISTEN TO RAYLENE TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVEI have just sold a book that we have had in stock since May 1991. We always knew its day would come.— Broadhursts Bookshop (@BroadhurstBooks) November 17, 2018See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is there anyone out there who is not fascinated by the story of John Chau.The 26 year old missionary who glibly invaded an island in the Indian Ocean to convert a stone age tribe to Christianity, only to find they weren’t very welcoming.  In fact they shot him with arrows, tied a rope round his neck and then threw the body on the beach as a warning to others.It’s not like John Chau was not forewarned.  These guys on the Sentinel Islands have been repelling the 21st Century since the day they were first discovered.  There was the epic TV shots back in the day when an islander spent some time one sunny afternoon shooting arrows at a circling helicopter.John Chau’s family has asked that the islanders are not prosecuted for the so called crime, which shows that the arrogance of the missionary extends to his family. Chau was trying to enter a prohibited island.  He was not only breaking the Indian law but the law of the people of Sentinel Islands.  Which they then enforced.  With their arrows. They upheld their sovereignty.I admire the Sentinel Islanders who it must said have the most effective hardline immigration policy of anyone in the world.  Theirs is not an open border. They will not welcome refugees, they will not welcome anyone. And they’ll protect it.The Sentinel Islanders do not need to build a wall.  The Sentinel Islanders do not need to build a camp on Manus Island. The Sentinel Islanders are not complaining of tent towns downtown.  Immigrants are not stealing their jobs or their hutsIt’s lovely timing as the world looks to sign the GLOBAL COMPACT FOR SAFE, ORDERLY AND REGULAR MIGRATION early next month in Marrakech.  There’s a lot of fear mongering on the Compact abroad.  People saying the Compact opens the borders to migrants to have freedom to enter and be facilitated without barriers. I have emails from people saying that by signing the compact New Zealand will be forced to take 1 million refugees in the future.Certainly a handful of nations have decided not to sign the compact.  The US, Australia, Hungary, Austria, Israel, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic  and Poland.  In fact the US refused to be involved at any point of the drafting.So I’ve read and reread this compact and articles on it from all sources to find out if I should be worried and I’ve come to this.It’s one of the biggest exercises in virtue signalling I’ve ever seen.  The compact says little other than migration happens for many reasons and has since the beginning of time.  It says we need to measure it.  It says if people get on the move because of war, famine or deprivation then these people are still people and still have some human rights.  And throughout the compact it reasserts that sovereignty and national laws will always retain precedence. Signing it is says these people exist in the world, and they’re a problem and they have to be dealt with humanely. And that’s about it.Not signing it on the grounds that your sovereignty is compromised is a myth.  And the states that are not signing it are virtue signalling that they’re still tough.  Interestingly in the US and Australian cases they’ve been states who have been criticised for the treatment of migrants in detention camps.  But nowhere in the compact is there a ban on those camps. It says conditions must be humane.I’m unconcerned as long as we like the Sentinel Islanders remain vigilant and retain our sovereignty.Furthermore, if the worst happens and these fair islands of ours become uninhabitable after volcanic eruption, earthquakes or dramatic climate change we better hope and pray that there are still nations who would accept us as migrants and refugees.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wanting to splurge on Black Friday tomorrow? Think again.The American holiday tradition, held the day after Thanksgiving when everyone is off work, has travelled to all parts of the world, including New Zealand. It is now seen as the start of the holiday shopping season. However, research from the UK found that the sale isn't as good as it seems.Many big chain stores there offered similar or cheap sale prices at various other times throughout the year.Researchers warn to be careful before adding items to your cart.LISTEN TO RAYLENE TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Local media has made much of the fact only one All Black has made a United Kingdom media outlet's World XV – all except ZB’s own D’Arcy Waldegrave/Lock Brodie Retallick, the standout player for Steve Hansen's men at Twickenham, is the only All Black selected in the XV but even he failed to back-up in Dublin.Six Irishmen have made the Wales Online's form XV, including left wing Jacob Stockdale, who scored the only try of the 16-9 victory over the All Blacks in Dublin, the first time Ireland have beaten New Zealand on home soil.Retallick is one of only three Southern Hemisphere players in the XV; the others are Australia No8 David Pocock and Boks loosehead prop Steven Kitschoff.New Zealand media have labelled the decision a ‘snub’, but as D’Arcy told Andrew Dickens, these types of lists aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.Wales Online's November series World XV 15. Rob Kearney (Ireland)14. Teddy Thomas (France)13. Jonathan Davies (Wales)12. Owen Farrell (England)11. Jacob Stockdale (Ireland)10. Johnny Sexton (Ireland)9. Baptiste Serin (France)8. David Pocock (Australia)7. Justin Tipuric (Wales)6. Peter O'Mahony (Ireland)5. James Ryan (Ireland)4. Brodie Retallick (NZ)3. Tadhg Furlong (Ireland)2. Guilhem Guirado (France)1. Steven Kitschoff (SA)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It always intrigues me when people rail on about our current government by calling it a socialist one because at its most basic, all governments are socialist.In essence they tax us all, if there is a progressive tax system that means they take more money from the rich and then they redistribute it to the poor.So all our governments are socialist. We just have rightish and leftish versions of the same thing. Which is why over the past 30 odd years since Rogernomics we have had basically the same system. The deckchairs are just moved about on the Titanic.This government is more leftish than the last more rightish socialist government. Some say they tax more which if you consider the regional fuel tax rises is true. But it’s also worth noting that the basic tax system is unchanged from the previous governments.Certainly the very first thing they did was give more money to beneficiaries and Working for Families which is classic re-distribution of wealth. But other than the budget the benefit system is unchanged from the last rightish socialists.So it’s really in the so called virtue signalling that you can see a difference.So we’re seeing that in a debate over Kiwibank branch closures in Wellington. Kiwibank is considering closing the Petone and Johnsonville branches. A couple of the local Labour MPs including Greg O’Connor say it’s just not right. They claim the areas are booming.They also invoke the thoughts of the father of Kiwibank, Jim Anderton who wanted Kiwibank to remain a part of the community and not close branches like the Australian banks.But is this the right thing to do? Kiwibank is still a business, they have looked at the numbers, they don’t add up. They have a differing charter than the Australian banks but even taking that into account they’ve decided to close.So can we say this is a more socialist government because they’re telling a business what to do? We probably can. Though to muddy the waters there is the fact that the National MP Chris Bishop is also joining the calls to keep the branches open.And then we have reports that David Parker is considering telling the Super Fund to invest 40 billion dollars in early stage companies. It’s often called angel investment. While that could have some major benefits in growing young New Zealand companies it also carries much more risk that the Super Fund could lose in the investment which no-one ever wants.When government starts telling businesses what to do, even if they are state owned, it’s a slippery slope. Really socialist governments start telling everybody what to do and think. To my mind these two situations are not worth the grief for the government and they should step away before the scare even more horsesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The next time you are stuck in traffic, chances are you will be close to a Betty.It's the most popular name given to cars by owners, according to a GAS nationwide survey.Betsy was also up there, mirroring trends in the US and UK.Kermit was second, with Bob and various names involving the word ‘little’ also being crowd favourites.Some other noteworthy names to appear were ‘Mazdarati’, ‘Stella McCARtney’, and ‘Lancer Armstrong.’LISTEN TO CALLERS TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOUT THEIR CAR NAMES ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Auckland churches are getting a one-year breather before Auckland Council brings in higher rates on facilities not used for religious purposes.Three months ago the council contacted hundreds of churches telling them to ignore big rates increases, which came into effect this financial year without political input.Many churches were shocked to receive big rates rises, including the Birkenhead Baptist Church which received a bill of $1080 after previously only paying a waste management charge of about $150. Other churches received increases of up to $20,000.After council officers reviewed the new policy, councillors have adopted a revised policy to reduce the overall rates bill for churches.Councillors have also accepted a recommendation from officers not to introduce the new rates until the next financial year, starting in July 2019.Several church leaders told today's finance committee that rate exemptions should be applied to religious and connected activities, given the role of churches today was broader than simply religious worship.There was criticism at how the council had introduced the policy and the council has apologised and promised better engagement in future.Auckland Councillor Daniel Newman said the council was wrong in its initial approach and welcomed a change in policy direction to treat the majority of church property categories as non-rateable."The reality of Christian worship is seen in the way churches honour and serve other people. Contributing to the wellbeing of the community is about serving other people, including serving those who are not members of the church."Concessions agreed by Auckland Council will go a long way to preserving the mission of churches to enable services such as grief counselling, not-for-profit childcare, foodbanks and support to assist the settlement of refugees," Newman said.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We talk a lot these days about resilience.There’s a feeling abroad that new generations don’t have much of it. That after a privileged childhood full of comforts that prosperity and technological advancement has brought, young people these days find setbacks and disappointments extremely hard to cope with.Deborah Hill Cone this week extended that to shame in her column. That while good people spend their life trying to avoid shame, it is actually something that needs to be experienced and learnt from. To acknowledge you have done something wrong. That your standing amongst others has fallen. That there’s something for you to atone for.Well on a lighter note I acknowledge that I failed to show resilience last night. It was late and I turned on the cricket. New Zealand versus Pakistan. I had already lost hope but I watched Babar run out by Ish Sodhi. A small flame of hope flickered and I flirted with staying awake on a school night. But I didn’t. Going to bed just as one of the most remarkable test victories came New Zealand’s way. By just 4 runs!The Black Caps showed resilience. The Black Caps never gave up. They should be very proud. I was a pussy, who missed a magic moment and all I had to do is sit there on my couch and yawn from time to time.On a more serious note, it comes as a great disappointment to me that the Auckland Pride Parade has been so compromised. And in doing so the organisers have shown no comprehension of resilience or shame despite the fact that their community has shown it for so long.There was a raucous meeting this week including fisticuffs and scuffles and the classic quote, "we left when the old gay amputee attacked the young trans". The Board of the parade decided to ban police marching in their uniform. In doing so they failed to show resilience against a small young band of radicals called People Against Prisons Aotearoa.In a tragic irony, their leader Emilie Rakete was involved in a fight at the hui during a heated conversation on police brutality.In another tragic irony, the people who argue most for inclusivity are now involved in exclusivity.In yet another irony, the people who are often branded a minority demanding change have changed after the demands of a minoritySo after showing such lamentable lack of resilience the entire Parade is compromised. The Defence Force now will not march with Auckland. Sponsors are pulling out. Georgina Beyer rang my programme last Friday incensed. Mika has called People in Prisons fascists.But the insult to the Police is shameful. The Police have acknowledged a past of discriminatory actions to the community. But in allowing police to march in the uniforms, to admit that shame, to show things have changed was always something good. I remember the first time police marched like that in a parade. I remember they got the loudest cheer. People were gobsmacked and impressed. It showed real change.So Pride Parade. No resilience. Shame on you.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

WARNING: SENSITIVE CONTENT Social media and a lack of available help are being blamed for a rise in young Kiwi girls cutting themselves.A Stuff investigation has found a number of 'cutting groups' across social media, where girls between 11 and 14 take photos of their slit wrists and share them online. Statistics show that girls and young women are twice as likely to go down this route than boys, and there has been a 20 per cent increase in self-inflicted injuries nationwide. The disparity is particularly high amongst those under 30.One caller to Andrew Dickens Afternoons, Victoria, says that she engaged in this behaviour when she was young. She says her parents were unsure what to say or how to help her when she opened up to them, but she still appreciated their views.Two parents, Mary and Amanda, revealed that their daughters and their circle of friends have engaged in this behaviour. Amanda says she struggled to know what to say when her daughter spoke about her actions.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVEWhere to get help:If you are worried about your or someone else's mental health, the best place to get help is your GP or local mental health provider. However, if you or someone else is in danger or endangering others, call police immediately on 111.Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor.Or if you need to talk to someone else:Lifeline – 0800 543 354Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)Youthline – 0800 376 633 or free text 234Kidsline – 0800 54 37 54 (for under 18s)What's Up – 0800 942 8787 (for 5–18 year olds 1pm–10pm weekdays and 3pm–10pm weekends)Depression Helpline – 0800 111 757 or free text 4202Samaritans – 0800 726 666OUTLine NZ – 0800 688 5463Healthline – 0800 611 116See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government's plan to offer free driving lessons as part of the school curriculum may be extended to other family members.Luke called into The Andrew Dickens Afternoon Show and explained that getting a full license was never a priority for himself, a theme which is getting more and more common with the convenience of public transport and ride sharing alternatives"The community I was brought up in didn't really make it worthwhile, and also the waiting period combined with the expensive costs."LISTEN ABOVE AS LUKE SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

'Forget real estate. You can't afford it anyway'. A game where you move around the board might not seem very relevant, given the current real estate market.Hasbro has accepted that, and has refreshed Monopoly for the millennial generation. The hip new version of the popular board game will allow players to buy 'experiences' rather than real estate, with a much smaller pool of money than the classic game.  Destinations range from your parent's basement to yoga retreats, while chance cards include such gems as 'Your mum posted bail' and 'Your lifestyle vlog reaches one million views'. The player with the most experiences at the end wins the game. Predictably, the game has annoyed some millennials who think the game belittles the hard-done-by generation, while others are taking it on the chin. While the humor is a little on the nose, my only real complaint about Monopoly for Millennials is that the dollar denominations are too high. I can't remember the last time I had a hundred dollar bill in my wallet. pic.twitter.com/z1IXuBxMRt— Sean Thinks Thoughts (@Dulgust) November 14, 2018I'm not sure who @hasbro made Monopoly for Millennials for? As if we don't get shit on enough lol... A game about millennial life should absolutely include paying rent. A lot of it. The vast majority of us can't afford to spend money on "experiences." Anyway, disappointed.— Sarah (@SarahTeeRaymo) November 12, 2018The more I learn about #MonopolyForMillennials the better it gets. I must own this game. pic.twitter.com/TN6fTlEZBb— Tyler Mason (@TylerMason) November 8, 2018LISTEN TO RAYLENE TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two national medical organisations have today made a call to ban boxing.It comes following the death of Christchurch man Kain Parsons after a charity boxing match on November 3.Callers to The Andrew Dickens Afternoons Show expressed mixed opinions on whether or not boxing should face stricter regulations.Josh told Andrew Dickens people should be given the choice if they want to participate in the sport, and a blanket ban is not the answer."I have no intentionof boxing as it doesn't appeal to me, but people who want to do it should be allowed to.A medical professional believes Boxing is a crazy sport, and should definitely be banned."It must be one of the only sports where you get points for causing brain damage."LISTEN ABOVE TO THE CALLERS SPEAK WITH ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s times I start wondering why anybody tries to do anything to help people these days when it seems that people are no longer able to help themselves.So this morning I’m reading about the nations before school check programme.When every child in the country turns four they are offered a check up which can help identify health, behavioural, social or developmental issues, such as a hearing problem, which could affect learning. The aim is to help those children access health and learning support.About 55,000 children will be covered this year at a cost of more than $10 million.That sounds good.  But after a review called Welcome to School, there are concerns that the programme isn’t working and in fact making things worse.So how on earth can anyone stuff up a health check. One example given was the eye test. There had been a misunderstanding about what checks covered. Schools thought that the test was a comprehensive one but in fact it was just checking for lazy eye.  So then we have kids at school with vision problems but the schools and the parents thought everything was tickety-boo because the before school check had passed the kid.Now this is not the tests fault.  This is from the old once over lightly, Iain Lees Galloway school of incompetence. The schools haven’t even read and comprehended what was being done. Honestly the amount of stuff ups we have these days due to laziness, assumption and lack of research is astounding.But this is a minor quibble.  The review found that the before school check actually increases iniquity. The rich, intelligent and healthy catch the problems early while the poor, less qualified and unhealthy get worse.Part of the check is a questionnaire filled out by parents. 25 questions relating to emotions, peer relationships, hyperactivity, socialisation and development goals. Better off parents answer diligently and honestly while parents from the bottom end of the rung either hide the truths or because of their own background fail to recognise unsociable or destructive behaviour.Apparently a lot of the worse off parents don’t like the questionnaire because they view it as labelling.  And yes it is but the way to process that is to rename it identifying and then get on with making things better for your kids.Well off parents know that labels can be shaken off and changed.  Worse off parents think a label is forever.The upshot is the kids of the better off get prompt attention early while the less privileged kids get nothing.  Generation by generation getting worse.It’s always deeply depressing when you hear of programmes designed to help that are being spurned because of either parental bloody mindedness or disinterest.One final point though.  The Welcome to School study Welcome to School research showed the challenge facing low decile schools was bigger than suspected.Many children were starting at a language development age of 3-4 years. More than 30 per cent had a language proficiency in the bottom 2.5 per cent of the population.That’s not good.  We knew it was bad.  Now we know it’s worse than that.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Forget about heavy machinery or sharp tools - it turns out the most dangerous item at your local hardware store is hot onion. Bunnings Warehouse is facing backlash over new health and safety rules in Australia and New Zealand that will require any sausage sizzle cook to put the onion underneath the sausage.The intention is to save people from getting serious burns, but the rule has been ridiculed across social media.Caller Declan told Andrew Dickens Afternoons that he only eats sausage sizzles purely because of how dangerous they are!LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Prince Charles has turned 70 - a milestone for many, but when you're the heir to the throne, age is more than just a number.Charles' birthday has raised the question amongst commentators who wonder if he should succeed his mother, The Queen, when she dies or, less likely, abdicates. A new poll released this week ranked Charles as only the seventh most popular royal, behind his two sons and their wives. In the week of his birthday, it has again raised the suggestion that the crown should pass next to Prince William instead of Charles. Having being the heir since he was four years old, Charles holds the record for the longest reign as heir, at 66 years. Andrew Dickens took aim at those who think he should stand aside, arguing that there is no one more experienced for the job. LISTEN TO ANDREW'S TAKE ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new study has found that children are likely to follow their mother’s example when it comes to relationships.The largest ever study of its kinds found that people who enter long term relationships are likely to have had mothers who did the same, while children of women who had multiple partners followed their example.  The research by the University of Ohio, conducted over 24 years and involving 7,000 people, was unable to find any scientific reason for why children behave in this way.Previous research has found that the children of divorcees are likely to divorce themselves.LISTEN TO RAYLENE TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jacinda Ardern will dine with US Vice-President Mike Pence in Singapore this evening.The Prime Minister will be sitting next to the Pence at the leaders' gala dinner at the East Asia Summit in Singapore.It will be her first substantial engagement with the Trump administration. Ardern met Donald Trump at APEC in passing last year, but they did not have any formal meetings.ZB political editor Barry Soper told Andrew Dickens that Pence requested that Ardern be his dinner companion.Ardern says she doesn't plan on raising the CPTPP with Pence."I imagine that we will probably have a conversation about trade issues more generally. I will see where the conversation goes, but I will bring up steel and aluminium tariffs, it's in New Zealand's interests that I do."She says e a date at the White House isn't high on her agenda."That's not something that we're necessarily seeking. There is a strong relationship that will endure regardless of whether or not there are any explicit visits."Soper says that Ardern has a busy schedule."She'll be meeting with the Premier of China, and she'll also be meeting with [Australian Prime Minister] Scott Morrison from the first time ever."President Donald Trump isn't attending this year's summit.LISTEN TO BARRY SOPER TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Has there been any start up in New Zealand history that has received more free publicity than Lime E-Scooters?Sure, loads of the publicity is bad, but then again, is there anyone in this country that doesn’t know the company’s name and their business model. And that’s despite the fact that the scooters are only in two cities. It's incredible.Now hold on to your hat, Lime is looking to put the squeeze on in Dunedin and Queenstown and, as we heard yesterday, Wellington, with the council already torn as to whether they should let them in or not.Personally I’d say this to those cities.  In the immortal words of Shane Jones, tai-hoa on that. Let Auckland and Christchurch iron out the wrinkles.  And there are plenty of wrinkles that need to be ironed out.  Where can you ride, how fast should you ride, and can we put safety equipment on the scooters?  Should they be parked in designated areas? And most importantly, who’s going to pay for all this?I’ve been thinking that Lime must be loving New Zealand. It’s a Californian company that launched in 2017 and their scooters are found in 80 cities across the world.  But it’s only New Zealand where we have the ACC meaning any liability for injury from Lime scooters is absent.They’ve had all this publicity which hasn’t cost them a cent.And I presume that all the safety measures that may be suggested in the future will be worn by councils.Yesterday a friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook of a sign that’s popped up in an inner city street. It’s a big orange thing paid for by the Council that says, 'SCOOT SAFE.  E-SCOOTERS ARE COOL.  BE A COOL E-SCOOTERIST'. It’s on the pavement so it’s been stuck down and it’s rugged because people walk all over it everyday.Auckland Transport has had to put safety signs up due to e-scooters, likely costing a lot. (Photo / Facebook)How many footpaths are these signs sprouting up on? There could be thousands of them.I’m picking these are pretty expensive signs.  And ratepayers are paying for it.If we decide that there are areas that the scooters should be banned from I presume we’ll need to put all sorts of signage all over the shop as well.What is Lime contributing to it?  Sweet F-All.  As we learnt during talk back in their very first day in New Zealand, Lime paid the princely sum of $136 to the Christchurch City Council for the 3 month permit to operate. Not per scooter either.  $136 bucks for 400 scooters. There’ll be 700 on Christchurch streets within the month.So far in New Zealand Lime has been given permission to mine our city owned streets for cash for nothing. Not only have we handed them a blank cheque we’ve also started paying heavily for the safety measures and liability the company has caused.So my message is. Throw Lime out at the end of the trial. Then if we want them back lets make sure the council and ACC clips the ticket of every ride and Lime pays a more realistic price for the right to operate. At the moment, they’re taking us for millions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A public stink is piling up over a planned rubbish dump north of Auckland.Waste Management has approval to buy forest land in the Dome Valley for a 24-7 landfill.Locals nearby fear rubbish juice will leach into the nearby Hoteo River which feeds the Kaipara Harbour.A group set up in response, Save the Dome, is planning to fight it as the company still needs resource consent.Founder Dave Sawyer told Andrew Dickens they called a meeting for locals to talk about it."We had over 130 people. Every single person in that room said we'd fight it with everything we've got." LISTEN TO DAVE SAWYER TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I need to warn you that there are forces abroad that are prepared to fudge the facts to get their arguments across.  They are guilty of spreading fake news.  Whether by design or accident.  Their arguments are fired on by ideology. So if they see any so called fact that supports their beliefs they’ll pounce on it.  It’s important to remain vigilant.  And when you spot it it’s important that it should be corrected.So this morning we heard that a leaked AT report on cycleway usage says the demand may have been over-estimated.  Which would mean the business case was flawed.  Of course, many council and cycleway critics seized on this.  Aha, they said.  We told you so.We were told cycleways aren't the future, don’t get used, cost a fortune, and inconvenience the rest of us. The schemes were called potentially fraudulent, dishonest and a scam.At the heart of the issue was usage numbers. One cycleway was predicted to have 986 daily cyclists.  Two years later it has 333. Another 975, two years later 375.  The Quay St cycleway though was on track.  The estimated use 1060.  two years later in 2018, 1111.Now this would be shocking if it wasn’t for the fact that the projected usage was for the year 2026.  Not 2018. 2026.  Something that was missing from the original print article bust is now on the online article.The figures being compared after two years should be compared after 10.  And remember this is a 40 year business plan and the full city bike system is still far from finished. And one last point, this is a report that has been leaked to a journalist and its authors describe it as a work in progress.So knowing all that that you could have written a completely opposite headline: ‘Demand for parts of the unfinished Auckland urban cycleway are eight years ahead of schedule’.Another headline could have been: ‘Auckland cycleway numbers increased 15 per cent in the past year’.Which is absolutely true. It’s in the report.But that doesn’t fit the beliefs of the anti-cycleway ideologues.  Who then used it to make the bogus claim that councils want you out of your car against your will. You can stay in you stalled car as long as you like.  Cycleways and Busways are about giving you another option if you want.  It’s actually about choice.So what is true about the cycleways.  They’re expensive.  15 per cent cost overruns.  The council is guilty of gilt edged, Rolls Royce construction. I didn’t need a cycleway painted pink and lit up like a Christmas Tree.But don’t let the fake news purveyors fool you.  Auckland’s urban cycleway usage is actually on schedule.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Teachers still have their supporters, but others are turning against the striking profession.This week marks the second wide scale teachers' strike this year, with rolling strikes taking place across the country.Primary school teachers have rejected their latest pay offer, which was a $700 million package from the Government.The rejection has bristled several callers to Andrew Dickens Afternoons, who think that teachers have become more focused on the money than their claims of doing it for the kids.However, there is still vocal support for the educators, with one former teacher telling Andrew that the profession has changed a lot since she was a teacher, with too busy classrooms and a rise in problem children.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It has been over 50 years since television started broadcasting in colour in the United Kingdom.It turns out, some Brits haven't got the memo.There are over 7,000 people across the UK who have licenses for black and white television sets.The BBC reports that London has the most, with 1,768 licenses. The figures have been released by the TV Licensing, reminding people they still must pay the annual fee that all Brits must pay to access television services.Shockingly, there were still over 200,000 licenses for black and white televisions as recently as 2000. LISTEN TO JULIETTE SIVERTSEN TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The International Netball Federation has caused controversy by stating the primary focus at the international level will remain female only netball.International netball is strictly sanctioned for females and is one of the only single-gendered sports to be solely permitted by its governing body - the International Netball Federation.Callers to The Andrew Dickens Afternoon Show called out double standards, with gender equality now a major issue in today's climate. Many said feminists can't have it all their own way, and this is a prime example of reverse sexism which is often ignored by those who champion the cause.LISTEN TO THE AUDIO ABOVE AS CALLERS SPEAK TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There was a whole lot of toilet talk on Andrew Dickens AfternoonsIt comes after Kaikoura District Council's removed a camera in the West End toilets after receiving two complaints in three-months. The cameras were installed to stop vandalism, but several complaints about privacy have seen them destroyed. Now that they've been removed, they've now had they've had two instances of  graffiti in the public toilet in four-weeks. Andrew Dickens asked if listeners if New Zealand needs to have a better attitude to privacy and toilet maintenance. One caller says that the country should copy some European countries and charge people to use public toilets.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Newstalk ZB host Andrew Dickens has started the conversation over the potential of switching to nuclear energy as the country faces record high energy prices. Read More: Andrew Dickens: It's time for a nuclear power generation in NZMany commentators believe New Zealand is in the beginning of a power crisis, with renewable energy coming under fire as an expensive alternative compared to traditional coal fired plants.Talk-back caller Jason called The Andrew Dickens Show and explained the advantages and disadvantages of using the controversial power source.LISTEN ABOVE AS JASON SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Popular Auckland beach Mission Bay has been left littered with fireworks after Guy Fawkes celebrations in the city, and it has left many talk-back callers to The Andrew Dickens Afternoon Show infuriated.One caller expressed his anger at having to pick up the tab for other people who have no respect for the environment."We have to pay our rates for this, we are paying the council contractors to pick up the rubbish."Gary told Andrew Dickens that personal responsibility is to blame."Come on people, use your brains. If you drop something, you pick it up and take it back home."LISTEN TO THE AUDIO ABOVE AS TALKBACK CALLERS SPEAK TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One caller has a controversial suggestion to avoid getting caught by new speed cameras.It was revealed this morning that police are trialling new 'point to point' cameras that follow average speed and weed out consistent speeders.Andrew Dickens raised the topic with his listeners this afternoon, and one caller, Liam, offered his own unique take on it.It's fair to say that not all of his fellow listeners were impressed.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australia's military veterans will be able to board planes first and be acknowledged by in-flight announcements, in a new plan for recognition.Virgin Australia says it wants to honour veterans by giving them the perks.It follows the Prime Minister Scott Morrison's announcement of a military discount card for veterans.Defence Industry Minister Steven Ciobo says it's part of a wide-ranging approach to supporting veterans."We're investing a lot more money into, in particular, veterans counselling services to help them with the psychological adjustment. We're also investing through the White Card in making sure their health is more robust and we provide support where we can."However, callers to Andrew Dickens were more mixed about where or not the same treatment should be given here.Caller Ian asked if one occupation was more deserving of special treatment than others, pointing out that careers such as water treatment do more to protect our wellbeing than the military.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Questions are being raised about National's promotion offer to Jami-Lee Ross, while the party's leadership knew about harassment allegations against him.Another phone call recording was released this morning, which reveals a conversation between Ross, Simon Bridges and Paula Bennett before Ross went public with his accusations against the party. the whole saga became public.Political editor Barry Soper told Andrew Dickens the recordings reveal a lot."Both of them, Simon Bridges and Paula Bennett, are saying basically that if he behaved himself, if he followed their instructions, he could return to Parliament next year and he might even be promoted."Soper says the promotion offer reflects poorly on Bridges and Bennett, who serve as National's Leader and Deputy Leader."By offering him to toe the party line and he would be looked after next year in parliament, it doesn't say a lot for the seriousness with which they are treating the complaints which they were in receipt of."LISTEN TO BARRY SOPER TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So the slow-motion dance between teachers and the Government continued over the weekend with the announcement of 600 extra learning support co-ordinators by 2020.These staff will work alongside teachers and parents to provide individualised support and "free up teachers so all children get more quality classroom time". They will be helping the teachers deal with the kids who need a little more either because of disabilities or learning issues.The 600 staff will mean one or two more for each school and maybe even more for the larger schools.It was announced at the Labour conference and I suppose it has been scheduled as the conference’s lolly scramble for a while. It also adds to the Government’s offer to teachers.It all adds to the feeling that I have that Chris Hipkins is telling the truth. That he has put as much as he can on the table, but as time goes on he will try to make the job easier and better.Rather than fighting to get all the world in one fell swoop I would urge the teachers to take what has been offered and continue to work with this government over the middle term. They are sympathetic but not spendthrift. The strikes will only reduce the sympathy.Meanwhile, the first question you ask yourself is where are these 600 going to come from. Experts have said that existing teachers will probably go for the coordinator positions, further exacerbating the teacher shortage we’re fighting with.So once again we’ll be forced to the overseas well. This is a common theme. Over the weekend the challenges of finding quality staff prompted heavyweights in Auckland's hospitality scene to call for more flexible immigration policies.This puts the government in a pickle. During the last election they blamed immigration for much of our woes and they promised to fix those problems. This is what they said in their election manifesto.“Labour will invest in housing, infrastructure, public services, and in training New Zealanders to fill skills shortages. At the same time, we will take a breather on immigration. We will do this by making sure that work visas are not being abused to fill low-skill, low-paid jobs, while ensuring that businesses can get the skilled workers they need.”It’s a delicate balancing act because to fix the infrastructure they’ll also need to import skills. I think we can all see one year on that there has been no breather in immigrationThe minister in charge of this delicate immigration balancing act is one Iain Lees-Galloway. Interestingly he’s also in charge of our workplace relation rules. A man who so far has not shown a delicate touch.We’re trapped in an immigration swamp. We can’t deal with it and we can’t deal with it, without it. Labour and New Zealand First campaigned against immigration in the last election but so far they’ve remained strangely silent on the issue because Government is much harder than opposition .See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealand men are famous for keeping their cards close to their chest and not giving anything away. But a new initiative being launched is trying to change this.Movember NZ manager Robert Dunne joins The Andrew Dickens Show to discuss Mensus, which is being described as a census but for Men’s feelings.LISTEN TO THE FULL AUDIO ABOVE AS ROBERT DUNNE SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A report out from Property listings website Realestate.co.nz says Auckland's housing market is a buyers market.The average asking price in Auckland dipped 1.3 per cent from September, to $964,936.Jeremy told Andrew Dickens he is skeptical on the report, as he has seen the same thing happen over and over again." I think the real estate institute likes to create a bit of noise to get people interested and prick up their ears."LISTEN ABOVE AS TALKBACK CALLERS SPEAK TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Talkback callers to the Andrew Dickens Afternoons Show expressed anger and disappointment over the way drug-smuggler and gang associate Karel Sroubek has been treated, with many believing he deserves a stronger punishment. Ian Lees-Galloway has been under pressure since it emerged he granted residency to Sroubek, even though Sroubek was found guilty of using a fake passport and is currently serving a prison term for smuggling MDMA.Caller Henry told Andrew Dickens he thinks it is another example of the government making decision on a whim.“If the Immigration Minister had just been open with the information he had at the time, this wouldn’t of blown up in his face."Jeff believes that Lees-Galloway deserves to face some sort of punishment for the way he handled the case“ My view is this guy should be sent back to the Czech Republic, preferably handcuffed to Lees-Galloway .LISTEN TO THE AUDIO ABOVE OF CALLERS SPEAKING WITH ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

And so we come to the last day of the Royal Tour and thankfully Harry and Meghan are getting some good weather at last.This is great news, not just for the royals who are enjoying the scenic wonders of Rotorua, the Redwoods, Rainbow Springs and a walkabout around Government gardens, which is one of my favourite places. But it’s also good news for New Zealand Inc, because as the press pool spreads their pictures around the world and it’s always good when the pictures feature blue skies.And make no mistake, that’s what all this should be about.Yes, the royal tour is good for New Zealanders as members of the Commonwealth to see the royal family, and we seem strangely overwhelmed by what in all honesty is just two humans and not even frontline royals. But what is with the walkabout and everyone waving the Union Jack – why weren’t they waving the New Zealand flag?But fortunately the rest of the world is also quite interested.  Harry has always been popular as the lovable tearaway who came right.  But add in an American actress from a well-loved show with a bit of colour thrown in, then the couple have a star power that is fully disproportionate to the influence of their position.They are the perfect power couple of 21st royalty.  They are the Kardashians of blue bloods. They’re influencers of the highest order. Their royals in a social media world.Already our fashion designers are seeing the benefit.  Karen Walker’s trench coats sells out. Boh Runga’s jewellery sells out.  Meghan Markle wore a 1737 brooch to promote our helpline services.But, despite their undoubted power, there are some who still quibble about the bill, which we foot.  For this tour is reportedly around $1.2 million.To that I say: chill out.Firstly much of the expense is part of daily use of state resources. The wages of the security forces, the drivers, the helicopter pilots, the cost of the helicopter to Abel Tasman National park itself.  Those costs exist whether Harry and Meghan were here or not.And it’s important that these events are not seen as spending and as costs to the taxpayer, which carries negative attitude.This Royal tour has been an investment.  An investment in visibility and it’s come pretty cheap and its payoffs are real.  And it’s been loads of fun.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It feels like a while since I’ve mentioned the Coalition government. For obvious reasons. As National took the heat for their messy internal problems the Government wisely slunk out the back door and had a beer and kept a low profile. But being the Government, eventually you come back into focus.And every time they’ve come back into focus this week, I’ve realised that my biggest criticism of the Government is not what they have done, but it’s what they haven’t done.Nowhere is that more so that in housing.This week Labour celebrated the first owners of a Kiwibuild house receiving their keys. The young couple will soon graduate as a doctor and a marketer and are now the proud owners of a $650,000 four bedroom. Six Cabinet Ministers turned up in six government limos. This is a government who likes the optics and the six wanted to share the limelight. An austere government might have used a minibus but this is a petty quibble.But the optics have been turning sour all week. Why, in the middle of a housing crisis affecting families, were the first recipients of a four bedroom house a childless couple? Sure they may soon get busy filling those three extra bedrooms but still not a good look.Then there’s the Housing Minister admitting that Kiwibuild houses are not for low income families. Of course they’re not.  Some of us knew that from the start. They’re cheaper houses but that doesn’t mean they’re cheap. The whole point of a state building programme in a housing crisis, outside of state house construction, is to increase supply to satisfy demand, bringing house prices down through market pressure. That’s not a silly idea and it’s one that various government’s have embarked on. But Labour couldn’t help themselves. Their love of a slogan means they appear to have over promised and under delivered.It’s the same story with their support of the so called airport tram. The architects of the light rail tram system for Auckland never called it an airport tram because it’s not. It’s a public transport and housing solution for the centre of the isthmus. So if you live in the soon to be intensified Mount Roskill you can get to your job in the city or the airport quickly. You’d have to have rocks in your head if you’re a tourist taking it to the airport.  Again the government knew this but they love a slogan.Slogans are good when you’re in opposition but not when you’re in charge. They keep coming back to bite you  because you need a bit more detail when you’re the government.Labour like to claim it’s a transformative government but it’s hard to find any evidence of transformation other than their 5 billion dollar November boost to benefits.Everything else is trapped in Working groups or over-hyped minor adjustments. Even their reputation as a taxation government has been over egged.  The tax increases announced by Labour will amount to 250 million dollars extra revenue by the end of June 2019. A drop in the ocean really but in the eyes of the electorate it looks like a tsunami.This government is getting some bad press, but it’s not because they’ve actually done anything. It’s because they keep on talking about it way too much.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One royal fan is 'on a real high' after shaking Harry and Meghan's hands yesterday.Beryl told Andrew Dickens that she was fortunate to get up close and personal with the Duke and Duchess yesterday afternoon when they were at the Pukeahu War Memorial yesterday."It was worth every penny, whatever it cost me of my tax," she told Dickens.Beryl says that the royals were drawn towards her section as a little boy called Harry had a sign reading "Hi Harry, I'm Harry".She called them a really lovely couple, but that there was an "intense pressure" on them due to the crowds pushing forwards.LISTEN TO BERYL TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are a lot of urban legends circulating the internet about Disneyland – and it turns out one of the darkest is actually true.Back in 2007, it was first reported that attendees at the famous theme park had spotted other guests spreading ashes amongst the rides.It has long been considered a disturbing rumour, but now, an investigation by The Wall Street Journal has found that it is real – and happens at least once a month. It is such a common occurrence that it is referred to amongst Disney staff as a ‘HEPA cleanup’.The report suggests that it is easy to sneak ashes in, using pill bottles and zip-lock bags, but if you get caught scattering them, staff simply vacuum the ashes up and then kick you out.The Journal spoke with families who have attempted this alongside Disney employees. They found that people have scattered ashes around some of the park’s most famous attractions, including at Magic Kingdom and during the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.“The Haunted Mansion probably has so much human ashes in it that it’s not even funny,” one custodian told the Journal.LISTEN TO RAYLENE RAMSAY TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So to end the week some observations. I worry that the ongoing teacher’s strikes are going to go on forever. I am of the belief that the government has offered as much as it can and they are supportive of teachers. This is as good as it gets right now.  But I think the teachers have a massive chip on their shoulders after 15 years of change. I hope that after a bit more summer teachers will accept the offer by negotiating a second round in the short to middle term. Two parties standing around in deadlock helps no-one. I’ve been amused at the conclusion drawn from the 2000 overseas teachers that have applied to help with next years shortages. 2000 may have applied but are they any good?  315 have been assessed and just over 100 have started interview processes. But there’s no guarantee that any of these guys will be fit for purpose.   These guys could be losers that can’t get jobs in their own country, they could be slackers wanting a working holiday. It’s like we suddenly forgot how many new Kiwi teachers struggle to find jobs. With the pressures and demands and bureaucracy now placed on teachers, principals are reluctant to hire inexperienced newbies. And these imports despite their experience in their own countries will be inexperienced newbies. I have the feeling that the overseas teacher drive is a desperate measure being done for the optics. On the e-scooters, I was intrigued to hear the San Diego councilor this morning on Mike’s show. San Diego has the same problems we’ve experienced over the past week. Now this woman was a former High Cap venture capitalist and says the e-scooter business model is brilliant and they’re making loads of money. She wants them paying for infrastructure and community activities and all sorts. Now as best as I can determine Lime paid a massive $186 to the Christchurch City Council for the permit to make loads of money, injure our idiots and scare our elderly. Get the feeling you’re being ripped off? And finally congratulations to TJ Perenara for nabbing the starting halfback spot in this weekend’s Bledisloe. I’ve been waiting for this all year. TJs been on fire and with all our opponents choose the rush defense and physicality to beat us he’s the sort of halfback we need. This is no slur on Aaron Smith, it’s just that this is TJ’s time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Solo artist Miller Yule has been hard at work on new material.He is releasing “Miller Yule Live”, his first live video EP since his acclaimed debut EP “Shoot Me in the Heart” in 2016. “Miller Yule Live” comprises seven live music and video recordings featuring Miller Yule with his band, including a stunning rendition of Six60's 2018 hit "Don't Give it Up".Yule told Andrew Dickens that 2018 has been a year of consistently being in the studio and recording music."We worked on this project throughout the year and thought why not release this as a live EP. It all worked out well"Celebrating the new release, Miller will perform a free showcase at The Kingslander with his band on Wednesday 28 November 2018. A limited run of physical CDs will be available for purchase.LISTEN ABOVE AS MILLER YULE SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listen to the interview above as professional Gasfitter Gary explains to Andrew Dickens all of the tips and tricks on using your BBQ properly.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealander's love of outdoor cooking has grown in record numbers over the past few years.  American style BBQ devotees are starting to flock to the  Facebook page - NZ BBQ Pit Masters which is gaining about 300 every month.Talkback caller Mike told Andrew Dickens he has always been a fan of smoking meat."I have recently got back into smoking with wood and charcoal, it is more entertaining that way." LISTEN ABOVE AS MIKE SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The rise of e-scooters has got everyone talking.It's been two weeks since the rental scooters appeared on Auckland and Christchurch footpaths, and they have been the subject of much debate since then.Some experts believe that New Zealand is not ready to have them as our footpaths aren't wide enough, while ACC has already received 14 injury claims related to the devices.Auckland Council is now deciding to re-examine the rules, furthering the debate about how safe they are. Callers to Andrew Dickens were divided, with some fans of the scooters and how convenient they are, while others are unhappy with how fast they travel. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With the Prime Minister putting a stake in the ground and swearing there’ll be no more regional fuel taxes as long as she’s in charge, I’ve been wondering who exactly the winners and losers are out of this.Obviously, the Opposition will be strutting around claiming victory. It was their incessant hectoring on the issue in the House that finally prompted the PM to say enough. Anything to make them shut up with their constant whingeing.Mr Bridges will be breathing a sigh of relief because finally something went right and he can chalk up a victory.But is this a victory for the nation? A victory for common sense and logic? On that, I’m not so sure.Firstly the rumor that further regional fuel taxes were to come is hard to substantiate. A bit like Jami Lee Ross’ claims to be fair. There is no smoking gun. The legislation specifically prevents them before 2021. It is true that 14 councils indicated that they’d quite like them at this year’s Local Government conference and, yes, the government heard them out but that’s a long way from them becoming reality.So this was the Opposition stopping something that hadn’t even started.And secondly, is it a good thing that no Jacinda Ardern led Government will ever use them as a tool at all?I know that fuel taxes are ugly and blunt. They’re instantaneous and easily observable and they do hurt the poor more. But don’t for one moment think that without them we won’t end out paying the bill because we will.The Auckland Regional Fuel Tax is to raise $1.5 billion towards infrastructure. And using that money the authorities will be able to borrow another $3 billion more. All up that’s $4 billion dollars odd towards a $28 billion bill for infrastructure.Without the tax, you’d have two options. Either do $4 billion less work. Then you’ll slowly end out paying the fuel tax as you sit in congestion burning your slightly cheaper petrol.Or they do the work and pull the $4 billion out of you through rates.And that’s the thing. It doesn’t matter how they do it, you’re still going to have to pay for it one way or another.But I don’t blame Jacinda Ardern for doing what she did faced with such a chorus of people who want the world but don’t want to pay for it. After all, that’s what we’ve been doing for half a century and look where it’s got us.In time this win might come to be seen as a pyrrhic victory.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have three. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have one on the way. Ordinarily, the British settle for two (as do Kiwis). So how many children makes for the happiest families?Talkback caller Paddy told Andrew Dickens he had two kids but would love to have more. He said the increasing costs of having children was just going to be to much to make it viable.Another caller said she came from a family of eleven, but it is now increasingly uncommon to see families produce so many children, with childcare being a major expense.LISTEN ABOVE TO TALKBACK CALLERS SPEAK WITH ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kiwi musician and Legacy Winner at the Vodafone Music Awards Sharon O'Neill is returning to the country for a brand new tour.Sharon will be before two concerts at The Boathouse and the Hornby Working Men’s Club in Christchurch, and a concert at the Upper Hutt Cosmopolitan Club in Wellington, a first for her career.The 'Maxine' singer will be accompanied by a 7 piece band on the ‘Home Again II Tour’  including her partner and musical director Alan Mansfield on Keys, Clinton Brown on Bass, Dean Hetherington on Guitar, Simon Williams on Saxophone, Ric Hetherington on Drums, Aly Cook & Chrissie Small on Backing Vocals.She spoke with Andrew Dickens about the tour and her legendary career.LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A bus strike across the country has highlighted the use of split shifts.Bus drivers in Auckland and Hamilton went on strike at the last minute today over better pay and allowances.Another issue that has arisen is the prominent use of split shifts within the industry.Many drivers or relatives of drivers called Andrew Dickens to reveal their experiences working split days, which often leads to employees waiting around for hours and working longer than eight hours. Union members say that drivers are often away from home for around 14 hours, and often work the longest hours in the country without the benefits for it.However, some callers were scathing over the bus driver's plight, with some accusing them of being lazy and viewing their work as a burden. Others pushed back, saying that there is no option for them to take a break from their work while on split shifts, and they have limited family time as a result. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is Gisborne the best part of the country?That's what Margaret seems to think. Tech company The Straker Group moved their headquarters from Auckland to Gisborne in order to give employees a better chance of buying a home. The move has proved a success, and managers believe they will hit 20 staff by next year.Local Margaret told Tim Roxborogh that she thinks everyone should spend time in the sunny city.She told him about the joys of living there, including how it's perhaps the only place in the country where you can phone the shops up to warn you are coming.LISTEN TO MARGARET CHAT WITH TIM ROXBOROGH ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The question is, did anyone get up this morning thinking ‘hurrah, it’s Labour Day’? Or is this anniversary largely irrelevant to New Zealanders?Given how few people would actually work a 40 hour work week these days, Labour Day feels largely redundant as a holiday.Is this the weakest of the flock of public holidays, and re-name it to something else?Does it resonant with anyone? I’ll be honest, in terms of its resonance with me, I’d have to rate it a big fat zero.Hawke’s Bay got it right. They take the day off on Friday – it’s their local holiday – and they tie it in with Labour Day, so everyone gets a four day weekend.Why can’t we have a day like New Zealand Day or Sir Edmund Hillary Day, something where we can celebrate the qualities that we share in common.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wall-to-wall calls today showed that there is still only one thing on the public's mind. Talkback callers expressed their outrage over the behaviour by not only Simon Bridges and Jami-Lee Ross, but the National Party in general.Dallas told Tim Beveridge that although they are not in charge of the country, they still hold a responsibility to represent Kiwis properly.“They are the opposition and are still running the country. I am afraid the calibre of the National Party is just pathetic."Another caller made a comparison between Todd Barclay's behaviour earlier this year.“In private, what sort of a character are you to publicly air private conversations, it really is despicable behaviour.”LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s been over a decade since the anti-smacking legislation came into force, removing the reasonable force defence to parents prosecuted for assaulting their children. Now new research out of Canada suggests that young people are less likely to resort to violence in countries where there is a full smacking ban.Yes, I know as soon as many of you hear “new research” you may be inclined to stick your fingers in your ears and go, “blah blah blah”.But I would be interested to know how much our attitudes have changed over time and whether the passage of time or evidence, such as that presented by this research, has any impact on people's views on the smacking legislationI confess that when the smacking law was being debated I was against it. Perhaps because of my own conservative instincts and a fear of injustice.Possibly I also rebelled against the language used by the chief proponent of the Bill Sue Bradford, who insisted on framing it as a battle between supporters of the legislation, and those parents who wanted to continue to “hit and beat” their children if I recall it correctly. That was no way to win hearts and minds for sure.The fear of injustice was more an insecurity about how the law would be enforced and that loving reasonable parents might find themselves dragged before the courts.Fast forward 10 years and I have changed my mind.Speaking of injustice, the law as it once stood had seen some horrendous miscarriages of justice with some violent abusers somehow managing to escape justice due to the way the old legislation was being interpreted. So, the law had been failing our most vulnerable. It needed fixing. I wonder how many others have changed their minds. In saying that, I wouldn’t be surprised if we are almost as divided as we were back in 2007.Perhaps the difficulty many people have with social issues such as this is that we prefer to trust our own instincts and are deeply suspicious of those who would tell us how to run our own lives. So, when it comes to studies and research on this issue, we remain deeply suspicious of those observations and conclusions when they conflict with our own.Maybe this distrust of strangers or instinctive xenophobia, also explains this lack of willingness to trust what scientists and modern studies reveal.For me, thankfully the evidence of my own life backs up my willingness to listen to revelations of these studiesFor example, I would be mortified if I found myself caught in the trap of using violence to get my point across to my own children.Also, I am not sure I have heard from too many of today’s parents who would wish to change the law to recover their ability to smack their kids. Most of the people I hear from who remain opposed to the legislation, with due respect, represent previous generations of parents who wish to defend the way they disciplined their children under the previous law.Earlier this week while discussing the teaching shortage crisis, I had a caller who raised this issue and said that he had had no problem disciplining his children, as he knew just how hard to smack them to make them cry. Hmmm...Now his kids may have turned out absolutely fine, with happy childhoods and successful lives. But I guess when it comes to these issues, we also have to protect the most vulnerable and I am in no doubt that removing physical force and violence from the equation when disciplining our kids has been a great move.And now, brace yourselves, we are beginning to see evidence that supports this point of view.*Tim Beveridge is filling in for Andrew Dickens while he is on Larry Williams Drive this week.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I started to draft an editorial about the National Party situation last night, and I thought I had finished it, polished it up this morning. But now I understand how that Banksy painting felt being pushed through the shredder. It’s not just a week that’s a long time in politics - the last twelve hours have been. But as the saying goes, if you are going to go down, go down in flames. Jami-Lee Ross has thrown not just himself and Simon Bridges under the bus, but he has trashed his entire National Party family as well. In addition to describing Simon Bridges as ‘corrupt, dishonest and unfit to be leader of the National Party, he also called for businesses and donors not to make further donations to the National Party while Bridges is the leader. In addition to that, he stated ‘many people shared my views within the caucus’, or words to that effect. In doing so he has basically undermined the integrity of his entire caucus - claiming, in my view, that none of them would have the guts to stand up to Simon Bridges, or that they would be too cowardly to stand up to him. Effectively, he’s saying they would betray their own principles all for the sake of collective solidarity. Where to from here? Lots of accusations and a heck of a lot of detail that’s going to be trawled through and debated over the next days, weeks, months. Days, weeks, months. We’ve got a by-election coming up. The choice now for the caucus is stark, and simple, and straightforward. Because at this point the moment we have to go on evidence. All we’ve got is Jami-Lee Ross effectively throwing a grenade into the room and watching everything play out. They’ve got to get behind Simon Bridges and show a strong, unified caucus, because that’s all they can do. They can’t respond to any of this because otherwise it gives power to someone who seems, arguably, disgruntled and self-destructive. The words that came to mind when watching Jami-Lee Ross was megalomaniacal. This idea that only he can save the party, that everyone else will sacrifice their principles, but only he has the answers, and I’m not convinced by that at all. This will perhaps be the worst day of Simon Bridges leadership, but ultimately it could prove to be the best day.Perhaps this gives him the opportunity, if he can survive this – well, if he can survive this, he will be rock solid, he’s going to be unassailable, but that’s a huge but. But if he can survive this, it has provided him with a gold plated opportunity to transform his leadership. Up until now, he’s never seemed that comfortable with the mantle of leadership. So maybe it’s an opportunity for the real Simon Bridges to stand up. That’s the choice that awaits him, and it’s a pretty simple one.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN ABOVE AS BARRY SOPER SPEAKS TO TIM BEVERIDGEJami-Lee Ross' days in the National Party caucus look numbered.In a series of tweets, Ross claims Bridges pushed him out on medical leave after confronting him with a recording of Bridges discussing unlawful activity.Newstalk ZB political editor Barry Soper told Tim Beveridge  the future for both Bridges and Ross is looking messy."This is a direct challenge to Simon Bridges' leadership, he has got to go in and ask for the expulsion of Jamie Lee Ross from the National Party caucus tomorrow when they have their meeting."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I can’t help get the feeling the government is on the cusp of missing a golden opportunity to send a message to us all that it isn’t afraid of addressing the hard problems.The news that of a teaching crisis in the form of a teacher shortfall of around 850 teachers might have come as a shock to some but for those at the coalface of the education system it is hard to imagine too many were surprised.In watching interviews with Minister of Education Chris Hipkins one almost gets the impression that he is resentful of finding himself in the position of having to address the demands and needs of teachers after what has, arguably, been a lengthy period of neglect.But that is this Government’s lot and they have to deal with it.Yes, perhaps he has a point in placing the blame on the previous government or governments.  The crisis hasn’t happened overnight.  One thing for certain. The problem is here and it’s not going to go away.We could all spend too much time debating and discussing how or why we got here.But what is the problem?It is simply that teachers overtime have become over worked and underpaid. How many parents in discussing their kids futures would honestly encourage them into that profession?For years it seems teachers have seen their working conditions diminish to the extent that it is hard to see why anyone would be enticed into that profession unless they had the prospect of other financial means of support.Complaints by the minister about previous government inaction don’t sound like leadership to me. They sound like an excuse to avoid fully addressing the problem that they are being presented with. It doesn’t fill me with confidence that they are prepared to take a position which might demonstrate some real leadership at a time when it is required.But doesn’t this crisis present the government with an opportunity? A chance for the Minister  and the government to make a statement and say – you know what: we are going to invest in teachers. We are going to turn the tide around the pessimism and despondency which exists in many schools around the country. Yes, this may be a problem that we have inherited but who cares about that - we are here to solve it.I don’t know about you but I don’t particularly care about the blame game and how we got here. What I think would inspire people would be talk of a solution.I want to see a message sent out saying that teachers are valued.Through the course of talkback, you will often here form people who will challenge any point of view and say ‘what has this government done?”And it’s always difficult to point to any huge moment in a Government’s policies.I think this is basically an opportunity to stop pussy footing  around  - deal with it and tinkering with a thousand dollars here and there . Deal with it, pay them more, make a commitment and send a loud and clear signal that teachers are valued and get this problem back on track to having a long term solution.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I'm a reasonable man and I'm not prone to hyperbolic statements. I believe that most New Zealanders and virtually all New Zealanders in leadership positions are doing their best to do the best thing for New Zealand.I'm prepared to give any government a fighting chance. This one is wanting to spend money, as money becomes available, on stuff we've neglected for a while as we recovered from a big economic shock in 2008. On a macro level, this government has the same attitude as National's coalition, who also had the same attitude as the Labour-led government before it. Run a surplus, keep debt under control. The difference is how they spend the tax. With this government, the benefit spend is up, education spending is up and one day when all the working groups make their mind up they might do something else.So they're not the big bad wolf. They just have different priorities to the last lotBut at the moment I facepalm at some of the stances being taken by Government.Knowing that business is leery of a lefty led government you'd think they'd be aware of what they call these days the optics.So what have we got? The past week has seen the Prime Minister telling off oil companies and now supermarkets.I'm no more suspicious of the oil companies than I am of any other business that wants to turn a profit. The fact that petrol is cheaper before taxes than Coca-Cola and bottled water blows my mind, considering how much has happened to get the remains of dinosaurs out of the ground and into my car at the end of the world. Our horror at the price of petrol is more a sign of how much we take this miracle for granted.But taking aim at the oil companies when 50 per cent of the price of a litre goes into government and Auckland council hands' was always going to be a bit rich. And honestly, what can you do? Regulate the price? Nationalise the industry? Start any of those things and it won’t be business confidence falling, it would be outright rebellion. In reality, this is just a tut tut. And oil companies can do exactly the same back.So after that, we got questions about supermarkets and calls for inquiries. James Shaw went and compared our prices with Australia. What a mistake. We’re not comparable. Australia's productivity beats ours. They earn more. They're bigger. They have nine chains we have two. Our national population is the size of a big Australian city. And the fact of the matter is that starting a supermarket is a big and expensive affair. There's a supermarket for sale right now in the commercial real estate pages. They want $35 million. To get in the game is a big ask. Frankly, we have all the competition we can afford.So this week we've had political attacks on our petrol and supermarkets. Earlier this year Shane Jones attacked our airline and Fonterra. So who’s next for a scolding. And they wonder why business is concerned and prepared to tick the “I don’t have confidence in you” box when asked.A word of advice, look after your own house before you attack others, or you'll just make enemies from the people who make the work, who pay the wages to the people that pay the taxes that we need to make things even better than they already are.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN ABOVE AS MARK TIERNEY SPEAKS WITH ANDREW DICKENSMark Tierney is the founding member of Strawpeople, the multi-platinum ambient pop duo of the 1990s.Mark won the APRA Silver Scroll in 1996 for his song ‘Sweet Disorder’ and also individual awards for Engineer Of The Year, and Producer Of The Year.Tierney has spent the last 20 years away from the music business, but is back with new single ‘Drowning’. He explains to Andrew Dickens his love of music, and what made him get back into the recording studio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wellington's Rainbow Crossing is being officially opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.The crossing has been installed at the intersection of Dixon St and Cuba Mall.Mayor Justin Lester says Cuba Street is considered by many to be the spiritual home of Wellington’s Pride movement."We want to celebrate our support of the Pride community, our support and solidarity as well, and doing that with a real token, a tangible sign of our support."The cost has proved controversial though, with some estimates putting the cost at $30,000 - double the cost of a normal level crossing.The cost was slammed by callers on Andrew Dickens Afternoons, with many criticising the cost of installing a new pedestrian crossing in general.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who better to represent the US at the United Nations than the President's daughter?That's what Donald Trump seemed to think when asked by a reporter earlier.The President is seeking a new ambassador, after Nikki Haley resigned from her post this morning.Asked about the possibility of Ivanka Trump taking the role, Trump said she would be "incredible" in the role."There's nothing to do with nepotism, but I want to tell you, the people that know know that Ivanka would be dynamite."Ivanka has tweeted out to say that she will not replace Haley.Trump says he's narrowed down a short list of five people to replace U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley at the United Nations.Talking with reporters aboard Air Force One, he said that former White House adviser Dina Powell is among those on the short list.Asked about U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, Trump said he "absolutely" would consider him but would rather keep him where he is because he is "doing such a good job."He is expected to announce Haley's successor in a few weeks.- with content from APLISTEN TO BARRY SOPER TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An emotional video is being shared across the internet, showing one man's attempt to help out injured elephants in Thailand.57-year-old Paul Barton of England performs for a herd of 28 elephants at the Elephant World sanctuary in Kanchanaburi, Inside Edition reports. Barton says the elephants sway and sing to the musics and sometimes drape their trunks over the instrument."Almost all elephants react in a visible way," Barton told Caters News.He says that even monkeys nearby take part in the fun.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I could start these thoughts with the call for property managers to become licensed and accredited.26 organisations, including the Real Estate Institute and large real estate firms, say the issue is so important that they united and have presented an open letter to the Housing Minister.Now, Phil Twyford understands the problems but wants to finish laws to protect tenants first.  This seems a strange thing to say to me since it sort of says that the government’s only capable of one thing at a time.This sort of thing is worth fast tracking because in the business of renting a home both tenants and landlords have skin in the game. Both need the income and shelter but property managers are just providing a service.  Churn is in their interest which is why they are strong advocates for shorter tenancies.And let’s not minimise the job.  Providing shelter for yourself and your family is a basic necessity of human life and when a third party can become involved you should be able to implicitly trust that they will act fairly as a true intermediary between tenants and landlords.My question is not whether we should do this but why hasn’t this been done before and why isn’t it being done quickly.Now yesterday I did a bit of talk back about climate change after the strident IPCC report that said we now have just a decade to radically change our lifestyle or we’ll consign millions to heat related death. I also said that the climate change bandwagon is so far down the track there is no way you can negate the belief amongst a sizeable chunk of humans and countries.Today, I find my inbox full of pseudo scientific rants from listeners about all the reasons why the perceived human effect on climate change is a fiction.  All of which I’ve read before and much of which I don’t disagree with.My point has always been this: To say there is no human effect on the environment is as myopic and unprovable as the climate change advocates who say that human activity is causing any global warming.  It’s not either or, it’s exactly how much or how little.  My stance switched a while ago to stopping any ridiculously abstract ideas and policies that are waiting to defraud us and on that count I’m happy to say I don’t like or trust the Emission Trading Scheme.But here’s an observation: maybe the whole thing is dying a slow death.  I’ve seen little or no comment on the IPCC’s grave warning from any leader. Nothing from Presidents Xi or Putin.  The White House just shrugged and said their emissions have dropped since 2005.  Even here on the day the report came out the Labour leader was busier trying to lower the price of petrol than she was trying to stop global apocalypse.Maybe the climate change advocates have cried wolf so often and now so loudly that bit by bit people aren’t listening.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new report on climate change has got people thinking about what they are willing to do. The IPCC released a new report that says the planet has 10 years to try and curb rising temperatures or there won't be a lot we can do. The BBC asked people five questions about what they are willing to do to help:- Would you give up beef?- Would you stop driving short distances?- Would you move into a smaller house?- Would you use less heating?- Would you share your car?Callers shared their answers, with some willing to do whatever they can, and others completely unwilling.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So here I am back at work after a long weekend. At home things are great in the garden. My wisteria has burst into life, my sage has a beautiful display of purple flowers and my grapevine is sprouting leaves daily.Meanwhile yesterday I was off on bereavement leave as I farewelled a friend who was a very strong influence on me early in my broadcasting career. A man who fertilised a love or words and humour. The man who introduced me to the technical nuance of Monty Python and a man who had no enemies in the whole world.So the mixture of Spring and sadness has kept me away from the hurly burly of the news. But that said almost every moment I looked at the news there was always one word in the headlines and that word is petrol.It shows you just how pivotal this hydrocarbon derivative has become to the functioning of human civilisation. Petrol, water, food and shelter. The four pillars of life.For days our country has been buzzing about the price of petrol. It’s all been said and I have little to add. But I will say this.Firstly, the price of barrel of oil goes up and it goes down. But taxes know only one way and that’s up. By taking aim at the petrol companies margins I believe that Jacinda Ardern has made a mistake because what’s sauce for the gander is also sauce for the goose. It was an exercise in blame shifting that if successful will force future governments to take similar measures with their margins. In other words is Jacinda Ardern brave enough to do what she’s asking the petrol companies to do. Well no-one is.Nor is this a trait of a Labour government. Excise duties are scheduled years in advance by every government. Like I say petrol goes up and down but taxes only ever go up.But as we turn ourselves insides out about the price of petrol it hid the real stories of change that this government supports. Firstly they released a 54 page report of how to manage our water with the aim of making rivers swimmable. 98 per cent of our rivers exist in rural areas so guess who this impacts the most. The 3000 farmers in this country are mentioned far more than the 2 million city dwellers pouring heavy metals into our seas.Secondly the IPCC released their latest report into climate change which suggests if we don’t all change our ways completely in the next decade the children of our children will be living in a microwave.Last night the BBC asked people on the street whether they were prepared to accept 5 changes immediately. They were asked would they cut out beef? Move to a smaller home? Don’t drive small distances? Cut down on heating? Share your car?So ask yourself what would you do? And how worried should we be after decades of intensive dairying and cow population growth in this country how we feel about the first choice.You may or may not believe in the impact of climate change based on human activity.  But things will change whether you like it or not and despite the fact that we are relatively clean and green in this world it may be that our cows are going to pay a heavy price. That’s worth thinking about.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN TO GEORGE FENWICK TALK ABOUT THIS WITH TIM BEVERIDGE ABOVEWe hope you're ready to relive your bubblegum pop years because a new summer concert series is coming to New Zealand and it is So Pop.So Pop is being billed as the "ultimate throwback pop experience", bringing the biggest names of '90s and noughties pop to the stage in Auckland for one night only.Spark Arena will be transformed into "the school disco that you'll wish never ends" for the event.The lineup is headed by pop favourites Aqua, Vengaboys, Blue and B*Witched.They'll be joined by Blue hitmakers Eiffel 65 and Mambo Number 5 hitmaker Lou Bega, as well as The Outhere Brothers, 2 Unlimited and Mr President.And just when you thought it couldn't get any more 90s, the event will be hosted by the queen of Natural Glow herself Suzanne Paul.So Pop takes place at Auckland's Spark Arena on February 5.A Frontier Members pre-sale begins October 11 at 1pm, and general sales begin midday, October 16. See Frontier or Ticketmaster for details.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So the end of the week that was.As I said yesterday Brett Kavanaugh will be a Supreme Court Justice by Monday. A job for life. One of the 9 protectors of the Constitution, the lodestone of the American democracy. The vote will be 54-45.  No-one will back off the party lines. His decisions have never been overturned by the Supreme Court. He’s a conservative but he’s not the devil.But yesterday I said he failed the job application because he cracked under pressure. He cried, he whined, he raged, he got matters of law wrong. I called him a snowflake. I got a number of emails and texts getting stuck into me for that. One called me sanctimonious. All said how would I cope under the accusation of sexual harassment.That’s not the point. Kavanaugh's job is a unique one. At the centre of American law and society. He will face far greater firestorms than this allegation based on vague memories from decades ago. With his vast skill, he should have mounted a better defence of himself that he did. Clarence Thomas went through much more with greater dignity. Brett will need to harden up as he has many enemies.I want to congratulate the government on their Construction Skills Action Plan. Finally, someone got to the nub of the problems that we’ve had with construction and infrastructure for so long. The government also provides construction with a fifth of their work and so now they’re using their purchasing power to get construction back into line. Whoever pays the piper picks the tune.They’ve highlighted an industry that doesn’t plan for the future and whose cut throat competition has meant they’ve actually cut their own throat. An industry that makes up a fifth of our economy and hires a quarter of million people but should really be hiring hundred thousand more. I think the productivity constraints in construction is a far greater threat to our financial well being than any government tinkering with labour lawsThe government is often criticised for not having a clue about business and driving us backwards. Well yesterday is proof that they’re not without a few tricks of their own. You wonder why something like this didn’t happen years ago.And finally, I can’t wait for this South Africa test on the high veldt. It should be a cracker. Next year during the World Cup I think we’ll look back at the Wellington loss and realise how valuable it was for resetting the Abs mindset. And I’m so glad for jack Goodhue. I remember a while back plumping for Ryan Crotty. A Sports dude told me I was an idiot. Crotty wasn’t first grade.  He called him a journeyman. A player without the flash. That was exactly what I liked about him. And now that sports dude is running a B and B in Bali. Enuf said. But Goodhue is the same but I think even better.To have Sonny Bill and Jack Goodhue running at the hearts of the Boks is going to be a very exciting thing to seeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Talkback callers have reacted with rage and disbelief after a Whanganui man who attacked an 80-year-old after becoming enraged by a traffic incident was only given three months' community detention and 100 hours' community work.Richard expressed his outrage on Andrew Dickens Afternoons with harsh words about New Zealand's justice system."This man deserves hard labour in jail, but that doesn't happen in this country because we are living in a mamby pamby liberal jellyfish country."LISTEN TO THE REACTION FROM TALKBACK CALLERS ON ANDREW DICKENS AFTERNOONSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One moment of road rage can change your life forever.That's the experience of Toma-akino Lauaki. In 2005, he admitted to attacking truck driver Barry Fletcher with a hammer after the driver had nearly swiped him.Lauaki plead guilty in court, and was sentenced to five years. He says he was under severe emotional stress at the time due to his wife's illness.When the subject of road rage came up on Andrew Dickens, Lauaki called in to talk about his experiences.He says that his time in jail, which was reduced to three years, was not rehabilitating because he was already aware that what he had done was wrong and it was one moment of blind rage that consumed him.Lauaki told Andrew that road rage of any form is completely unacceptable.LISTEN TO TOMA-AKINO LAUAKI TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It never fails to amaze me how many New Zealanders are so invested in the American political process. After all, you know the interest is not reciprocated. It’s one of the more entertaining times you can spend explaining to an American how MMP works. But I digress.There are many New Zealanders who seem even more aware of the labyrinthine ins and outs of American politics than many Americans are. And I suppose the interest comes because the global influence of what happens in America is so great that watching the way they come to their positions is important to watch. America also believes itself to be the home of democracy ever since the revolution and their pride in the Constitution as a founding document for modern states is palpable and so American debates become debates about freedom and statehood.But at the end of the day, the plain fact is that it is so terribly entertaining, full of twists and turns and manoeuvers and plots amongst a cast of fascinating and often flawed characters. This system is so full of nuances and complexities that you can easily be convinced that black is white and up is down.And so we come to the confirmation of Donald Trumps latest nominee for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh. It’s incredible that the story is popping up in our TV news bulletins third or fourth in but again it’s because of the salacious nature of the claims and the pictures that are coming out.I wonder once again why we should give a stuff, but this morning I noticed an interesting thing. My son and I started talking about the situation. Now, why would a 22-year-old engineer give a toss? So I asked him.Apparently, a lot of his mates talk about it and in well-informed ways. The rise of internet entertainment is the reason.  The new generation is the YouTube generation. They get their view of the world not from newspapers or network tv but what comes into their feeds. High amongst them are US comedy feeds and obviously, this current administration is considered comedy gold. So to understand the context of the humour they’re seeing my lad and his kiwi mates go off and find out what’s happening. The truth is that Jack might actually know more about American politics than New Zealand politicsSo I asked my 22 year old son what he knows about the Supreme Court. He knew it’s called the Roberts court after the Chief Justice, that Clarence Thomas is the longest serving, that Ruth Bader Ginsberg is revered by liberals. He knew that Sotomayer was nominated by Obama and the first thing she said was that she was no Democrat. He knows all about Gorsuch’s nomination by Trump and the filibustering by the Democrats, the breaking of the filibustering and the vote on partisan lines 54-45.So, what does he know of Kavanaugh? He knows that he is a conservative, that he’s been through six FBI checks to get where he’s got.  He knew he respects the Brown decision the most, the decision that stopped segregation in schools and that he doesn’t think the Roe v Wade decision is immutable.So we talked about the current furore and this is what the Dickens family came to. Kavanaugh will get there just like Clarence Thomas did. The vote will be partisan and be 54-45 ish.And here’s the thing. It’s not whether Kavanaugh abused Christine Blasey Ford. This hearing is not about guilt. It’s about Kavanaugh’s suitability. And he came off as a whiny, privileged, angry, emotional, immature patriarch. As Jack said. Out of a quarter of a billion people is he really the best person they could find to be part of a court of 9 people whose job is to protect the most precious and important part of American democracy. We both think the States could do betterSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Should we be heading our controversial past, or keeping it on display?The question has been raised after Gisborne City Council voted to remove a controversial statue of Captain Cook. While some can see why local iwi are upset over the statue, some talkback callers to Andrew Dickens have seen it as an attempt to disguise our history. One caller said it seems very similar to the removal of Confederate statues in America. However, as one caller noted, the statue is notable for being a rather inaccurate representation of the sailor.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Gisborne's mayor is defending the removal of a controversial statue of Captain Cook.The statue, which has stood on Tītīrangi Hill since 1969, is being moved to Tairāwhiti Museum until a new home is found.The statue had been vandalised multiple times, and is controversial amongst local iwi.However, Meng Foon told Andrew Dickens that the statue isn't even an accurate portrayal of Captain Cook. "I think at that time they received this gift from Lion Breweries that was generous at the time, and though 'Oh yeah, that's something to put up'. He says there is another, more accurate portrayal of Cook on the other side of the river that will remain.The issue has drawn the ire of British tabloid The Daily Mail, but Foon says that there has been no blow back from the community. "They are saying it's about time we're celebrating the local history as well." Local designs are being considered to fill the void. LISTEN TO MENG FOON TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hospital parking has been driven back into the headlines. Waitemata DHB in Auckland has agreed it needs to make people more aware of how they could qualify for free parking at its hospitals.The guidelines apply in extreme circumstances, such as being the mother of a child in the Special Care Unit or if an elderly spouse is dying.However, complaints that led to the DHB's discussion today included general parking prices - and the fact older people find it tough to afford to visit patients.The DHB will be introducing a $50 discount for multiple entries across seven days. Callers to Andrew Dickens revealed their own experiences with hospital parking.One caller said that, after having a massive heart attack, he was unable to afford the parking as he was on the benefit.Instead, he had to find a free car park nearby and would walk to the hospital from there. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So the mood of the boardroom special issue by the Herald is out and it’s a fascinating read.150 business leader were canvassed and asked about the state of our economy and the state of our governanceIt’s over 30 pages long and far more indicative of where we really are than some of the gloom-laden 20 second sound bites that we hear so often like “we’re going to hell in a handcart and this government is full of muppets.”For instance, business leaders have decided that Grant Robertson has been the best performing Minister this year and that’s reassuring since he is the Minister of finance after all. He’s described as disciplined and easy to work with. He’s also praised for his ability to maintain fiscal balance despite some big pushes from his colleagues to loosen the purse strings.That said he’s still not rating as high as Bill English in the same position. But what one energy chief says about him is instructive. “Huge work rate, big intellectual engine, and personable. The government needs another  5 of him”. And that is a problem as only five ministers have ever had cabinet experience. They are inexperienced.Winston Peters continues to surprise which is surprising because he’s probably the most experienced politician left in the house after National’s big clean out over the past 2 years. As I’ve said before the trick with Winston is to give him a job because if he’s idle he’ll start making work.The government hasn’t been complete muppets. Their surprise fix of the TPP has been highlighted. Business leaders rate regional development as the second highest KPI after fiscal discipline and so the Regional Fund gets a qualified tick of approval. That said Shane Jones continued attacks on business is a confidence killer. He’s been told by business to cut the bombastJames Shaw gets praise for finding environmental concerns all sides can agree on as we can tell from Simon Bridges recent support of the Climate Commission.But what comes out of it all is the concern about the uncertainty that billows around the country. But what is that uncertainty? Well, the trade and tariff wars between big players is concerning because as the Herald says when elephants dance it’s the grass that gets trampled.Then we’ve got all the working groups and no-one knows what they’re going to come up with.But knowing that the Finance Minister wants to be disciplined what is really spooking the horses?To me, it seems to be the findings of the tax working group and the fear of capital gains taxes which would have two consequences. If it’s on property that would destroy a form of savings that we’ve been doing for decades immediately impoverishing a generation. If it’s on capital markets then why would people invest in New Zealand and it’s businesses.And then there’s the labour laws and Ian Lees Galloway, the workplace minister. He’s described as unlistening and doctrinaire. While changes to the 90-day law have been signalled and then mitigated by New Zealand First the real worry is collective bargaining.This government calls it multi employer negotiating and it flies in the face of reason. Ask the public service. Everyone knows that wages and economises vary by region. Pay someone in Westport the same as someone in Wellington and the Westport worker gets a better deal. The old national collective agreements are an idea from the 60s and 70s. Even Helen Clark’s government realised they’d done their time.If you want business confidence back sack the Workplace Minister. Drop the labour reform, leave business alone and get on with the areas that the country really want you to get into. Housing and social issues.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Work stress is back under the spotlight.A new study shows that people are more stressed before they go to work rather than when they are on their way to work.Callers to Andrew Dickens Afternoons were in agreement that getting ready can be stressful.Two female callers spoke of the stress that rests on women's shoulders, with pressures to conform to expectations coupled with home life makes going to work a stressful time. A third caller dismissed suggestions that people need to take time out at work - rather, work culture needs to be fixed to be less demanding. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So let’s talk about the rise and rise of the gotcha in political reportage."Gotcha journalism" is a term in the media that describes interviewing methods that are designed to entrap interviewees into saying something or doing something that could be seen as damaging to their cause, their character, their integrity, or their reputation.But the problem with gotcha journalism is if you haven’t got it right then it can gotcha you right back. Then the gotcha moment turns into a moment of fake news and propaganda.The latest gotcha was on Sunday when the Herald on Sunday reported that Jacinda Ardern and her team hired an advertising agency in New York to take pictures of her on her itinerary and used taxpayers money to do so.The heavy implication was that this was another waste of taxpayer funds by the party being painted as a tax and spend one. In the Herald on Sunday piece the second paragraph said this. “In the past, New Zealand Prime Ministers have had a staffer from their offices take photos, but Ardern had a crew of three from agency Augusto's New York office.”And that was repeated in media commentary. Just get a staffer to take some snaps with their iPhone.However, in the same story but much lower in the piece Paul Bennett is quoted as saying this. “When John Key was PM he would occasionally have a photographer on international trips, but only if they travelled on the Airforce 757 where there weren't additional flying costs.”And when John Key had that photographer he paid for it out of the same Leaders budget that Jacinda Ardern used. So John Key used to hire photographers and now Jacinda Ardern does. So where does that leave this story? Grasping for relevancy I’d say.Now the ad agency the Ardern team used is actually a New Zealand ad agency that has an office in New York, so she supported a New Zealand business and avoided paying any flying costs and got some great pictures that were used by a number of New Zealand media. Where is the problem?And here is something even more ironic. Back in 2013 Stuff reported Prime Minister John Key's office was advertising for a new taxpayer-funded photographer and videographer to shoot pictures and videos of National MPs. In the story John Key said it would paid for out of the leaders budget which is fine as long as it’s used for parliamentary purposes. This is exactly what Ardern said this morningThe story goes on to argue that American presidents have had official photographers for decades and Commonwealth countries were starting to catch up so why don’t we. And I think that’s a very good idea because these things need to be witnessed and documented for good and bad and for history.Ardern's New York trip did have history in it and it deserved to be fully recorded and I’m glad that it wasn’t left to some amateur staffer taking random pics with their iPhone.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Talkback callers have made it clear they are not on board with the latest fuel hikes. Petrol prices have increased by 3.5 cents a litre as a new excise tax was introduced.It is the first of a series of increases that will come over the next few years, as the Government looks for more funding for their transport program.Callers to Andrew Dickens Afternoon slammed the added charges, with some saying it will hurt the poorest New Zealanders the most. One caller, using the name Marcus, says he works at a petrol station and that people are not saving as much as they think they are, even when using discount cards and tricks to maximise their savings. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last night we had a leaving party where a bombshell was dropped. We knew we’d gathered to give a fitting farewell for a friend and colleague, but many of us had little idea about a name and concept this man had popularised several decades ago: Spaghetti Junction.Everyone knows Spaghetti Junction, whether you’re an Aucklander or not. And while it’s true that worldwide there are other motorway junctions with this nickname, it wasn't until it popped into the head of Newstalk ZB’s Peter Everatt that it caught on in New Zealand. This was the late 70s and Peter was the country’s first celebrity traffic reporter as he delivered updates on the state of Auckland’s motorways from a tiny airplane, every morning and afternoon.Spaghetti Junction; the name stuck and fast-forward to 2018, we are saying goodbye to Peter. When Newstalk ZB boss Jason Winstanley mentioned last night that Peter was the one that coined “Spaghetti Junction”, there were audible gasps. For radio geeks, it was like finding out he’d secretly written Hey Jude before humbly handing it on to Paul McCartney to take all the credit for. Then again, that would’ve been something Peter would do. Not that I know if Peter has any musical ability or not. I’ve never asked.I wanted to mention Peter today because humility is so much a part of why he’s as widely beloved as any figure in New Zealand broadcasting. If I’d come up with Spaghetti Junction I’d make sure every new intern through the door knew about it! I’ve known Peter almost 20 years and last night was the first time I heard. I wasn’t the only one.But there are other reasons it’s important to draw attention today to Peter Everatt. For 45 years he’s been at the upper echelon of Newstalk ZB’s on-air output as well as its behind the scenes decision-making. In an industry that can be cutthroat and brimming with as much ego as insecurity, Peter’s success and longevity is proof that nice guys can finish first.If you went around the room last night and asked everyone what Peter meant to them, the word “kindness” is what you would have heard time and time again. Blessed with a calm and empathy that draws people to him, Peter’s years in management have meant he’s fostered the careers of literally dozens of broadcasters. The number of people last night who said, “He gave me my start!” was remarkable.It’s not just career starts that Peter can take credit for, but careers being allowed to continue. In a crisis or time of doubt, Peter’s the one so many of us have turned to. The fact all that Yoda-like steadiness is balanced with a wicked sense of humour makes it all the better. Things were always better once you’d had a chat with Peter.Next time you’re stuck in traffic in Spaghetti Junction, think of Peter! And be pleased that this deeply funny, compassionate and wise soul is off enjoying the wonderful retirement years he and his wife so deserve."45 years and all and I am remembered for is that silly name." Peter Everatt - September 28, 2018."Tim Roxborogh hosts Newstalk ZB’s Weekend Collective and is filling-in for Andrew Dickens this week from 12pm-4pm.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A second teachers strike is a possibility after teachers yesterday voted to reject the latest Government pay offer.However, most callers to Newstalk ZB were largely in favour of the teachers getting better conditions due to the importance of their job. Host Tim Roxborogh pointed out that the low pay does little to attract more male teachers to the industry.The comment sparked a number of calls, with many men saying they would not be willing to take up the job due to the workload versus the salary.One said how that many teachers train here before taking their skills overseas to get better pay. The calls were unsettling for one caller, Henry, who has been considering a teaching job. He says that he has friends who have done less study than what is required to be a teacher, but will be starting on much better salaries. LISTEN TO THE CALLERS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s 2008 and former US Secretary of State Colin Powell – a Republican – had just endorsed Barack Obama for the presidency. I can remember Powell being interviewed where he was challenged on the notion that Obama’s positive rhetoric was all very well and good, but ultimately wouldn’t add up to much. Essentially, the criticism was about style over substance. Powell’s response has always stuck with me and it popped into my head again this with the images of Jacinda Ardern and baby Neve at the UN General Assembly.“Don’t underestimate the power of positive rhetoric”. It’s such an obvious truth, but it’s a reality of the human condition that we sometimes need repeated reminders of simple notions. The power of positive rhetoric. How depressing it would’ve been to have heard some of Obama’s stirring, articulate, graceful 2008 campaign speeches and been failed to be moved. To not comprehend the significance of the man who’d soon become the first African American President. To not appreciate the seeds that would be planted in young brains that positive change could happen and even more, that they could be part of it.This corresponds with people whose staunch opposition to anything related to the Labour party means they’ve missed the boat on the importance of the images of Ardern with Neve at the UNGA in New York. Just as Powell said to not underestimate the power of positive rhetoric, nor should we ever underestimate the power of a positive image. Or any image for that matter.To see Ardern shoulder to shoulder with something like 130 heads of state and to also have her baby daughter there isn’t just significant to Kiwis. Those images. There’s Ardern’s unfiltered grin at the surprise of seeing that Neve was indeed there in the General Assembly floor. She hadn’t expected she’d be there and that image tells the world – whether consciously or subconsciously – that parenthood and being a working professional don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Again with the seeds, but it also plants seeds that children aren’t a nuisance to be tolerated.But included with the images of Clarke the full-time Dad, so too are the seeds planted in young, intelligent, socially-minded girls all over the world that maybe a career in politics could be for them. And for the blokes, the honour in being a stay-at-home dad if those are the cards you’ve been dealt or have chosen to play.Most of us, when push comes to shove, will know the influence of images; the idea that a picture paints a thousand words. There’s Dame Whina Cooper leading the hikoi in the mid-70s, clutching the hand of her grandchild. The walking stick, the unsealed road, the distance ahead, the sense of a collective and multi-generational responsibility. All that and so much more.As a music fan, I also think of things like Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run album cover with the Boss pictured leaning on the huge shoulders of his best mate and E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons. Bruce is smiling and the mutual love between the two is there for anyone willing to see it. Over the years, Bruce has spoken at length about the significance of the cover: “a friendship and narrative steeped in the deep history of America”. Two men, one wiry and white, one big and black, and to think that didn’t intentionally convey messages of brotherhood and Bruce’s opinions about race relations is to not understand Bruce.If Labour are politically not your bag, go hard on rebutting policies you disagree with and search for alternatives you believe would make New Zealand a better place. But don’t waste energy forcing yourself to be blasé about those wonderful images out of New York.Tim Roxborogh hosts Newstalk ZB’s Weekend Collective and is filling-in for Andrew Dickens this week from 12pm-4pm.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many people dread visiting the dentist for a variety of reasons, including the expensive costs and the uncomfortable pain.But may want to think twice about delaying an appointment after listening to talk-back caller Ash, who told Tim Roxborogh that avoiding the dentist for over seven years cost him $8000 in dental fees when he eventually booked himself an appointment.LISTEN ABOVE AS ASH SPEAKS TO TIM ROXBOROGHSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many people dread visiting the dentist for a variety of reasons, including the high cost and the uncomfortable pain.But may want to think twice about delaying an appointment after listening to talk-back caller Ash, who told Tim Roxborogh that avoiding the dentist for over seven years cost him $8000 in dental fees when he eventually booked himself an appointment.LISTEN ABOVE AS ASH SPEAKS TO TIM ROXBOROGHSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I can still remember the first time I heard the rumours about Bill Cosby. It’s tattooed in my mind because I was a grown man wearing a Fat Albert T-shirt. It was a friend’s 30th birthday drinks and I walked from my downtown apartment in the mid-summer Auckland heat to a central-city bar. When I arrived I was a fraction high in the perspiration levels and apologised to the friend whose birthday it was who hugged me. The hug + perspiration + apology drew attention to the T-shirt and that’s when I first heard: Cosby was a serial rapist.It couldn’t be true. Or rather, I didn’t want it to be true. I left that party – a party that took place just pre the age of everyone having smartphones – and went home, swapped out my T-shirt and fired up my laptop. The rumours were all over the internet, but little had been published by official news sources. Cosby was still “America’s Dad” and one of the single most influential figures in the history of American entertainment, popular culture and – without hyperbole – its civil rights.It wasn’t long before things started to become a lot more public and a lot more official. The accusations were repeated by literally dozens of women who didn’t know each other. Collectively, these victims painted a devastating and disturbing picture: Cosby was a charming, powerful man who used his position to lure vulnerable, often ambitious young women. Drugs, specifically quaaludes would be used as if they were drinks to be handed out to guests. Only time and time again, Cosby’s victims would either not know what they were taking or not even know they’d taken it.All told over 60 women have come forward and while it’s potentially the tip of the iceberg, today’s sentencing and the words of the judge – describing Cosby as a “sexually violent predator” – should leave no-one in any doubt of his guilt. As to why that sentence is so short – just three years to a possible maximum of 10 – it just goes to show how extremely hard it is to put away extremely rich and powerful men.Still, with Cosby in his early 80s, there’s every likelihood he will die behind bars. Thoughts right now have to be with his victims; countless women whose lives were fundamentally altered, even destroyed, because of what one of the most beloved men on the planet did to them.Which brings us to a dilemma: is the art of the serial rapist Bill Cosby still worthy and appropriate for public consumption? Most of the focus of his career retrospectives and fall from grace are on The Cosby Show. From 1984 to 1992, this family sitcom portrayed a black family in a way that had hardly been done before on primetime TV: as wealthy, happy and stable. It can’t be overstated how revolutionary this was.But don’t let the enormity of The Cosby Show distract from the two main Cosby shows before THE Cosby Show. It can be argued that Fat Albert and I Spy were every bit as important. Fat Albert was a children’s cartoon that ran for a dozen years from 1972. Black children, strong morals and humour. White children were learning not to be afraid of black children and black children were being told that they were capable of anything.As for I Spy, his 60s TV drama made history by portraying a black lead in an equal footing to a white person. Just the fact it was banned in many southern states shows how powerful it was.Powerful. That word again. Bill Cosby was powerful and in so many ways, the world is a better place for his use of that power. But for so many women – more than we’ll probably ever know – their world was so much darker because of the evil he wielded.I’ve never watched an episode of I Spy, Fat Albert or The Cosby Show since that 30th birthday. And I’ll definitely never wear that T-shirt ever again. Tim Roxborogh hosts Newstalk ZB’s Weekend Collective and is filling-in for Andrew Dickens this week from 12pm-4pm.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I always found it incredible how many otherwise decent folks who’d never in a million years think of themselves as criminals would think nothing about online piracy. It’s a little bit like those old cardboard cut-outs of police officers in department stores saying, “Shoplifting is a crime!” Really? Were people really in the dark about this? How useful that the cardboard police officer was there to let us know that if you want some new clothes, you’ll need to pay for them.Obviously, there was a percentage of the population who were in the dark that going to Kmart and not handing over some money for your goods was on shaky legal ground, but I always assumed that percentage was through the floor. Maybe it wasn’t.I say this because today the website Newsroom published a story about the percentage of Kiwis who regularly pirate content. Turns out almost a third of Kiwis are illegally enjoying content they haven’t paid for on a “regular” basis – roughly every six months – with 10-percent doing it weekly.With Sky TV in New Zealand behind the research, they believe this piracy is costing them millions upon millions in lost revenue annually.There are potential solutions, or at least, measures that can be taken that lessen the problem. As the Newsroom article states, “site blocking” technology has worked well overseas with a “22-percent decrease in in piracy for all users affected by the blocks” in the UK. This has also corresponded with the rise in popularity of legal streaming sites like Netflix.Something else is at play though. Whether it’s watching overseas sport or TV drama like Game Of Thrones, or pre the days of Spotify, downloading music you haven’t paid for, the human race seems to be in danger of losing the concept of exchanging money for entertainment.I used to have a mate who we’d joke had watched all the trendiest TV shows online before they’d even been made. Season 2 of Homeland? He’d seen it before season 1 had even been given the green-light!Slight exaggeration to one side, this is a guy who had most likely never committed any other crimes in his life. A family man. Lovely wife. Sweet kids. Online thief. How did this happen? The Newsroom piece quotes Sky TV’s Sophie Maloney as saying that people just don’t realise the sheer numbers of people involved in getting any sort of TV to air: 80 people for an All Blacks test and something crazy like over 3500 for an episode of Game Of Thrones.As a music fanatic I hated how people went from spending $30 for a CD in the 90s to downloading their favourite albums for free. Where was the middle ground! Clearly, our 90s prices were over-inflated and for a time it seemed like iTunes had proved people didn’t mind paying if the price was fair.   But even with Spotify – a 100-percent legal service – the low royalty rates suggest the concept of valuing art is dying. We enjoy art, we need entertainment for our happiness and sanity, but do we really value it anymore? Perhaps we need a few more cardboard cut-out police officers with their handy signs to remind us.Tim Roxborogh hosts Newstalk ZB’s Weekend Collective and is filling-in for Andrew Dickens this week from 12pm-4pm.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is it time New Zealand put tourists first?There are growing calls for a new national tourism strategy to help the industry meet with growing demand from tourists and to reverse years of neglect.When discussing the topic this afternoon, Tim Roxborogh received a suggestion from caller Tony.He pointed out that our tourism offerings do little to cater to an international audience, unlike many European countries, where the people speak multiple languages and provide many of their offerings in different languages.LISTEN TO CALLER TONY TALK WITH TIM ROXBOROGH ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Will we ever see an event akin to the deadly Spanish influenza? That's one of the questions tackled by Dr Robert Webster in his new book, The Flu Hunter. The Kiwi-born virologist has dedicated his life to explore the disease, and has documented his study in his latest work.He joined Andrew Dickens to talk about the disease, his career and the intricacies of diseases. LISTEN TO ROBERT WEBSTER TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Anyone who has listened to this programme this year will know they I have been calling for an inquiry into our banking and insurance industryThere have been a number of shows where we have looked at what consumers have been presented with, what they been denied, what they felt like they have been pressured into. We have seen the banks maintain particularly healthy profits. We have heard how they have linked their instruments meaning that for most customers to get one service you need to get another offered through the same organisation. We have heard accusations of double dipping.We have also heard allegations of bank and insurance offers being under pressure to upsell, even if it’s not in the customer's interest.And on top of it all was the shock I heard from callers when I told them that the bulk of the industry is self-regulating. The Insurance Ombudsman is funded by the industry and so the insinuation is always that the poacher is also the gamekeeperThe backdrop to these stories has been the Royal Commission of inquiry into the bank and insurance companies in Australia. Many of the companies investigated there own the companies here and again the insinuation is what would the banks here perform any differently to their parent companies across the ditch.So now Consumer NZ has joined the call for greater monitoring of banks and insurance companies, claiming Kiwis are being sold products they do not need by companies that are facing a Royal Commission in Australia.Yesterday Consumer NZ chief executive Sue Chetwin told the finance and expenditure select committee looking into the need for an inquiry that while the New Zealand financial institutions continue to maintain the Aussie problems are not here that’s exactly what the Australian banks said before the inquiry which uncovered bribery and fraud.Now I have never said that the banks are dodgy, but I have said where is the harm in having a look.I have plenty of correspondence from people in the industry suggesting that the amount of self-regulation in the finance industry is a worry. Not just for consumers but also for the reputational risk to the industry.When Chris Hipkins failed to turn up in the house yesterday with emails from the Prime Minister to Derek Handley that is actually a worse look than turning up with emails. We can now imagine that there are emails and we can also imagine them to be very bad.If there’s smoke around everyone wants to find out if there’s a fire. At the moment there appears to be a lot of smoke around the country on a lot of fronts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN TO GRAHAM TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVEEurope-based Fonterra staff would have travelled at least 9000km to attend a sales and marketing meeting at a Southern California beach resort town, a venue the dairy company says was chosen because of its proximity to LAX airport.The company is refusing to give details of the meeting at tourist and surf mecca Huntington Beach, which NBR has reported was attended by up to 200 staff from the co-op's New Zealand milk product division at the time Fonterra was announcing a historic annual loss of $196 million last week.Fonterra responded to questions about the meeting with this statement:"NZMP is an international business, with the majority of staff and customers based offshore, including a significant number in Europe, the US and South America. Every two years, select members of this team come together for a sales and marketing meeting to review performance and develop strategic plans for the following 12 months."The location of the global meeting varies but is always organised near a major airport hub. The venue for this year's meeting was selected due to its proximity to LAX. Books for the event were made several months ago to ensure cost efficiencies."Huntington Beach is at least an hour's drive from LAX.It's not unusual for large international businesses like Fonterra to hold conferences overseas, but the farmer-owned cooperative is in the public spotlight for its financial performance, number of managers, and staff salaries. Its annual report last week showed nearly 6000 staff were on $100,000 and up.Cabinet minister Shane Jones told the Herald last week that Fonterra's new chief executive Miles Hurrell needed to "get out the hedge clippers and start pruning people" and urged the company to drop its "flashy" front.Fonterra did not respond to the Herald's questions about meeting numbers, where the meeting was held two years ago, how many staff were US-based, and how many came from Europe and South America.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So happy Suffrage Day. 125 years since New Zealand women were the first women in the world to get the vote.  For those a bit dodgy on their maths that was back in 1893. It seems amazing to us now that women were denied the mandate for more than 50 years after the signing of the treaty and the creation of modern New Zealand.So the week and the day have been a celebration of women. Today’s paper is wall to wall women and what I’ve liked about it is that they have concentrated on the trailblazers. The women who were first and it then makes you see how many achievements you weren’t aware of.And I was really chuffed to see our own Ricki Swannell named as one of the 125 trailblazing women of note. Rikki, our workmate, our friend but of course a trailblazer as the first female lead commentator in Rugby. What’s really notable is that, at the time, for all us at ZB it wasn’t notable. It was just Rikki doing what Rikki does best. Bit by bit we’re getting to the point that things shouldn’t seem so incredible because of your gender.The first men mentioned in an article in the paper turned up on page 20. The 12 deported from Australia yesterday. Then again there were 2 women also deported. The next article was Donna Awatere Huata’s new job as an advisor to Maori on climate change. Which is not notable because she is a woman but because she’s one of the few MPs to have been convicted of fraud and sent to prison and now been given another chance. There’s some equality right there.So as well as the media content there have been many functions for women. To network and discuss. This has meant a very busy week at my house as Helen rushes hither and thither. Yesterday she was at a conference for women in the law and we all know the issues there with culture. But there were also sessions on work-life balance. It finished at 5 and she rushed home put on some glad rags and went to the Women of Influence Awards. The supreme winner was Jacki Clark from the charity TheAunties who has done so much great work for women affected by domestic violence. She’s a great woman and great company if you ever get the chance to spend some time with her.Last night in accepting the award she said most people think domestic violence is physical, it's not just that. The most common form of it is emotional violence... It's not knowing whom you'll wake up to the next morning. It's like walking on eggshells. So trueSo at 11 last night, Helen came home fizzing, full of stories about Jackie Clark and Theresa Gattung and Hilary Barry and Hine Elder and then said what have you been up to?Well, I said. I worked. I came home. Walked the dog, then fed it and medicated it. I cooked a pork fillet pasta for dinner for Jack and I. Washed the dishes, put the rubbish out and then watched the last hour of the Emmys and then you came home.And we sat there and looked at each other and then laughed. Welcome to 2018. Kate Shepperd would never have recognised it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN ABOVE AS NEWSTALK ZB POLITICAL EDITOR BARRY SOPER SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSThe Government will lift the annual refugee quota to 1500.Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the increase will not take place immediately, but from July 2020.The increase is 500 more than the current quota of 1000, which took effect from July this year.Ardern was joined by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway to make the announcement. The decision was made by the Cabinet committee today, she said.The refugee quota became an issue of contention recently after conflicting comments from Peters and Ardern on whether it would be raised.Winston Peters, Jacinda Ardern and Iain Lees-Galloway at today's announcement.But Peters said he supported today's decision.Ardern said the timing meant that preparations could be made to ensure refugees were well-supported when they arrived."I'm proud that the Coalition Government has today agreed to make such a significant and historic increase to the annual quota of refugees," Ardern said."This is the right thing to do. It fulfils New Zealand's obligation to do our bit and provide a small number of people, displaced by war and disaster each year, a place to call home."Ardern said the policy shift would "change lives"."Refugees become great citizens, who bring valuable skills and experience to New Zealand and help make our country a more diverse and vibrant place."Peters told reporters while in Nauru that NZ First had never made a commitment to double the refugee quota.NZ First had agreed to increase the quota to 1000 but had made no announcement to double it."We've got 50,000 people who are homeless back home, and I can show you parts of the Hokianga and elsewhere, parts of Northland, with people living in degradation."We have to fix their lives up as well before we start taking on new obligations of the level that some people would like."For 30 years New Zealand's refugee quota was 750 people per year.In 2016 the previous National government increased the quota to 1000, which took effect last year.Labour campaigned before the election on increasing that further to 1500 a year in its first term of government.Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said the quota increase was made possible through a funding boost in this year's Budget."This included money to build and operate two new accommodation blocks at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre to extend the lifespan of the complex, meet the demands of the current intake of 1000 and help enable an increase in the refugee intake."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tempers are fraying in the Bay of Plenty because of the state of State Highway 2 between Tauranga and Katikati. As the bay continues to boom and the population grows the improvements to the road have failed to keep up prompting protestors to start taking action.They call the road the worst stretch of roading in New Zealand and their campaign is called Fix Our Bloody Road. In the weekend they blocked a bridge to protest and today they’ve launched a petition calling for a moratorium on all development of housing alongside the road until something is done.Now I know the road very well, I’ve been driving it for a quarter of a century. It’s not the worst road in New Zealand but it’s definitely operating beyond it’s capacity. And that capacity is about to be stretched even more.The area that the road serves is about to boom with housing construction the way Papamoa boomed 20 years. 43,000 extra houses are needed in the Bay over the next 30 years and Northward development is the most obvious. The road is hopelessly out of date.It’s been the next to do on roading lists for a generation. A tender process for roadwork started in February, only to be mothballed with the change of Government. Simon Bridges was part of the protest in the weekend which I found a little rich since he had the opportunity to do more in the last government. Phil Twyford has referred the issue to NZTA. Now while that’s frustrating it, in a strange way, is probably the right thing to do, because I’m sick and tired of politicians thinking they can meddle in roading infrastructure decisions.These sorts of issues should be beyond political grandstanding and pork barrelling. They are jobs that need doing despite the colour of the government. The so-called holiday highway north of Auckland is a classic. It’s been on and off and too big and too small depending on the whims of politicians.Auckland’s East West link, which was due to be the most expensive piece of roading in the world was another strange farce.While State Highway 2 is a nightmare it has real competition from State Highway 16 to Kumeu and Helensville. The only reason it hasn’t become a deathtrap is that drivers have accepted it’s not the open road and you can only go at 70 or 80k.The real problem with SH 16 is that when the housing crisis really hit home government’s created special housing areas throughout the area that road services. The explosion in houses around Riverhead has to be seen to be believed and these new suburbs are feeding into a road that in places remains just 2 lanes. Who the hell is deciding to build houses where there are no roads or public transport. It just beggars belief.I know I’ve said it before and now I’ll say it again. The future development on New Zealand infrastructure needs to be in the hands of people who know what they’re doing and think 30 years in the future and those people are definitely not politicians.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The conflict over State Highway 2 is heating up.A protest this weekend was the latest move by fed up locals who are sick of the dangerous road going ignored.It has been the site for multiple crashes over the years, and residents are now threatening to stage a protest against a planned development. Residents called up Andrew Dickens to share their experiences on the infamous stretch of road and the horrors they have seen and experienced during their time.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN ABOVE AS CAMPAIGN SPOKESMAN MATTHEW FARRELL SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSNo roads, no growth: that's the message both State Highway 2 campaigners and Western Bay councils are looking to send to the Government.Following its protest blockade of the highway on Sunday, the Fix the Bloody Road campaign has launched a petition to stop more housing being built in communities such as Ōmokoroa until the road is upgraded.The petition, addressed to SmartGrowth - a collaboration of Western Bay councils and other groups - already had more than 300 signatures.Campaign spokesman Matthew Farrell said SmartGrowth predicted another 43,000 homes were needed to house a population increase of 250,000 in Tauranga and Western Bay of Plenty in the next three decades.State Highway 2 was already well over capacity, he said."Given we are getting these major congestion problems and safety issues, it would make sense to hold off until the infrastructure has caught up," he said."We will keep doing what we need to do until we get some common sense decisions."Farrell said he was also speaking to local MPs from all parties.Meanwhile, SmartGrowth was working on its own ways to drive a similar message home to central Government.In a leadership group meeting on Wednesday, they will discuss adding a caveat to a planning document for growth in the Western Bay over the next 30 years: the strategy would be a wash if transport infrastructure did not keep up.Leadership group member Stuart Crosby said that while the education and health sectors had generally kept pace with growth, transport had lagged far behind over the past five years."We are at breaking point.""It is absolutely critical that our transport issues are resolved before we add fuel to the fire - and that's what would happen if we kept expanding," he said."The Government can't demand on one hand we need to build more houses and then, on the other, not provide the necessary infrastructure funding."Crosby said the current Government's funding focus on public transport, walking and cycling was not a good fit for this area.The transport network was under pressure from the booming economy as well as population growth."You can't put containers and logs on public buses."The message, in his view, boiled down to: "no roads, no growth".Leadership group member Larry Baldock said housing affordability was also at stake: if the region could not deliver roads, it could not deliver strategic growth, and house prices would rise.Priority One chief executive Nigel Tutt said the region's transport network was a national issue given the economic importance of the Port of Tauranga.The port's chief executive Mark Cairns said it handled more than 40 per cent of New Zealand's total exports.The rail network had so far borne most of the increase in cargo, he said, but more capacity was needed."We must have a safe, high capacity road, rail and coastal shipping connection through the port."The NZ Transport Agency was reevaluating four projects planned for State Highway 2 north of Tauranga, a process Transport Minister Phil Twyford has previously said he would not interfere with.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Prime Minister has come under fire after mistakenly telling Mike Hosking she was "pretty pleased" with gross domestic product growth having received a "hint" ahead of Thursday's official release of the second-quarter economic data.Newstalk ZB political editor Barry Soper told Andrew Dickens a Prime Minister or politician should never comment in advance when it comes to GDP."In my view, the listeners this morning would have been in no doubt to what she was talking about. She should not of been confused about what she was being asked about, its difficult to accept her excuse."LISTEN ABOVE AS BARRY SOPER SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is outrage from customers that Meridian Energy has cut their 'prompt payment' discounts. The company called the discounts, offered to customers who paid their bill on time, 'unjustifiable'.The move came days after the Government's electricity review panel criticised the use of the discounts.However, the move has angered customers, who told Andrew Dickens that the discount offer was an encouragement to pay on time.LISTEN TO THE FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Andrew Dickens talks with Rowena Duncum from 'The Country' about learning the delicious looking strawberries he had bought in the weekend were a 'no-go'.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, the beltway is in full flight now, dramatically interviewing their typewriters, seeing two plus two and coming up with five.Last night Tova O’Brien was breathlessly reporting a power battle between Winston Peters and Jacinda Ardern. A slug em out battle of the Titans with the future of the coalition hanging in the balance.This came after two of the country’s biggest unions, FIRST Union and the Council of Trade Unions (CTU), came out and said they fear the Government's employment law reforms could be hijacked by Winston Peters.The unionists went on to say they are a bit worried about the dominance on a number of issues that is coming from New Zealand First. Yes said the pundits, look at how Winston scuppered the reform of the three strikes rule. We now have co-leaders of the coalition and Jacinda has lost controlNow you could say that but it’s a bit over-excitable, over-egged and overhyped. We won’t really know the influence of NZ First until the legislation is tabled. That’s why Winston says it’s a work in progress. Until then it’s only speculation and conjecture and beltway babbling.It strikes me that despite it being our electoral system for 22 years, so many people, including commentators don’t seem to get MMP. They seem to believe that if a Prime Minister and his or her party can’t steam roller their policies into legislation then we have a power vacuum and stand on a precipice of disaster and chaos.The truth is that since 1996 no ruling party of New Zealand has ever had total control of legislation because they’ve never had the numbers to get stuff through.  They’ve had to mitigate and compromise. It’s why National never reformed the RMA or got rid of Working For Families. It’s why they did bring in policies they weren’t fond of like the Maori party’s Whanau Ora.Now, this gets under the haters of MMPs skin. Under First Past the Post this wasn’t a problem they say. But Government’s got a blank cheque to do what they wanted. Not really a good thing. It was a kind of totalitarian where extremists and ideologues could do what they want. Labour and Rogernomics and National with Ruth Richardson’s Mother of All Budgets. Now I have no problem with MMP. It’s because we have only one house of representatives. In the UK, Australia and America there are up to three houses or branches of government providing checks and balances and ironing out the worst excesses. Here though, get a straight majority, do what you want. I laugh when people say MMP is undemocratic because it’s far more indicative of people as a whole rather than a ruling elite.So the unions should calm down. You’re not going to get everything you want and that’s good because not everyone wants everything you want.What I will say about leadership is that Jacinda Ardern needs more of her colleagues to start pulling their weight. At their best National was a two headed beast with Key, English and Joyce. NZ First is very much the Winston and Shane show. But Jacinda seems to be facing all these challenges alone.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

News of a new stadium in Christchurch has people fired up - both for and against the development.The Christchurch City Council has voted to spend $220 million on replacing the AMI Stadium.There have long been calls to replace the stadium with a covered roof, earthquake safe alternative.However, many callers to Andrew Dickens Afternoons were furious at the cost and rationale behind the build.One caller suggested the entire council should be sacked as they are clearly incompetent.However, there were those supporting the stadium, saying it is necessary to generate activity throughout the city.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are calls for harsher penalties for people who text and drive.Eliot Jessep, who’s mother was killed in a car crash while texting, crossing the centre line, told Stuff that he believes punishments for crimes remain too light.Acting Associate Transport Minister James Shaw told the website that transport officials are investigating how effective overseas penalties have been, includign safety cameras.Jessep is calling for the New Zealand punishment to be “at a level where it does impact someone”.Callers to Andrew Dickens Afternoons were largely in agreement, and had innovative ideas as to how the penalties could be enforced.Caller Phillip says that, in the UK, they are looking at rising the fines to £400, and that there has been very little backlash from the Brits about this.He says that in England, they now have motorcyclists who drive around with cameras, snapping drivers in the act so they can be prosecuted.Caller Johnny called for traffic cops, and says people should face having their licenses revoked for extended periods of time.LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Whoever came up with the idea of goal setting really opened a Pandora’s box of wishful thinking.For the modern interpretation of goal setting, you can blame a bloke called Edwin Locke. He was an American psychologist from the University of Maryland who has studied the power of goal setting in the 1960s. He first suggested that employees were motivated by goals and feedback in his 1968 article "Toward a Theory of Task Motivation and Incentives”. In it he says individuals who set specific, difficult goals performed better than those who set general, easy goals.Since then athletes and business leaders have banged on about it and so eventually so did politicians and it seems to have spread like topsy amongst them. And to make them easy to understand our politicians have defined our goals by setting targets. So now we have a raft of targets to achieve. Smokefree 2025. Predator Free 2050. Possum free 2030. We target zero deaths on our roads. We have 3 goals on emissions reductions ending in 2020, 2030 and 2050. The Government has set a target of getting 50 percent representation of women on state sector boards by 2021. And on they go.But my problem with many of these targets is that they’re as achievable as me saying I’d like to be 2 inches taller in 2 years time. And the other problem is that many politicians think that just verbalising the goal or target is enough. That the target is the end in itself. And of course all these general targets go right against Edwin Locke’s theory that the goals must be specific and not general.So here we go again.Nikki Kaye has a private members bill in front of the house that would require every primary and intermediate school to offer at least one second language from a list of at least 10 "national priority languages". Its goal is to get every student able to converse in at least 2 languages. It’s a lovely thought however the bill is low on details of how to do this. Chris Hipkins estimates that to put a language teacher in every school would cost an extra $120 million a year. And that’s not even offering a choice. So it’s expensive. It also doesn’t look at where all these language teachers are going to come from. It’s a sort of chicken and egg situation. We need more language teachers so we can teach more language so we can have more language teachers.And now the Greens have predictably done it during Māori Language Week. The Green Party is pushing for te reo Māori to be a core curriculum topic in all schools by 2025. And when they say core they mean compulsory which raises all sorts of issues.Now the arguments against Nikki Kayes waffly bill exist for this one as well. To have a te reo teacher in every school would cost the same $120 million a year. And by putting a date on this it becomes ever more airy-fairy. 2025 is just over 6 years away. Good luck in finding 3000 odd new te reo teachers in that time frame.Let’s talk about realistic goals. In the last budget, an extra $20 million was given towards Māori language teacher education. Maybe we should be doubling the budget with the goal of doubling the teachers with another goal of doubling the literacy within 5 years. And when we get to a tipping point of capability then we can start talking about something more universal.And on a flippant note, could we have a goal of having goals that don’t have a mythical target date on them. And we could meet that target tomorrow.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is Jacinda Ardern bullying her MPs?That's the question talkback callers are asking after the Prime Minister told off Greg O'Connor over an interview he did on Newstalk ZB. The Labour MP was critical of the Prime Minister's handling of the Clare Curran saga yesterday, earning him a 'stern phone call'.Andrew Dickens raised the subject with his listeners, and they were split over whether it was Ardern or O'Connor who was in the right.LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN ABOVE AS NZ HERALD ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER SIENA YATES SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENS ON PINK'S VISIT TO NEW ZEALAND Pink has realised the dream of Whangārei artist Jessie Rose by signing an artwork created to raise money for a children's charity.Rose created the massive glittering painting and placed it on Trade Me, with a call for Pink to sign it while on her New Zealand tour.Artist Jessie Rose had her artwork signed by Pink and the proceeds of the auction will go to KidsCanNZ. Photo/ John StoneWhen the artwork is sold, the money raised will go to KidsCanNz, a charity that works with underprivileged children.Rose videoed the creative process which took place near the Te Matau a Pohe bridge in Whangārei in near darkness. The painting took 20 minutes to complete, with a clear glue being strategically painted on to a black board.The painting comes to life when glitter is thrown at the board, the silver glitter appears and Pink's outline magically appears."It is no secret that Pink loves children and supports similar charities and it is my dream to have her sign it," Rose said.The video was viewed 66,000 times and shared more than 1000 times with an appeal for Pink to autograph the painting.Just 24 hours before her Auckland opening performance on Saturday, Rose was notified Pink would sign the 2.4m high x 1.2 metre wide painting."All Saturday, we were trying to get it sorted and get it to Auckland. We weren't prepared."Eventually, her contacts at Morris and Morris Funeral home offered the use of a ute. With some careful wrapping and a tarpaulin the painting plus a second one were carefully taken to Auckland.After negotiating the security checks, Rose delivered the painting backstage at Spark Arena.While Rose didn't get to meet Pink, the paintings were both signed when they were collected after the show. The rock star had signed "Pink xoxo".Rose got to enjoy the show in the VIP seating near the stage and only four seats away from Pink's father.The painting is safely back in Whangārei and even before it was officially announced the work had been signed, the top bid was $1600. The auction is scheduled to finish later this week.It's not the first time Rose has painted a famous singer - in 2016 a painting she did of Adele fetched almost $1000 for KidsCan.Meanwhile, another Northland connection to the concert was the surprise birthday cake presented to Pink during the concert.Ruakākā's Rhys Owen and his 13-year-old son Connor along with Auckland friend Ami Holifield created the cake with ingredients including polystyrene, bamboo skewers, plywood, expanding foam, glitter and confetti.Ami Holifield, left, Connor Owen and Rhys Owen built a prop surprise birthday cake for Pink presented to her on stage durig her opening New Zealand show in Auckland. Photo/ SuppliedOwen got the nod from a friend late on Wednesday and by 1pm on Saturday he had the metre-high cake delivered. The creation took place in a Papakura shed after a rough sketch was done on a napkin. Owen is experienced at making props for major film companies and was involved in the Hobbit.The $1800 cake was wheeled out on stage much to Pink's surprise during the show. The crowd had already sung her happy birthday so a guitarist played the song for her.Owen and his son were issued with worker's passes allowing them to wander around the venue including going backstage."It was like a massive circus, theatre and concert in one. It was definitely a high level performance," he said.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Labour MP Greg O'Connor has apologised and said he got it wrong after he publicly criticised the handling of Clare Curran's resignation.O'Connor told Newstalk ZB's Heather Du Plessis-Allan yesterday, he felt things could have been done better.Now, he says it's pretty important to get it right - and he got it wrong - saying he's apologised and he's got the message.O'Connor repeatedly admonished himself when speaking to media today - saying eight times in just 90 seconds that he got it wrong.The Ohariu MP says his understanding of the events was wrong, the Prime Minister has spoken with him, he's apologised, and he now knows what was right.Newstalk ZB political editor Barry Soper has doubts though."Well in my book she [Jacinda Ardern] actually got it wrong and O'Connor got it right.""She deserved to be criticised for her handling of the Curran debacle, particularly when she declared on Newstalk ZB on Friday morning that Curran had paid her price and wasn't going to be cut loose, knowing full well that she had resigned as the minister the night before."Soper says O'Connor was simply saying things could have been handled better.LISTEN ABOVE AS BARRY SOPER SPEAKS WITH ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A school fundraiser faces a battle with bureaucracy to continue to sell alcohol after a medical officer objected to the event which has been running for 10 years.The Napier District Licensing Committee will tomorrow hear an objection to plans to sell liquor at a suburban Hawke's Bay school fundraising event.The objection has been lodged by the Hawke's Bay District Health Board against an application by Port Ahuriri School to sell liquor over the three-and-a-half hours of its Food and Music Festival in the school grounds on the evening of Friday, November 9.It will be the fourth year in a row the selling of liquor at the event has been opposed by the board through Medical Officer of Health Dr Rachel Eyre, who argued the consumption of alcohol on school grounds in the presence of children was inappropriate.The application was not opposed by the police and no concerns have been raised by Napier City Council licensing inspector Darryn Waugh.Eyre said her view held it was inappropriate to have liquor on school grounds consumed in the presence of minors and this view was shared by Medical Officers of Health throughout the country.However, many talkback callers on Andrew Dickens Afternoons were critical of the move.Most callers agreed that New Zealand has a negative attitude to alcohol, and that the one way to our binge drinking culture is to remove the stigma from drinking it. Callers said that they had a bad relationship with alcohol due to it being treated as a taboo subject growing up, while one pointed out that in European countries they don't drink or smoke excessively as they grow up with a more relaxed attitude to alcohol.- with content from Hawkes Bay TodayLISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Clare Curran has resigned as Minister - but is it too little, too late?That's the view of some callers to Andrew Dickens today, who were overwhelmingly critical of how the situation has been handled.The main criticism was levelled at Curran for using a Gmail account to conduct ministerial business.Callers Jeff was critical, with Jeff saying that using a private email address was 'obviously wrong' and 'stupid'.Another caller says Curran has shown poor judgement. Some callers were divided on whether or not Ardern should have been more upfront about Curran's resignation.The Prime Minister spoke to Chris Lynch hours before Curran resigned and gave no hint that the Minister would be resigning. Callers were split on how Ardern handled it, with some happy that she gave Curran space while others think she should have been more upfront. One caller says the damage will be 'far more wide reaching'. Graham says that Ardern needs to show more ruthless leadership. Though one caller was a little more realistic, saying that none of this will have any impact on him and his weekend. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A proposed parking bylaw in Hahei could see visitors fork out $10 to visit the beach.The Thames-Coromandel District Council wants to ban people from parking on the streets between October and April each year.Visitors would have no choice but to use paid car parks, when visiting attractions such as Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach.Hahei Holiday Resort manager Grant Kilby told Andrew Dickens there's huge pressure on local infrastructure, and he welcomes the idea."The benefit of that is that all the revenues to gain from that will go back into the infrastructure to enhance the tourism attraction that Hahei is."Other callers from locals and bach owners were mixed, with some strongly opposed while others were not as bothered.Gloria, who lives near Hahei, says she doesn't mind the cars being there, and says that people need to accept that there will be cars."When you've got some sort of attraction, people are going to want to come and see it, and you have to handle it the best you can." She pointed out there is already a shuttle service taking people to the start of the walk down to the beach. Graham, who owns a bach in Hahei, says he attended a public meeting about the changes, and there was a "100 per cent" vote against changing the parking. He says that 90 per cent of the people going there are with children. The public have until Monday to have their say on the bylaw.LISTEN TO THE FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Merriam-Webster has added more than 840 words to its dictionary. The list is heavy on food-related words like 'hangry', which Merriam-Webster defines as 'irritable or angry because of hunger'.If you prefer a liquid lunch, you might enjoy new entries such as 'hophead' ("a beer enthusiast")Word nerds who can't stand it when nouns get turned into verbs are unlikely to be pleased with 'Instagramming', defined as 'post[ing] (a picture) to the Instagram photo-sharing service'.Other social media words include 'retweet', when a post on Twitter is shared by other users, and 'bingeable', referring to multiple episodes of a TV show that can be watched in rapid succession. Many of the new words are popular with young people, including 'time suck' ('an activity to which one devotes a lot of time that might be better or more productively spent doing other things'), and 'rando', a shortened version of random. If you reached the end of this article, then you wouldn't need to worry about 'TL;DR', an abbreviation of 'Too Long, Didn't Read'. LISTEN TO RAYLENE AND ANDREW DISCUSS THE NEW WORDS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

No matter what the Government does, they can't change terrible tenants.That's the overwhelming message talkback callers had for Andrew Dickens this afternoon. The Government has released a discussion document on the Healthy Homes Bill, that looks to improve the quality of homes across the country.However, most landlords have rejected the proposal, saying that there will always be bad tenants who will reverse all that hard work.One landlord, Jeff, told Andrew how he had tenants steal heaters from his home and put him off ever renting out again.LISTEN TO CALLER JEFF ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealand needs to quickly stop burning fossil fuels, plant vast amounts of forest - and switch to electric vehicles and greener agriculture, a major report has found.The Productivity Commission's final report on how the country can shift to a low-emissions economy also called for emissions standards for newly registered vehicles, a "feebate" scheme to boost the uptake of EVs, and putting a price on gases from farms.Chairman Murray Sherwin said the period between now and 2050 - the target the Government has set for its bold Zero Carbon Bill - would pass quickly, and delaying action now would make the shift harder and costlier in the long run.The commission recommended a move away from using fossil fuels for providing process heat for industry, and a "rapid and comprehensive" switch from petrol cars to EVs, of which fewer than 10,000 are on our roads today.The suggestion has been met with mixed reaction from talkback listeners, particularly around the switch to electric vehicles.Some callers were positive about the move to electric bikes – though one caller, Allan, who owns an electric bike store, revealed that you can be fined for riding an electric bike too fast.  Feedback was more mixed about what to do about electric vehicles. Caller Louie said that there’s little point in making a big move to electric vehicles, as you never know what the next big change will be.LISTEN TO THE CALLER FEEDBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lifeline’s funding has been stretched to the limit – as one talkback caller knows all too well.The helpline lost its contract for Government funding last year and has been struggling ever since, with calls being missed.Andrew Dickens asked for his listeners take on the issue, and one caller shared his story.Dave says that Lifeline helped him out as recently as last week, with the helpline talking him out of a dark place.However, it came after he tried Crisisline first, and was told that a conflict of interest meant they could not talk to him.Where to get help:If you are worried about your or someone else's mental health, the best place to get help is your GP or local mental health provider. However, if you or someone else is in danger or endangering others, call police immediately on 111.Or if you need to talk to someone else:Lifeline: 0800 543 354 (available 24/7) • Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO) (available 24/7) • Youthline:0800 376 633 • Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 (available 24/7)  • Kidsline: 0800 543 754 (available 24/7) • Whatsup: 0800 942 8787 (1pm to 11pm) • Depression helpline: 0800 111 757 (available 24/7) • Rainbow Youth: (09) 376 4155 • Samaritans 0800 726 666 • Rural Support Trust: 0800 787 254. • For others, visit: https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/get-help/in-crisis/helplines/LISTEN TO DAVE TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The cost of having a baby when you are the Prime Minister will weigh heavily on the taxpayer this week - around about $100,000. Newstalk ZB Political editor Barry Soper told Andrew Dickens the RNZAF VIP jet will fly back from Nauru to pick up Jacinda Ardern on Wednesday to take her to the Pacific Islands Forum.Ardern's cut short her time at the forum because to take her baby would have required giving her a number of vaccinations.The media contingent left the country this morning with Foreign Minister Winston Peters on the same jet, and it will return and collect Ardern on a separate trip.  Based on fuel prices from two years ago - the cost to fly the jet to and from Nauru would be just over a hundred thousand dollars, but in the past year fuel's risen by 20 percent. Ardern will miss tonight's opening ceremony and tomorrow's formal dialogue - but will get to the leaders' retreat on Wednesday and attend a banquet before flying out at close to midnight.The Forum's opening ceremony is tonight, but Ardern will only attend the leaders' meeting in what will be a brief trip for her, meaning she will only be away from baby Neve for about 36 hours. LISTEN ABOVE AS BARRY SOPER SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I got the best Father’s Day present this weekend. My youngest lad, 19-year-old Ben, came back from university for a week at home during a mid-semester break. He’s only a fifth of our family but having him home doubles the energy of the house.So when Ben comes home he only has a few demands. Make sure there are 24 eggs and a slew of cold meats in the house and let’s have some hearty home-cooked meals. He comes home for family but I think he really comes home to eat.Life as a second-year student, flatting in Wellington is tight. No free tertiary for this boy he’s one year too old. No hostels because he’s in his second year. High rents because properties are tight. It means the budget is brutal.Ben gets through by bulk buying veggies at the Victoria Street carpark Sunday market. Meat disappears from his budget. When he arrives home his only stipulation is no tomato based dishes because the pasta and can of tomatoes diet gets tedious when it’s your staple diet.I thought about this when I heard two conflicting stories this morningFirstly Kiwi families are ordering more takeaways and eating out more than ever before, at the expense of family meals at home according to a study released today by the Restaurant Association. Nationwide sales in the hospitality industry over the past year increased by 3.6 per cent to exceed $11.2 billion. Takeaway food recorded the highest growth at 5.7 per cent, or an increase in annual sales of $148 million.At the same time, grocery sales are slowing - a result, the report suggests, of the traditional family meal at home becoming less popular. Only 52 per cent of parents now eat at home every night, according to another recent survey.Well that’s nice for half our families who are either doing very well or a budgeting terribly. It’s certainly not my family’s reality. I was brought up to be very frugal on hospitality. We’d be hard pressed to have a meal out once a month. It’s certainly not my son’s reality.And then there’s the story of Papakura mother-of-two Louise who feeds her family on less than $60 a week despite working as a teacher aide at a local school and living in a house shared with extended whanau. There are days of no dinner and certainly no meals out.In the same article, the CEO of KidsCan Julie Chapman says they are now offering meals in 732 schools. She says that’s an astounding figure and the fact that the problem is growing is very concerning.Two vastly different stories on the same day, in the same paper showing two vastly different New Zealands over the very basics of life - food. And I wonder if either side comprehends the other.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's one of the best-known songs in the English language.And today, it celebrates its 50th birthday.'Hey Jude' is one of the Beatles most defining tracks. Written to comfort John Lennon's son Julian after his parent's divorce, it is now frequently played in any type of event all around the world.LISTEN TO ANDREW DICKENS TALK ABOUT IT ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is it ever right to lie to your partner?An Australian psychiatrist, speaking to ABC's Nightlife station, got Andrew Dickens thinking about the intricacies of telling the truth to your partner."Relationships are built on truth and honesty, but of course sometimes hearing the truth can be painful," he said to listeners.Talkback callers were mostly in agreement that lying is sometimes necessary - though the secrecy and trying not to hurt their feelings can backfire. One caller, Keri, says that she and her partner of 15 years work by completing separating their lives and rarely share the finer parts of their days. Another, Dante, says that he is careful with giving his partner criticism, but expects honesty from her. LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So if you’ve noticed that the world seems peaceful and springlike lately it might be because parliament is in recess.Our MPs have vacated Wellington and spread to all four corners of the Earth. Yesterday we learnt that Mark Mitchell is spending the break  in South Sudan. Of course South Sudan is right beside Somalia and is the world’s youngest declared country coming into existence in 2013. Since then dozens of factions have been fighting for control wand the fights have killed thousands and displaced millions. And when they’re fighting they neglect to make food so a fair few South Sudanese are starving even though it’s a fertile place with loads of land.There’s a peace deal floating around but just an hour ago it started to fall apart again. Former Labour leader David Shearer is running the UN peacekeeping operation there with a handful of Kiwis and so Mark Mitchell is going to have a look see. I guess he wanted to go somewhere less stressful than the Beehive.The Speaker of the House, Trevor Mallard is having a more traditional break. He’s in Cornwall on a cycling holiday. Which it makes it remarkable that he had the time to call off the Simon Bridges leak inquiry.  His press release came out mid afternoon saying that somehow Mr Mallard has figured out who the leader and texter was. That the person is linked to the National Party and that’s that. He must be very dedicated to the job to send that statement out at 2am Cornwall time in the middle of a holiday. Curious really, it’s almost like someone else made his decision for him.And then there’s Shane Jones who seems to have decided that he would spend the recess giving media entertaining sound bites.Yesterday he got stuck into the the councillors and ratepayers of tasman who pulled the plug on the Waimea Dam. Notably he railed against the idiotic lotus eaters of Tasman. Of course lotus eaters refers to a tale out of Greek mythology written by Homer in The Odyssey. Odysseus comes across a tribe on an island who spend their whole time eating lotus plants which is a narcotic which leaves them drowsing in a drugged out peaceful apathy. Nice image of Motueka stoners Shane but not quite right.Firstly, the greenies at the council meeting were not peaceful or apathetic. In fact they were more like shrieking banshees.And secondly the Dam’s biggest problem was that the councillors of Tasman were just cheap people looking after their self interest by keeping rates down at the cost horticulture which seems a bit self defeating.And now today Shane Jones has said people on the dole and those before the courts could provide some of the labour needed to implement the Government's One Billion Trees project.  The verbose MP told a public meeting at the Tauranga Citizens Club . ''If you can get up and go to work you should be made to do it.''He’s said it before of course but this time he’s made a bit of a boo boo. The problem with forcing people before the court to get out and plant some trees is that until you’re proven guilty, you’re innocent.  So now we have a Minister wanting to shanghai innocent people into working gangs.I don’t know about you but I think it’s time for the MPs to come back to Wellington and do some real work.  At least that way we know where they are and we can keep an eye on them.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here’s a little story about Pukekohe.Pukekohe, the eighteenth largest city in New Zealand with 31,000 souls, 50 kilometres from Auckland. Possesses the best soil on earth and an awful lot of lettuces and carrots. Birthplace of Possum Bourne, Jonah Lomu and my mother. Home of the mighty Counties rugby side.A friend of mine has just transferred from the Wellington newsroom to Auckland. She and her husband are looking for a place so until then she decided to get the best and cheapest renter she could and so she chose Pukekohe. It’s relatively cheap. There’s a train. The train costs her $7.50 and takes 1 hour and 10 minutes and in that hour she gets loads of work done. Occasionally she brings her car into town. It takes longer. The parking is more expensive and she gets no work done.So the other day she asks me why she has to change trains at Papakura which is 33 kilometres from Auckland. That’s because when the lines were electrified it was decided to save money to stop at Papakura. So two-thirds of the way home she has to get out and transfer to a diesel-electric.This all happened 4 years ago and instantly people realised this was a mistake. So the council came up with an idea to buy a couple of trains that had chargeable batteries on board so they could carry on for the extra 20 kilometres. The new government has realised that was a monumentally stupid and expensive band-aid over the problem so they have given some money to complete the electrification job. The whole process is going to be vastly more expensive than if they had just done it all in the first place.When I told my friend the story she said, “well that’s stupid and short-sighted”. Welcome to New Zealand.Today we are talking about the decision by Tasman not to fund the Waimea Dam. Even though the government and Treasury were so into the idea they were throwing money and interest-free loans at it. Even though the district is already short of water and will only become more so. All for the sake of $50 million. You will build the Waimea Dam one day Tasman. You will have to. And it will cost an awful lot more the $50 million and you will go through water deprivation while you wait for it to happen. And people will be muttering why didn’t we do this years ago.This morning we also hear that Auckland Central Rail Link is probably going to run over budget. I’m sure it will but that’s not enough excuse to not carry on. It’s already costing too much money because it should have been done decades ago. Sydney built their underground and Harbour Bridge in the thirties when their population was just $1 million. Imagine how much it would cost today and imagine how bad the last 80 years would have been if they hadn’t done it and how much money would have been lost.Sometimes it seems to make sense today to not spend money but it’s a false economy. A good idea is a good idea. And sometimes it’s expensive. But if it’s a good idea, in the long run, it’s always worth it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tauranga City Council is discussing ways it can reduce the number or wastewater blockages caused by wet wipes.The Council's Environment Committee has written to the Government asking them to ban labels such as "flushable" on advertising and packaging.Mayor Greg Brownless says wet wipes aren't truly flushable because they cause about 30 per cent of the network's blockages every year."Other places than Tauranga would also benefit from changes to the advertising because other councils throughout the country must deal with the same issue."Property Manager Steven told Andrews Dickens that the baby wipes are not designed for our wastewater system."I think it is really deceiving to use words like 'flushable" when in reality they block drains and are a serious problem."LISTEN ABOVE AS STEVEN SPEAKS WITH ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN TO RAYLENE RAMSAY AND ANDREW DICKENS DISCUSS THE STORY ABOVEA bridezilla in Canada has disowned friends and family in a foul-mouthed Facebook rant after she cancelled her $60,000 ($NZ68,800) wedding because guests refused to give her $1500 ($NZ1700) to attend.The unbelievable story went viral after shots of the bride's ridiculous rant were posted to Reddit.The bride, Susan, took to Facebook to announce the cancellation of her wedding four days before the event, blaming guests for not funding her Kardashian-style wedding.The post is very lengthy so here is a quick rundown if you don't feel like reading the whole thing — but I really recommend you do as it is totally worth it.It starts with Susan announcing the cancellation of the wedding and that her and her partner have split due to "recent and irreparable problems".She then goes on to explain how she had always dreamt of having a huge "blowout" wedding but as her and her partner had only saved $15,000 ($A15,700) they turned to their guests to fund the $60,000 event.They told guests they had to send $1500 if they wanted to be invited to the wedding and were absolutely shocked when hardly anyone coughed up."I SPECIFICALLY, I mean SPECIFICALLY asked for cash gifts," she wrote."How could we have OUR wedding that WE dreamt of without proper funding?"Eventually all of the bride's friends and family turned on her, including her fiance, over her obsession with having a huge wedding.Read the full post for yourself to really experience it in all of its bridezilla glory.Strap in, it's going to be a long read. A long, long read. Photo / Reddit Yes you read that right, they got the more expensive venue because a psychic told them to. Photo / RedditThe bride really didn't get why her friends and family didn't want to pay thousands of dollars. Photo / RedditThe final straw was when her ex suggested a Vegas wedding. Bad idea. Photo / RedditFinally the rant came to an end. Photo / RedditSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

She's done it in the movies, now she's doing a whole album of it.Cher has begun to release music from her forthcoming Abba cover album, Dancing Queen. The two singles so far, Gimme Gimme Gimme and SOS, will feature on the album released next month, just in time for her tour in Australia and New Zealand. The song has already earned an ecstatic response from fans, with caller Ally singing her praises to Andrew Dickens above. LISTEN TO ALLY AND THE SONG ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's an admirable perversity to one of the world's great lyricists - perhaps the world's greatest - delivering those great lyrics - perhaps the world's greatest - in a voice that regularly borders on damn near incomprehensible.Dylan's words slur and soar and crash into each other, more rhythmic onomatopoeia than anything else, in a croaking voice that sounds like he's spent the day gargling gravel. It has to be said that against the backing of his crash hot blues band this sounds absolutely fantastic. Grizzled, swampy and, often, quite moving and beautiful.It also borders on trolling that the man who started a musical revolution, smirking off accusations of being a folk Judas for having the audacity to pick up an electric guitar, spent the evening hammering away at a grand piano.Dylan did leave it once - doing a snazzy little dance shuffle to center stage to sing Love Sick, heck, he even busted out some unexpected Elvis Presley style, mic stand poses an indication that yes, he was having fun up there - before retreating back to his piano.His blaring harmonica, as recognisable as his voice, was never far away and when he was really feeling the music, he'd shrug off his famous silhouette to jump up off his seat and play his piano standing up.With his band on fire Dylan rocked the arena, even if the crowd stayed resolutely seated, whipping up blazing and raucous rock n' roll (Highway 61 Revisited, Summer Days, a reworked Tangled Up in Blue), sneering thunder (Ballad of a Thin Man) and apocalyptic, raw blues (Honest with Me).But it was on the slower numbers, like Simple Twist of Fate, It Ain't Me Babe and Pay in Blood, which comprised roughly half the set that saw the night becoming truly transplendid. The gruff old bluesman singing songs that while never straightforward encompass love and loss and leaving and life and, well, everything really. There was a tangible melancholy in Dylan's hoarse, husky delivery that you couldn't help but feel and be moved by.As expected most songs were drastically reworked. Blowin' in the Wind, It Ain't Me Babe and Don't Think Twice, It's All Right all received cheers when the crowd eventually recognised them."I ain't dead yet," he sung on the blues stomp of Early Roman Kings and last night's show more than proved that. Yes, he played hits, some stretching all the way back to 1963's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, but they were reworked, rewritten and repurposed. Revitalised.Dylan's not playing a nostalgia show here, that ain't him, babe. Instead he's playing something much, much better.*** Bob Dylan plays Christchurch, Tuesday 28th August, at Horncastle Arena. Tickets from ticketek.co.nz.LISTEN ABOVE AS NZ HERALD ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER KARL PUSCHMANN SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was a weekend where there was much to take pleasure in.Friday saw the Warriors make the post season for the first time since 2011.  That is a long time between drinks.  Warriors players have come and gone without knowing the thrill of finals play.  That Simon Mannering will finally be back at the business end after racking up 300 appearances is very sweet. But the people I’m happiest for are the faithful fans. Crowds have been up this season as fairweather fans came back to Mt Smart, but in amongst them are the 10,000 or so who kept the faith. They deserve this.Saturday saw the All Blacks wallop the Wallabies even though they had less possession.  This side are the most vicious counter attackers on the planet. As many have pointed out there is even more upside for this team which must be putting the wibble wobbles under everyone else. Chris Rattue this morning said just give next years World Cup to us now. You got to love Mr Rattue. He’s either too grumpy or too enthusiastic.The Black Ferns also thumped the Wallaroos. They needed a big crowd as a calling card to score the hosting rights for the Women’s World Cup tournament. They got close but they could have done with more. But the 2 matches against the Aussies have been seen by a big audience and it’s been a great advertisement for the women’s game. I enjoy women’s rugby. It’s a great watch and here’s to it going from strength to strength.Possibly the best performance of the weekend is Rose Matafeo winning the best comedy award at the Edinburgh Festival.  This is massive. Previous winners have included Steve Coogan, Dylan Moran and Demetri Martin.  This puts Rose on the map globally.  It’s an award flight of the Conchords did not win. The Netflix special can’t be too far away. It makes me particularly happy because Rose’s Mum taught my kids and I’ve known of Rose since she was at intermediate school.  I know how hard she worked and how supportive her family has been. And what I love the most about Rose’s comedy is that it’s simply the truth. The truth about being a 20 something woman in 2018.  She’s doing more for feminism than thousands of others who trumpet themselves as standard bearers for the F word.And finally on the subject of the truth, John McCain died yesterday. This morning Richard Arnold played some audio from his last speech to Congress which reminded me why I liked himNow I know from time to time I’m one of those bombasts he disliked but what I liked is that you never died wondering what John McCain thought. Alone amongst almost all politicians in the world today he thought of the clients.  The people who vote the politicians there. He was a lone voice of truth who will be missed.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bewitched is making a return - but with a very different take on things.Entertainment industry website Deadline says the hit sitcom of the 1960s is being reworked with an interracial family.Samantha will be a hardworking black single mum who marries Darrin, a white mortal who happens to be a bit of a slacker.They struggle to navigate their differences as she discovers that in America, even when a black woman is literally magic, she’s still not as powerful as a white man in America. LISTEN TO GEORGE FENWICK TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOUT THE NEWS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I was thinking today about how New Zealand seems to be slowly changing under our feet and I wonder if we’ve acknowledged it.A while back, it seemed like every second issue was an issue driven on or caused by our largest city. It got to the point where the A word was hated by half the country and the people who lived there were more and more reticent to mention the place.But the place seems to have gone off the boil lately while the rest of New Zealand is on fire.  I thought that when I heard that Phil Collins is coming but only playing Napier and Christchurch. Dunedin is now on the global stadium music venue radar. Frankly, if I was a mega star flying halfway across the world to play a gig I’d rather plat those exotic places rather than a bog standard mid-sized Westernised city like A town.The investment in facilities up and down the country is another great thing.  Tauranga today is boasting that 120,000 visitors are heading to the Bay because of their music festivals but also the development of the international cricket ground at the Mount.Here’s to the cities that invested and stole cricket from the biggest city.  Nelson’s Saxton Oval is the prettiest ground.  The University Oval and Seddon Park are great places to watch the sport.But sport and music are the cream.  The cake is the regions boom.  Regional real estate prices are surging as refugees escape the big smoke. The Waikato and Cambridge Expressways are a revolution for Central Waikato and making South Waikato more attractive as well.  When the new Wellington motorway is completed then the Kapiti Coast and Levin are going to explode.In Queenstown, the debate is what to do with the airport.  Do we make the present one bigger or do we look for a new location for a big Central Otago air transport hub. No matter which prospect you prefer it’s still a sign of great confidence in the region.In a generation Queenstown and Frankton will be a thriving city not a pretty town.  With Air New Zealand showing such strength in yesterday’s financial report you’d hope that they’d be expanding services to the regions.All over the nation, towns are lifting their game and improving their infrastructure and becoming more attractive.  The country is getting bigger but at the same time it’s getting smaller and smaller.   We’ve never been so connected, both electronically and in transport optionsI tell you, these days if I was setting up the headquarters for a medium sized nationwide business, the last place I’d be looking is the country’s biggest city. The cost and the hassle of the place is just not worth it.It seems to me that the market is correcting the issue that we’ve complained about for a couple of decades, bit by bit. The A word will always a bit a pain in the butt, but the Queen City’s problems are proving to be an opportunity for the rest of the country.And look at that, I didn’t say Auckland once. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A talkback caller has left Andrew Dickens with her story about bullying, with him calling it 'one of the most remarkable calls' he has ever received. After a father received community service for assaulting a boy who was bullying his son, Dickens wanted to know what people's bullying experiences are. One caller, Lisa, talked about how her son nearly faced a 40-strong retaliation after he had spat on someone.The situation escalated, with bricks being thrown through her window, but Lisa says that that's not where it ends. LISTEN TO LISA TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Criminal Justice Summit has come to an end, and honestly, I think we’re in a worse place than when we started.When Andrew Little said his intention was to overhaul the system during his tenure as Justice Minister, I think we all cautiously agreed because there’s no way you can say the current system is a success.Of course, people had differing opinions.  Some want a more punitive regime, others a more rehabilitative regime and others still want a society where less people resort to crime in the first place.  Some of us want all of the above.So Andrew Little appointed a working group of 10 to look at the nuts and bolts.  Meanwhile, he decided to have an open slather Criminal Justice Summit to let the people have their say.  It’s fair to say that many rolled their eyes and sighed fearing a waffly talkfest that would go nowhere.Well, that’s exactly what we got, but it was worse than that.  It was far nastier and corrosive that we had hoped for.It has been the most remarkable display of self-interest that I can only describe as some sort of Victim Idol competition. Submission after submission from people with justifiable concerns but believing their concerns were greater than any others.And then it got nasty and racist. First, it was victims saying offenders can’t also be victims. Even though common sense will tell you that before they become offenders they’ve suffered, either through abuse, or neglect or mental illness or a raft of other factors that push people into criminality. Then a Māori woman said Europeans could not know what it was like to be victims of crime. Which prompted European victims to angrily denounce that idea and claim they’d be victimised again.Everyone in the room seemed to be saying “Shut up.  I’m more victimised than you.  So there!”So this morning Andrew Little had to come out and say the summit missed the point and maybe we should do it all over again. Honestly, who didn’t see this mess coming?We live in a selfish age.  We live in a time of victimhood. A time of offence taking and in turn offence giving. On all sides of the political spectrum and it’s splitting us apart and neutering any efforts to make things better.This victimhood mindset is getting so bad we’ve even got rich old white men in a cocoon of privilege complaining that they’re the new lepers of the world.   Oh diddums.I’ve often thought that with the rise of the #metoo movement that we need another movement to run beside it.  With #metoo we also need a #youtoo movement.  One where some empathy for other points of view exists.  A world where reality and common sense finally comes to bear. A world where we don’t wear our victimhood as some badge of honour.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tributes from fans and viewers are flowing in for broadcaster Greg Boyed.The One News host, who has worked for Newstalk ZB, passed away suddenly while on holiday in Switzerland.Callers to Andrew Dickens expressed their shock and sadness that they would not see him on their screens again.Jan says that Greg was ‘in their homes every single night’.Geanne commented that she loved his music choices and how he made the news more personal without becoming biased.Bill had worked with Greg in Tauranga, and lamented that he had not had an opportunity to meet up with him again.LISTEN TO THEIR TRIBUTES ABOVEWhere to get help:• Lifeline: 0800 543 354 (available 24/7)• Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO) (available 24/7)• Youthline: 0800 376 633• Kidsline: 0800 543 754 (available 24/7)• Whatsup: 0800 942 8787 (1pm to 11pm)• Depression helpline: 0800 111 757 (available 24/7)If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN TO JORDAN BOND TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVEA vigilant cyclist on Auckland's Northwestern Cycleway was able to avert danger after vandals created a lethal roadblock using rocks.The popular bike route was closed off by a row of small rocks behind a blind corner and on a downhill section near the Patiki Rd underpass, between Te Atatu and Waterview.The cyclist who spotted and removed the blockage told other cyclists to keep an eye out on the cycleway for more barriers.Bike Auckland was notified of the incident this morning by the cyclist, who cleared the rocks immediately, this morning."Luckily I was going [the] other way so had time to stop. If I/someone was coming downhill it could have been very nasty."There are some serious dick-heads out there," they said.Ugh. Who does this? This has been cleared away, but please look out if you're traveling the NW cycleway. (Attention @AklTransport @nzpolice) pic.twitter.com/QR7xfOHOjz— Bike Auckland (@BikeAKL) August 21, 2018Bike Auckland spokeswoman Jolisa Gracewood said as far as they know, nothing like this had happened before."Whether mischievous or malevolent, it's a silly and dangerous thing to do, and someone could have been seriously hurt ... we firmly hope it's a one-off."Hundreds of people enjoy riding the Northwestern Cycleway across the causeway every day without incident and value this safe route enormously."It's a jewel in the cycle network since being upgraded a couple of years ago, and especially at rush hour is often the fastest way into and out of the city," she said.Auckland Transport spokesman James Ireland told the Herald they want everyone to be safe when using cycleways."Putting rocks across a cycleway is incredibly dangerous and irresponsible."We are glad no one was hurt. And if anyone sees anything like this in the future please get in contact with AT straight away," he said.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So in another life, I worked in private radio and with the IRN news team under Ed Taylor.  I distinctly remember the day when a teenage Greg Boyed walked into the newsroom for the first time.He made an impression. He was tall and skinny and his hair was swish and he had a Roger Ramjet chin and then he opened his mouth and a big ballsy voice came out. He knew he had a good voice and it was a source of entertainment to go and watch Greg read the news and watch his body and mouth contort to get the best sound ever. He was one of those newsreaders who always wanted to smile. But right from the start, we knew he was ambitious and talented and relatively humble.  He was a true broadcaster.  A journalist, a presenter, a producer.  He could do everything and do it well.  He was no one trick pony.  And he was funny and caring towards his co-workers. And like anyone who strives for high standards he could be terribly disappointed if he didn’t reach them.  If he had one weakness perhaps it was that he cared too much. He sometimes hid his disappointment in a swagger that some people misread.It is a terrible day for many in the business and this radio station and a reminder to always be kind to yourself first.Meanwhile, in other poignant news, I was very moved by the repatriation yesterday of the remains of 27 New Zealand Army soldiers and one child buried in Malaysia and Singapore.  It’s called Te Auraki, or the return. The New Zealand Defence Force with the casket of a child among the returned remains. Photo / Greg BowkerAs I commented yesterday afternoon, the pictures on the news will be affecting and they were. 28 coffins, including a tiny white one. Over 160 pallbearers drawn from defence personnel. The hakas, the solemnity and the emotion of the relatives finally reunited.This morning in the paper, I spied a notice in the Memorial Services column for one of the repatriated. Sergeant Isaac King. Isaac will be celebrated at the Papakura RSA this Friday at 11am.Now Isaac’s daughter went to school with my partner, and his wife was on the telly last night and it gave Helen a bit of a jolt.She remembers growing up with the King kids and she remembers the big hole that Isaac left behind in the family. His absence hung over the household. Now, Isaac’s daughter has just finished a battle against a health issue and she’s been brave and she’s done well.  So the return of her Dad at this time is an incredible event of closure.It needed a change of government policy for this to happen and what a good change that was.  It is a kind thing to do and in the wake of today’s events I think kindness is something we all need to strive for.Where to get help:• Lifeline: 0800 543 354 (available 24/7)• Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO) (available 24/7)• Youthline: 0800 376 633• Kidsline: 0800 543 754 (available 24/7)• Whatsup: 0800 942 8787 (1pm to 11pm)• Depression helpline: 0800 111 757 (available 24/7)If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former residential red zone owners are getting payment from the Government for their uninsured homes.Minister Megan Woods has announced 103 property owners will get 100 percent of the 2007/08 rateable value for their homes - at a cost of about 12 million dollars.Andrew Dickens spoke with Christchurch residents on what they think of the announcement, and if they believe it was the right decisionLISTEN ABOVE AS CHRISTCHURCH CALLERS SPEAK TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Prime Minister says today's repatriation ceremony in Auckland is a reminder of the huge responsibility which comes with every overseas deployment.Jacinda Ardern was at the airport for the ceremony to honour 27 New Zealand soldiers and one child, whose remains have been returned from Malaysia and Singapore.Talkback caller Angela, who was at the Airport this morning, told Andrew Dickens it was one of the most moving things she has ever experienced." I drove up to the airport and the first thing I saw was about 30 motorcycles parked on the road, and it turned out to be from the veterans motorcycle club. It was very emotional."LISTEN ABOVE AS ANGELA SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Eagles' greatest hits album has moonwalked past Michael Jackson's "Thriller" to become history's best-selling album of all-time in the U.S.The Recording Industry Association of America told The Associated Press on Monday that the Eagles' album — "Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975" — is now certified 38x platinum, which means sales and streams of the album have reached 38 million copies.The album was released in 1976 and pushes Jackson's "Thriller," which is 33x platinum, to second place.RIAA also said that the Eagles' "Hotel California," released in 1977, is now 26x platinum and makes it the third best-selling album of all-time.The last time RIAA tallied sales for the Eagles' greatest hits album was in 2006, when it said it was 29x platinum. Sales and streams for "Thriller" were last updated last year."We are grateful for our families, our management, our crew, the people at radio and, most of all, the loyal fans who have stuck with us through the ups and downs of 46 years. It's been quite a ride," Don Henley said in a statement.RIAA's platinum status was once equivalent to selling one million albums or songs, but in 2013 the company began incorporating streaming from YouTube, Spotify and other digital music services to determine certification for albums and songs.Now 1,500 streams of an album is equivalent to an album sale. Also, 10 song downloads = 1 album sale.The Eagles, who formed in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, mastered the mix of rock 'n' roll and country music, and the band's hits — including "Hotel California" and "Take It Easy — became part of the soundtrack of that decade. They broke up in 1980, coming back together 14 years later with Henley and Glenn Frey being the only remaining original members. Frey died in 2016, but the Grammy-winning band remains on tour.The band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2016.LISTEN TO KARL PUSCHMANN TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tourism is on fire; therefore, you’d think it was a good job prospect.Well, apparently that's not the case which is why moves are afoot to attract more young people into tourism jobs.Tourism is the country's biggest export earner, bringing in over $14 billion a year, but that could be under threat. Because with all the investment and hotels on the go, there's not enough young people into it.36,000 extra tourism workers are needed by 2025. But the Tourism Industry has done some research and found that young people perceived tourism as "low-wage" and a subject for "drop outs".This is another example of young people being stupid and parents being guilty of not exploring opportunities.In the 90s, I lived in the South of France working on an English language radio station. Yes, it was as good as it sounds. One day in a bar in Cannes I met an apprentice hotel manager. He had been studying in London for three years and was now working as an intern. He was front of house at the Carlton, which was like the place on the Croisette. He was loving it. The day before he'd checked in Lenny Kravitz. His food and accommodation was paid for and his wage was going straight into the bank. Four months later he was off for a six month stint in St Moritz.As he told me, he was learning to run very complex operations with very big budgets and a lot of moving human parts. It was excellent training for a number of businesses and when he was tired of the fun he felt that the skills would be very easy to transfer.25 years later, I took my oldest boy to a careers evening. There was a hotel management course guy there and out of all the stands his was the least visited. So knowing that this is a great career I asked him why no-one was talking to him. He said the parents told the kids that hotel management was a job for losers. I tried to get my boy interested but Chemistry had a hold of him.Well, the only losers in all this are the parents. Hotel management is a tough gig but with benefits. It was fascinating last year to spend a night at the Hermitage at Mount Cook. Nearly all the staff were immigrants. People from other countries who realise the opportunity in ours. But we met one Kiwi who was having the time of his life. Earning good money, living in paradise. On his days off he skied. He proudly told me he'd skied every field in the South Island.The hotel building boom in this country is astounding and they need people, so go for it. Hotel management is probably the world's most transferable qualification. Choose any town and you'll find a job. Yes, tourism has a lot of low level jobs but even they have incredible opportunities for anyone with an eye for the chance.I have no idea why tourism has been painted with the loser brush. Making money for making people happy on holiday seems to me to be a real winner. All I hope is a new generation gets it and doesn't listen to the older generation with no imagination.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN ABOVE AS TALKBACK CALLER IAN TALKS ABOUT THE SERIOUSNESS OF CONCUSSION WITH ANDREW DICKENSThe sister of Ryan Crotty has voiced her concerns over the All Black's concussion problems after the midfield back was forced out of the latest Bledisloe Cup clash in Sydney.Shea Crotty, a top basketballer who has played for the Tall Ferns, tweeted: "I want to see my brother grow old and able, not battling the brain forever."Shea Crotty...concerned for brother Ryan. Photo / PhotosportCrotty has suffered six concussions in the past 15 months, including during Super Rugby games in March and May this year.Couldn’t agree more my girl. Know how frustrated he will be but for selfish reasons I want to see my brother grow old and able, not battling the brain forever. https://t.co/2fYfGcClau— Shea Crotty (@Shea_Crotty) August 18, 2018In June, Crotty admitted repeated concussions might force him to retire."If I wasn't to bounce back from one as quickly as I tend to, then maybe you would think like that (retiring)," he says."Potentially if they start to get worse. They are really diligent with it in the environment so you meet with some experienced doctors and I do a lot of diligence around it myself."At the start of each season I get tested to make sure that I am round the same point each season."If that was starting to trend badly then that would be something I would look at a little more deeply, but until then I am happy to keep going out there and keep putting my body on the line."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A report by the Department of Conservation shows three out of five native whitebait species are under threat, and Forest & Bird are calling for a ban on commercial whitebait sales until stocks recover.Talkback caller John told Andrew Dickens that he is concerned about the marine environment caused by overfishing."How far do we go to feed our faces? We are seeing a destruction of a species, and something has to be done before it is to late"LISTEN ABOVE AS JOHN SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Students rebel against digital NCEA exam that requires new laptops Funny old weekend where I flirted with getting sick. I was hot and cold and sneezy and not quite with it. I thought it had passed when I heard something and I thought I was still a bit under the weather.I’m pretty sure I heard someone saying that they’re going to clean up the country by making it more expensive to take rubbish to the dump. So I stopped for a moment. Cleared my ears and listened again, and to my surprise, realise I had heard what I had heard.Green MP and Associate Minister for the Environment, Eugenie Sage was announcing a new policy on waste, at the Party's annual conference, which has been signed off by Cabinet.The goal is to reduce the amount of rubbish going to landfills in New Zealand, as the amount of waste at landfills increases worldwide. So the public will be asked whether they think the current levy of $10 per tonne on waste taken to landfills, should be higher. And as only 11 per cent of landfills are presently covered by the $10 levy and the Greens are looking at expanding that to all of the country's landfills.Eugenie Sage said such levies provided an economic incentive to divert materials away from landfill. Well, that much is true but is it an economic incentive to make less rubbish? I can’t see it and so there is the fear that less rubbish will go to the expensive tip and where on earth will it end out?Big commercial operators and councils will figure it out and suck up the cost. But the average punter with their trailer loads will be tempted to find a gully somewhere. The last time I went to the tip I paid 38 bucks for the load and that made my eyebrow arch. 50 bucks would be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for many.Now local councils have been wanting an increase to the levies for ages and our levies are cheaper than many around the world, almost half that of the UK for instance, but an increase in tax is not the answer to change our rubbish behaviour.I’ve been becoming a little suspicious of the Green’s environmental methods for a while now. You’d think that a party that calls itself Green would be the hands down experts on the complex issues surrounding our waste, and our processing of it. But they just seem simplistic on it all. Waste is bad. Tax it.In announcing the plastic bag ban, Eugenie Sage had to admit that biodegradable bags were also part of the ban because the country does not have the kit to process them. And as part of this job and looking at other countries I’ve also been impressed with modern incineration practices. But the Greens won’t be going anywhere near that because in their simple world view burning is bad. Full stop.Rubbish is a filthy business and sorting it out means you have to get your hands dirty. So rather than taxing us for being human, how about you invest in some gear that will get rid of the mess.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So the primary school teachers are striking for the first time in 24 years and the fourth time ever.READ MORE: Striking teachers take to the streets for pay riseI remember the last strikes in 94. It was all about pay parity with secondary teachers. But this action is very rare and you have to ask yourself, why teachers haven’t been standing up for themselves more through the years? Some will say the public service is taking advantage of the kinder gentler Labour-led Government which may be the case but it’s also right to say that teachers have been complicit in their own fate by being too quiet for too long.They say their main motivation is to cure the teachers' shortage, and it’s not about the money. But it is about the money because they’re asking for 16 per cent over 2 years which is frankly pretty whopping. So you can see the government’s hesitation and add to that the secondary school teachers who will be watching and plotting their move in the future.But we will see if teachers are prepared to move.But one part of their demands is a no-brainer. They want a $100 housing allowance for people in high rent or cost towns and cities.There are many reasons why teachers' collective agreements upset some. For many, it’s because great teachers are paid exactly the same as average teachers.But to me, the fact that you get paid the same no matter if you work in Waiuku, Wanganui, Winton or Wellington is bizarre. For instance, there’s a lovely 3 bedroom house in Winton for sale right now on 1000 square meters for $315,000. Try finding that in Wellington. Try finding a rental in Wellington. But the Wellington teacher gets the same money as the Winton teacher.I knew a teacher in Auckland who moved to Napier 10 years ago. She’s rapturously happy. Nice town, great house, same pay. She said moving to Napier was like doubling her salary. Best thing she ever did.So newsflash to union negotiators who believe in collective agreements. Not all teachers are created equal and not all towns and cities are the same. It’s called reality.The sooner you get some wriggle room to cater for ability and living circumstance the better and that alone would go a long way towards keeping and attracting teachers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The number of teenagers participating in organised sport is decreasing, a move which reflects an overall drop-off in participation once teenagers left high school.Gyms have replaced traditional sports like Rugby and Cricket to be the most popular form of exercise amongst teenagers.Rhys, who called in to the Andrew Dickens show, says the statistics miss out an important activity which is not included in the research."Sport New Zealand needs to broaden its view of participation, if it included people who went to gyms the number would be a lot higher."LISTEN ABOVE AS RHYS SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Press is breathlessly reporting that a homeowner in the Christchurch suburb of Strowan Merivale has just received his latest insurance bill from Tower and his premiums have been increased near enough five-fold.The bill has gone from $2300 to near enough $13,000 a year. The bill is more than $1000 a month. The insurance company is Tower, the first New Zealand company to go to a fully risk-based approach.The owner obviously freaked out and moved to another insurer who charged a more modest amount. But even still premiums are on the way up as other firms move to partial risk-based cover.This has been signalled for a while and it comes after a string of events that have hit the insurance sector. Earthquakes in Christchurch have cost insurers $21 billion and that doesn’t include the $12 billion EQC has paid out.The fully risk-based approach means that from now on the insurance liability will no longer be spread across the whole country. So Mr Insurance Man believes that is places like Christchurch, Napier, Wellington and Gisborne you are more likely to make a big claim because of earthquakes so your premium is going up.Perversely the premiums in Auckland will go down even though the city sits on top of a volcanic field that was active just 5000 years ago. Presumably, if a volcano blows in our biggest city you might find the burden moving.I can see the insurance companies’ reasoning but it’s too selective. The fact is that we’re all sitting on a very precarious piece of real estate. We didn’t get the nickname the Shaky Isles for nothing and having colonised this country I think it’s best that we stay all in this together.There’s another downside about this regional variance. If it all gets too expensive there’s a very real risk that people will stop insuring altogether which will hit us all as taxpayers if something goes wrong.But it’s not just earthquakes that concern the companies, its weather events as well. So if you’ve got a beachfront property or live in a flood prone area or an area that attracts wildfires then brace yourself for some big bills. We’ve already seen settlements in the Bay of Plenty effectively declared unliveable by insurance companiesThe most expensive year for insurers for storm damage was 2017 at $243 million so compared to the earthquake bill it’s relatively small. But what matters here is the insurer’s opinion of risk.And whether you believe it or not, the insurance companies are factoring climate change into your bills.Now, I know many people get exercised about Government’s commitment to climate change and the worldwide schemes to cope. But for many that stuff seems out of arms reach. It doesn’t really concern them and they just crack on with their day to day life.But nothing will concentrate your mind more than when the private economy starts charging for future climate change and hits you directly in your pocket. Tower has fired the opening shot. Brace yourself. Others will follow as the whole thing suddenly becomes real.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A historical theme park in France plans to use six trained crows to pick up cigarette butts and other rubbish, according to its president.The birds will be praised with treats every time they successfully bring an item back, the Daily Mail reports'The goal is not just to clear up, because the visitors are generally careful to keep things clean' but also to show that 'nature itself can teach us to take care of the environment', said Nicolas de Villiers of the Puy du Fou park, in the western Vendee region.Rooks, a member of the crow family of birds, are considered to be 'particularly intelligent' and in the right circumstances 'like to communicate with humans and establish a relationship through play', Villiers said.The crows will be encouraged to clean the park by the use of a small box which will deliver a snack of bird food each time the rook places a piece of rubbish inside.And the crow family is not the only types of birds found to have potential for intelligent roles.Australian magpies are apparently able to understand what other birds are saying to one another, reported the Guardian.The wild magpie has learned the meanings of different calls by the noisy miner and essentially eavesdrops to find out which predators are close by, research published by the journal Animal Behaviour in May showed.The small native honeyeaters have different calls for ground-based and aerial predators, and when recordings of these were played, wild magpies would raise their beaks towards the sky or bow their heads.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN TO SIENA YATES TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESeeing Celine Dion live was nothing short of a religious experience - or at least, that's the phrase that was on many fans' lips as the iconic singer took to the stage.Spark Arena was packed full of thousands of fans, warmed up by impressionist Veronic DiClaire, whose renditions of hits by the likes of Whitney Houston and Christina Aguilera earned her a standing ovation and raucous applause.But when Celine took to the stage in a golden suit, silhouetted in a single spotlight for her opener The Power of Love, the entire mood shifted.Religious experience or not, people certainly started acting like we were in church, raising and waving their hands as she hit one power note after the next with ease. As she spoke, fans shouted "yes Celine!" like they were supporting a passionate preacher.And boy did she preach; at one point she gave what must have been a 10-minute monologue about Ryan Reynolds which was utterly nonsensical in the most endearing way. She also spoke at length about her children, her late husband and her tour, and about her long absence from New Zealand."Well, we made it. We made it back here and it feels so amazing. I cannot believe it's been 22 years since our last trip in New Zealand...way too long," she said. "That's unacceptable, I'm sorry. I'm so happy to be back. Tonight, what do you say we make up for all that lost time?"She sure as hell gave it her best shot, launching into a set-list full of iconic hits including It's All Coming Back to Me Now, Because You Loved Me (complete with audience sing along), Beauty and the Beast (with stunning duet partner Barnev Valsaint) and Ashes (from the Deadpool 2 soundtrack). The latter won extra applause when Kiwi star Julian Dennison appeared on the massive screen behind Celine.But it wasn't just her own hits, the superstar and her band covered artists from John Farnham to Prince to Bruno Mars, even doing a Tina Turner shimmy during a cover of River Deep, Mountain High.Even while speaking she would throw in musical asides, like a brief cover of Rihanna's Work or singing "Auckland is on fire" to the tune of Alicia Keys' Girl on Fire.A highlight - if you can even pick just one - was a pared-back acoustic performance with her string quartet, and of course, her encore; a stunning and flawless rendition of My Heart Will Go On for which we all stood as if for the national anthem.Celine is an extraordinary powerhouse, an incredible entertainer and one of the most genuine artists I've seen take the stage, even when she's so obviously showing off - and why shouldn't she?She didn't miss a beat or flub a note and she made it all look effortless. Everything from her band to her wardrobe to her set, visuals and lighting were world class.As the packed out crowd stood and cheered at the end of the show, Celine looked genuinely awed, shaking her head and covering her face as if she may cry. Around me, people were already in tears."I'm sorry that it took me 22 years to come back...I hope it never happens again because what you gave tonight, we are going home with this in [our hearts]. We will never forget what you gave to us...thank you so very much," she said.Celine Dion will play two more shows on Sunday and Tuesday at Auckland's Spark Arena, marking the end of her world tour.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I’ve been in a news blackout this weekend and it was lovely.Into the Central North Island I went. I biked all around Taupo for a look on Saturday and then up Mt Ruapehu on Sunday. The mountain that was closed because it was full by 8.15am each day. It really is booming. Perhaps a bit too much.My impression of the whole region was one of activity and excitement. No vacancy signs all over Taupo. People skydiving. The roar of engines from the Motorsport Park. The streets buzzing with languages and accents from around the world. She was all go That might also be because the weather was simply superb. I’ve never seen the water of Lake Taupo smoother. It was jaw-droppingly beautiful.But the upshot was that I was completely deaf to any news. So deaf that even though I was in the town that developed a sinkhole in it I didn’t know.So this morning I finally turned on the radio to find out what was going on in the world. And the lead story was the New Zealand dollar going lowerFor many, this is a bad sign even though it was completely predictable when Adrian Orr said that interest rates weren’t going up any time before 2020. On the other side, the US Fed has increased interest rates seven times in the past three years and is likely to do it two more times before Christmas. That means the US base rate is higher than ours for the first time in two decades.So any money invested was always going to flow out in search of higher interest rates.But let’s always remember that these things are relative. While you can say look how well the US is doing you could also say look how badly they’ve been doing for decades. Remember they got so bad that had effectively zero interest rates and they printed money.Our dollar is now at 66 cents versus the greenback. 12 per cent lower than a year ago. In 2000 it was 39 cents.Now while the petrol prices and imported goods are going to get more expensive you have to look at the bright side that we have in relative terms.Yes, America is firing, but our predicted growth rate for the next three years is still better than Europe, Japan and the UK.Our low-interest rates mean low mortgages, but more importantly, any business doing well can find cheap capital.The businesses doing well will be those trading overseas who will be getting 12 per cent more than a year ago. And that’s exporters, agriculture and of course tourism. We’ve become 12 per cent cheaper than last year and 25 per cent cheaper than we were in 2014. No wonder Taupo was rocking this weekend with foreign accents.And there’s more money available for investing in these businesses as private equity investors pull out of fixed terms.The business confidence figures and a low dollar worry some. But for me, I see this as a cup of tea for six months and the upshot is that we will be well placed to get our second wind.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One News has been criticised for filming Jacinda Ardern apparently breastfeeding at the back of a news conference.Ardern today attended the announcement that plastic bags would be banned, and brought her eight week old baby Neve along with her.While standing at the back of the hall, a One News cameraman turned and filmed Ardern while she was holding Neve.A blanket is covering Neve, and One News has surmised that she is breastfeeding.The video has since been taken down.A TVNZ spokeswoman said the video was removed after they had received a lot of criticism and decided it was wrong.Raising the issue on talkback, Andrew Dickens says that he is outraged that they would post the video, and asks how it is even allowed given tough rules imposed by speaker Trevor Mallard banning unauthorised video of Neve.Texters were divided, with several criticising One News for posting it, with some pointing out that she was clearly trying to protect Neve as she had covered her face.Others questioned why Ardern had even brought Neve with her to the conference, with one person suggesting she was using Neve as a prop.Dickens pointed out that Neve is eight weeks old and would require breastfeeding, and that she and Ardern were at the back of the room where they were meant to be out of the cameras.TVNZ has since taken down the footage. LISTEN TO TEXTER FEEDBACk ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN TO CALLER SONJA TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVEThe Government's goal of one million Kiwis speaking basic te reo by 2040 is achievable but needs the resourcing to back it up, the head of the Māori Language Commission says.Maihi Karauna, the Crown's draft Māori language strategy, was launched this month and along with boosting widespread reo levels it set targets of 150,000 Māori speaking it as a primary language, and for te reo to become a key element of national identity.At the 2013 census 148,400 people could hold a basic conversation in te reo, 84.5 percent of whom identified as Māori.Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern revealed this week her baby, Neve Te Aroha, would be raised to speak te reo Māori and English.Ardern said it was important to her and her partner Clarke Gayford that Neve has an understanding of Māori culture and believes speaking Te Reo is the first step.Te Taura Whiti i te Reo Māori/Māori Language Commission tumuaki (CEO) Ngahiwi Apanui said te reo was increasingly regarded as part of the national identity."New Zealanders, whether they are speakers or not are increasingly celebrating te reo Māori as something that sets us apart from other similar nations."People have pride in their bilingual passports. Nothing says: 'I am from New Zealand' more than te reo Māori."The target of one million New Zealanders speaking basic te reo was achievable."Many people they find they already have a basic vocabulary – to have basic Māori language only sentence structures and common phrases need to be added."A 2013 Statistics New Zealand survey found 257,500 (55 percent) of Māori adults were able to speak more than a few words or phrases, up from 153,500 in 2001.Of those, 50,000 Māori could speak about almost anything, or at least many things in Māori."As these people and new graduates of schools, universities, wānanga and community-based courses continue to develop their Māori language skills it is entirely possible the Māori will become their primary language, especially in settings where there are other Māori speakers," Apanui said.While the goals were achievable, there needed to be a boost in resources.Many kura and wānanga around the country were at capacity for te reo courses, and even had waiting lists."The draft points to the need for increased resources, and we know demand is already stretching what we have," Apanui said."More and better teachers and technology and more online audio, video and writing in te reo Māori is what we need."In the end it will depend on government decisions and the goodwill and support of the New Zealand people."Māori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta said the draft strategy was open for Kiwis to share their views on."I encourage everyone to have their say on the future of our language and how the Crown can help to protect, promote and secure its future."When I think of my young children growing up it is increasingly important to ensure that more Kiwis connect and reflect our common identity through valuing the indigenous language and culture of our country."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is mixed reaction to the government's new "dole for apprenticeship" scheme.Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today announced the "Mana in Mahi – Strength in Work" scheme would pay employers who give apprenticeship or traineeships to you people the equivalent of the dole for a year.They will also get $3000 to $6000 each for the pastoral care of the young people.It will start with 150 you people, between the ages of 18 to 24, who have been on the benefit for at least six months and will be funded for 4000 people from the middle of next year.Employers will be required to top up the young people's wages to the minimum wage and help them to achieve a Level 4 qualification such as an apprenticeship.Talkback reaction to the scheme has been mixed with some callers praising the scheme while others are not convinced.LISTEN TO ALL THE REACTION ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The nurses deal continues to reverberate on.So to recap the nurses were given a pay increase and an extra $38 million for 500 more nurses. So yesterday, the discussion was on where we could find these 500 nursesBringing nurses back to New Zealand was one idea. Health boards' spokesman Jim Green suggested, to boost staffing numbers, alongside getting those who had left the profession to return, getting more new-graduates, and getting others from elsewhere in healthcare.So let’s look at that. Getting others from elsewhere in healthcare is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Already we’ve heard of aged care staff returning to nursing for more money. Now that might be good for nursing but it’s a blow for aged care which is already in its own staffing crisis.Getting new graduates means enrolling more students. It might happen but there will be a considerable time lag before they come on stream. Plus there will have to be more investment in training capacity which I’m not sure is budgeted forGetting those who have left the profession to return is bringing in an older workforce and incurring retraining expenses. And those who left, left not just because of money but their distaste for the profession, its stresses and it’s lack of reward. They’ve also left and found a new happy place. Good luck in getting them backAnd finally, bringing back the nurses who left and went overseas. Well, today’s papers are full of stories of expat New Zealand nurses who aren’t coming home. One nurse working in Queensland is getting $5000 a fortnight. Her contemporaries who stayed in New Zealand are getting $1300.She says the deal is nowhere near enough to bring her home. Friends and family might lure her home but, unless she saves a lot, she won't be able to buy a house.It appears to me that if we are to find 500 nurses within a year to improve nurses working conditions we going to have to import them. And then the whole immigration band-aid that we’ve put over the economy and our job market is back.We’re stuck like hamsters in a wheel frantically running to stand still.The whole thing is to be repeated with the teachers. Their situation is so similar. Not enough pay. Not enough teachers. Let’s pay them more to get more teachers. But where do we magic them up from.Here’s a teacher fact for you. Did you know the average age of teachers in New Zealand is 57.5? I think that’s the most damning statistic. They’re mostly the people who can afford to be paid so little because of a supportive partner and have a calling. My Mum kept teaching until she was in her mid-seventies. Why? Because her school needed her and couldn’t find anyone else. She said she was a face of the crisis.Now I haven’t got a silver bullet answer. But I will say that for near enough 30 years we have run our social economy on a shoestring. And that means as we approach 2020 that we don’t have enough doctors, nurses, teachers, police, engineers or builders. But we have heaps and heaps of lawyers, accountants and marketing executives. The shoestring is close to snapping.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People are questioning whether or not New Zealand taxpayers should have to pay to rescue foreign tourists from our mountains.Terry Harch, 29, was airlifted to Dunedin Hospital last Friday suffering frost bite after activating his distress beacon four days earlier.He spent the following days waiting for a break in the weather until Search and Rescue teams could locate him.Stuff has reported that the mission cost $150,000.Andrew Dickens has asked why we should have to pay for it, and whether or not the cost should be borne by the Australian government.LISTEN TO ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A long winter of discontent and division feels like it’s settling in.The latest political poll is evidence that we’re evenly split and also that truth is in the eye of the beholder. The fact that National has held steady and still scores at 45 percent is taken by some to show that the party still has a legitimate claim to authority.But Labour is within the margin of error at 42 percent. Add on the Greens and you have a 48 percent. A 3 percent margin left over right. And their supporters claim the moral authority. But again that’s within the margin of error. I think it’s only fair to say we are evenly split.The real winner is New Zealand First who keeps on pulling a 5 percent. It keeps them being the judge jury and executioner. I think it’s also fair to say that the predicted collapse of the coalition is still a ways away and the rise of National is a ways away too as their leader fails to excite the middle.So we’re stuck. There is no clear winner. The only differentiating factor is your opinion. How you feel.And depending on how you feel and what opinions you read is the defining trend of the age, which is why logic and facts are the victims.We are in the age of propaganda. Some say socialism is on the rise. Others say this is the age of strongman autocracy. And both sides are just as sure of their truth and the other sides delusions as each other.I was struck by this finely balanced division and war of words and ideas and propaganda reading a piece by Business writer Liam Dann in the weekendLiam was struggling to decide whether we’re heading towards an economic meltdown or not. Whether the drop in business confidence is based on economic truths or notWhat he said was that reality is complex and seldom fits easily into party political divides.And when there is political heat in an issue it gets passionate. And when people argue with passion their ability to process evidence from both sides of an argument seems to diminish. And science has proven that humans create their own reality.In other words, you’re biased. I am biased. He’s biased. Everyone is biased. Yet despite this, politicians and their party faithful cling to the belief that their opponents are biased and they are not.And in a time of even balance between ideologies then that’s a recipe for shouting, yelling and accusations.Liam finished his piece, saying we are all stuck in this life together. And it is short and nobody gets out alive. Spending it feeling angry because someone said something you don't like isn't worth it.Very true. But it is fair to say this winter of disagreement isn’t getting any shorterSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the more remarkable things happened this week. A Judge actually admitted that he got something wrong and almost apologised.His name is Judge Kevin Phillips and he is a District Court Judge in Dunedin.The whole sorry affair started in May last year.A 16-year-old and his brother were cruising streets of Dunedin looking for a party they had heard about on Facebook and trouble.First, they shook down another 16 year old. They got him to empty his pockets. They punched him in the face knocking him out and taking his phone and wallet.Ten minutes later they spotted five students carrying some booze, beer and cider.  So they too were shaken down. The booze was taken and people were hit. And as they escaped, the offender noticed a woman trying to photograph the car they were in.When this scumball youth appeared in court Judge Phillips granted him electronically monitored bail to his father’s home and orders to receive help and training. Which as it turns out was nearly a fatal mistake.2 months later while at the training centre the offender noticed the woman who he said had been saying bad things about him and launched a furious assault.It began with six punches to the face, which knocked the victim to the ground.As she tried to protect herself, he kicked her in the head as hard as he could and followed it up with two stamps to the temple.She suffered a cracked cheekbone and eye socket, a broken nose and split lip.So when this piece of work appeared again in court Judge Phillips admitted he got it wrong. ''It was against my better judgement and I have to take responsibility.'' And he apologised for the 18 year old woman who was beaten up. The defendant was jailed for three years and two months.So good on the judge, because how many times do we hear of these mistakes but no remorse?But let’s remember that the offender was 16 and he was offered a raft of intensive services to help get his act together.But here is the kicker in the tail.The court heard the man had gone into care at the age of two and was moved 13 times between homes within a year. At 13 years old he was living in a car. Gangs, violence and drugs were the norm. Judge Phillips said ''You're a young man who has had no chance or opportunity in life whatsoever and I feel very sad about that.''Our child services so often are asked to step in, but you can’t help that they actually make things worse. You can blame the parents but the state also seems good at creating a feral underclass.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A warning to the paparazzi from the Prime Ministers minders.Parliament Speaker Trevor Mallard is threatening to expel Press Gallery journalists if they take unauthorised photos of the Prime Minister or Clarke Gayford on their return next week.Newstalk ZB Political editor Barry Soper says Mallard is promising that if his rules are breached, he will withdraw the offending journalist's accreditation and penalise their employer.Mallard says he wants to make Parliament more family friendly. He has posed in the Speaker's chair holding an MP's baby.As an example, if the first couple happens to walk behind an interview being videoed with baby Neve, he expects that part of the interview to be deleted.The Gallery will meet Mallard next week.LISTEN ABOVE AS BARRY SOPER JOINS ANDREW DICKENS TO DISCUSS THE SPEAKERS DECISIONSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I suppose with Leighton on holiday you could say we’ve all had a break from being told that resilience is something modern New Zealand lacks. So maybe it should fall to me to hand out some resilience calls. A little bit of 'harden up snowflake and stop moaning' stuff.Firstly, the Shortland Street Down’s Syndrome plotline stoush where supporters of Down Syndrome children are upset, particularly with the distressed mother character who in a moment of fear and emotion wails about the possibility of having a munted child. Now it’s confronting, for sure, but it’s the reality. It is absolutely part of the process and the thinking that happens when you first learn your child has an issue to deal with.To depict the situation as a happy uplifting experience and to block any discussion of the possibility of abortion would do a worse disservice to people trying to understand what parents go through. Ask any parent who discovers an in utero defect in their child and dealing with the initial anger is part of the process. I know one couple where the mother railed about her deformed child to be but found the will to carry on. That child is now in their twenties and is well loved and wanted.This is an ongoing plotline and we’ll wait to see where the parents go with the process. By the way, soap operas are not just television. They are life writ large which is why they’re so popular and why the best plotlines are mired in real life and real emotion.On the furore of Winston Peters saying “Kick Fatty Out” about Gerry Brownlee in the house yesterday. Well, it deserves a tut-tut for the Acting Prime Minister to use such language in the house but to get all up in arms about sizest language is a little rich. Winston and Gerry are grown up people who are more than capable of sorting things out amongst themselves if Gerry took any offence. It’s not on to call a fatty, fatty if you don’t know them. And it’s none of your business if someone calls someone they know well Fatty.And one other point on resilience. Yesterday we were talking about the woes of the construction industry and there was considerable moaning about the growing Health and Safety industry and imposts. I asked the question whether it’s any worse or better in other countries as they mostly appear to have better safety records than New Zealand. Well, I had a number of replies overnight saying the same thing. It’s more stringent overseas. One writer said that we’re 5 years behind Australia and I quote “Almost every site you walk on in Auckland would almost certainly be shut down if we were in Aussie.”We have a very vocal sector of society who moan. Harden up. Deal with the Health and Safety issue, reject mad claims, but stop moaning, because it’s not going to kill you. Unlike the accidents that killed 40 people at work last yearSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Winston Peters’ brief time as Prime Minister is nearly over, but he’s waded in to what might be his most controversial topic yet.Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull raised eyebrows after revealing on social media that he eats pies with a knife and fork, as opposed to simply picking it up with his hands.It’s time we admitted there’s nothing wrong with using a knife and fork to eat a pie. Discuss. pic.twitter.com/O28x3lStXJ— BenFordham (@BenFordham) July 26, 2018One Twitter user suggest Winston Peters should be sought for comment on it - and the Acting Prime Minister threw his two cents into the arena.In support of @TurnbullMalcolm, I don't give a rat's derriere what people think I'll eat a pie with a knife and fork. Some pies are very flaky, and sometimes you want to put sauce on.— Winston Peters (@winstonpeters) July 31, 2018Is this un-Prime Ministerial? Andrew Dickens and Political Editor turned Food Critic Barry Soper debate above.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The father of an Auckland who died from a synthetic drugs overdose is calling for the Government to do more to.Yesterday, Cabinet received a coroner’s report that shows deaths related to the drug rose to 45 over the last month.Lewis Jones lost his son, Callum, in September last year after taking synthetic cannabis, a drug he was addicted to for five years.He told Andrew Dickens that his son had been addicted for around five years, and that he had resorted to having Calum committed to a detox centre.“He was in their care, and then to realise there is no system out there to help these people in rehabiliation, that’s been my biggest... open my eyes.”He says that police are restricted in their ability to stop synthetic drug dealers due to a lack of policy.“Why aren’t they putting the restrictions in place to actually prevent people from selling it?”Jones says that there are limited programs available to help synthetic drug addicts rehabilitate.  LISTEN TO LEWIS JONES TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A New Zealander deported from Australia says he supports Andrew Little’s comments taking on the Australian government.William told Andrew Dickens that he moved to Australia in order to escape the gang lifestyle in New Zealand.However, he breached the country’s strict rules around good character. He says that he started taking drugs after his wife died, but he was deported because his girlfriend would come to his house, breaching a protection act.“I went to Australia and spent almost 30 years there. My children are stuck there because of this situation.”He supports what Little has been saying, and says that more needs to be done over this growing conflict.LISTEN TO WILLIAM TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’ve spent the last few days wondering if I’d been transported to an alternative universe. Everything seems topsy turvy. Some things were normal.The Crusaders were still dominating and moving towards a title just as they have done now for near enough 20 years. I read a report that said that the Crusaders are 20 per cent better than any other team in the competition and another comment on social media that the Crusaders are the best sporting club in the world.  I’d agree with both of those statements.The Warriors were losing a game they should have won. Their form was topsy turvy again but that’s not topsy turvy at all - that’s 100 per cent normal. And then there was the news that Joseph Parker had been put down and lost gallantly.  Again that didn’t surprise me.  I saw a comment that Joe is a talented but polite boxer who was shocked at Whyte’s brawling. Joe talks about unleashing the mongrel but the problem is there’s no mongrel in him.So so far transmission as normal. But then there was this headline from Liam Dann: Trump farm policy is pure socialism.He’s exaggerating a bit but not wrong. This week President Trump unveiled US$12 billion worth of farm subsidies. And to give the farmers the subsidy he’s using taxpayer money to buy milk, soy beans, pork and grain directly from farmers at a guaranteed price.Sound familiar? Soviet or Chinese style command economy, the government distorting the market, fixing the price. While he claims the idea is only temporary over the trade war it has infuriated many Republicans who claim this takes the States straight back to 1929. It’s proof that Mr Trump is not all that most expect. Including his friends.And then I woke up this morning in an alternate universe. Mike Hosking’s lead interview was Sir John Key on the global economy. Meanwhile the actual leader of the National Party, Simon Bridges, was arguing for an education policy of smaller class sizes that the National Party actively argued against a few short years ago? Fresh from his first National party conference Mr Bridges wasn’t even on the breakfast show. Kerre interviewed him at 9am.This was all a bit weird. Simon Bridges has been on what I call party paternity leave. For 70 days he’s been trooping around the country meeting the people, mostly National Party people. While that is admirable he’s been notably absent from the countrywide conversations, at the same time the prime Minister has been away on maternity leave.Actually Mr Bridges has been away longer.  I tweeted this and National MP Chris Penk got all up in arms saying that Mr Bridges has done 66 public meetings and been in parliament so don’t call it leave. That’s true but that ignores that politics is perception.After 70 days doing his tour Simon Bridges came back into the national limelight this weekend. He chose to promote a policy that his party fought to not put in place when they were in power. He missed the sitter in business confidence, he left that to the Sir John Key, who got the headlines and the respect. Who’s running this show?It was very telling that Mike’s first text this morning said 'Bring back John Key', Simon Bridges and the National Party brains trust just blew it, it’s Politics 101.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Entertainment reporter Karl Puschmann joins Andrew Dickens to discuss the next big TV reboot in the works.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To end the week some points.If you were listening yesterday at 3.30 pm I exploded that the bid to have a concert at Eden Park was over.  It was another example of long term dithering over public assets by local and central governments that blight our public policy.10 years ago tax payers money was sunk into a facility for the Rugby World Cup.  $250 million worth.  The ratepayers of Auckland also had to pony up.  And for all the money we spent we have a venue too small for cricket, too big for league and club rugby, and not available at all for any other events.  In other words unfit for purpose. Rip the thing down and build something that works.The minority that prevented the concert could also prevent the Indian cricket tour at Eden park.  Because of time differences the Indians would like the day night games to start an hour later so their fans can watch their team on telly. To do that needs a resource consent. We’ve just seen how well that went and how much that costs.The point is why did the government and the council fund a white elephant. Particularly the government.Then there’s the news that the City Rail Link is too small and so hundreds of millions of extra dollars have to be pumped into the tunnels to make them bigger. They should have been future proofed in the future.  It’s not that the future wasn’t seen it’s just that the future is happening sooner than expected.  So who was too cheap to underfund a 100 year asset in the first place.  The government and the councilIt’s just like the Harbour bridge scenario. There’s a whole lot of whingers with little vision who hamstring ideas for a false economy and they’ve cost us billions through the years.  Shame on them all.  Particularly the various governments who have wasted taxpayers money on petty politics.Now the National Party annual conference is this weekend and it welcomes back it’s leader Simon Bridges who’s been on a 70-day road trip meeting the peeps. In the paper this morning he says he’s a work in progress.  That’s fair enough but every time a real leader has arrived they tend to arrive fully formed and ready to go.  A week is a long time in politics so 70 days was an eternity. Simon better be ready to rock.  Because while he’s been away Mark Mitchell has been impressing on the Mike Hosking breakfast show.  National is starting to have the creeping irrelevance that Labour suffered in the Goff/Shearer/Cunliffe days.And finally good luck to Joseph Parker for his fight with Dillian White.  There’s no doubting Joe has got something but it’s time to see it in action.  Lose this one and it’s a slippery slope to retirement and owning a suburban gym and thinking I could have been.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Eden Park has been forced to withdraw from holding the "Million Babies" LifePod Appeal concert.The Eden Park Trust announced this afternoon that due to time constraints and the prospect of substantial Environment Court costs, it has been forced to cancel the concert, planned for Waitangi Day.At the start of the week, the Trust's lawyers advised that the process to obtain a consent for the concert was likely to stretch beyond October and cost in excess of $750,000, not including The Trust's legal costs.Trustees then had a meeting and concluded that it is not viable for the stadium to continue with its application due to the likely costs and timeframe for court proceedings.The Trust hoped it could work with the minority who objected to reach an agreement for this one-off worthy event. This would have avoided the Environment Court process but unfortunately, that was not to be the case.Chief Executive Nick Sautner said, "Although we respect the process in place, to bring events like concerts to our stadium we also have to work in with promoters' lead times which include confirming the venue as well as securing ticket on-sale dates.""Unfortunately this time it was unworkable but we now look to the future to ensure this half a billion dollar asset can host unique and memorable events for the city."Plans for the Live Aid-style concert were announced by Sir Ray Avery, a former New Zealander of the Year, in the hopes of raising money in an effort to help save babies around the world.Avery wants to build enough LifePod incubators to save a million babies and the concert was the first step in raising the $4 million needed to make 2000 pods.Hundreds of people made submissions on whether the concert should be allowed to go ahead, with some local residents posting strong criticism, most notably former Prime Minister Helen Clark.The trust's application for the Million Babies event, lodged on June 6, said noise levels during the concert, between 7pm and 10.30pm on Waitangi Day, could exceed 75 decibels for about 30 houses west of Sandringham Rd and 80 decibels for another small group of houses near the northwest corner of the park.Consultation with the community included making its environmental planners, traffic, acoustic and lighting specialists available to address any concerns as well as bringing locals together through stadium tours, a 'Friday Family Fish 'n' Chips' evening and other events to inspire open conversation and share the recent independent research.LISTEN ABOVE AS ANDREW DICKENS SHARES HIS THOUGHTS ON THE EDEN PARK CHARITY CONCERT BEING CANCELLEDSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So here we go again.The nurses are now voting on the fifth offer from DHB’s in what is becoming a long-running saga.There’s no real new money in the latest offer other than further addressing the issue of safer staffing, and it brings forward a new top salary step for senior nurses.The union, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, is suggesting once again that nurses accept the offer. They say the nurses now have some concrete mechanisms to address the main issuess and they want to crack on putting some money in the nurse’s pockets and implement the positive stuff.So will they go for it? Who knows? Certainly, there are some nurses who are staying staunch.Comments made overnight on a Facebook group for nurses are overwhelmingly negative about the offer. The page is run by registered nurse, Danni Wilkinson, who spoke with Mike Hosking this morning.She thinks the union negotiators are over it and have lost the will to fight. She says they should be going back to DHBs and saying okay 15 percent is catch-up and we need 1500 more nurses and that should be the bottom line. She also claims that public support is still strong.Which it is and it isn’t. This is a highly anecdotal story about a coffee I had with an acquaintance two days ago. We were talking about the nurses. She’d recently had an operation and she said the care was amazing. She was also surprised at the number of immigrant nurses and how many of them were doctors in their own country, forced to nurse because their qualifications were not transferable. They, therefore, gave her magnificent and knowledgeable care.So my acquaintance said the nurses deserve more money. I asked her if the government can afford it and she doubted it.But then she told me something sad that I’ve been bracing myself for.A friend of hers was scheduled for an operation on the day the nurses struck for the first time in a generation. He has pancreatic cancer. His operation was cancelled and rescheduled for two weeks later.He’s just had the operation and they closed him back up without doing anything. In the fortnight, the cancer has spread too much. He was told to go home and prepare for the end. They gave him 18 months.There was a long silence between us as we digested that. I asked if he blamed the nurses. Apparently, he doesn’t. As he had accepted the inevitable before the delay but there is regret that there are weeks and maybe months he will miss.So now we wait for the vote and the possibility of another strike. It’s an online vote. We’ll find out next week. Another week of delay and stasis and no extra pay for nurses.The thing is another strike might fray the nerves and the support if more stories like the man who missed the window for an operation because of the strike arise. This has already dragged on for a year and five offers. It sounds like the union negotiators are over it. It sounds like the DHB are set in their ways. It sounds to me like an increasingly entrenched stalemate.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the age of Spotify and Apple Music, it may seem hard to believe, but CD compilations are still going strong.The UK edition of Now! That’s What I Call Music has released it’s 100th edition, 35 years after the first edition was released.In honour of the album’s centenary, the latest version includes a series of greatest hits from the last four decades, with hits ranging from Red, Red Wine to Can’t Get You Out of My Head.The former got a little on Andrew’s nerves when he learnt the news the other day.LISTEN TO ANDREW'S TORTURE ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, Tauranga’s Bella Vista debacle stumbles on with the Council announcing its plans to compensate the 21 property owners caught up in a schemozzle of a project.And true to this story’s form, it’s got people up in arms.At its essence, the council deal is the cost of the house they purchased about 3 years ago plus around $10,000 - that’s to cover expenses. You know, lawyers, engineers and the like.The homeowners had already said they wanted market value and so this sort of deal was never going to make them happy. And of course, that’s the market value of a house that was actually worth anything, because the current market value of the Bella Vista development is approximately nothing, zilch, five-eighths of F.A.And the $10,000 is a bit of a slap in the face because could you put a value on the homelessness of 2 years, the insecurity of whether your entire life savings have been destroyed, the fear that you owe a house load of money but have no house? 2 years of staying still. Actually no. 2 years of going backwards.Some residents have already filed documents in the High Court against the council, seeking damages of $50,000 per property plus costs and damages and who would blame them.From my point of view, the council failed miserably in its job. But the developer did too. No one from the council told him to buy that land or develop that land or do an entirely unsatisfactory job. He built unliveable homes.Bella Vista Homes director Danny Cancian got my goat when he said the council never asked him to complete geotechnical reports that were required under its rules. That may be true but at the end of the day, Danny did not follow the rules in the first place. He was building the houses. The houses he built were condemned. And how much compensation is he paying? Well, nothing.It’s a mess.And as I heard some of the heartbroken homeowners this morning I also thought how much blame rests at New Zealand’s entire housing market and the continuing belief in the myth of the affordable family home.These were half million dollar houses. The affordable home. And they got exactly what 500,000 buys you in Tauranga. Unliveable homes on unstable ground, facing South, living cheek by jowl. I have almost no doubt in my mind that if the foundations had worked we would have found that the buildings were leaking and mould ridden within months.3 years later the affordable house in metropolitan areas is assessed by the government to be 650,000 dollars. 150 grand more. The government wants to build 10,000 a year of these and 100,000 in a decade. So here’s the question.Do you have any confidence that the houses they’re building will be any better than the houses built at Bella Vista?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN ABOVE AS PETER BURLING AND BLAIR TUKE SPEAK WITH ANDREW DICKENS Peter Burling and Blair Tuke have confirmed their intention to try to win another gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games as well as being part of Emirates Team New Zealand's defence of the America's Cup.Burling and Tuke dominated the 49er class in the last Olympic cycle, winning every major regatta after the 2012 Olympics, including four consecutive world titles and an Olympic gold in Rio 2016.Since Rio they have dedicated themselves to helping Team NZ win the 35th America's Cup in 2017 and more recently completed the 2017/18 edition of the Volvo Ocean Race.The pair have made no secret that another Olympic campaign was high on their agenda but wanted to wait until the Volvo Ocean Race had concluded to reset goals with their core team.Burling and Tuke will once again work closely with Hamish Willcox and David Slyfield to try to win another Olympic gold medal in 2020."It's not a decision we made lightly" said Tuke. "Representing your country at Olympic level is the highest honour and we are both incredibly focused on defending the Cup for New Zealand as part of Emirates Team New Zealand. We wanted to ensure we could give both campaigns everything we've got."Burling added: "We know the combination of Olympic and America's Cup sailing complement each other. It creates a really high-performance environment across all areas of sailing for us to push ourselves and be at the top of our game."The duo has the support of Team NZ and Yachting New Zealand."It's great to have them back in the 49er," Yachting New Zealand high performance director Ian Stewart said. "They are special sailors and will strengthen our goal of winning at least three medals in Tokyo but, more than that, their experience and leadership will have a massive impact on the ongoing development of the NZL Sailing Team."Team NZ COO Kevin Shoebridge continued: "We are happy to have Peter and Blair back as part of the team dedicated to the defence of the America's Cup. Once again, we're fully supportive of them integrating the Olympic 49er campaign with America's Cup commitments."Collectively we are an incredibly strong and talented team that is focused on defending the America's Cup and that allows our core sailing team including Peter, Blair as well as Andy Maloney and Josh Junior to remain in peak sailing condition running parallel Olympic campaigns."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another day and another survey commissioned by a player with skin in the game. Today it’s cannabis law reformYesterday we had a survey on hardship commissioned by the Salvation Army.  Because of the method of the survey, it was an opt in on a website offering financial rewards, it was easy to doubt it and I think it actually rebounded of the Sallies. Too many people said that the survey was exaggerating the hardship, which meant that those people also ended out minimising the extent of hardship in New Zealand and on reflection, I was not proud to be one of those.So today, the headline reads “Support for legalising cannabis getting higher - NZ Drug Foundation”Well, it was never going to read that support was decreasing was it? Given the interests of the commissioner of the survey. Too much skin in the game for anyone to believe that the survey was objective.   The results were released in a press release from the NZ Drug Foundation.  Now if they wanted more currency I would have given the results to other parties to see their analysis.  But that’s not the way the game worksSo the the survey  found 35 percent of people want cannabis to be legalised and 32 percent are in favour of decriminalisation.  The combined number of 67 percent in favour of legalisation or decriminalisation is two percent higher than the 2017 result of 65 percent.Now remember that headline.  Support for legalising cannabis getting higher.  Strictly speaking two per cent is higher.  But it’s also less than the margin of error which was 3.2%So while it is true that two thirds of those surveyed would like to see a change in our cannabis laws, I wouldn’t go round trumpeting that support is growing.So what do I make of it? I think everyone’s pretty well made up their mind. We’ve batted this around for long enough the whole thing is a Groundhog Day debate.  I haven’t heard a new angle on the debate in years.  So what should we do?As he continues to show the Acting Prime Minister is pretty good at the job.  This morning he said let’s just have a referendum.  Don’t let the politicians decide for you he said this morning. And I agree. The talking is over, we’re going around in circles.  Let’s do some voting.Winston Peters wasn’t the only one talking some sense this morning on the radio.  There was the uni tax professor when asked what to do about dairy robberies because ciggies have got so expensive he said make supermarkets sell them.  When told that the dairies may then go broke he said dairy owners just have to make themselves as secure as supermarkets. He also mentioned selling cigarettes in pharmacies. It seemed so easy and logical.What do I think? No more tax.  We’ve hit peak ciggy tax.  Stick them in supermarkets and pharmacies alongside cessation practices and maybe vapes.  Honestly, that will put even more off than a tax hike.  And I know.  5 weeks ago I told you I’m a smoker and I was going to stop using willpower and vaping because the whole thing was too expensive and I was getting too old for the game.  I’m now 5 weeks clean and not tempted by the foul things at all.Trust me because on this issue, unlike the drug foundation and the Salvation Army, I no longer have skin in the gameSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another winter’s day Monday and another litany of claims that the country is going to hell in a hand cart. Firstly today the Salvation Army launched it’s winter appeal by releasing a survey.The first I knew of it was when I was Television One’s breakfast panel this morning. There the survey was headlined like this. “Shocking new Salvation Army survey finds nearly half of New Zealanders have gone without heating, 37 percent have skipped a meal as winter costs bite”Now to be honest I don’t know where the shocking part of the headline came from mainly because I think we’ve all been there.For instance. In my house we have strict rules about heating. It’s on for one hour in the morning and two hours at night and if you get cold go get a puffer jacket. We have slowly been replacing the insulation in our house. Actually to be honest we’ve been installing it because as we found out a few years ago our 100 year old house had not one fibre of insulation.My bedroom is not insulated. This morning at 7am it was 7 degrees Celsius. We counter that with a good duvet and a quick dash to the kitchen each morning.  So we go without heating but because we choose to. We could overheat the house if we want to but choose not to.This is not to discredit the survey’s findings but like all things they need a closer look especially as it is released on a day the charity is seeking to raise money. So the survey was done by Pure Profile. Here’s what they say on their website.“Since 2000, more than a million people have chosen to join Pureprofile to share their opinions and unlock the true value of their data. They answer questions via our mobile and web apps to build a secure asset from their information and in return receive personalised content, insights and financial rewards.”So it was an opt in with financial rewards.What I can say is that some people are poor, some people can’t afford their heating costs, some people also skip meals. Some people also can’t afford to heat their house because they want it at 22 degrees 24 hours a day. But the figures are designed to be disturbing for maximum impact.I thought the same as the litany of business confidence results came out and a number of chambers of commerce blamed the government for sinking confidence levels. One common complaint is that the government is getting rid of the 90 day trial. Which is not entirely correct.They’re taking it away from companies with more than 20 people. The common complaint that the loss of the 90 day trial will hit small businesses is just not true. And the legislation doing it is still well away. Just a little bit of fake news going round.It’s similar to the whole Russians rigged the election debate. While intelligence agencies and the President have admitted that the Russians have meddled in the information flow around the election, no-one has ever suggested that a Russian ever cast a vote.As far as we can tell so far every vote for Trump was an American vote. Words like rigged or hacked do not mean the same as meddled.The world is full of people using language that flatters them the most. Just be aware of it and realise that fake news is not a new invention and it’s used by everyone with something to sell.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So Sir Stephen Tindall is stepping away from the company he created, the Warehouse.From a company he created in a garage, the big Red Store has become part of the New Zealand landscape.  Its shops have sprouted in towns across New Zealand, providing Kiwis with affordable goods and towns with valuable jobs.With $200 million his pockets he’s decided to dedicate the rest of his life to inspire his fellow countrymen to better themselves.It’s something he’s already well versed in.  His Tindall Foundation has looked at social issues and invested $160 million worth of Warehouse dividends into New Zealand communities.The foundation is mostly concerned with education and housing.  On education, he says we appear to have skipped a generation of parents in terms of needs and that we need to teach parents different ways to bring up their kids.On housing, he talks about an Auckland Primary School where 40 per cent of the students were transient. He knows that all our problems are interlinked.  So the Tindall foundation is starting to look at social housing.  He’s looking at the way to reduce the cost of building. As he is pointing out the housing crisis is an education crisis too. He’s also investing in new ideas with his K1W1 investment firm.  It came out of Labour’s hyped knowledge wave which many say failed.  He disagrees saying it’s slow to start but gaining pace.  He has now invested $100 million in 200 tech companies, including superstars like Rocket Lab and Lanz Tech.But as he finds himself with more time on his hands, he’s also talking the big stuff of an economy.  He wants more green energy, more and cheaper homes, more smart tech. We talk about when we have hit peak cow.  Well if it isn’t now it soon will be and it’s time to start turning the ship.  Any country like any supertanker takes time to change course.Like the knowledge wave that was talked about in the 90s and is starting to take shape now.I’m heartened that we have people like Stephen Tindall around.  People not shackled by the ideas of the past.  People not constrained by the need for immediate power and influence like politicians.  People with long term vision who realise that most of our true goals are beyond tribal politics and petty divisions. People with their eye on the ball.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I see the average police salary is a tick over $67,000.Is that enough money to convince you to work all night, in the crap and the vomit and the violence and the anger and the pure emotion, to deal with the least likable sector of our society, some of whom are barely above feral animals?To risk your physical well-being and to risk condemnation from social justice warriors observing from the comfy armchairs if, in a split second, you make an error of procedure? To know that unless you’re one of the few who get to the top then this will never be a career that can take you to retirement because of the toll it takes on your body.Is $67,000 enough to make you take all that on?No, I didn’t think so.And if you were a youngster looking at the starting constables salary of $56,000, would you be thinking I’ll have some of that? When you realise that most of your squadmates are only earning 10 grand more than that after their years of stress and abuse? Or would you be looking at what the nurses have just been offered and thinking ‘that looks a doddle compared to what I’m facing’?Police are joining the nurses and teachers in pushing for a pay rise. That’s probably why you heard yesterday that 500 officers leave the police every year. They’re leaving because it’s not worth the argy-bargy.But the police face another hurdle compared to nurses and teachers. Legally they can’t strike. So if they don’t get what they want then we run the risk of even more cops flagging it away.The police issue is a crisis in waiting. It’s already started. It’s a slow-motion landslide.So here’s the thing. I think we can all agree that nurses, teachers and police are paid too little. We all want to pay them more. Because we all know in our heart of hearts that we’ve underpaid them for decades.Labour governments, National governments, all governments scrimp on public service wages to free up money to spend on whatever idealogical crusade they believe in, whether its tax cuts or more benefits or whatever.So, we the people, have to decide what we want to do to make sure our governments have enough money to keep and attract police, nurses and teachers to the job.We either pay more tax, or we reassign our spending.Now if there’s one thing I know it’s that few people actively vote to pay more taxes. Because, at the end of the day while we want police, nurses and teachers to have more money, we don’t want them to have our money.So all you can do is look at spending.I said so to National as they ran the public service threadbare to afford taxcuts and now I’ll say the same to the new government.The first thing they did last December was to give a $5 billion boost to Working For Families and benefits. Despite knowing that the public service has been making pay sacrifices since the year dot and especially since the Global Financial Crisis 10 years ago.A realist who understands how important the police, nurses and teachers are to a country might have thought to have mitigated that pay rise to the poor by putting a couple of billion aside for the public service.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So if you were offered a four day working week, would you take it?Actually, to save time, let me rephrase that and let me be careful so I don’t make a Trumpian mistake: if you were offered a four day working week, who wouldn’t take it.Most of us would jump at it not because it’s a four day working week but because it means it’s a three day weekend. But to afford the three day weekend, we’ve got to work for four days, and in that work we have to make enough money that we can afford the luxury of the perpetual long weekend.So the Perpetual Guardian trial of the four day working week has finished and its boss Andrew Barnes told Mike Hosking this morning it’s been a huge success; in fact, he rated it 9.5 out of 10. The fear was that to get all the work done, work life would be more stressful, but staff surveys say the stress level actually reduced.The research shows the thing everyone loved was the substantial improvement in work-life balance. Andrew Barnes saw a massive increase in engagement. In other words, when people were at work, they worked. The staff were more satisfied and they intended to stay with the company longer.The important thing here is productivity, and the company reports it’s as good as it’s always been.Andrew Barnes believes it’s time to talk about our workforce and why we lag behind other countries in terms of productivity, and I don’t think anyone would disagree with him.But productivity is one of those jargon buzz words that remains an abstract concept for many people. As Andrew Barnes says, we’re paying for productivity, not for hours worked. It’s a simple point that too few don’t get.To show you how entrenched old ways of working are, just look at our employment legislation and specifically the Holidays Act, where you don’t earn your holidays for what you created and achieved but for how many hours and days you attended work.Because of that framework, you can be penalised. If you complete your assigned task quickly you can end out with fewer holidays. It’s the same if you work above and beyond expectations.Last year, I was a prime example. My work obligation was to provide a programme five day a week. No overtime. Sometimes the show took 20 hours to put together, some times it took six.But because of the payroll system being based on hours, we had to put nominal hours in there. It all came unstuck when I took holidays and we had many complex calculations of hours to see if that was possible.It all had nothing to do with productivity and was in no way efficient.We see it in collective pay negotiations. We see it in arcane and archaic arguments about meeting times, smoko breaks and toilet time.Grant Robertson has banged on for a long time about productivity. Perpetual Guardian is looking at the real issues. I hope the Finance Minister is watching closely so we stop talking about it and start lifting it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

School holiday programmes are being labelled as too expensive by organisers.Mangere East Family Services used to run holiday programmes, but CEO Peter Sykes says the high costs forced them to stop."The costs and risks of keeping a group of children together and getting the right staff and staff ratios just makes it not worthwhile."Sykes says safety is another concern.He says holiday programmes which receive Government funding have to have staff which meet the same quality of care as those at schools."So even your so-called 'volunteers', your core structure has to meet the safety needs [...] volunteers don't need to be vetted but the overall programme does."He says they are expensive for parents too with the average price per kid ranging from $15 -$100 a day.LISTEN ABOVE AS PETER SYKES SPEAKS WITH ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday during this programme we heard of a drowning tragedy at Muriwai BeachA pair of New Zealanders, refugees from Myanmar who had been in the country for 20 years were fishing on the Muriwai Rocks. They went fairly often and they loved it.The husband and wife have nine children, the youngest just seven years old, and one grandchild.Some of the children were present when their father first slipped off the rocks while trying to haul in a fish. His wife held out a rod for him to grab, but she too fell into the surging water. Both were battered against the rocks. Despite the efforts of rescue crews the pair died at the scene.It was monumentally sad.So the deaths were quickly labelled an all-too-common tragedy by Rodney local board deputy chair Phelan Pirrie, as people constantly underestimate the dangers of the West Coast. He says the council has put up signs, and they get bigger after each tragedy.But a sign is just a sign.As I heard the story unfold, two words just kept popping into my mind. Two words that could have prevented the nine children being without parents. Two words that meant the pair could have fished another day and enjoyed many more summers together.The two words were life jacket. The couple were not wearing life jackets. They were wearing heavy winter clothes. Clothes that when they hit the water dragged them down faster.Making a call that rock fishers wear life jackets is not new. The water safety group Drowning Protection has run a campaign for 12 years trying to stop people from rock-fishing without lifejackets.Today, they still call that campaign a success despite yesterday’s tragedy. The say the number of rock fishing drownings has dropped from nine in 2005 to none last year. But they are still concerned that too many people step on to known dangerous rocks without them and when pushed they say it’s about cost.I understand that but I can’t accept that. A life jacket costs $100. It’s a bargain. How much was your rod? How much did it cost you to drive there? How much did your winter jacket cost? How much were the sneakers on your feet? How much will two funerals cost?On the Muriwai Rocks, a lifejacket is just as essential as a pair of shoes, a jacket or a rod. Just do it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a strange and surreal and wonderful weekend that I had full of magic moments and ironies.Not least of which was the fact that I buried my mother on Saturday. A year after her death.She’s been sitting around all that time probably tutting as her family took their time to lay her to rest. But what with her estate, the incredibly stuffed flat that took months to clear, the engraving on headstone and the 300 bucks it cost to get the Waikato District Council to dig a little hole in the ground our family already owned, meant that time ticked by.And so on Saturday, my brother and my families gathered in Tuakau. Said some words. Had some silence as rain skudded by and the wind whipped through the manuka, and then we laid Mum to rest. It was moody, sad, funny and touching.Sunday was spent listening to the rain which came and came and came. With perfect timing. Why does it pour whenever there is a king tide? It’s like Mother Nature wants to flood us away.In a rare break in the weather we walked the dog down at the local park. A park that had only just been tidied up after the last big storm. How heart breaking for the working crews to see three big trees down. Two big macrocarpas snapped in two.Coincidentally, or possibly ironically, the storm coincided with a new study on Kiwis attitudes to climate change, undertaken by the insurer IAG. Of the 1000 New Zealanders polled, 88 per cent think we will see more severe floods, storms and inundation as a result of climate change. 84 per cent agree humanity is able to reduce climate change, but just 10 per cent think we will take appropriate action.But the best thing about the rain was the ability to watch the sport and what sport it wasOver two days I saw some of the best tennis I’ve ever seen from two of the best players ever; Djokovic and Nadal. The match took over five hours. Thank heavens that it was broken into two episodes by Wimbledon’s scheduling rules.The fact that the best tennis and one of the longest matches was being played by two of the oldest players was a delicious irony. The fact that both semi-finals went to final set advantage rather than tie breaks is a big debating point. My feeling is that the tie breaks should kick in from 12 all in the fifth.And then the final of the Football Wold Cup, which saw the best team win the tournament but in a frenetic match. Having lived in France, I understood the delicious irony in this match. France is a funny old nation. Both extremely liberal but also conservative. A country full of immigrants who are hated. The Arabs and the blacks are confined to the banlieue, the outer suburbs, and many packed into high rise ghettoes.But for generations now their football team has had a certain make up. In this world cup 80 per cent of the team were immigrants mostly from Africa. 80 per cent of the team is not born in France. And one third of them were Muslims.And the same could be said about the Belgium team as well. Immigration maybe the scourge of Europe but they turn a blind eye to it if it means you win a World Cup.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A photo of some Chinese BBQ chicken has caused confusion for some Australian customers.A Reddit user posted a photo to the social media site showing several boxes of the Woolworths-brand chicken.From the angle that the user took the photo, it looks as though the word 'Shit' has been scrawled over the box. Have no fair - the supermarket chain is not selling shitty chicken. It's simply the time that they were cooked - 7:45"It took me a minute to realise why someone would be writing “Shit” all over the Woolworths chicken", the user wrote. LISTEN TO ANDREW DICKENS DECIPHER THIS CASE ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ve been saying it a while but we live in interesting times.And much of that interest has been sparked by the current President of the United States who has taken an aggressive stance to long-standing problems.He is taking aim at many of the organisations that have been part of the world’s normal for many decades now. First, it was the Paris Climate Accord and the TPP trade agreement but then he’s gone on to attack some longer-standing frameworks.Donald Trump has threated to dismantle the World Trade Organisation and more recently NATO has been in his fire. Both organisations were born out of war and conflict.The World trade Organisation started out as GATT, the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade back in 1948. It was after World war 2 and it was created along with the IMF and the World Bank to reduce economic difficulties arising that so often escalated into military actions. In 1994 it was refashioned and renamed the World Trade Organisation.It is fair to say that at it’s most basic level the WTO has worked, as we have not had a worldwide conflict for 70 years. But it is also fair to say that globalisation and the differing relativities between emerging and mature markets means that the organisation is creaking at the seams.Meanwhile, NATO is also receiving not so friendly fire from the President. It’s a collective defence alliance between 29 countries that started in 1949. Again after the last pan European war. It gained more prominence during the Cold War between Western Europe and the States and Russia. Again you have to say it has worked with no major conflict, with the exception of the Bosnian conflict, for the past 70 years.But again it’s starting to creak as America complains it pays more than it’s fair share, which is true and has been mentioned by a number of administrations. But if there is one thing Donald Trump hates more than Hilary Clinton it’s an unfair deal and so he’s going at it hard.Now 16 former Foreign Ministers, including our own Don MacKinnon, who is also a former Commonwealth Secretary-General, have written him a letter urging Trump shows some support for NATO before next week's Nato summit in Brussels and Trump’s meeting with Putin. These are not snowflakes or idiots and between them, they have centuries of experience. They know that Russia is dangerous. After all name any other nation who recently annexed and subsumed neighbouring nations.I understand Trump’s concerns, they are America’s concerns and they’re not new. America allowed itself to over contribute which also gave them more influence. I think I understand Trump’s tactics which is to blow everything up and start again. But as Britain is finding with Brexit fixing everything up after blowing them up takes time and while you’re rebuilding you’re weak. If NATO is blown up I’d love to see Putin’s grinning face afterwards.There is something to be said for the iron hand in a velvet glove and I think the world would feel more secure if Donald Trump learned the techniqueSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a call for New Zealand to introduce a disabled "companion card" scheme similar to those run overseas.In Australia, such a programme gives discounted and free tickets to the companion escorting a registered disabled person to an event.There's a similar scheme in Great Britain.Caller Melanie, who cares for her disabled son in Sydney, told Andrew Dickens that she was shocked to learn that no such scheme exists in New Zealand. She had been intending on taking her son to see Cher at Spark Arena. She said both LiveNation Australia and Spark Arena were unable to help her. Richard Benge, Executive Director of Arts Access Aotearoa, told Andrew Dickens that hindering the ability of disabled people to bring a companion is denying them their human rights.He says New Zealanders have every right to be very disappointed by this, given how successfully it has been run in Australia.A spokesperson from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage says they are currently leading research work on companion ticketing in New Zealand to get a clearer idea of the situation here."One of the Government’s key priorities for the Arts, Culture and Heritage portfolio is ensuring access and participation to cultural experiences for all New Zealanders. The Ministry for Culture and Heritage is currently leading research work on companion ticketing in New Zealand to get a clearer idea of the situation here. The Ministry’s research will guide officials’ advice to Ministers on the best way to approach this issue in the New Zealand context." LISTEN TO MELANIE AND RICHARD BENGE TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So the nurses have voted to strike.To recap the deal was doubled in May and was worth more than half a billion dollars.It included a three per cent pay increases in June, August and September 2019, as well as a $2000 lump sum payment and an increase to on-call rates. It created two new pay steps at the top end. From December, $72,944 would be the highest base salary, followed by $77,386 from December next year.And it would have had a widespread effect because 15,000 of the 20,030 registered midwives and nurses employed at DHBs were included in the top category. So most nurses were about to break the 70 grand barrier and get close to 80 grandNot only that, at the last moment the DHBs and government added a sweetener of $48m of Ministry of Health funding - $38m to employ between 500 and 600 extra nurses and $10m for new safe staffing measures.The nurses union recommended that the nurses take the deal but they voted against it. They’re going to strike. They want more.But the nation is wondering if there is more to give. The acting Prime Minister Winston Peters has been repeating the same line that he used on the PSA yesterday on the nurses and indirectly the teachers today.This morning he said that maybe the nurses should have been striking 9 or 7 or 5 or 3 years ago. And he’s probably right. The nurses appeared to have been intimidated by the previous regime. Now they believe they’ve got a sympathetic ear in the government they’re growing for broke.But again as Winston Peters said this morning, the new regime has only had one budget and you can’t fix 10 years worth of stagnation in one fell swoop. He also pointed out all the other pressures on the government’s purse like the kiwifruit infection compensation and the battle against Mycoplasma Bovis.I have sympathy for the nurses but I also have sympathy for the government, who have doubled the offer and in my opinion, have done everything they possibly could for the nurses at this time.After an undeniably generous increase in pay, the decision to strike because the offer is not enough runs the risk of losing the public sympathy.There are other ways to skin the cat. If I were the nurses unhappy with the deal, perhaps they could take the first half and agree to talk again in 2020 when the government may be better placed to help and more inclined to help as it was an election year. But as it stands the nurses seem to be trying to bully the government the same way the previous government bullied them for a decade.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I was intrigued this morning to read an opinion piece on Tomorrow’s Schools written by Bali Haque.Now Bali Haque is an educational consultant. He has been a principal, deputy principal, head of the department, teacher and deputy chief executive of NZQA. He’s a guy who back in February, said the teachers call for a 14.5 per cent pay rise was not just reasonable but not enough. He wrote in his opinion piece on teachers pay that a teacher is worth as much as a backbencher MP and using that logic a teacher should be paid $164,000 a year.Now what was so intriguing about Bali Haque’s editorial this morning, was that it said that the Tomorrow’s School model belongs in the past and that’s interesting because Bali Haque is the chairman of the Independent Taskforce charged with reviewing the Tomorrow School’s system but it appears before the end of that review he’s already wanting to take the system apart. Maybe I’m just being naïve but it doesn’t sound like the reviewer of the system is going into the review with an open mind.I also wondered whether it was appropriate for him to be writing such thoughts while he’s deep in the process.But the piece was interesting as it went through the history of the model. It sprung out of the Picot report into education by Brian Picot who was a supermarket director and business leader, who believed in market forces and competition and wanted some of those principles introduced into schoolsSo under David Lange, Tomorrow’s Schools was launched in the 90s and it is the most devolved education system in the world. At its essence, it devolved power away from a centralised bureaucracy to the schools themselves and their independent boards. It was thought that they would know more about the community and its needs than faceless administrators in Wellington. And then the schools could do the best job, become the best they could be and win their community.It’s that aspect of competition and bulk funding that gave many the jitters. After all, with competition, you have winners, but you also have losers.Bali Haques' opinion piece focuses on this as the main reason for a new system. As he says “Most of us would expect that our children should have access to quality schooling regardless of where we live, but how can this be achieved when the system is designed to create winner and loser schools?”But I worry that Bali Haques review is about to throw the baby out with the bathwater. New Zealand schools have never been truly competitive with each other with zoning in place. Loser Schools have been rescued by commissioners and central bureaucracy.The devolved power base to the schools themselves though does mean greater flexibility and adaptability to a community’s needs.In this time, when people bemoan the amalgamation of councils and the loss of local representation due to the super cities, why would we want to do the same to our schools?The question I have with you is whether we really want to go back to the old days where the Ministry of Education building in the centre of Wellington was all powerful over the schools in New Zealand from Bluff to Blenheim, Buckland to Balclutha to Bulls.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So business confidence continues to fall with the latest result this week from the NZIER the lowest our business confidence has been in five years.Now I could repeat the editorial I wrote a month ago that said why should businesses feel worried but that was a month ago.Since then we’ve had survey after survey saying the same thing. It may be criticised as a self-fulfilling prophecy but the problem is it’s actually fulfilling itself. The business community are not sure what will happen and so bit by bit they’re deciding not to take too many risks over the next few years.The problem is not necessarily the government’s budget or even the Finance Minister who I feel is playing a very straight bat. I trust him to keep a tight rein on the fiscal budget. The problem is those beneath him who’ve been throwing their grand statements around without realising that their words now carry power.It’s easy to highlight Shane Jones with his attacks on Fonterra and Air New Zealand. If that’s how he feels about those businesses what is he saying about other businesses in the cabinet room.Then there’s the Employment Minister Ian Lees Galloway, who cuts a dashing figure, but spouts ideology left right and centre. No wonder businesses are worried about what their wage bill might be. With nurses holding out for more and teachers and principals now asking for a 16 per cent wage rise, then of course private employers are worried that a relative wage pressure is about to hit their bottom line.And then there’s the Prime Minister who it appears unilaterally closed down the oil exploration sector without consultation. Other sectors will also be worrying about what could happen. Will she clamp down on us without asking first?Of course, these are all ideological stances, and that word ideology is getting a bad rap and spat out as an insult. This is ridiculous because all policies and ideas have an ideology behind them no matter what side of the political fence they come from.The trick is to line up the ideologies with a logic and practicality so that they become real measures that make sense to the country as a whole. Grant Robertson kind of gets that. He often talks of an evolution not a revolution. Small practical steps towards a big goal. But beneath him are a load of hotheads that shoot their mouth off too often.It’s important that business stays on side with the government and vice versa. The grown-ups in the government need to get the kids to shut up until they get their grand ideas in sync with the realities of today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’d like to make a statement which I’ve never made before in my broadcasting career.I smoke.I’ve never said this on the radio as obviously I never wanted to promote smoking in any way shape or form.But I’ve started quitting.I’m 55 years these days and through my life I’ve smoked too much.  Even with my light habit of four or five a day it’s been bugging me.So over my holiday, I decided to quit. And guess what I’ve done? I started vaping. And I just started the Champix this week.So I’m hoping that this is all going to fix it all up, and I just thought I really should be honest about this. I don’t think I’ve been honest throughout my broadcasting career completely. It hasn’t coloured my opinions at all, as such, but thought I should say it.You want to know why I never said it? I remember when I was a kid and I was about 14 or 15, and my dad just randomly out of the blue as we were driving along the road, said ‘Son, if I ever catch you smoking, you’re disowned’.I believed him. So much of my smoking has been secretive.  Hidden from my family.  Hidden from you, the audience.  When I was about 17 or 18 in the last bit of school about to go to university, I had a few and away we went, here and there, on and off, not wildly heavy but enough.Anyway, I’ve started the vaping. I’m quitting.  Wish me luck.  I just thought I probably ought to make that admission. A full disclosure See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I’ve been reflecting on the confusing case of the Transmission Gully tollsI said yesterday I thought that you can’t just slap on a toll unless you’ve signalled it from the start of the project. Which they had the chance to do.Wellingtonians were surveyed to find out whether they would mind a toll which would have sped the project up and it could have been delivered in 2006. And you know what? Wellingtonians were fine with that but the powers that be ignored that and funded it themselves. ‘So that’s that surely. A decision was made and now we’re about to get the road, albeit 14 years later.But now transport authorities and the Minister are considering tolling so that not too many people use it.Now here’s the thing. Transmission Gully is there to relieve the suburbs of Paremata, Plimmerton, Pukerua Bay and Paekakariki that currently have a two lane State Highway through the middle of them.It’s also necessary because it provides a third route out of Wellington, which could have easily found itself isolated in the event of a natural disaster. But the existing State highway 1 from the city to Porirua is just fine and will be continued to be used as much as ever.The only people who will suddenly see the car as a cheaper way of getting to town than public transport will be the people on the Kapiti Coast, and to me that doesn’t seem like enough people to warrant a toll for all. You wonder if anyone in Transit NZ or the government actually drive around the place with their brain engaged.If you toll Transmission Gully you actually run the risk of no-one using it all and what a wonderful waste of $850 million that would be. If you want a precedent, look at the history of the tolled K road in Tauranga.Now many have said its part of a plot to get you out of your car. I think you credit them with too much. It was just plain stupidity.It does highlight how both the regulators and the public somehow comprehend that travelling by car is cheaper than public transport. If you used to train from Paraparaumu to work in town will it become cheaper with Transmission Gully to take a car? I doubt it, once you factor in petrol, running costs, depreciation and the daily need and cost to find a carpark at your destination. And don’t forget your tax dollars and rates to pay for the maintenance of two roads, Transmission Gully and the old State Highway.Now, all that, said the Transmission Gully project will be a revolution for the Kapiti Coast. Honestly with the greater ease for casual and business trips to the Coast and back who wouldn’t want to live beachside. I can see many head offices making the move. Start building up Kapiti: there’s a boom time coming and your days as sleepy beach towns are coming to an end.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I’m just back from a week’s break where I honestly did nothing but ride a bike, read two books, eat well and sleep. And furthermore, I threw my phone away.I answered no calls, I searched no news sites, and I did not scan any social media. I was blissfully disconnected.I met a lovely old couple on the beach and I asked them if anything was happened and all they could say was that the Prime Minister had given her baby an Irish and Maori name but they couldn’t remember what so I knew nothing was really happening.Occasionally, I was worried that I might have missed something but then decided that I’d decide that when I got back yesterday. So I got back and you know what: I missed nothing.The government gave beneficiaries more money and the first regional fuel tax started but we all knew that was coming.America continues to rip itself apart on the issue of illegal migrants, split between the ones who want to come down too hard and the protestors who want to be too soft.There’s still horror with the body of a two year old abuse victim fished out of a river and Auckland is still gridlocked because one motorcyclist was tragically killed in rush hour, but generally life continues for most in a calm way.You wonder whether we get a little too hysterical.I thought about that last night as the news led with Peter Gluckman saying hysteria over genetically modified food is misplaced and we should start reconsidering it. The piece played the protests from last century. The fear over GM’s health effects and the impact on our clean green environment. It looked and sounded dated and silly.My son, who’s just finished an environmental chemistry degree chuckled. As he says we’ve been genetically modifying since the start of time. Selectively crossing DNA for the best outcomes. Whether it’s grain and corn and potatoes. Whether it’s with cattle or thoroughbred horses. Or roses. Or in dogs I added looking at our fabulous 13 year old labradoodle snoozing in front of the fire.But what about when we add frog DNA to grain? My 22 year old said it’s all still organic. "DNA is DNA, Dad." It’s life.The GM hysteria joins all the other hysteria. Gluckman already earned my respect by busting the meth testing hysteria. Hysteria seems to make the world go round, and if not that, it certainly keeps the printing presses rolling.Hysteria over rising seas. Hysteria over same sex marriage meaning that people will one day marry their pets. Y2K, Trump and Clinton, the world is going to hell in a handcart. Inch by inch, step by step, we’re all going to fall to our most base level and then the council will come round and wrench your car from your clenched fist. Calm the farm!So, well done Peter Gluckman for a little bit of logic at the end of his tenure. And thank you to my holiday for a respite from the hysteria of a growingly paranoid world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The spotlight has been tightening lately around the issue of government reform of bail laws.This always going to be a tricky maneuver and I can’t help but get the feeling that there will be some change if for no other reason than a newly elected government and Justice Minister wants to demonstrate how they are doing something about a system which, they argue, is broken.I know this is pretty cynical take to put on it but let's face it, in this respect, as a policeman might say – “they’ve got form”The problem with reforming bail laws and being too prescriptive is that judges are the ones who are dealing with the people in front of them.Now, it has been a while since I practised law but I remember there being many factors in deciding whether or not an individual was granted bail.This included the questions of whether the crime they have been charged with was likely to result in what is euphemistically referred to as a “custodial sentence” in which case time spent on remand was usually deducted from the sentence. Other reasons were: the likelihood of them absconding; previous failures to turn up to a court appearance; the seriousness of the offence; whether violence was a factor, the protection of witnesses; the criminal record of the accused. In the end, the decision, and the jurisdiction rests with the judge.As soon as politicians start meddling with this process one gets the feeling that they are looking at tying hands and forcing judges to grant bail to offenders against their better judgment.Let’s not forget, the judge has each individual accused, and all available and relevant information about that person, often including the basis of the prosecution case against them.I’m not sure that we should really be taking too many steps to tie the hands of the judiciary, with the result being they can’t deal with the offender in front of them.Often we hear talk about the system. The system, the system, the system. But as we know criminal justice deals with individuals and their particular circumstances. So I just worry that some recommendation, no matter how mild, may be seized upon by politicians to make some sort of grand statement to show how serious they are about reforming the bail laws.In the end, the public cares mainly about needing to be kept safe.Acting Prime Minister, Winston Peters, has made reference to saving money. If that is the sole factor, I am not sure the public is going to be on board. Similarly, if it just a gesture or a case of virtue signalling “look we are doing something, we are reformers”, then I don’t really think it will impress if it results in more victims.Having said all this, the question is - who do you trust to be making the decisions about who should or should not be granted bail?Do you trust the judges or do you trust the politicians?Because as much as a part of me hates to acknowledge it, judges are the ones who are at the coalface every day. Sure, they make mistakes, sometimes with serious consequences. But let’s not make the mistake of tying their hands too much. Especially when it results in forcing them to be more lenient than society may require.I’m aware that my comments on this may be slightly at odds with my support of the three strikes legislation, but at least they did put a manifestly unjust exception in there to maintain wriggle room.All said and done, I am not arguing against any sort of reform, but perhaps the focus needs to be on pouring more resources into the remand side of things, including mental health, and drug rehabilitation and other productive aspects of being in remand.Because as many suggest, it is the worst place to be in the justice system. And make no mistake, it that will require a significant investment of taxpayer money. But for this taxpayer, I’m ok with that.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While the news coverage around the birth of the Jacinda Ardern’s baby might be seen by some to be a little over the top, here's hoping that it marks an opportunity to shift to a more positive discussion around parenthood in general. Because, apart from this notable exception, recent language and discussions seem to frame the idea of having children and looking after then in consistently negative terms.There is, of course, the ongoing discussion around the pay gap between stay-at-home parents and those who keep working. A recent article described the difference in pay outcomes as the motherhood or fatherhood “penalty”.It’s vital to continue these discussions, and for mums and dads to feel that they have a choice around this important issue. But I can’t help but feel that the role of the stay at home parent is portrayed in very negative terms. The conversation always seems to imply that the stay at home parent is somehow the loser in this equation.Add to that the complete lack of empathy for the plight of children I have heard during the immigration debate in the USA and I wonder whether we need to rethink and revisit the priority we attach to children in our society.Other headlines to throw into the mix include the increasing obesity and overall weight of our children due to the lack of activity in our their lives as well as poor diet. Yet another depressing read, was a story about how children are losing the art of playing in the absence of their digital devices. This all leads to a sense that any problems future generations might experience are going to entirely our own fault.So perhaps, it’s time to push back against the notion that the parent who works fulltime, while maintaining their pay trajectory, is somehow the winner here. I could also mention the not-so-ancient piece of modern wisdom that no-one on their deathbed regrets spending too much time with their children.But that’s the issue.We are increasingly a generation of parents who are outsourcing the raising of our children to third parties and digital devices. We are brilliant at justifying our distractions when it comes to paying attention and spending time with our kids, but I think an honest look at things would tell us that on many levels we're failing.How many of us might even catch ourselves out from time to time, energetically discussing in front of our kids who should look after them, as if it was the worst thing in the world? How many times have we left our children sitting in front of the television or other screens and devices for what is a little longer than really necessary?So perhaps, we take the news of our Prime Minister’s baby as a little ray of sunshine, in an otherwise miserable discussion. It’s a chance to think about what priority we give our children and maybe spend more with them now, rather than looking back with regret.Humility, and probably reality, should dictate that I declare my wife's superior multi-tasking abilities. But I have been very lucky that my career has allowed me to spend more time looking after our children than the average full-time parent. It is certainly something I’m beginning to appreciate more and more as time goes on.So while we often look to the government to legislate to provide better outcomes for our kids, perhaps now is a good time to also take a good look at ourselves and the priority we give our kids, because spending time with them is definitely not the short straw.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's been a full scale emergency at Napier Airport after an ATR72 turbo-prop's engine caught fire.Fire and Emergency positioned fire trucks on the runway as the plane circled, dumping fuel.Talkback caller Paul told Andrew Dickens it was obvious there was a problem with the plane almost immediately after take-off."It was the most unusual, it wasn't climbing either it was flattening out, it was definite misfiring malfunctioning engine."  LISTEN ABOVE AS ANDREW DICKENS TALKS TO WITNESS PAUL    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Andrew Dickens talks with Newstalk ZB's political editor, Barry Soper, about the story of the day which, whether you like it or not, is the fact that our Prime Minister is about to have her baby. Politicians across the House have wished Jacinda Ardern well and Soper says he hasn't seen anything like it in his almost 50 years covering politics in this country."It's a Prime Minister having a child, in office, it's a story. I've been in this business for almost half a century and I can tell you in my time covering stories, this is a story."LISTEN ABOVE AS BARRY SOPER TALKS TO ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Once again this government’s values have collided with a region’s desire to gain jobs as an application to mine West Coast coal has been refused.Rangatira Developments wanted to take 250,000 tonnes of coal annually from an open cast mine that would cover 109 hectares in total.But the scheme involves 12 hectares of conservation land so the government said no.The Conservation Minister, Eugenie Sage, turned down the application to mine conservation land because it would create irreparable damage to the area. She says it was an undisturbed area with threatened plants and wildlife including the great spotted kiwi, land snails and lizards.Locals are not happy. Buller Mayor Garry Howard says the decision put the whole project, and 60 jobs, in doubt, as the land in question was at the entrance to the larger site. He says there is a place for boutique mining such as this one.After all says the Mayor, DOC has 1.6 million hectares of land on the West Coast, and this application involved just 12 hectares of it.You could see this coming considering this government has already turned down future exploration for oil and gas which doesn’t even involve the harvesting of the finds.The government says coal, oil and gas are the energy of the past so let’s get on with the future.It’s not hard to have sympathy for the Coasters who can see 60 jobs just sitting there for the plucking. 60 salaries which would flow through all the economy.But it’s also not hard to have some sympathy for the government as well. The revolution is coming. Coal is dirty and its days are numbered. However you could argue that the government is jumping into the future too quickly.While there are 60 jobs there you have to ask how long they’ll last so that when the future does arrive and the jobs are gone we’re left with a gash in the environment that will never fully heal.For me any development on the Coast has to be sustainable and long lasting. A development that continues to give and enables even more growth. Coal is a temporary fix.So how about a real test of this government and their smothering love for the environment. With their love of electric vehicles and trams surely the development of dams and electricity are a given. In which case how about the Mokihinui Hydro Dam? An idea which has been around since the 60s. A dam which would create a 14 kilometre long lake in Conservation land and change the environment but at the same time secure power for the coast.Meridien pulled the idea in 2012 when they realised the Department of Conservation and Forest and Bird would fight this to the bitter end.Perhaps it’s time to give a West Coast electricity plan another go and see whether this government is following ideology rather than looking for real and sustainable growth.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fine skies and good vibes are greeting farmers on day two of Fieldays in Hamilton.Bad weather and flooding prevented some farmers from making it to Mystery Creek for the first day yesterday.The Country's Rowena Duncum told Andrew Dickens the crowds are bigger today."Things are looking up. Everyone I've spoken to once again today is positive, as they were yesterday but there's a lot more people here today."LISTEN ABOVE AS ROWENA DUNCUM SPEAKS WITH ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jacinda Ardern isn’t even in the maternity ward yet but the mice are already starting to play.On the surface of things, stuff is unravelling amongst the B team of the government. We seem to have a government that has a few people talking the talk but not walking the walkShane Jones is back to his bluster. With his ego fully unchecked, calling himself the first citizen of the regions, he’s taken aim at Fonterra and it’s chairman John Wilson. Saying that something is deeply wrong and calling for Wilson to take a cab out of town he let himself down when asked for specifics of his concerns with the coop. He couldn’t answer that one.It appears that Shane has spoken to some farmers who have some grumbles. Well, that’s not news. But without the knowledge to substantiate his claims, he looks like a grandstander rampaging around in an electorate he doesn’t know. Farmers are already suspicious that this government doesn’t really understand their sector and Shane’s outburst won’t set their mind at restAs I understand it Farmers did not appreciate the Minister going off half-cockedThen Kelvin Davis took the stage to announce a new prison and mental health facility at Waikeria. 500 prison beds and 100 mental health beds. A shift from the previously planned mega-prison. While I’m no supporter of industrial complex sized corrective units there’s still the glaring problem that we already have more prisoners than beds and it’s going to get worse.The mega prison was going to provide 1500 to 2000 new beds for a billion dollars. Instead, we build a new prison to replace the rotting one at a cost of $750 million. That looks worse when you realise that once the new beds are built and the old prison decommissioned, it will result in just 174 additional beds. All that money for 174 extra beds!Deep in the announcement was the revelation that 2 thirds of those 500 prisoners in a spiffy new prison will be double-bunked. And then when asked what the government will do when the prison muster hits 12,000 in the next few years, Kelvin said mattresses on the floor.Build small prisons, sure. But build 3 of them, not just one.Of course, Kelvin says that with Andrew Little’s changes to the justice system we’ll have fewer people in jail. Well based on how easily the three strikes repeal fell apart you have to wonder how long that will take. Pie in the sky hopes of a brave new future are no answer to the cold hard reality of today.And don’t even start me on Eugenie Sage, the greens and the water bottling plant. They didn’t seem to realise that if you get elected on a policy you have to implement it in law or else you make no change at allSo a lot of talk and not much walk in the basics of running the country.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Caller Allan talking to Andrew about suggestions that the annual rural schools Calf Club Day should be abandoned due to the M Bovis issue.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A big weekend of politics both internationally and locally.Of course, the performance of Donald Trump at the G7 got many people exercised. But none of his shenanigans should have surprised anyone. Donald Trump plays to his support base first in all things so to be so blatantly protectionist went down very well in the United States.To criticise Trump is to antagonise his supporters, so to say his attitude was overly aggressive and his threat of automobile tariffs was excessive and possibly damaging for the American economy as well as the Canadian draws complaints that you’re a liberal snowflake with no idea. But that is a very real consequence of the Presidents hardball play.For all the comments that Donald Trump is unpredictable, everything he has done has been predictable as he fulfils his election pledges. I’m only concerned as to whether they will work and in that regard I am undecided and I guess we will just have to wait and see.Some have said his tough line towards Canada while withdrawing his signature from the G7s communique is a signal towards North Korea that the President is a tough talker before their summit tomorrow.That may be his intention but that’s not the way I see it. The Koreans will realise now that anything signed by Trump is not worth the paper it’s written on. With the President also travelling to Asia to meet with Kim it also suggests that North Korea is in the driving seat.The chances of a denuclearization of the peninsula are no closer than they were at the beginning of the year. But I hope to be pleasantly surprised.Meanwhile, the result of the Northcote election has been widely misanalysed. Numerically National’s majority has been halved but that’s a no-brainer when the turnout was half that of the last election. If you take into account the back seat Labour’s coalition partners took in their campaigning you could argue that the left took a little hit.But if you accept that Northcote is a good bellwether seat for the nation due to its socio-economic makeup then you’d have to say that little has changed for either side. The government isn’t getting a boost and the opposition is not falling apart. Yet.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LISTEN TO CALLER GARY TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOUT HIS OWN CHILDHOODAbout eight per cent of New Zealand children have social, emotional and/or behavioural problems, and another seven per cent are on the borderline of having issues, Ministry of Health statistics say.The numbers have major implications for health and disability services as they could indicate future mental health issues — the largest contributor to disability statistics for 15- to 24-year-olds and about 35 per cent of all health issues for people of that age.That eight per cent figure represents about 57,000 people and suggests better screening of children for mental health issues is needed to ensure no-one missed out on treatment.Issues identified included emotional symptoms, peer problems, hyperactivity and conduct problems."It is possible to detect social, emotional and behavioural difficulties at an early age, which may be indicative of an underlying mental health problem," a new ministry report said. "Being able to do so is important as it provides opportunities for intervention."Early intervention in response to difficulties can reduce the risk or severity of certain types of mental disorders later in childhood, adolescence or adulthood."A government-ordered inquiry into mental health and addiction services is now holding public meetings around New Zealand gathering information for a report due on October 31.Its terms of reference highlight youth as a key group for consideration.The ministry report was based on information collected through the New Zealand Health Survey over a three-year period, using a sample of 10,457 children.Children were assessed through a "strengths and difficulties questionnaire", an internationally used tool to chart children's development.Boys were more likely to have concerning total difficulty scores than girls and Maori children were more likely to have concerning scores than non-Maori children.Asian children were less likely to be experiencing difficulties than non-Asian children.Scores were comparable for Pacific Island and non-Pacific Island children.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So Shane Jones has been in the select committee this week, facing questions about the Provincial Growth Fund.Of course, he faced rigorous questioning as to whether he’s using it as a political slush fund to reward New Zealand First’s friends and win favour in the party’s heartland.It’s an easy accusation to make, so far the prime beneficiaries of Shane’s largesse has been in the North where both he and Winston Peters have their power base.His answer was, to the winner goes the booty and that the North was first up and best dressed. Shane fancies himself as an orator and he’s fond of a flowery flourish but I’m not a fan. It diminishes his authority and reduces my confidence.But that said there is no doubt that the North is starting to feel a little bit better about itself. In fact, it was the star of the latest ASB regional growth survey. They’ve seen Four-point-six per cent employment growth, 5.2 per cent in retail sales, 10.3 per cent house price growth and a 19 per cent growth in construction.So it’s worth a helping hand because these figures come off a low base and the North still has a long way to go.The question is whether Shane Jones and his merry NZ First team have an eye for winners and an eye for the opportunities that are sustainable and able to grow under their own steam.I worried about that when the Provincial Growth Fund granted just over $6 million to restore New Plymouth’s cathedral. While it was a great feel good, and while it will temporarily increase construction work in the region it fails my ongoing benefit test. Once the cathedral is all fixed up the benefit will dissipate.After some initial scepticism that the Provincial Growth Fund's $3 billion in 3 years was the ultimate in pork barrel politics, I’ve come to the conclusion that it could, in fact, be a small stroke of genius.I had a number of callers yesterday raving about the energy and zip in the regions these days. One even went as far to suggest there was a silver lining in the cities housing crises as it was prompting house price refugees to stream into the regions in one of the biggest population re-distributions we’ve seen in a long time and that’s not a bad thing.Judicious use of the Provincial Growth Fund could fertilise this and make New Zealand a more balanced economy and country.But that ball rests in Shane Jones’ court. So far I doubt his claim that the North’s applications were the best dressed but it’s early days and I urge the economic advisors from around the country to put their thinking caps on and front foot the Minister with outstanding, achievable and sustainable ideas.Whatever you do don’t sit around waiting for the magic wand to be waved over your town or Mr Jones will wave it all away on his hobby horses. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are calls for the Government to invest more into music venues for underage punters.Ignite Programme says that it is becoming harder for young Kiwis to go to concerts, as strict liquor licensing laws prevent them from attending gigs.The programme’s leader, Savina Fountain, told Andrew Dickens that the limited choice in venues is holding back rising music acts, who can’t find anywhere to perform."The number of venues that are decreasing and shutting down, it's a scary thought, but especially for these young people."Fountain says she has spoken with the Prime Minister about the issue. The Ignite Programme is aiming to give children more opportunities to get a foot in the door. For more on their work, go to www.igniteprogramme.org.nzLISTEN TO SAVINA FOUNTAIN TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are some mornings when I step outside myself and look around my town and wonder at how busy and interconnected it is. This morning was one of those mornings.I headed out just after seven to get a warrant of fitness. I stopped off at the local café to get a coffee.  The barista was already busy and gave me a cheery good morning.  At the testing station a mechanic also said good morning and got cracking on without delay.  The woman at the counter had seen my number plate and had already started the paperwork before I walked in the door.Waiting for the car a man was mowing the berm. Some service station workers were busy and then I saw a man with three medicine balls walking into the gym equipment store across the road.Everybody busy working alone yet the result was keeping the whole town moving forward in their own little way.The way the machine works always blows my mind but today I looked with different eyes as I wondered whether each of these people beavering away were being paid fairly for what they do.Yesterday the government announced a fair pay working group to be chaired by Sir Jim Bolger to look at what was fair pay on a sector by sector basis.Fair Pay Agreements will set minimum standards for wages and employment conditions like allowances, weekend and night rates, hours of work and leave arrangements for all workers within industries.The agreements will be set through collective bargaining between unions and employers within each sector, without the need for bargaining with each individual employer.Meanwhile, strikes and lockouts will not be permitted in negotiations for Fair Pay Agreements.Remember we already have a basic fair pay agreements.  It’s covered in the minimum wage legislation and labour laws.Fair Pay Agreements have been Labour’s policy for a while but as is this government’s style it’s a compromise.  It stops short of being a collective wage bargaining policy because it only determines minimum conditions.That makes it a double edge sword.  Set minimum conditions too high and employers will feel the squeeze but set them too low and employers will take advantage and pay employees less than they’re actually worth.  Ask the good teachers who are already paid the same as bad ones.Fair pay is a very subjective thing.  Was the lawnmower I saw this morning worth as much as service station worker or barista?  Was the woman in the testing station who was very efficient at her job worth more than the surly admin staff I’ve met there before? And can anyone in a head office know the various worth of each of us.I’ve often heard employers talk about great workers  and say they’re worth their weight in gold. The question has always been do employers put their gold where their mouth is.At the end of the day the working relationship is between individuals and that is where the responsibility for fairness lies.  I feel that when committees take over fair pay negotiations there will be just as many winners and losers as we already have.By the way.  I got the warrant.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Anthony Peden affair is part of a worrying trend.Peden was the boss of the New Zealand cycling squad who abruptly walked away from his job in recent days.  Subsequently stories have come out saying that there was a bullying and intimidatary regime under his watch.  There were concerns about a drinking culture and finally that he was having an inappropriate relationship.Now all this may be true but at the same time is any of this actually our business.There are accusations that all the news stories are part of a smear campaign run by disgruntled athletes and their acquaintances.  And this is where it gets worrying.  Cycling New Zealand processed Peden’s performance and behaviour and the 2 parted ways and that’s where it should end for the coach.He’s lost his job and his reputation within his chosen career but is there any need for the wider population to hear about his alleged faults?It’s part of the modern complaint where an allegation is all it takes to convict. The rise of the MeToo mindset has made employers and managing authorities wary of collateral damage but as it stands Peden is being slowly crucified in the court of public opinion.Underneath it all is the nagging worry that Cycling New Zealand is another sporting organisation where the management is a little out of their depth.Anthony Peden was always an alpha male.  He was always brutally competitive.  His nickname was the Weapon for goodness sake. He lost his place at the Athens Olympics because of a drug scandal.  He didn’t take a performance enhancing drug but he did take a banned substance and at the time Cycling New Zealand scolded him for not consulting his coach. He is a driven, confident island of man.  He’s Australian after all.So in taking him on Cycling New Zealand must have known this was a man who would take no prisoners.This winner-take-all attitude could explain the bullying and intimidating behaviour.  It takes a certain single-mindedness and aggression to reach the top in any sport.  So with the Weapon in place you have to wonder whether Cycling New Zealand then put in checks and balances so that he didn’t bite off more than anyone could chew. You have to wonder why such a coach was also in charge of selection which is coming home to bite everyoneIn allowing Cycling New Zealand and High Performance Sport New Zealand to now leak like a sieve about Anthony’s shortcomings is also a sign of poor management.New Zealand is a small country and the born leaders are few and far between.  So many under-qualified people are being put in positions where they fail.  Ex athletes do not automatically make the best coaches.  Weekend Warrior administrators do not become high quality professional managers when there sport suddenly receives a wad of cash.And it’s not just sport.  Good nurses do not automatically become great bosses of a ward.  Great teachers are not necessarily the people to become CEOs of the million dollar businesses our bigger schools have become.We have an awful lot of enthusiastic amateurs running big budget enterprises and their boards of control need to keep a much closer eye on them or it all falls apart as Cycling New Zealand is starting to find out.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new documentary on Rhythm and Vines has got many reminiscing about their favourite festival memories. Andrew Dickens is amongst them - the doco has reminded him of his own experiences at the Sweet Water Festival in 1982.LISTEN TO ANDREW'S STORY ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Reading the paper this morning it’s very tempting to think that this little nation of ours is well down the road to hell, travelling in a handcart.One article today on business confidence is even headlined 'Business is heading into a winter of discontent'.We hear of loan sharks charging 800 per cent interest.  Mycoplasma Bovis is a billion dollar problem for one of our biggest exports. People earning $100,000 are now being classed as working poor.  Property values are at risk from climate change. Bailed killers will soon be on the streets slaughtering us all. Aucklanders are being hit with a fuel tax and the AA warns of dark days ahead if change isn’t quickly forthcoming. The globe is now in a trade war and the final nail in the coffin is that it’s really really cold for this time of year.Sometimes it’s worth just taking a step back.The billion-dollar bovis problem is certainly a thing but you need some perspective.  The cull will only affect two per cent of our national herd.  An economist says its effects will be similar to a bad drought and we seem to have those every couple of years.  It’s a hit sure but it’s not the end of days.  So calm the farmThe fuel tax in Auckland will hit the pocket, but as the cartoonist Emmerson points out today, in real terms it will cost you a glass of wine a week or half an avocado or a bus trip a day. It will have an effect but it won’t stop anyone from driving to the supermarket. The AA’s warning of dark days was for political effect.The claim that people earning $100,000 a year are feeling the pinch needs some investigation as well.  That survey was on household incomes which include a lot of households with four flatmates all earning $25,000 each. There are working poor but very few of the individuals earning 100 grand are part of them.  Again the figures were distorted for maximum effect.Another hyped fact was the jail population of gang members increasing 350 per cent while the general population increased just five per cent.  But that’s a percentage figure.  There are now just 90 extra gang members in jail out of the 3000 increase.  So are jails are not full just because of gangs.And finally, business confidence is in free fall.  The business confidence index is the least realistic measure you can have.  It really is just a bunch of stats wonks asking businesses how do you feel.Well, surrounded by overhyped misery headlines it’s no wonder they feel worried/The reality is that three per cent growth is predicted for the next three years and the budget has been analysed as generally business-friendly.Maybe as New Zealanders, we’re accustomed to only seeing clouds and never silver linings, but it’s important that we don’t talk ourselves into a funk, get depressed and stop trying.We’re a small country with a few problems but vastly better off than the majority of everyone else on this planet.  So chin up Kiwis.  Things are not nearly as bad as the misery brigade would have you believe.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government has set up a taskforce to deal with the greater than expected impact of China's ban on mixed recycling.China stopped importing recyclable materials last year, affecting many countries around the world, including Australia.New Zealand had been sending 15 million kilograms of recyclables that we can't process here, to China each year. Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage says small stockpiles have been building around the country, and it's clear the situation is not sustainable.She says the taskforce will lead a coordinated response together with waste and business sectors, to find a solution.Newstalk ZB caller, Craig, rang in and talked to Andrew Dickens about the difficulties New Zealand faces in dealing with our ever-expanding recyclable waste, and possible solutions.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday I was doing talkback on a couple of related stories.The first was on the thoughts of Dr Pasi Sahlberg, a Finnish education expert who’s just started at the University of New South Wales. He believes all smartphones should be banned at primary school and managed at secondary school because they are a distraction and impediment to learning.This is a similar view to France who banned phones in school in 2017. Then their education minister said "These days the children don't play at break time anymore. They are just all in front of their smartphones, and from an educational point of view, that's a problem."That dovetailed nicely into another story out of Lower Hutt, where a survey showed that 88% of kids don’t play every day and 96% of parents said their children weren’t playing daily.In a social experiment, the kids were given chalk and told to draw pictures of what they do at home. The kids drew TVs, phones, gaming setups and one kid even drew the YouTube logo.The 2 stories show just how in thrall our next generation is to screens. It showed how many parents have forgotten the art of letting their kids play and how many just throw a tablet at their children to keep them quiet and entertained.After the show, I was contacted by Jim Young who’s just written a book on project management for businesses and he included an excerpt from the book which I think is very relevantHe argues that project management is not learnt at school but it is learnt through play.Play is the key to the physical, mental, intellectual and social well-being of our children. For children, play is serious learning and the work of childhood. But it seems that the current parental zeitgeist is one of worry and fear for our children, often far out of proportion to the actual dangers involved. Yet bullrush is how he first learned about the essential ingredients of risk, reward, and group dynamics - all during the lunch break.He directed me to watch “The Secret Life of Four Year Olds” a spy-cam documentary recently shown on TVNZ. It is about the leadership, planning, conflict, mischief, lies, rivalry, pestering, negotiation, dictatorship, decision-making, recruiting, gang warfare, delegation, rejection and violence of preschool life. It’s terrifying, but perhaps good preparation for a robust life as project managers and participants in the real world.That said, in the documentary, several participants seem more interested in playing computer games than making friends.So it’s a reminder to the new generation of parents and kids that taking the screens away and kicking the kids out the door is more educational than any Ted talk they’ll see on an iPad.The message is let the children play. It’s the greatest educational tool in the world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s been an entertaining week of listening to Mike Hosking railing against Auckland Airport.When he gets on a roll, the tsunami of verbiage is something to behold as Adrian Littlewood the CEO found out when he showed up to defend his company.  The trick with Mike is to start talking and never stop or else he’s in like a robber’s dog.Now I don’t have too much beef with the airport but that might be because I rarely travel overseas. But it is fair to say that the most recent time I was at the airport I was amazed that the whole thing was in such a state of disrepair and it seems permanently in a state of reconstruction.It smacks to me of a programme of renovation that was always too late and too little.READ MORE:Mike's Minute: Auckland Airport an embarrassmentAuckland Airport defends itself from criticismAirlines come out against Auckland AirportNow the airport admits the extraordinary growth in tourist numbers has caught them a little short.  But they’re countering that with a $2 billion reconstruction that will sort them out for the next 30 years.  It is the largest private construction job in the country. They’re on track to get their act together.But as Mike pointed out this morning this could have been avoided.  The airport company have been very dedicated to shareholder return, which includes the Auckland Councils near 30 per cent stake, who, by the way, has been very quiet on the whole affair.Over the past decade, hundreds of millions of dollars have been paid to shareholders.  Including one year when the return totalled 102 per cent of profit. Now this is great news if you’re an investor but not if you’re maintaining your assets.  Of course the airport had budget for capex but it’s fair to assume they could have invested more earlier and they had the wherewithal to do it.Now I compare that to the announcement from Mainfreight a day or two ago.  They had a great year and while they paid a return to shareholders they also rewarded one of their greatest stakeholders, their staff.  Out of their record profit they gave $21.7 million in bonuses to their employees.This is a great investment and a sign of a company who understand that the success of a company is not just the profits they return to shareholders, but appropriate investment in all facets of their operation, including their people.It’s always tempting as a CEO to go to the board and the shareholders and give them good news and figures.  But if you get it wrong and under invest then eventually the birds come home to roost. It’s a lesson for all businesses.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two dead in Palmerston North and one in hospital.  Another heartbreaking statistic after a police chase. The fifth and sixth death this year after chasesOnce again there’s a call for police chases to either stop or be further regulated and reduced.But these deaths weren’t the responsibility of the police but the driver who chose not to obey the law. In this case, it was a 15 year old.  A 15 year old driving a stolen car.  A 15 year old who was out on bail after previous serious driving offences. A kid who was speeding around at 1.30 in the afternoon on a Monday.  A kid who should have been at school.  A kid that has been left to run feral. Where are the parents and what have they taught him.  If there was a cause to this crash it probably lies 15 years ago when this person was born into a life of no future.The other victim.  A girl.  Aged 12. Another who should have been in school.  Why was a 12 year old gallivanting about town with a 15 year old with a record in a stolen car.  Again where were the parents.  Today it turns out her brother died five years ago in a similar police chase in New South Wales.  It seem to run in the familyNow some in the office warned me that saying these sorts of things now was too soon. That the family would be grieving.  I’m sorry for your loss and I understand your despair but to wait a week to say this means the lesson is far away from all our minds.  If there’s anything to come from this then maybe it can prevent other families going through your pain.Kids are kids.  They should not be stealing or driving and they should be in school.  It’s free.But it is prudent to continually monitor police chases. It’s also appropriate to acknowledge that our death rate in police chases is 26 times that of Queensland which doesn’t pursue vehicles. So the risk involved means that the chase should only be when completely necessary.Was this chase necessary?  Well, an investigation will reveal that.But in my opinion, it was not.  The boy was known to police.  His whereabouts were known.  He was not an unknown criminal fleeing the scene of a bank robbery or assault. It was a teen driving illegally. He was clocked.  He was identified. And then he was dead.As one police officer said yesterday, they’d rather pull an offender out of their bed at dawn than out of the wreck of a crashed and burning car.But that’s easy to say with 20/20 hindsight.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was a sad start to my working day today.As I sat down to my desk at 10am I turned on the radio to hear that Dick Quax had died after a 5 year battle with cancerTheodorus Jacobus Leonardus Quax. Runner, councillor, scrapper.When I was a kid my Dad got me a book called Kiwis Can Fly by Ivan Agnew. It was about New Zealand’s golden age of athletics in the 70s and it focused on John Walker’s achievements particularly his achievement in Goteburg when he became the first man to run the mile under 3 minutes 50. I loved that book. The book’s magic was the way it concentrated on the three musketeers of athletics. Walker, Rod Dixon and Dick Quax. It was a boys own adventure as the trio travelled the world in the days of shamateurism. When athletes received pay for performance but it came in brown paper envelopes and under the table. My copy is signed by all three men.Couch surfing and making ends meet in Europe the 3 hunted competition and improvement. Walker’s achievements ware well known.  Rod Dixon found his fame at the New York marathon. But Dick Quax was my favourite because what he did was amazing but always underappreciated.At the 1970 Commonwealth Games he was the first of the new generation to find success but it was a silver medal.  At the 76 Olympics he also fell agonisingly short in the 5000 metres, pipped at the post for a gold by a Finn called Lasse Viren, who was widely thought to be blood doping. Viren always used to credit reindeer milk which was a terrible euphemism.But Dick Quax did get his world record, again in the 5000 metres, which was something Walker and Dixon never achieved. He is one of just 3 New Zealanders to get a world record over an Olympic distance joining Snell and Halberg.But he never joined the pantheon of those legends. It may be that he was a competitive and combative man. He was never the quiet hero our nation seems to prefer. Even in the book Kiwis Can Fly the dust cover features Walker and Dixon but not Quax.After athletics he ended out in council and again his combative nature rubbed some up the wrong way. But one could never doubt his passion and conviction and his dedication to public service.I met Dick numerous times. A fast talker full of energy. He always reminded me of a Jack Russell. But boy he had some stories. I didn’t support a lot of his positions but I loved his commitment and company.So today he passed away at the age of 70. An age which doesn’t seem so old to me these days.The world is now a poorer place without Dick Quax. This passionate, energetic, great New Zealander who broke the mould and took our country to the world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ladi6 and Noah Slee are among the winners of the 2018 Vodafone Pacific Music Awards.The awards, held last night at the Vodafone Event Centre in Manukau, honoured both past winners and up-and-coming stars, with Punialava'a taking out the 2018 Manukau Institute of Technology Lifetime Achievement Award.The group, who were acknowledged for their influence and contribution to Samoan music and culture, also performed a medley of their biggest hits at the ceremony.Ladi6 received three awards, including Best Pacific Female Artist and Best Pacific Music Album. Her producers Parks, Brandan Haru and Julien Dyne won the SIT/MAINZ Best Producer award for their work on her Royal Blue 3000 EP.12-year-old prodigy General Fiyah's 2017 hit Here To Stay earned him the APRA Best Pacific Song and the Vodafone People's Choice Award.Here To Stay was also honoured with the NZ On Air Best Pacific Music Video for filmmaker Samson Rambo.Berlin-based neo-soul singer Noah Slee won Best Pacific Male Artist and Best Pacific Urban Artist, while reggae group Tomorrow People won Best Pacific Group.The inaugural NZ On Air Streaming Award was given to Kings for his song We'll Never Know, while Brooke Fraser was recognised with the NZ On Air Radio Airplay award for Therapy.The full list of winners can be found at www.pacificmusicawards.org.nz.LISTEN TO HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE SHOW ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pene Pati is best known as one third of Sol3 Mio, but he has a burgeoning opera career separate from his famous trio.He is back in New Zealand from San Francisco, not to reunite with his group just yet, but to star in New Zealand Opera's next production, The Elixir of LoveJoining him on stage will be his wife, Amina Edris.The two joined Andrew Dickens to talk about how they met and what the production is all about.LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A wise move from MPI to give farmers a choice on whether to continue depopulating their farms or delay the culling of cattle.An official decision on whether to eradicate or manage the disease Mycoplasma bovis will be made on Monday.MPI says all farmers bar one whose properties are due to be depopulated from this weekend have decided to go ahead with culling.Executive producer of The Country Rowena Duncum told Andrew Dickens there's been a lot of talk about New Zealand's naivety in thinking we can still eradicate the disease - but that's not the case."You've got to think of the impact on the cows, the impact on the farmers, there's economic impacts here if the cows are aborting their calves. It's not just a child getting the sniffles, it is a very, very serious disease."LISTEN TO ROWENA DUNCUM TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The North Korea summit is off. What a surprise. And there goes that much-hyped peace prize.I heard a commentator say this morning that Donald Trump was walking into a trap and I agree with that. A trap set by Kim. Another commentator also said that Kim had the upper hand which I also agree with.Trump jumped in too soon. I said it at the time. The Koreans have offered summits for the past 70 years, but American Presidents have always turned them down unless North Korea made changes first. Trump lost his mojo with the summit offer, and he appears to have realised it.In all the talk today, one word has been missing and that word is China. They’re the real power brokers here. Kim has been to Beijing twice this year and stopped his threats when China turned off the energy tap at the beginning of the year.So, what does China want? They want stability. They want North Korea as a buffer so they don’t have America on their border. Meanwhile, what does America want? They want Kim gone and his people liberated, and free. And what does Kim want? Well, he certainly doesn’t want to end up like Gaddafi.We have got a long way to go to find an acceptable answer for all the parties.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Phil Twyford gaffe is unfortunate. Especially after it was revealed earlier, that the public transport minister was the biggest user of the crown limo fleet.This all played out by the rulebook. He offered to resign, it was turned down, he lost Civil Aviation, which had to happen. You can’t be in charge of the rules and then be caught breaking them.The real question is why did he think his phone call was so important that he couldn’t wait an hour to reply. I know it was budget day but hello. Phil is like so many of us these days, enthralled to the phone and their own self-importance.I don’t even answer the phone on buses these days. Why should a bus full of strangers be forced to listen in to my conversation?The smartphone is amazing, and a revolution in communication but modern society has formed an unhealthy addiction. Don’t be afraid to turn it off.Remember, you’re in charge of the phone, the phone is not in charge of you.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

TVNZ's new streaming service has one key aim: to increase the amount of Kiwi content available to kids. Chris Schulz and Karl Puschmann investigate.Ask Amie Mills why Kiwi kids need to see themselves on TV, and she'll pause, apologise for pausing, then say this: "I lose words when I think about how important it is."Mills, the children's commissioner for TVNZ, explains her loss of words with a shocking piece of research: "We've had some fascinating conversations with teachers. They're astounded by how many children are turning up to school aged 5 with American accents."Kiwi kids starting school with American accents? What gives? How does this happen? By watching too many American TV shows via American streaming services, that's how.Heihei hopes to change all that. The NZ On Air-funded online streaming service launches next week with the express aim of increasing the amount of New Zealand-orientated content available to kids.It's ad-free, features shows that use New Zealand people, place names and te reo, and uses Kiwi kids or characters wherever possible.Mills believes that's an important mandate to follow."I can't think of anything more important as a child growing up to see and hear yourself (on screen)," she says."My hope is that we've got kids reconnecting with New Zealand stories, places, sounds, and we build up that love of local content."Heihei lives up to that statement by launching with 50 shows, 38 of which are made locally.They range from live action shows like Fanimals and The Moe Show, to animated cartoons Barefoot Bandits and Darwin and Newts.Mills says Kiwi content has always been created here, but often gets lost across various streaming platforms.Heihei, she says, is the first to bring it all together.Aimed at 5- to 9-year-olds, it's not just a television streaming service, offering games and stories that are often related to other shows on the platform."It's a gateway for parents so they can find other things that are great for kids," she explains.While some international shows are in the mix, like Peppa Pig, Mills says they'll be watching their performance closely to see if they resonate as much as local ones."Do kids fiend off those? Do they need to be part of the mix? We spent a lot of time finding content that wasn't just straight American content. We just want it to feel a bit more high quality," she says.So far, the feedback for Heihei has been positive, and a presentation to 90 content creators last week went well."Producers were saying, 'It feels like we've been given a new lease of life here to make content for kids in the digital age that we haven't been able to do with the constraints of linear TV'," she says.But Mills believes the best is yet to come, with new shows broadening Heihei's offerings commissioned throughout the rest of the year."We don't have a kids news show, what does that look like?" she asks. "I can't wait for it to be out there so we can look at the stats ... and get involved with schools and teachers."There's a vision we can work towards. It feels like this platform gives longevity to kids content now."LISTEN TO CHRIS SCHULZ TALK ABOUT THE STORY WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When opponents of the government phone this show, one refrain you often hear is that this is government is one of broken promises. They’re being held to promises made on the election trail which are yet to become real. There is a kernel of truth to this.Take police numbers. Labour promised 1,800 and have delivered 1,100 in the recent budget. The opposition pointed out this was a broken promise. The government argued that they’ll get to that target by the end of their term. So is this a broken promise or not. The truth is in the eye of the beholder.The latest broken promise is the abolition of the decile system in our schools. Education Minister, Chris Hipkins, says it will go but not until they have a better way of getting resources to the disadvantaged. This could take a while. The government’s problem with the decile system is that it stigmatises a school. Tell a school it’s decile 2 and you’re telling the world it’s not as good as a decile 8.Now I’m sorry but this is political correctness, it’s fear of offence. My mother was a teacher at a decile 3 school for many years. The principal always said our school is poor yet proud. They were proud that their educational outcomes were as good as any other school from wealthier districts. Their decile rating was not a hindrance or offenceBut what are Chris Hipkins choices? If they want to get the funding where it needs to go and they’re not prepared to target schools then they’d have to target individual kids and wouldn’t that stigmatise individual children and families in a close school environment? The only other choice is one of universality where every school gets the same funding which would defeat the purpose of wanting to lift the poor.As we saw from the Winter Heating Payment this is a government who doesn’t like targeting because it might hurt some people’s feelings. They don’t like to call a spade a spade. But with the Winter Heating Payment it is now estimated that $20 million of funding will go to households that don’t need it. Which seems a waste. As someone emailed me, we already have a targeting system and that’s the community services card. Why not give the winter heating payment to cardholders?Targeting is not offensive. It’s truthful and while the decile system seems blunt it’s probably the best way of ensuring taxpayer help heads to the right peopleSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the country gets closer towards winter, the subject of how to keep your home warm is back on the agenda. Caller Shirley has her views on how to heat your home and the amount of money people are currently getting, and shared them with Andrew Dickens today.LISTEN TO SHIRLEY CHAT WITH ANDREW ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So do you trust your banks?With Australia staging a Royal Commission into the behaviour of their banks and insurance companies and a raft of dodgy practices being unearthed, attention has turned to the New Zealand market.With 4 of our major banks Australian owned and a number of our insurance companies having strong links across the Tasman the suggestion exists that the industry here may not be as squeaky clean as we imagine.It’s a suspicion I share.  I have done talkback on it and interviewed financial experts.  While most think that there is a Chinese wall between the trans Tasman operations, I’m still not convinced.For instance one CEO of a New Zealand operation has recently been transferred from Australia so why wouldn’t she bring operating practice with her.Sam Stubbs is the Managing Director of Simplicity a low cost Kiwisaver fund manager. Sam was most recently the CEO Of Tower Investments, a KiwiSaver default provider. Before that he was Managing Director of Hanover Group, and spent 10 years working for Goldman Sachs in London and Hong Kong.Sam has just come out with a list of 24 questions that he thinks the finance industry has to answer.He says  the two biggest areas of concern for him were the pressure on bank staff to meet sales targets and whether that meant people were being sold inappropriate products and life insurance commissions which can be as high as 230 per cent of the first year's premium. Australia has taken steps to reduce commission levels but we haven’t.Even just a cursory glance at his questions raises questions I’ve been asking myself for a while.Are sales staff of financial institutions incentivised to do the right thing, or to sell more products?Are sales staff being paid a commission to sell their own products while representing themselves as 'advisers'?With so few NZ adults insured, how can the industry deliver such high profits and shareholder returns?Why are the average Kiwisaver fees so high on a global level and do these high fees mean better performance?I’ve posted Sam’s 24 questions on my Facebook page.  Go and have a read and see how many circumstances you’ve experienced.It strengthens my opinion that a commission of inquiry would be a good thing.  Our Australian owned finance companies are tainted by association with their parent companies and the Australian inquiry.I don’t have confidence that the finance industry is operating in the client’s best interests rather than their own.We’ve had a history of finance company failure so the mindset amongst the industry is already ingrained.To set all our minds at rest and to re-establish confidence I believe an inquiry is necessary.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Long time listeners to this programme will know that I’m not a major fan of the governments funding of the tertiary system.It’s not that I’m not a fan of education it’s more that I’m not convinced it’s an efficient use of money and that it will not necessarily be the best way to get more tertiary students from disadvantaged homes.The new regime seems overly generous, especially when you realise how many advantaged families will now be getting free tertiary education.  The sons and daughters of Kelburn or Remuera or Fendalton lawyers can continue the family’s advantage at very little cost.Meanwhile, the disadvantaged of Opotiki or Kaitaia still face barriers in terms of travelling to the big smokes and finding and paying for accommodation.This year the policy costs nearly $400 million and I wonder whether we’d extend education to more socioeconomic groups if the money had been targeted to the disadvantaged, say in the form of bursaries or scholarships.But in saying that I raise the spectre of means testing.  A phrase that strikes fear in many New Zealanders.  Mainly because it’s been mentioned in regards to the pension, which it’s fair to say New Zealanders consider an entitlement.  A thank you for a lifetime of effort and taxpaying that is granted to all whether rich or poor, or whether you need it or not.This is a government that also has an aversion to means testing.We now learn that people wanting to buy one of the Government's affordably priced homes will not be income-tested.That means high-income earners will not be blocked from purchasing one of the 100,000 planned houses to be built over 10 years, which will be priced at up to $650,000.The only limit will be that purchasers are first home-buyers and permanent residents.This strikes me as self-defeating.  Affordable housing is for those who struggle to afford it rather than those who already can.  I also wonder with the stock having a lifetime through generations just how affordable they will stay in future years especially if a band of affluent with free education and now affordable houses get their hands on them.I often wondered why Labour, in particular, seem averse to targeting.  I asked a prominent commentator this a while back and he said that it’s Jacinda’s thing.  She is a big believer in universality. It reduces the resentment that the rich can form if they feel they are paying for the poor time and time again. We all benefit even if most of us don’t need it.Unless we significantly increase the tax take this is something we can least afford.It feels like wasted money.  It dilutes the benefits for the disadvantaged and deprives other areas of much needed and hard earned capitalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the highlights for me this week came on the Mike Hosking Breakfast.Mike was interviewing a construction lecturer from AUT and the guy said something very profound.  He quoted the desert fox himself, Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery.He said, “Amateurs talk of strategy. Professionals talk of logistics”That phrase was ringing in my head through all the coverage of yesterday’s budget. A lot of money was thrown at issues but there’s was very little talk of how the money was to be used.For instance the funding of free gp visits for under 14s. On the face of it you can’t quibble except you have to ask yourself how we can provide that care.  All this year we’ve had headlines about a shortage of GPs particularly in rural areas.  So the money may be there to get all these kids in front of doctors but what’s the point when we don’t have any doctors for them to see.It takes 7 years of study to make a GP so it’s not like we’re going to rustle up a whole bunch of them in July.I guess we’re going to have to import some from overseas.  But hold on a moment the budget sets an immigration target of 30,000 immigrants when we currently have 70,000 arriving each year.It’s the same with the funding of 1500 extra teachers when the real problem is that we can’t find any right now.  There’s also the issue of finding 900 extra policemen when we’re already importing coppers now.Then there’s the announcement of 6400 more State Houses by 2022.  Who’s going to build these?This one dovetails with a report from Treasury which got a little buried this week.  The money counters said the bottlenecks in the construction industry means they had to halve the forecast rate of progress of Kiwbuild. They believe we might achieve 2.5 billion worth of more residential investment in the next 5 years instead of the 5 billion Phil Twyford boasted of.My worry is that these sectors like health, education and housing will welcome a tidal surge of cash and have nowhere or no way to actually use it.The concern then is that the money will be used on more clipboard holders. Mid level bureaucrats who take the money but never work on solving the problem the money has been given for.There’s a fascinating story in the Herald today about a book called Bulls**t Jobs. The author highlights many workers we all know including the box tickers. The ones who sit round thinking, measuring performance and then writing reports that no-one ever reads.I worry that this Budget has been a good one for the boxtickers of this government and we may see a whole lot more bulls**t jobs.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the last year's election, all parties signalled that the police were in line for significantly more numbers. New Zealand First had police numbers as a central plank of its election promises. Meanwhile, Labour stated that its aim was for 1800 more cops on the beat.But there are now allegations that the number will be significantly reduced. Simon Bridges told Newshub last night that he believes that the number will more like 1100 and that this represents another broken promise.That it may be, but it may also be that 1800 will be spread over the next 3 years. We’ll see.But whatever the case is, you have to say it can’t come soon enough. As we realise the impact of our growing population on houses and infrastructure we seem to be blind to the fact that more people demands more police.I think it’s fair to say that the numbers have been too low for too long and with the rise of methamphetamine and violence it spawns, the police are crying out for reinforcement because they’re getting hammeredIn the last three and a half years, there have been more than 6000 recorded assaults on police.Nearly 1000 of those recorded as involving police resulted in injury, and 244 involved a firearm or other weapon.Meanwhile, Ministry of Justice figures show the number of people jailed for failing to stop for police jumped from 17 to 79 between 2012 and 2017, and 500 more people were convicted of failing to stop last year than five years earlier.Police Association President Chris Cahill believes a falling respect for the force is to blame – an issue exaggerated by a long period of falling numbers of police compared to the population. He’s bang on. Our criminals are on jungle juice and they vastly outnumber the police and they’re loving it.Our lack of investment in the police is another in the long line of lessons we seem incapable of learning. You can’t keep underinvesting on the basics pillars of society in a growing country.Schools are falling apart. 70 percent of them are over 50 years old and the ones built in the 90s are leaking. Our hospitals are rickety and our defence spending has shrunk to such a low level that we’re a laughing stock on the world stage.It’s about time we realise that doing the basic things on the cheap is no way to run a countrySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why is it that when it comes to our so-called housing crisis, no politicians seem to get it?It’s not hard to grasp.  For half a century we have consistently failed to build enough houses for our growing population and so the basic rule of supply and demand comes in.  Desperate purchasers fight amongst themselves for too few houses and then pay above the odds or give up and sulk.It’s like two hermit crabs fighting to the death for one shell.Meanwhile, people with a bit of spare cash stick it into investment housing instead of a bank or equity in a business. And because interest rates have been so low for so long it’s a money tree of capital growth.The factors are simple to see.  Natural population growth.  High immigration.  Low levels of construction.  Poor forward planning.At the heart of it all is one simple fact.  This country doesn’t have enough houses.You know this. I know this. So why don’t they know it.I say this because the latest grand idea to get first home buyers into an affordable house ignores that fact completely.  In fact it will only add to the problem on the demand side.Phil Twyford is investigating a government-backed shared equity scheme.The scheme would allow a third party such as the government to co-own a property by taking on a share of the mortgage. That would reduce the owner's deposit and weekly mortgage payments.It can get quite complex with conditions on prices and who gets the capital gain but basically, you can view it like the government providing a cheap second mortgage.And that’s where the wheels start coming off. Because if you can’t afford to borrow the whole lot from one lender in the first place why would anyone think you were able to afford a second lender, especially in these days of single-digit interest ratesAnd as it enables a low earning family to borrow more than they were originally able to it has a few echoes of the subprime mortgage scenario that caused so many problems in the States and sparked the GFCBut the biggest problem is that it extends a whole new line of cheap credit to another sector of the market who will then compete against each other to by the few affordable houses around and that will push those prices up again. Back to the hermit crab analogy.The big problem is at the end of the day this scheme doesn’t build a single new house.And that’s what Phil Twyford promised.  To build 100,000 houses.  Recently he’s changed that to facilitate building houses and now he’s suggesting not building a house and becoming a bank.  It’s a slow descent towards the realisation that the government hasn’t got a clue what to do.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One caller who rang Andrew Dickens afternoon today, says dealing with his mother's dementia has split the family because those who live in Auckland wanted to put her into a home, while the family members who lived with her in Christchurch said no to that. He says his mother really loves conversation and talking to people, and he fears if she is in a care facility then she will be forgotten about and she will deteriorate quickly. LISTEN ABOVE AS CALLER JOHN SPEAKS WITH ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I was listening to Mike Hosking this morning, thinking to myself how nice it would be to be in London on a sunny spring day. And then he said something that set me thinkingHe was talking about the budget and what not to expect in terms of radical change.  He then warned that the coalition’s caution may continue at the next budget because it’s only a year away from the election.I thought to myself, hold on, this mob is only half a year into their term and we’re already talking about an election.It brought back into relief the length of the parliamentary term in New Zealand.At just three years it’s one of the shortest in the world shared with El Salvador, Jordan and Australia’s house of representatives. But in Australia, the Senate's term is six years.  In Brazil, their upper house has an eight-year term.Most countries go for five years. A handful go for four years and a few go for a mind-blowing six years.I’ve long had concerns about New Zealand’s short term.  While of course opponents of any given government favour it because it gives you a chance to throw out the hated winner, the problem is all the consequences it has for policy.It results in short-termism and policies designed more for political ends than for the long-term health of the country.It either means things happen too quickly or too slowly and often not at all.And perversely the three-year term means we end out with longer government tenure.  If a government gains confidence in it’s first term then they’re often voted back in, resulting in a de facto six-year term.We can see that in the last two governments that actually ended out with three terms each or nine long years.Personally, I favour four years giving any government a two-year breathing space between elections to quietly achieve the things they were given a mandate to achieve. But it’s also not too long to wait to throw out the incompetent if we wish.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Caller Brian talks about his concerns surrounding facial recognition and the data gathering of peoples private information.LISTEN TO THE FULL CALL WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pre-competition favourite Netta Barzilai won the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest for Israel on Saturday with her song Toy.Barzilai beat out competition from 42 other countries' performers to claim the music extravaganza's annual crown at the Grand Final in Lisbon, Portugal.There was a strong field of contestants at this year's event, and the Israeli entry topped close competition from Cyprus, Austria, Sweden and Germany.Barzilai racked up 529 points, compared with 436 for runner-up Cyprus and 342 for third-place Austria.The contest largely shed its traditional hallmarks of glitz and glitter in favour of a more restrained and tasteful tone in Lisbon, which was hosting the event because it won last year with Salvador Sobral's sober and subdued ballad Amar pelos Dois.Sobral last week criticized Toy as "horrible music." But Barzilai was unrepentant with her popular techno dance beat about women's empowerment.Her win — Israel's fourth and first since 1998 — means her country hosts next year's Eurovision Song Contest, which is watched by some 200 million people."Next time in Jerusalem!" Barzilai shouted to the audience as she picked up her award. "I'm happy people chose something different. It's refreshing," she said.The international contest began as a competition between European countries, but its huge popularity has led to the inclusion of Israel and Australia among the performers.Barzilai, known more usually as Netta, is a sassy woman with a witty on-stage personality. Before the Grand Final, her song had already racked up more than 20 million views on Eurovision's YouTube channel.In Toy, Netta makes funny noises, including a clucking sound like a chicken and barely decipherable words, and uses a looping machine and synthesizer.The lyrics say, "I'm not your toy, You stupid boy, I'll take you down."Despite hosting the event, Portugal came last, with 39 points.The event was not without its controversy.Shockwaves were felt around the world when a protester ran onto the stage and snatched away the microphone of the United Kingdom's contestant SuRie.The man got hold of the microphone but was quickly tackled by security and taken away while SuRie stood by.The British singer kept her composure and picked up her song where she left off, earning her praise from many viewers, including Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.The biggest shock came from the public votes, when Australia received the lowest score with just nine points. The announcement of the scores caused the stadium to erupt with boos. The event is organized by the European Broadcasting Union, an alliance of public service broadcasters.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I think it’s a good time to talk about business confidence as we approach the budget this Thursday. Because everyone is talking about it.The government is trying to convince everyone that they’re prudent guardians of the public purse, while the opposition is desperately trying to convince us that we’re going to hell in a handcart.This is a difficult line for Simon Bridges to pursue.  On one hand he’s trying to tell the country that Labour has loads of cash because of his party’s fiscal management.  That the rock star economy is still singing a sweet tune. Yet on the  other hand he’s saying we’re on the verge of an apocalypse.Meanwhile Grant Robertson, the invisible man of politics who seems to have been beavering away on his first budget, is telling everyone to brace themselves to be disappointed.  That there won’t be a budget blowout and that he’s going to be as miserly with the purse strings as Bill English.  That said, he’ll be putting some band aids over areas of the economy that National neglected.Who’s right and who’s wrong.  We don’t really know right now.  It’s all just an opinion depending on where you stand.What I know is that the figures coming out of the economy are still very positive.  But business is starting to hit the wall again.  As the economy grows so the capacity to meet demand needs to grow. But because of a business confidence feeling of dread, businesses are starting to close their wallets.  The Reserve bank is concerned.The other day Adrian Orr asked the question. “"Given the capacity constraints that are coming through, why wouldn't business be investing? Given the level of interest rates, the state of balance sheets across the business sector, it is an opportune time, as it is for the Government."The very reason Adrian Orr kept interest rates at their record lows is because our population is still growing, demand is still increasing and we need companies to keep investing in kit to keep the wheels on the busBut they’re dithering because too many businesses have already decided we’re screwed.There’s an old legend that business confidence always slumps under the first days of a Labour government and rises under a National government.  That has more to do with political loyalties than logic.So the business sector needs to realise they are far more important and have far more influence than any government. That falling business confidence because of a feeling in your gut is a self-fulfilling prophecyLet’s just wait a bit until this Thursday and the real intentions of the government become clear and until then don’t worry, make money.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Tuesday I wrote an editorial about the housing crisis and this government’s approach to it through Kiwi Build. In it I essentially advised the government to get out of the building business and get stuck into all the things that stop builders building and developers developing. It might be worth me repeating my conclusions. I said that if they go into the building business they’re going to hit all the same problems private developers have had for generations.If they want to speed up supply they should be spending time and money on the impediments. Rather than building houses they should be laying water and power onto greenfield sites and improving the infrastructure for intensification projects. They should be streamlining consent processes and helping councils gear up to cope with more work. They should be strengthening credit lines to the developers who know what they’re doingThey should be building transport and roading to these new developments rather than leaving new home owners stuck in traffic jams in the middle of nowhere. Well I don’t know if they were listening but it seems like they’re finally coming to the same conclusion. Yesterday Newshub reported a change in the language from Housing Minister Phil Twyford. The KiwiBuild promise was to build 100,000 affordable homes, but the word 'build' has now gone by the wayside.Now in official documentation, it's been replaced with this: "KiwiBuild aims to facilitate the delivery of 100,000 affordable dwellings." Political observors are noting this is a broken promise and thrashing the government for it and that’s fair enough. But out of the beltway and in the real world I’d like to say this: I want to congratulate the government and Mr Twyford.It takes a big man to admit that they were wrong. Even though it’s taken a year pointing out that the government building 100,000 houses was improbable and that the real impediments are in red tape and infrastructure and capacity it appears that someone with brains has been listening and thinking. So let’s get on with it Minister. You’ve wasted six months of this government's time because of a poorly formulated election promise and a memo to all, stop speaking in slogans.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As we approach the budget I think it’s fair to ask the government, “How’s that housing crisis going?”It’s been the issue of the age, which has seen property owners grow richer and new home buyers grow desperate or even give up and it’s been the issue that many attacked the previous government on and the issue Labour promised to fix.So where are we at. First, we had the LVRs which had a short-term effect on slowing the price boom but now we hear that rent prices are getting so high because of supply problems that buyers are re-entering the market. And to be frank, the biggest effect was on first home buyers which was the problem we were trying to fix.Meanwhile, the Housing Minister hasn’t been sitting on his laurels. He’s announced a major development in Auckland's Mt Albert with 3000 to 4000 homes,18 of those homes on defence force land in Papakura. But to be fair, the Mt Albert development has been an idea sitting around for a while and would have happened without the government stepping in and the Papakura development was just the government taking over a stalled private development. Good politics but hardly a housing supply revolution.A couple of stories around this week highlight the real drag on housing. One was problems surrounding New Zealand’s biggest apartment development. The 800 unit project has been hit by delays that are upsetting agents and owners alike. There has been a holdup getting titles out of council. To be fair to the council, 800 titles is a swag of work particularly combined with all the other development underway. You wonder whether councils are gearing up for all the extra work all these extra houses need.But on the good news front, Westpac has announced it will trial lending on prefab housing. Until now you could only borrow on prefabs once they were constructed, unlike traditional developments where you can get progress payments as the building goes up. The new regime brings us into line with the rest of the world and will greatly speed up construction. This was a no-brainer and I wonder why no government was leaning on the banks in the first place.This highlights to me the problem with the government’s thinking. If they go into the building business they’re going to hit all the same problems private developers have had for generations.It seems to me that if they want to speed up supply, they should be spending time and money on the impediments. Rather than building houses they should be laying water and power onto greenfield sites and improving the infrastructure for intensification projects.They should be streamlining consent processes and helping councils gear up. They should be strengthening credit lines to the developers who know what they’re doing They should be building transport and roading to these new developments rather than leaving new homeowners stuck in a traffic jam in the middle of nowhere.I worry this well-intentioned government is actually creating more problems for the future rather than solving the problem we have right in front of our faces and spending a truckload of cash doing it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A 4-year-old girl who had all of her rotting baby teeth removed is one tens of thousands of Kiwi kids with poor dental health, a new report has found.Dental caries, or tooth decay, was found to be most common chronic disease in children, and one of the leading causes of hospital admissions.In the 2015/2016 year, 29,000 children under the age of 12 had to have one or more teeth removed as a result of severe cavities and infection, and 6600 of those ended up in hospital. Each operation to remove teeth cost about $4000."The cost of this in public healthcare and to taxpayers is huge," oral health researcher and co-author Prathibha Sural said.The report, Too soon for the tooth fairy: the implications of child poverty for oral health, summarises knowledge about the prevalence of poor oral health among children in New Zealand.Most of the cases were argued to be preventable and strongly associated with poverty.Co-author and public health specialist Dr Rob Beaglehole said tooth decay was a "disease of poverty"."Poorer members of society have significantly worse oral health than the wealthy."Poor oral health had a knock-on effect to other areas of life."Persistent orthodontic problems, as well as social issues for children can occur as a result. They may require expensive orthodontic work on adult teeth, and their confidence suffers."Education so that families are more aware of proper nutrition and care for their children's teeth from before they erupt is imperative, but families must be resourced with the kind of incomes they need to sustain healthy lifestyles if any long-term change is to be seen."CPAG health spokesman Professor Toni Ashton said despite oral health being a stated priority of governments over the past two decades, dental problems among New Zealand children, especially in low-income families, remained stubbornly high."Mere lip service has been paid to this problem for far too long. It is time for action."The report suggests significantly boosting family incomes, a comprehensive, parent-targeted education programme, broader provision of fluoride in water, reducing the sugar content in food, and the implementation of a health levy on sugary drinks.The University of Otago's Dr Jonathan Broadbent said child poverty and its detrimental impact on dental health care cast "a long shadow and affects oral health into adulthood".A University of Otago's Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, which tracked the lives of more than 1000 babies born in Dunedin between April 1972 and March 1973, showed up to 18 years of age, more dental decay occurred among children from socio-economically disadvantaged families.While those who needed dental care mostly got it due to New Zealand's universal dental health care for children and adolescents, this changed once access to state-funded dental care ended at age 18.By the time they were 26, the average number of teeth with untreated decay among young people from socio-economically disadvantaged families was five times greater than it had been at age 18."Publicly funded dental care minimises inequality up to age 18, but then the bottom drops out," Dr Broadbent said.By age 38, the average number of teeth lost was six times greater among those who had been born into disadvantaged families than for those born into well-off families.Socio-economic differences in tooth decay rates didn't explain socio-economic inequality in dental health alone, because well-off people who ate too much sugar and had poor oral hygiene had a high rate of tooth decay too, Dr Broadbent said."But, if you have a high rate of decay as a child and are born into a family with low-income parents, this will affect your risk of having poor dental health right through your life, not just during childhood."Another study found socio-economically disadvantaged parents were less likely...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you're a man there have been two series of remarkable writing over the past year that I recommend you read.One is Peter Wells' series called Hello Darkness on the website The Spinoff. The acclaimed New Zealand author Peter Wells kept a diary talking about what he saw, was going through, and thought since his prostate cancer diagnosis. A cancer which has spread and metastasised.It's an emotional read. Because of his skill with words and his ability to write about emotion and feeling. It has a dark beauty. It's easily understandable. His ability to write about the tug at the heart and gut of battling the beast is very affecting.The other is Simon Wilson's series in the Herald. It's a prostate cancer diary as well but it's more pragmatic and practical. A less lyrical take on the science and more on the grunt of the battle to control a beast that wants to take your life.This past weekend Simon looked at the screening for the third biggest killer of men and in that he wrote some astounding things.There are 4 ways to figure out if you're on the battlefield. The digital exam and a PSA test are early indicators and then there is a biopsy and an MRI to confirm if the bugger is in there.The gold standard is the biopsy or MRI: they're the proof. That's an expensive option. So men are relying on a gentle probing by your friendly neighbourhood GP and the PSA test before they go for the big ones.Doctors are not happy about either the digital exam or the PSA test because they're inconclusive or misleading.  For instance, did you know that your PSA levels can be raised if you've done vigorous exercise or sex. I didn't.  Good information to knowThe Prostate Cancer Foundation told Simon that American doctors are against the PSA test in particular because they want to cover their backside.  They don't want to concern people who may record worrying signs but don't have the thing. But is that enough reason to tell people not to test for PSA at all?Get a grip. That's like seeing a crack in a building and not sending the engineers in.So here's my story. When I turned 40 I started yearly exams. I thought it was time to send my doctors fingers into the dark places. She agreed. I also asked for a PSA test. She disagreed. She said it could alarm me because it was unreliable. So she gave me my blood test script. I noticed she hadn't ticked the PSA test box so I ticked it with the same coloured pen.When the results came back my PSA was fine but my doctor was irritated that I took my health tests into my own hands. I said suck it up. We now have a baseline. How could it hurt? We've tested ever since. Apparently, my prostate is nice and soft and my PSA is unchanged. Too much information.Now in my 50s, I know a number of men whose life has been saved by PSA tests. I know it's not a gold standard test but it's a bloody good indication of whether you want to spend more finding out if you have it. I also know a lot of friends who haven't had a single check. Get a grip you boysI have no idea why the PSA test holds such fear for doctors particularly in this non-fault environment that we have in New Zealand. Women wouldn't let this lie. From breast screening to pap smears women have been truly vigilant about their health and their screening.So here's the other thing Simon Wilson wrote that blew my mind. According to the Health Research Council, for every dollar spent researching women's health, the amount we spend researching men's health is six cents.The Prostate Cancer Foundation's annual conference took place over the weekend with a focus on ways to improve diagnosis and treatment strategies. Much of the talk was be on the likelihood of a new test for prostate cancer that's cheap and reliable.Do it. Spend on it. Currently, men are in a cone of silence that actually resembles stupidity. The squeaky wheel gets the oil and it's time for men to squeak.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s very hard not to sympathise with midwives and their current quest for better pay and conditions.In fact, I’d say it was impossible.After they’re the selfless heroes who bring life into the world at all times of the day and night. They provide help, advice, support and expertise to mother and child. Their job deals with the core emotions and physical processes that create families and hence society.So when they rally for better pay and conditions the feelings are palpable and the response is easy. They deserve more.At yesterday’s rally's we were told that midwives were paid between 7.23 and 12 an hour which shocked many. After all isn’t that illegal. It’s below the minimum pay.But it’s because their pay model is at odds with an hourly rate. To talk about hourly rates is to compare apples to oranges. So the real conversation should be about the model itselfMidwives get 2300 per client. That doesn’t vary despite differing complexities or even the midwives experience. It means most midwives are getting between 40 to 80 thousand dollars a year. But we’ve also heard of some receiving 140 thousand dollars. They do that by having up to 12 clients a week.But the workload of those clients and the nature of birth means that midwives are often called upon to do enormous hours to achieve that money. And the hours per child are exaggerated by the tradition of the midwife coming to mum.This is particularly so in rural areas where midwives spend more time in their cars than tending to their clients. Add to that the expense of running the vehicle and that might answer the question of why a midwife paid 80 thousand dollars a year feels so underpaid.With our growing population, it seems to me that we’re at a point where we have to discuss the viability of home visits by midwives, particularly before the labour. It’s a conversation we had when GPs started to move away from home visits.In urban areas should Mums be coming to midwives so we don’t have midwives stuck in traffic rather than talking to mum? If an urban mum needs to be visited at home who should bear the travel cost. The state or the Mum?There is more need for home visits in rural areas when the mums are part of the labouring force of a farm. So should more resource be placed there rather than in urban areas?None of us begrudge more funding for midwives. The Prime Minister has already said help is on the way in the Budget. But let’s make sure that the money makes it’s way to the mums and not to have more midwives stuck in cars.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Caller to the show Simon talks about how the intimidation of 'youth' has taken over the Countdown in Papakura This comes on the back of a 17 year old male being charged with manslaughter after allegedly punching a security guard in the face.The security guard later died as a result of his injuries.LISTEN TO THE FULL CALL WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So congratulations New Zealand. Our jobless rate is at a 10 year low.The Household Labour Force survey is out and our unemployment rate for the last 3 months is at 4.4%.  It’s now fallen for the fifth quarter in a row.Our economy continues to add 1000 jobs a week. That means there were 15,000 people newly employed in the first three months of this year.  Now 2.6 million of us have jobs.This is all great news. 4.4 per cent is something to be proud of. I certainly remember much higher figures.It's also coming at a time when business confidence was falling during the first six months of the new government.But with every silver lining there has to be a cloud and then there are a couple in the figures.The rise in employment means that if you’re an employer looking for a new worker the job is getting harder and harder as the available pool gets smaller and smaller.  Officially the labour market is described as tight. You’ll know that if you’re trying to find a tradie to fix the deck.If businesses are already complaining it’s hard to find people, then the bad news is that’s it’s only getting harder.Here's the other thing. If the workers are getting rarer you’d expect they’re getting more valuable.  But they’re not.In fact, one economist says wage growth is missing in action. The share of workers getting no pay increase at all this year is at it’s highest since 2010, which you’ll remember is when we were still reeling from a global financial meltdown.Wage growth is like a bottle of fizzy that has been shaken and is getting ready to pop.  And we’re seeing the stress fractures develop whether it’s midwives rallying today, or teachers and nurses gearing up to get militant or the number of strikes which are rising year on year. People are underpaid and they’re not prepared to take it anymore.It’s something we need to do something about, and we have a government who’s sticking its nose in with policies around minimum wages and 90 day trial periods.But the problem with that is the stress it puts on smaller businesses.  Today on Page 9 of the paper the restaurant association is warning that food and coffee prices are about to go up because of these changes. But the thing is if food prices go up then there will be even more pressure on wages throughout the entire economy so we can afford the higher prices.The thing about this is we can’t legislate out of this hole.  It’s not the government’s fault and it’s not within their ability to fix it.It’s a hole we’re all in and we all need to consider the way to get out of it.  It’s a conversation that employers need to have with shareholders.  That employees need to have with employers.  We need to get out of the hole, and time's running out.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Massey High School's board chairman, John Garelja, says the school is in no way condoning the use of drugs."Massey High School has a strict anti-drug policy. These two pages out of the program have been taken out of context, if you look at all the brochures it's actually about not using P."Garelja says P is not a problem at the school - but this is something the kids happen to be studying.LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What an extraordinary and disappointing day.Today the Police Commissioner Mike Bush took the unprecedented step of squashing a rumour that's been going round for 7 months now. I'm sure you've heard it unless you've been under a rock.The rumour concerned the Prime Minister's partner Clarke Gayford and insinuates the police has something on him.So the Commissioner said Gayford is not, and has not been, the subject of any police inquiry, nor has he been charged in relation to any matter. And the reason he took this remarkable step is because of the sheer size and scale of the claims and their despicable nature.I'm so glad this has happened. For months now I have been inundated with friends and acquaintances asking me if the "rumours" are true. Many listeners have texted the "rumour" to me while on air under the guise of anonymity. Many accompanied by detailed scenarios.The scale of the spread of the "story" astounded me. And the morality of those who created the "rumour" in the first place. I had no truck with it and dressed down anyone who mentioned it. A senior manager asked me if an arrest was imminent. I replied get a grip he's currently meeting the Queen!I presume the architects of this whispering slur campaign were disaffected National Party voters still astounded that their party is not in power. If so, they have just cut their nose off to spite their face.If National supporters are involved they have just confirmed that Nicky Hager's allegation that 'Dirty Politics' is alive and well in our system is true.And in doing so they resemble the sore loser Democrats in the United States who are doing anything they can to impeach a lawfully elected President.They have become all that they hate.This has been a shameful blot on our social landscape.I'm very pleased that the police have taken action. If you helped spread the lie, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.* Editor's note: National Party leader Simon Bridges has said today that he expects his MPs to be "above reproach" in their dealings with media and says: "As leader I've repeatedly made my expectations very clear — National MPs will not be involved in peddling rumours or innuendo.".See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I first came across the concept of No Meat May (NMM) in a NewstalkZB interview with Andrew Dickens. Naturally, I rolled my eyes and dismissed the concept as 'ridiculous.' From memory, my exact phrase was: "If people want to try it, good luck to them. But I find the concept ridiculous."So why am I now one day in to NMM? I fail Junk Free June on day one consistently. I've never attempted Dry July, because it falls during footy season. And calving. To date, I've never made it through a calving without my old mate Gin and I don't intend to start now.'Think of the content opportunities,' I pitched to my boss. 'It's a social experiment,' I told my co-workers. 'My chance to walk in someone else's shoes and attempt to understand their ideals and values,' I explained to our urban listening audience. 'Don't worry – I'll fail,' I reassured farmers.That third reason's probably closest to the truth. A great portion of New Zealand's economy hinges upon meat consumption. So, for me it came down to an inability to fathom why anyone would create a gimmicky 'flavour of the month' fad that's so unpatriotic. I wanted to see if cutting meat from my diet could, or would, lead to a higher perspective…or just anemia.Now, I love May. Not only is it my middle name (albeit spelt slightly differently – Mae), but it's synonymous with two of my favourite things in the whole world. New Zealand music and duck shooting. When I uprooted my life and moved to Dunedin in January, the first thing I did was book flights home for duck shooting.Our maimai has a name 'The Hilton,' a working fireplace (not to be used on cloudless days), and the boys constructed it from scratch from an old bus shelter. We sleep in it every year, and despite the regular stench of decaying mice that snuck across the boardwalk over the summer months, it's one of my top five places in the world to be.So, understandably, I'm a little nervous to rock up this weekend, clutching my shotgun, tofu and some vegetarian sausages. A lot of maimais don't allow female shooters, let alone temporarily vegetarian ones.But that's not going to be the only challenge this month. The following weekend, I'm back home again. This time to MC the Southern North Island Wood Council Awards and I'll let you in on a little secret.The best part of being an MC is the incredible food you are served up at functions. Succulent lamb, tender beef, mouth-watering chicken. Every time. Asking for the vegetarian option is going to hurt. Food envy could be the undoing of me.Another factor that could come into play this month, is my utter lack of vegetarian cooking skills. I've long maintained I could never survive as a vegetarian for this very reason. This will be interesting. I don't think Pita Pit with falafel every meal's gonna cut it.Above all else, the biggest fear I have is the embarrassment of failing by simply forgetting. So often we pop food in our mouths without any conscious decision regarding it. I'm dreading the office morning tea, now that Boss 1 (The old Pipesy) initiated a revolt and succeeded in getting sausage rolls and cheerios put back on the menu. I can already picture walking past on my way to the studio and oh so casually, popping a savoury in my mouth.I'll be taking bets on how long I'll last at this folly. I'm not gonna lie, the odds for me going the distance are not flash - this may be a safe 'TAB Sports Bet of the Week' for my junior offsider Lashes on Friday.P.S. I've just given this to Boss 2 (The old Macca) for proofreading. Not only did he laugh me out of his office, but gleefully pointed out May also boasts National Lamb Day. The odds for me failing by Thursday May 24th just shortened dramatically.P.P.S. Wairarapa farmers Lynley and Matt Wyeth are spearheading the 'invite a townie to dinner on National Lamb Day' initiative. What a great concept! That's something I could really get behind. Surely being inclusive as...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wellington has voted to allow pets on public transport and Auckland looks as if it may as well.Tony called Andrew Dickens to say he regularly took his pets on the bus with him.LISTEN ABOVE AS TONY SPEAKS WITH ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Am I the  only one who hasn’t swallowed the kool aid on Korea?The world was agog on Friday when the leaders of North and South Korea met on the 38th parallel and went for a walk.  No-one would deny the images and the symbolism was powerful but was it really the dawning of a new age?After all the leaders of the 2 Koreas have met twice before, in Pyongyang, in 2000 and 2007, and the meetings then were heaped with the same hopeful praise and rhetoric and yet nothing happened.  Perhaps in our dumbed down age we’ve developed long-term memory loss.My question to you is what on earth has the last 70 years of the Korean War been about.  A war that saw 1.2 million people die including 33 New Zealanders. To my eyes, the West waged war to stop the spread of communism from the North driven by Russia with the tacit support of China.  It was a war that sought to reunite the 2 Koreas under a prosperous democracy. It was a war that was necessary to maintain the West’s influence in Asia.So the weekend’s developments is a sign we have given up.  In all the statements there is nothing about reunification, there is nothing about the deposition of Kim and his family and holding them to account for the abuses of their people. There is nothing about a return of democracy to all of Korea.But what about Kim’s claim to want denuclearisation?  Over the past 17 years, North Korea has said they would denuclearise on 4 occasions and then done nothing until the point in this past year where they have a  reliable bomb.  So far they’ve pledged a freeze on testing.  Of course they have, they don’t need to test anymore because they’ve got a functioning weapon.Kim has played a brilliant hand aided by a useful idiot in the White House who can only see a favourable headline. Now, this goes down badly with Trump fans many of whom couldn’t point to Korea on a map. But realise this.The North has always sued for peace and has approached every single US President but were turned down every single time until now.  In agreeing to meet with Kim, Donald Trump has legitimised Kim’s claim to influence and control of his part of the peninsula. Kim is now here to stay and it makes a mockery of the past 70 years and all the sacrifices made to get rid of the little rat and his evil family.Meanwhile, if Kim is successful in reducing the US activity in the South it further reduces the West’s influence in Asia.  Something Chin, in particular,r would love as they continue to annex the South China seas for themselves.So bully for Trump.  In his mind he thinks he’s won the peace but the reality is he’s lost the war. A Nobel prize?  Give me a break. He’s pardoning a mass killing dictator.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you get around the issue of school holidays?Most people get only eight weeks of annual leave a year, but school children get 12 weeks a year minimum, some even longer, creating a holidaying shortfall when it comes to parents looking after their kids.Andrew Dickens wants to find a solution, and caller Colin had his own ideas for how businesses could get around this. LISTEN TO ANDREW DICKENS TALK ABOUT THIS ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The forthcoming budget is looming as the most defining day in New Zealand’s politics in a very long time.On May 17 the government will present a plan to deal with a labyrinth of problems that can no longer be ignored. Their response will be revealing as will be the response of their rivals.The present government campaigned on a platform that was big on feeling.  At its most basic level, its theme was purely that we can do better.It’s a platform that has raised the hopes of many who have done it tough for the past decade due to a remarkable confluence of problems.  From global financial crises, earthquakes, natural disasters and much delayed infrastructural investment.So now the proverbial is about to hit the fan. Public service employees are restless.  Nurses and teachers feel left behind.  Meanwhile, infrastructure is creaking, from storm water systems to hospital buildings to public transport.This weekend another thorn was revealed in rosy New Zealand.Dr Megan Woods is the minister in charge of the Earthquake Commission. Yesterday she revealed that the EQC is a parlous financial situation.  The commission used to have $6 billion at its disposal.  After three big quakes, the kitty is down to $370 million.  If the reserves hit $200 million then the Crown Guarantee automatically kicks in.  A liability that will sit uncomfortably on the books.Megan Woods confirmed that the government is looking to topping up the fund at the forthcoming budget. Yet another demand on what is a demanding budget.Labour and its finance spokesperson have committed themselves to financial prudence and a desire to keep away from borrowing.  And that is laudable.  And because of that promise they have been trying to dampen down expectations of those claiming more of the government’s money.On May 17, all the answers will be revealed.  It will be a difficult balancing act.  Oiling the squeaky wheels and fixing the broken bits while balancing the books. Frankly, it seems like a lose-lose situation with no-one coming away satisfied.In their defence, the same situation would have faced a National government who added to the mix by promising tax cuts leaving even fewer resources for the state. So what would National have done? We’ll never know.People often say that many New Zealanders are only one paycheck away from bankruptcy.  Frankly, you could say we’re only one earthquake away from a pretty dire situation as well.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Barry Soper's purgatory is finally over, and in celebration, Andrew Dickens has decided to give up the teasing. It's given the Barry the chance to reflect on a pregnant republican Prime Minister curtsying to the Queen herself - if only from a distance. Barry Home Alone: Day FourBarry Home Alone: Day ThreeBarry Home Alone: Day TwoBarry Home Alone: Day OneSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Entertainment Reporter Karl Puschmann joined Andrew Dickens to tell him about the release of Prince’s original, previously unheard, version of Nothing Compares 2 U.LISTEN ABOVE AS KARL PUSCHMANN SPEAKS WITH ANDREW DICKENSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.