Podcasts about Duplessis

Send us Fan MailEver notice how the thing that helped you survive can quietly become the thing that keeps you disconnected?The armor. The independence. The belief that you have to carry it all yourself.In this conversation, Carol sits down with Lady Jen Du Plessis to explore what happens when high achievers stop proving, protecting, and performing... and start allowing themselves to be seen.Together, they unpack the hidden cost of self-reliance, why vulnerability feels so uncomfortable for successful people, and how our brains often confuse safety with staying hidden.Because what if the breakthrough isn't working harder?What if it's letting a little more light in?If you've ever struggled to receive support, trust others, or share the parts of your story you've worked hard to protect, this episode will speak directly to you.Where are you still wearing armor?And what might become possible if you simply started poking a few holes in it?The path from hustle to harmony doesn't begin with doing more.It begins with being seen.

The Black Ferns have made another key re-signing. Midfielder Amy Du Plessis has decided to put pen to paper and stay with the Ferns and Matatu through to 2029 with a bumper calendar of international fixtures looming. Amy joined D'Arcy to discuss. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Morné du Plessis – bestuurshoof, WWF Suid-Afrika Volg RSG Geldsake op Twitter

Emily Wilcox is a Wealth Strategist, Serial Entrepreneur, and Multi 7-Figure CEO. She helps people leverage unconventional wealth strategies to make more money for now & later. She has a goal of helping 1,000 women become millionaires because she knows that more money in the hands of women is good for families, communities, and our planet.Work with Em:Schedule a FREE Wealth Connection Call:https://tidycal.com/emilyjunewilcox/connection-callWebsite: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠emilywilcox.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.facebook.com/emilyjwilcox1/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.instagram.com/em.makes.money/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Free Money Wounds Quiz: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.emilywilcox.com/quiz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get Em's book: https://go.emilywilcox.com/ebookLady Jen Du Plessis, Dame CommanderAn Award-winning International Speaker. Lady Jen Du Plessis, Dame Commander, has spoken at Nasdaq, the National Press Club, and in Paris, London, Mexico, Canada, and Australia. She has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, on Good Morning America, Fox 5-DC TV, SiriusXM and Voice America Radio.  A dynamic leader renowned for transforming over 8,000 powerhouse businesses into companies who acknowledge they are ready to scale to an entirely different level, and when they activate the non-traditional principles with her specialized knowledge, this allows them to achieve harmonEy, freedom, and peace to live beyond the daily intervention in their business. Lady Jen is known as The Business Scaling Architect and The Sovereign Leadership Mentor, boasting 40 years in finance and over $400 million in revenue generated. She is a celebrated numerous Barnes & Noble and Amazon #1 International Best-Selling author, 3X Podcast Host, and TV talk show host who delivers real transformation, not just fast profits - so her clients achieve both business success and personal fulfillment.Connect with Lady Jen:https://www.ladyjenduplessis.comInstagram: http://instagram.com/jenduplessis/Facebook: https://facebook.com/JenDuPlessis22

Geez, how sorry do you feel for Paul Goldsmith at the Music Awards, eh? So, he's invited to the awards and he hasn't got his mate Chris Bishop with him this time. Bishop didn't go after what happened with Don McGlashan last year. Paul Goldsmith's not invited to speak—apparently no one is—which means that when Lynda Topp gets up and starts speaking and tells him off, he's got no right of reply. Here's what she had to say: “Paul, if you listen up for a minute, I'd like you to take a message back to Wellington. I did a speed read on the Budget this afternoon—there doesn't appear to be any money for music. But in big, big letters: $2.1 billion for defence. What the f***?” Now, I think we have to cut Lynda a bit of slack. She's only lost her twin in the past week and she's entitled, of course, to say exactly what she likes. She didn't say anything particularly rude and it's a fair opinion that she holds. But it is becoming a bit of a pattern, isn't it? Ministers turning up to the Music Awards and having to sit through that night's chosen form of protest about whatever the issue of the year is. Last year it was the Treaty Principles Bill; this year it's the Budget. In Paul Goldsmith's defence—given that he wasn't able to mount one—yes, there was no money in the Budget for the arts. There was also no money in the Budget for anything. Most of us looked at it and found nothing for ourselves. That's how it should be in difficult times. The country is not flush. And yes, there is money for defence—a lot of money for defence. That is also how it should be right now. If you were to listen to some, we may be only tens of months away from China potentially taking Taiwan. We have no real conception of what chain of events that could trigger in our region. Even though the drones and the frigate upgrades in this Budget won't protect the entire coastline of New Zealand—that's a fair criticism—we are still expected by our allies and partners to at least try to do our bit. Just try. So, hands up—which minister wants to go to the awards next year? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, you would have done well to heed Nicola Willis's warnings ahead of this Budget that there would be no spend-up, because there is no spend-up. There is no money for - well, there is money for the important stuff. You've got the schools and the classrooms, and the hospitals, and the Waikato Expressway, and Winston Peters' pet projects. But everywhere else, there is just no new money. It is tight. Now, that is exactly how it should be. And in fact, I would say this still doesn't go far enough. For the third Nicola Willis Budget in a row, it isn't tight enough because we haven't even hit our debt peak yet. We are still going up that peak mountain. That is still two years away, which means that interest payments are already at $9 billion and they're only going to go up. It's going to take us to about 2040, roughly, before debt is back to where Bill English left it as a proportion of GDP. And that is just the most optimistic scenario. The rest of the scenario is basically never getting back down to where Bill English left it. Nicola Willis is making a virtue today of the fact that she's getting the books back in black by 2028/29, which she says is earlier than expected. But that is a little bit of game-playing that's going on, because it was always going to be 2028/29 until December. Then in December it changed, then it became 2029/30. Now it's just been brought back again to where it was about six months ago. And that is only, by the way, because Nicola Willis is using a made-up measure, OBEGALX, which makes surplus appear a year earlier than the standard old measure, which basically would have had surplus arriving only in 2030 or thereabouts. And by the way, all of this is a broken promise, because Nicola Willis promised the country that if you voted for National at the last election, she would have the books back in the black. When? Today. This year. But after three Budgets, I think we've learned to temper our expectations on that front. Now, on the bright side though, she has decided to borrow $6 billion less than she had planned to. I will take that. And while there is a lot of poor spending that continues, at least there isn't new, more poor spending. And for that, I suppose you have to give the Budget a solid holding-pattern score of 6 out of 10. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, that Official Cash Rate decision is probably one of those moments where you find out whether you're a glass half-full or glass half-empty person. Because on the bright side, the Official Cash Rate didn't go up. On the downside, it looks like it's definitely going up next time. So yes, it's a reprieve - but it's only a reprieve for six weeks, excuse me, before the screws on the economy start turning again. Thanks to the new transparency rules at the Reserve Bank - which, frankly, we should all love - we know that the committee voted and it was split right down the middle. Three members of the committee wanted the OCR to stay at 2.25 percent. Three of them voted for it to be raised by 25 basis points immediately to calm down inflation pressures. But Anna Breman, who is the governor, has a casting vote. She said it needs to stay, so it stays put. But they didn't hide the fact that it is going to go up sooner than they had thought just three months ago. And it will go up by more than they thought just three months ago. Much of it appears to hinge on what businesses do with prices from here on in. Because what the Iran war is doing to prices is so widespread - and so many prices are going up, from fuel to fertiliser to food - that it runs a higher risk that businesses start jacking up more prices in a second round of increases. And that is what they're worried about at the Reserve Bank. So economists are now calling for three hikes in quick succession from here: July, September and October. Now, there are two problems with that. The first: all three hikes are before the election in November. National, especially, should be sweating, because poorer voters are not happier voters - they are voters who turn to New Zealand First. The second problem - and this is probably the biggest of them all - is what this is going to do to our recovery, our economic recovery. We are probably in negative growth this quarter. Next quarter is probably not that flash but at least positive. Entire sectors, like construction, are still struggling to get back on their feet. Unemployment is still in the fives. The Iran war is still pushing up fuel prices and therefore pushing up the price of everything. So, glass half full: at least we get another six weeks before the screws start turning. Glass half empty: when they tighten, they will be tightening fast on an economy that doesn't need that kind of pressure. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here's a PR tip for the coalition Government: if they want to win support for their ongoing budget cuts - which affect some of the poorest people in this country - they should consider giving up something themselves. Now, I don't know if you saw this last week, but Stuff ran a damning story on Louise Upston, the Social Development Minister, who is a lovely woman and a very capable minister - but the optics were terrible. While she's forcing some of the poorest Kiwis in this country to pay more towards housing before they get any help from the taxpayer, she is claiming $1000 a week from the taxpayer to rent her Wellington apartment - from herself. Today, we hear that MPs are again due to get a pay rise in July, bumping their pay up by 2 percent to, in the case of Cabinet ministers like Louise, $327,000 a year. Now, I raised this with Nicola Willis on the show. She's not prepared to touch MPs' pay or allowances, and neither is the Prime Minister, when he was asked about it today. Their excuse is that the money is decided by the independent Remuneration Authority. But anyone who's been around for more than five minutes knows that's a crock because MPs are the ultimate lawmakers They can override the Remuneration Authority and they have done so before - Jacinda Ardern froze MPs' pay for six years back in 2018. Now, frankly, quite independently of this whole argument, I personally think it is well overdue that MPs' perks are reined in. They are far too generous. These guys get really good pay but on top of that, they receive expense allowances of at least $19,000 for things like flowers and coffees, up to $52,000 in accommodation allowances -which they can use on their own apartments - fully paid travel and a superannuation scheme so generous it can be worth up to $70,000 a year on top of their salary. So, you can add somewhere between $120,000 and $140,000 at least in perks to their base pay. That is hard to accept at a time when our budgets are so tight that we are, quite rightly, asking state house tenants to pay another $31 a week to square things off - and when we are, quite rightly, cutting nearly 9000 public servants. But quite rightly, we should also be taking another look at just how much money we sink into MPs every year. I know MPs don't want to do this. No one wants to give up the entitlements they're entitled to. But if they want to increase public support for their budget cuts, they could do with showing they're prepared to give up a little themselves. Because when you ask the country's poorest to take one for the team - or more specifically, the team's budget - you should be prepared to take one for the team too. It's called leadership. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've got to start this week talking about that Auckland FC win on Saturday night. Did we not discuss on Friday's show the need for us in this country to be more ambitious for success? To have more confidence to back ourselves more and then a day later, just one day later, we have an example of exactly that. Now to be fair, obviously, this wasn't exactly us backing ourselves. It was an American billionaire Bill Foley backing us. But his attitude is the kind of attitude worth adopting. When he put his money into a football team in Auckland, he set them a goal of winning the A-League within three seasons. They did it in two. He did the same thing in Las Vegas with the team that he has there, he set them a goal of winning their competition in six seasons. They did it in six. Now of course, having heaps and heaps of money helps. If you're a football team, it helps to have the best of everything that money can buy. The best data, the best physio, the best premium accommodation, whatever it is. And we're going to find out just how much difference money really makes next year when the high salary cap that new teams get for the first two years disappears and they are on par with all the other clubs. But while I think money helps, I have a suspicion it's not the secret sauce that leads to Bill Foley constantly being successful. Because we've got myriad examples of money being thrown at things and them still failing. LIV Golf. The rugby league, the Rebel Rugby League, and that's just in the past year. I'd love to know what his secret sauce is. Is it getting the best coach? Is a coach more important than a team? Is there a formula to setting up a winning team? Is it the attitude of expecting success? Either way, when I stood there in that crowd on Saturday night in the minutes after the team won, actually just shocked, kind of speechless for a bit to think that they actually managed to pull it off. The thought occurred to me that this was good for Auckland. This is a city with high unemployment, grumpy about the past few years. Now a football team winning doesn't change that, right? But it is not a bad thing for a place like Auckland to score a win, to feel like it can be the best at something in Australasia. It's not bad to have all the free publicity in the Australian media market for our biggest city. It's not bad to get the kids really excited about a game and it is not bad to illustrate what can be done if you simply believe it can be done. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is there any real surprise in what we've learned from the latest Andrew trade envoy files? So, we've found out Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor got the job as the UK trade envoy because his mum, the late Queen, pushed for it. It was the Queen's wish - she was very keen that he should have a prominent role. We've learned he wasn't vetted for the job. We've learned that he was a brat - that he told them he preferred the ballet to the theatre, that he liked visiting more sophisticated countries rather than less sophisticated ones and that he should not be offered golfing functions abroad. Now, this is no surprise whatsoever, is it? There's no surprise in this. We already know the Queen had a blind spot for her favourite child. We already know he's an entitled pain. And it surprises absolutely no one to learn that he didn't earn the job - he got it because his mum wanted him to have it. What he had done beforehand would not have qualified him for the job, would it? Other than being born a royal - that's the only thing. Now, of course, a lot of republicans will be feeling reasonably vindicated by this because it shows nepotism in action. It lays bare the fact that huge amounts of taxpayer money are spent finding things for spare royals to do, to keep them in the news and amused.But everyone else - and even some republicans - will probably be unmoved by this because yes, it is a story about an archaic institution trying to justify itself and probably stretching the limits of taxpayer tolerance But it's also the story of a mum who kept trying, for as long as she was alive, to protect her boy - who is a dropkick - and who couldn't see all the way through just how much of a dropkick he really was. In the end, that's what this story is about. And that's a pretty human story about a family, isn't it? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tell you what I'm loving about this new, New Zealand-made music app that's been unveiled: predominantly, it's the confidence these guys have that this thing is going to work—and that it's going to go global. Now, if you haven't caught up on it, let me get you across the details. The app is called Lume and it's going to launch, I think, in the next couple of weeks or something like that. On Lume, you're not going to be able to stream music like you do on Spotify. Instead, you'll buy albums—and then you'll own those albums. They'll come with some extra stuff as well, if you're a real music nerd—bonus material, that sort of thing. You're not going to pay a monthly subscription; you're going to pay $25 an album. Now, I don't know if this is going to work but I think there's a really good chance. I mean, it's got some very smart people behind it. Duncan Greive, for example, who started The Spinoff at a time when everybody else in the media was in retreat—he's very clever at seeing small gaps in the market and then exploiting them. He's got financial backing from the guy who founded Substack. He's got backing from the guy who co-founded Letterboxd. He's got backing from Lorde. It's launching right at a time when people are complaining about the AI slop being fed to them by Spotify and the weird algorithms that now determine what music we hear. It's being launched at a time when young people are nostalgic for owning things instead of just streaming them—when artists are complaining they don't get enough money from streamers like Spotify. This will give them much, much more money and it will give fans a chance to support artists financially. And it's coming at a time when Spotify has jacked up its price again, in a never-ending series of small increases that just end up costing heaps every month. So there is a chance it could work. I mean, I think it's going to be a smaller, die-hard fan market than the big, lazy, “press a button and listen to music” Spotify market—but it could work. But what I love most about it is that the guys building this really believe it will work. They're already talking about taking it global—not in a “maybe one day” way but in a “we're starting in New Zealand, next Australia, then the US and the UK” way. They're already workshopping what they'll do with problematic artists like Michael Jackson, R. Kelly and Kanye West because they think it's going to get to that. They are confident it's going to work. They're already preparing. I love that. I reckon that kind of confidence is sometimes the difference between whether something is successful or not. And I reckon here in New Zealand, we could do with a lot more of that big thinking. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For anyone still labouring under the impression that New Zealand is an innocent little place like it was 50 years ago, those prison busts should absolutely shatter that delusion. What happened was the single biggest bust in our prison system: 20 people arrested and charged across three different prisons - Mount Eden, Spring Hill and Auckland South. They have been charged with allegedly smuggling meth and phones into prison in exchange for cash payments. There are bribery charges and there are allegations that prisoners were organising drug importation and transactions while still in jail. It is not just Corrections guards either, it is also senior officers. That is actually more worrying because it tells you this is not about junior staff just recruited who were not properly vetted. These are people who have been there for a while. These are people on decent money - the kind of money you would not necessarily expect to be corruptible. That is what a network looks like right there. And it is not just in our prisons, by the way, that this sort of thing is happening. We have just had a police officer busted for leaking intelligence to her Killer Beez boyfriend this year. We have had people busted at ports, baggage handlers caught at airports - and this is exactly what we have been warned about by the crime advisory group working with the Government, which produced a series of reports last year. They warned that corruption is rising and that insider threats - where trusted people are corrupted - are a rapidly growing problem. And it is growing rapidly. Think about this - it was 2011 when we had our first corrections officer in this country jailed for corruption. Fifteen years later, we have allegedly uncovered an entire network. And it is the gangs. It is the fact that we have more sophisticated gangs coming in from Australia. It is the high price of drugs here, which makes New Zealand a more lucrative place to do business. It is the relatively low wages we pay our prison guards, police officers and baggage handlers. If you still think we do not have a corruption problem, just look at what happened. Twenty people are not just a few bad apples - they are a sign that we are now like the rest of the world and we have a corruption problem. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Corrections union insists corrupt staffers are few and far between, and some are even forced to go down the wrong path. 14 staff from Mt Eden and Auckland South Corrections facilities have been arrested. A dozen are charged with accepting bribes, and others with conspiring to supply a Class A drug —namely methamphetamine— to prisoners. Corrections Association President Floyd du Plessis told Mike Hosking it's not the norm, but in the past, some staff have been coerced by people who monitor their behaviour and learn about their personal lives. He says in the past, staff have even had people turn up at their house and intimidate them, and have succumbed to that pressure. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I've got to tell you something – I'm embarrassed. Watching this public debate about how many public servant jobs are going to be cut in order to make way for AI is just embarrassing. The fact we're having this debate at all is ultimately Nicola Willis's fault, because she listed three expectations when she announced the reform of the public service: 1) That agencies amalgamate 2) That there is a cap of 55,000 people in the public sector 3) That the public sector digitises and adopts AI Because AI is the new bogeyman that everybody is supposed to be afraid of, the media then became obsessed with it. They started contacting ministers' offices and demanding to know what we're actually meant to do with AI. The verdict, however, was many ministers weren't actually sure what they would be doing in their portfolios. And it's embarrassing in the same way it's embarrassing watching your parents or grandparents discuss that newfangled technology that's absolutely going to change our lives, without any real grip on its uses and limitations, because they don't actually use it. It feels like blaming the public service cull in the 1980s on those new computer devices that were going to replace all the workers. Except we're all still working, we're just each using a computer. Let's be honest about AI, okay? For those of us out there who don't use it and ask, “What is this?”, AI is probably hugely overpromising. It's not going to do all the things or replace all the workers that you think it will. At the moment, it's mostly really good for summarising, drafting, searching documents, handling repetitive admin, and managing customer service. There are some obvious applications for AI, like helping a beneficiary find all their entitlements by going through an AI system on a computer, without having to tie up a person on the phone for an hour. But AI cannot really be relied on for more complex tasks that require humans, like risk assessment, ethical judgments, or political management. No one who actually uses AI thinks it's going to replace 8,700 jobs – or even a quarter of those jobs, or even a tenth of them. Having this debate actually feels quite silly. Public service numbers need to come down with or without AI. AI doesn't have to be part of this debate. We have 16,000 more public servants than we did nine years ago, and no one's getting better service. So you don't need all those people – that's the argument. AI, here, is just a distraction.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As you'd expect, I'm a huge fan of Nicola Willis' plan to cut down the size of the public sector. This is the second issue I've been harping on about to her. The other one was, obviously, the fees-free year for university students. So I'm stoked that, on this show, we're two from two in terms of agitating for cutting back on wasteful public spending. The public service in this country is too big. There are 63,000 public servants. There were only around 47,000 when Jacinda and Grant started throwing money around. We have 39 Government departments and ministries. Ireland has 18. Australia has 16. We have 39. We have Government departments like the Ministry for Women that don't appear to do anything other than write reports and make work for themselves. Now, anyone arguing against cutting back public servants - and there are some people doing this - needs to explain why. And if the answer is, “Oh, because it's someone's job,” well, that is not an answer. Because if it's a job we don't need, but we keep it just to keep someone in work, then that's just really expensive welfare, isn't it? But as much as I love this proposal, I am worried. I just can't shake the feeling that this coalition may not follow through on this promise because this is the second time they've made it. Before the last election, ACT was saying they were going to cut 14,000 public servants. Have they cut 14,000 public servants? No, they haven't. They haven't done it. And it feels like this announcement has been dreamt up at the weekend because there's no actual plan - just an announcement. And that announcement is that the public service is going to be asked to design its own downsizing. So it feels a bit on the fly. Also, it's a week before the Budget, which makes you wonder if this has been announced so Treasury can take 9000 public servants out of the Government's payroll when doing the Budget forecasts for next week - thereby putting the books in better shape and maybe bringing the surplus forward a little. Do you see what I'm doing here? Maybe this is all just designed to look better than it actually will be. Once bitten, twice shy. But it's a hell of a big risk for National to commit to something like this publicly and then not deliver. So I've got my fingers crossed. This could just be the start of unwinding years of public sector bloat. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here's a question for you: if you really like Winston Peters' idea of buying back the BNZ - why? What problem do you think will be solved by buying it back? Do you think the banks are ripping you off because they're owned by Australians, and that if only one of them were owned by us again, they wouldn't? Take a look at the home loan rates Kiwibank is offering right now. They're basically the same as - if not higher than -those offered by the Australian-owned banks. Do you think this might improve competition? In that case, how does taking BNZ and Kiwibank and combining them into a single bank - leaving one fewer bank in the market - help competition? Do you think it will stop $1.5 billion in profit heading to Australia, making us richer? Sure, the logic stacks up at first glance. But first, we'd have to borrow huge amounts of money to buy the bank and pay significant interest on that debt. It could take 10 to 20 years before we start seeing those profits flow into New Zealand rather than going toward interest payments. And all of this comes at a time when two credit ratings agencies have warned that we can't keep increasing our debt without risking a downgrade next year - which would make all our borrowing more expensive. That's not even considering the fact that we can't be sure BNZ would generate the same level of profit under Government ownership as it does under private ownership. In fact, I would argue the opposite is more likely. Publicly owned assets often become less efficient - they can grow bloated, unproductive and undisciplined. That might explain why BNZ collapsed back in 1990 when it was publicly owned and hasn't repeated that since returning to private ownership. To me, this policy looks like a classic nostalgia play by Winston Peters - appealing to voters who believe life would be better if we could just go back to 1992. I suspect this will be the first policy dropped in any coalition negotiations. It's likely the first thing Winston Peters will let go of because it's simply too expensive, and he knows it. So don't get too attached to this policy. I just can't see it happening. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We need to talk about what Chris Hipkins has said about immigration. First of all, Labour can frankly shut up accusing the Nats of anti-migrant rhetoric because this is a party that hasn't got a leg to stand on when it comes to migration. This is the party - and some of the very same people are still there - that campaigned on reducing immigration by up to 30,000 people in 2017, produced a list of Chinese-sounding names two years earlier and then shut down immigration completely, only to do the opposite by opening it up too much during and after COVID. So, on immigration - glass houses etc. But having said that, what National is proposing to do on immigration should worry businesses up and down this country that rely on migrants. And I'm looking at you - the aged-care sector wanting to bring in Filipino workers to look after our elderly; and I'm looking at you, Health New Zealand, needing to employ Indian nurses; and I'm looking at you, the construction sector, needing to bring in general labourers. Because Chris Luxon has made it clear in his speech he's shutting his door to businesses wanting to lobby him for migrant workers. He said: “My message to the business community is that when it comes to immigration, when I'm faced with a choice between social stability and your bottom line, I will choose the former every single time.” Now that begs the question to the Prime Minister: what does “social stability” mean? Is that basically you saying we've got too many Indian migrants? Which then begs the question: is National trying to match New Zealand First's anti-Indian rhetoric to avoid losing voters to them? Which then logically begs the next question: is Luxon putting his vote share at the election ahead of New Zealand's need to bring in the workers that we know we need? Because we've been through COVID, and we know that we do not do these low-skilled jobs - you need migrants to do them. So I think we should all be worried about this. I think businesses in New Zealand, in particular, should be very worried about this. And it begs a final question: if this is the position that National has taken, is there now even a single party in Parliament that is looking after New Zealand businesses? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I once heard someone say the best stories you could hope to read in the newspapers are always found in the sports sections—and I was reminded of that by the incredible story of the women's Phoenix football team. These ladies are going to play in the grand final of their A-League competition, which is remarkable when you consider that, in two of the past five years, they've finished as the wooden spoon team. But why they've made the grand final is what makes the story truly incredible. It's their coach, Bev Priestman. She seems to be the person who has turned the team around. Two years ago—remember this—she was their evil nemesis. She was the head coach of the Canadian football team during the 2024 Olympics and she was caught spying on our team, the New Zealand women's side, using a drone. And in that New Zealand team were many players who are in this Phoenix squad. That drone spying turned into an international scandal and the coach lost her job. She needed a new one so she moved to New Zealand, where her wife is a football player and she even considered buying a coffee cart and leaving football altogether. But the Phoenix saw an opportunity. They could never normally attract a coach of her calibre, yet she needed a way back. So they gave her the job—and now the team is in the grand final. Isn't that an amazing story? You can call it karma if you like. The women she once wronged have ended up benefiting from it. She hurt them but now she's helping them. She's redeemed herself. That story is so remarkable it's only one plot twist away from being worthy of a Netflix series—and that twist would be if the team actually wins the final. As they say, doesn't sport give us the best stories about ourselves? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here's a question for you: how badly did we get ripped off if it's true we paid $3 million to get Robbie Williams here? Now, we don't know for sure that's the amount the Government paid out of the Major Events Fund, but that is what Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has revealed in a fit of pique at the Government. And so far, nobody's publicly denied it - not even Louise Upston, who's the minister in charge of the money. Privately, we at the show have had at least one, what I would call, soft confirmation that the amount is correct. Now, if that's true, $3 million for - as Wayne Brown calls him - a “tattooed Pom” is too much money. We're wasting taxpayer money here, for a start. As excited as I personally am to be going to Robbie's concert in November, I don't think a 1990s pop star is what we imagined the Major Events Fund would be used for when it was set up after we missed out on Taylor Swift, Oasis and Lady Gaga. I mean, two in that list are proper A-list stars and one is a massively overdue reunion - a completely different league to Robbie. An offshore promoter thought $3 million is way too much to pay for Robbie. Singapore - this will put it in perspective for you - reportedly paid $3 million for six Taylor Swift concerts two years ago. Now, if $3 million buys you six Tay-Tays, how did we end up blowing $3 million on only one Robbie? We've been ripped off, good and proper. And the proof is in the fact that the tickets are apparently not selling very well. But then again - and bear this in mind - maybe this is just what we need to get used to and stop fighting. Robbie and Linkin Park may well be the best New Zealand can do now. Big stars like Lady Gaga, Oasis, Tay-Tay and Harry Styles are going to go to Australia, not here, and they're going to expect us to come to them - and we will. I'm flying to Harry Styles. I flew to Oasis. Heaps of people flew to Tay-Tay. That's how it works now. And if we want a former boy band member who peaked in the '90s to come to New Zealand, we are simply going to have to pay a lot of money for him. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So, I'm fascinated by this article in the New Zealand Herald, which argues the All Blacks should be forced to give up business class and travel premium economy instead. The reasoning is the cost of international travel has become so expensive that moving our teams in black around the planet is now costing nearly $87 million a year. Dropping them back a class on the plane would bring that cost down to $80 million a year and nearly wipe out the $7 million loss that New Zealand Rugby just reported for the financial year, which is great maths. But the idea is ridiculous, isn't it? I mean, you can't ask a two-metre-tall man like Fabian Holland to move down from business class. But even the shorter guys - you can't ask them to travel to South Africa in a few weeks, which is literally on the other side of the world. It's close to a full day's travel, even on the most direct route through Perth, and then expect them to get over their jet lag and start playing top-level rugby against the best team in the world. You're asking them to do all of that after they've been sitting upright on a plane for the entire flight. That's impossible. We sometimes disparage rugby as not being a “real job” when we say things like, “Oh, it's not that hard to throw a ball around a paddock,” which may be true - but it's still a job, isn't it? And when you're asking someone to fly that distance for work - not just once but multiple times in a season - it should be in business class. Now, there is an argument about how many people go on these trips and I'm happy to have that conversation. There are apparently more than 40 players and nearly 30 staff heading to South Africa in a few weeks' time, which seems excessive for a game that only requires 15 men on the field at any one time. And by the way, it's not just the All Blacks who do this - who take these enormous squads around the world and put them in business class. It's also the Black Ferns and the Sevens teams. But as for the idea of dropping these players down a class on the plane to bring them down a peg and save some money - I suspect there are people who will look at this and think it's a great idea. And that's the part that fascinates me. How many people out there like the idea that our best rugby players should be forced to sit further down the plane, just like the rest of us? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm taking this latest talk of a second Auckland Harbour crossing with a gigantic grain of salt. The development today is that Chris Bishop has revealed the Government will announce its preferred option for a second crossing by mid-year - so I suppose you could say June-ish or July-ish - and they will decide between a tunnel or a bridge. And while I really want to get excited about it, because Auckland needs this crossing and has been waiting decades for it, I cannot get excited. That's because I can see what's going on here. It's an election year and National is in danger of losing Auckland, which means potentially coming quite close in the election - as in, potentially losing it. Unlikely, but possible. So the easiest way to win favour in Auckland is to promise something big and shiny, like a bridge. Have we been here before? Yes, we have. Do you remember Michael Wood's boomer bike bridge to Birkenhead? Where are we with that? We spent $51 million-plus on consultants, and in the end it got ditched. Now, I have a strong suspicion that whatever Chris Bishop announces mid-year will go exactly the same way because we cannot afford it. I want us to be able to afford it, because we need it, but Chris Bishop is already scaling back on the Roads of National Significance that he announced before the last election. That's because we don't have the funding for those roads - because we haven't increased the fuel excise tax in what will shortly be seven years. So if we don't have the funding for those roads, why would we have the funding for this bridge? Now, unless there is committed funding and an absolutely rock-solid commitment from Labour to continue with the project if they were to win the election - or subsequent elections - I think we can see this for what it is: the cheapest and easiest pre-election trick to play on Aucklanders. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're never going to know for sure what tipped the Government into finally cutting the fees-free policy but I would like to take some credit for this show's part in it. We have harped on about the need to get rid of that policy for so long that it actually started to get boring, even for me. But as with everything: persevere and you will succeed. And finally, the policy is gone. We had it confirmed by Winston Peters on Friday. Now, I've already had emails from people who are upset about this. I've heard students complaining and I've heard some parents complaining as well. And I understand - it is never fun to have free Government money taken away from you. It is because of this kind of angst that free Government money is so rarely clawed back once it's started being handed out. But this policy was a dog from the start. It cost perhaps $350 million a year - and $350 million a year is a lot of money. For that money, it didn't do what it was supposed to do, which was to lift enrolments among poorer kids. If it didn't achieve that - if those kids were going to uni anyway and are still going - then all we were doing was wasting $350 million. And to those worrying about students living in poverty or being unable to afford study, please remember: we taxpayers already subsidise about 70 percent of what it costs Kiwi kids to go to university. We already provide interest-free student loans. It is already relatively cheap, by global standards, to go to university here. You could argue that our system is already so generous that even making it more generous didn't lift enrolments. It's already generous enough. Now, I am going to withhold judgment on Nicola and Winston and what the plan is from here because this Government does tend to save money only to spend it again. They're going to take some of that money and spend it on trades training. That might be a good idea - but then again, it might just be the same kind of slop as fees-free, only in a more worthy place. We'll see. But as for the cutting of Jacinda's wasteful and pointless free year of study - RIP. And may we'll be more careful with our spending in the future. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If it's not already obvious to you, the fact that Maiki Sherman has lost her job should now make it very clear: the media—especially the state broadcasters, both of them—are about to find out what it means not just to make and report the news but to be the news. Just look at what's happened this week alone. And this is only a sample—this has been building for some time.In one week, TVNZ political editor Maiki Sherman has lost her job over poor behaviour in a minister's office. David Seymour, the ACT Party leader, has taken a significant swipe at RNZ for hiring John Campbell, who is well known for voting left—something he's said himself. Seymour has even gone so far as to suggest the head of RNZ should lose his job over it. Then there's the BSA, effectively the head girl telling everyone off for bad jokes at the party, being abolished. The politicians are coming for the media and Sherman's case is an example of that. The National Party lined her up. They complained about her allegedly door-knocking Stuart Smith for 10 minutes at night. They confirmed that she had sworn at Nicola Willis' event in the office—which was unusual, given that Nicola effectively broke Chatham House rules that MPs normally guard jealously. Now, look—I feel sorry for Maiki losing her job. That's a very high price to pay. But I don't feel sorry for the media in general for what's coming. We've had this coming. For years, we've collectively pushed a certain world view through the framing of our stories. We decide who the victim is, who the bad guy is and what language we use—labelling things as “controversial” to signal to the audience that something is bad, like the “controversial Treaty Principles Bill”. We flip angles too—turning a positive government crime stats story into a negative gang-focused story for the same government. And when Radio New Zealand, which is supposed to be more impartial and balanced than any other outlet in this country, chooses someone to front its flagship programme who has explicitly said he votes for left-wing parties—well, that matters. We deserve what's coming to us in this election. We can't shove the scrum for years and not expect to become part of the on-field play. And I, for one, am not unhappy about what's about to happen. I think it's time for this to be sorted out. If this election brings media bias into sharper focus and forces all of us in the media to stop, reflect and think hard about what we've been doing, I don't think that's a bad thing. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now, you would have thought that after all the publicity Wellington City Council has been getting - and the paid staff have been getting - for being caught doing things behind the backs of elected councillors, they probably wouldn't do it again. And yet, here we are. They've been caught doing it again. The latest revelation is that they have decided to exempt themselves from a Government law brought in about three months ago. The law prevents employees who earn more than $200,000 from taking personal grievance cases against their bosses if they are fired. In other words, there will be no golden handshake if you've been sacked while earning that kind of money. But guess what? Wellington City Council bosses decided they weren't going to follow that law and exempted 42 of their staff from it. That's quite unbelievable, because the law is intended to make it easier for employers to remove incompetent managers who have been doing very little for years on end. And Wellington City Council knows it has a problem. A recent report suggests they may have a couple of hundred staff they need to get rid of. They have one of the highest staffing levels in the country when compared with other councils. As I say, they didn't tell elected councillors they made this decision. However, a councillor found out, started asking questions and it turns out it was true. Technically, the council can argue it didn't have to inform elected councillors -this is an employment decision they can make themselves. But even the mayor, Andrew Little, has said this should have gone to the council for signoff. It's not a good look. And it's becoming a bit of a running theme, hasn't it? Not just in Wellington but around the country: unelected staff making decisions in secret that ratepayers probably wouldn't be happy about if they knew. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

State Senator Royce Duplessis joins Ian Hoch to talk about the latest on redistricting and early voting in Louisiana. What are the likely outcomes to come from the Supreme Court ruling?

Well, blow me down - I did not think that Paul Goldsmith had the courage or the inclination to do something as bold as actually scrapping the Broadcasting Standards Authority. I thought it was all talk when he kept dropping it as a possibility but it turns out I was wrong. He's announced the BSA is gone; the laws will be drawn up in the next few months and they'll be passed before the next election. Why this surprises me is because this is culture war-adjacent stuff. This is exactly the kind of thing the Nats have tried to avoid of late - anything that makes you feel just a bit icky. People aren't going to like it. They've tried to get away from it because there is quite a high risk of blowback. If the Nats are accused of trying to protect their mates in the more fringe parts of the media, like Platform for example, that's not necessarily a good look. And on the other hand, there's little upside - other than making a few broadcasters like me, irritated by the BSA, happy. The BSA is funded by the media so there aren't even taxpayer savings they can crow about. But it still is the right thing to do, because the BSA imposes quite significant costs on broadcasters. Sky, for example, is rumoured to have paid half a million dollars to the BSA last year. That's money the media simply can't afford to fork out at the moment when they're doing it as tough as they are. And for little good because the BSA doesn't actually police what we say - you do. We're more worried about you than we are about the BSA if I'm being completely honest. We know that if we use expletives - say, if I were to use them on air while kids are in the car - you're going to turn off the radio. You don't want to hear that. If we are untrustworthy - if you find out that what we're telling you is wrong - you're going to stop listening. And that, frankly, is more of a deterrent than a bunch of people in Wellington getting worked up about something and then slapping a $5000 fine on us. The BSA has no one to blame but itself and its overreach in trying to police the internet for what has happened to it today. Had it stayed in its lane, it might have survived simply by not drawing attention to itself. But it went for a power grab with The Platform and it has ended up sealing its own fate. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So at lunchtime today, I was catching up with one of our advertisers just across the road, having a cup of tea. He owns a health-adjacent business and we got chatting about community pharmacies - like the one I go to - and what they can do to survive at a time when the big players, like Chemist Warehouse, are taking over. I said to him that I feel community pharmacies need a real unique selling point. You can get almost everything you want from anywhere now, right? I think they need permission to do more prescribing themselves - that's what will make them relevant again. Most of us would choose to go to our local pharmacy for a prescription if we could, rather than trying to get in to see our GPs, who are chocka and often unavailable, or standing in a queue with 25 other people at Chemist Warehouse. Instead, you'd walk into your local pharmacy and be one of two people in line. And just as I picked up my phone to leave this tea date, an alert came through: Seymour says pharmacists should treat more so you don't need to see a GP. How's that for serendipity? ACT's proposal would allow pharmacists to prescribe antibiotics for chest or ear infections, more pain relief or ointments for skin infections. It would also let them provide skin lesion triage and monitoring, manage long-term medications for appropriate patients and order blood tests. We're talking about people on things like statins or diabetes medications - drugs they'll be on for the rest of their lives. This is basically about stopping people from having to see a doctor every 12 months just to get the same prescription renewed - something that's inevitably going to happen anyway. ACT is bang on with this idea. This isn't radical at all. Pharmacists in other countries are already trusted to prescribe things like antibiotics for strep. I mean, most of us - you and I - can look at a chest infection and say, “You know what? That looks like a chest infection.” If we can do that, I suspect pharmacists, with all of their medical training, can do it pretty accurately too, don't you? My only question is: why do we have to wait until November for something that is just common sense? If ACT can do this, surely they can do it now - especially heading into winter. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Judith Collins has two weeks left as an MP and she's given an exit interview to Audrey Young at the New Zealand Herald in which she says people don't like strong women - obviously referring to herself. Now, I don't disagree with Judith that she is a strong woman. She's formidable. But I do disagree with her that people don't like strong women, because what is Helen Clark if not a strong woman? So strong, they used to say that the softest part of her was her teeth - and yet she was elected and re-elected by the New Zealand public three times. That's more than Jacinda Ardern achieved and Jacinda Ardern is not what I would call a strong woman. Now, look, I realise there are too many variables to ever make a truly fair comparison across elections like that. But if you did strip everything else out, you'd look at it like this: Helen, the strong woman, won three elections, compared with Jacinda - the milder personality - who won two and only really won the second because of COVID. Judith Collins doesn't explicitly blame the fact that she's a strong woman for her poor showing at the polls when she led the National Party - what did she come in at, 24 percent or something like that? She's really referring to the fact that she copped more outrage for rolling a sitting MP for a seat in 2002 than John Key did for doing the same thing in the same year. But just for the avoidance of doubt: Judith's problem as leader of the National Party was not that she was a strong woman. In fact, that was part of her attraction at the time. The problem was that she was up against Jacinda in the COVID election, which was really a hiding to nothing - and she was doing weird things like praying in church for the cameras and making comments about fat people during the campaign. Much as I might have agreed with her, that was not a smart move. But I really wish that women like Judith would stop blaming their gender for how people react to them because more often than not it is not their gender that's the problem - it's something else. And by blaming their gender, they're avoiding being honest with themselves and honest with others about what that other thing is. More importantly - much, much more importantly - this reinforces to younger women that they're up against it simply because they're women, that being a woman, and especially being a strong woman, is somehow a problem. It is not a problem. People like strong women. Most of us have strong women for mothers. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I was in Christchurch giving a speech to part of Local Government New Zealand - the South Island arm - so the room was full of mayors and councillors from across the South Island. One of the topics up for discussion was what councils around the country need to do, or could do, to win back public approval. I have to be honest: I left that room - and you know my views on councils - feeling just a little bit sorry for the councillors and mayors I met. The ones I spoke to seemed to be honestly trying. They admitted they've got more to do and that there are stupid costs they need to cut as well. But what they told me is that they're up against it. They're dealing with things they can't change: national laws like the RMA that tie their hands, and unelected staff who just go ahead and do their own thing. And sure enough, there's a story that illustrates at least some of that perfectly. Wellington City Council staff have spent $130,000 on new art for their flash new building - a building where they've hogged the top floors and shoved the mayor downstairs, where he's staring at a wall. Now, the thing is, they don't need art. They have no money and they're going hard on Wellington ratepayers. They do not need to be spending on art. They've already got an extensive collection they could draw from, which includes Colin McCahon, Toss Woollaston, Ralph Hotere, Dick Frizzell - Pablo Picasso, for goodness' sake.Judging by the criticism from elected councillors, it seems those councillors didn't even know the unelected staff were splashing out on fancy art. That's what these people are up against: bureaucrats who treat ratepayers like a bottomless ATM. That is a major problem. Now, I'm not making excuses for elected councillors or mayors - they have their own part to play in big spending. But some of them are genuinely trying. They're just up against decades of ingrained largesse like this. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm inclined to think that at some stage and in some way we will be helping the US to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. It's been revealed by American media that Trump has told US embassies around the world to pressure governments to help. Australia is considering assistance and so are we. It's early days at the moment. It appears both we and Australia are simply asking for more information at this point, probably along the lines of what help is actually required and under what circumstances. Those circumstances are important because I would imagine New Zealand would not want to agree to help if there were a hot war underway — meaning shots being fired. I'd expect we would only be willing to help if there were an active and sustained ceasefire in place. That said, I think that in the end we will still say yes because we've already indicated this is what we plan to do. We've already signed a joint statement with countries including the UK, France, Germany and Japan, saying we are ready to provide appropriate help to reopen the strait. Now, I don't think this is going to be popular when the time comes. I don't think it will be popular in this country. There are now multiple polls and surveys showing consistently that Kiwis want nothing to do with a war started by the US. However, I think we can — and should — separate the war from the oil. Helping in the war is one thing but helping to reopen and keep the strait open is also helping ourselves because we need that oil to flow. We need diesel to keep food on our supermarket shelves. Of course, we do have another option: we could simply leave it to other countries to do the hard work for us. But that would be a bad call because if there's one thing we know about Donald Trump, it's that he is transactional — and if we don't help, he will remember. So I would say that now the request has come in, it's only a matter of time. And if the strait stays closed, I'd almost guarantee New Zealand will be heading there. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the commentary I'm seeing online, it's clear there is a perception that no one reported on the Maiki Sherman revelation because the media were protecting one of their own. I can tell you that perception is true. It's not imagined - it is true. It is not true for Newstalk ZB. And I'm not saying that because I'm employed by Newstalk ZB; I'm saying it because I was involved in some of the phone calls around this particular - shall we loosely call it - investigation. I know we tried to publish this but we ran into a couple of obstacles, which, frankly, happens with investigations. There's no need to get too dramatic about it. I can't tell you the number of things I've wanted to report on, or tried to report on, that I've never been able to. There's a long list. I also don't think the press gallery members who were at the party in Nicola Willis' office last May can necessarily be judged for not reporting on what happened. As I said yesterday on the show, I worked in the press gallery too. I know there's a lot of boozing in the press gallery - I did it myself - and sometimes there's bad behaviour because that's what happens with booze. It doesn't always get reported. Do you narc on all your mates every time you're out drinking and they do something stupid? No, you don't. What was not okay, however, was that when it became known in Wellington that Newstalk ZB was trying to run a story, members of the press gallery got in touch to raise concerns. My recollection is that they were worried that if we went public with what Maiki Sherman said to Lloyd Burr, we would be breaking a long-held convention of not reporting on what happens during “drinky poos” in Parliament. They feared ministers would then panic about breaches of Chatham House rules and stop inviting the press gallery into their offices for drinks. That crossed the line, in my opinion. That was actively trying to stop media outside Wellington from reporting on what happened in Wellington, involving one of their own. In the end, it didn't influence us at all. And I'm not telling you this because it does me any favours - it doesn't. I expect I'll be ostracised the next time I see some of my friends in the press gallery for saying this. But I think it's worth saying because it's a reminder to all of us in the media that our job is to report the facts, not to suppress them - even when it involves our mates. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'll tell you what I found most surprising about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump at the weekend: the number of people who do not believe it really happened or that it was a genuine attempt at all. There are a remarkable number of people who believe the incident was staged and who are openly discussing that belief, including claims that Trump was not actually shot through the ear a couple of months ago. Well, it was more than a couple of months ago - but you get the idea. Within hours of the attempt on his life, the term “staged” appeared in more than 300,000 posts on X. A former CIA agent has gone public saying he thinks it was staged because security moved JD Vance before they moved Donald Trump, which he says is against protocol. Trump, of course, hasn't helped matters. In his first news conference afterwards, he argued the assassination attempt proves he needs to build a new ballroom because it would be much safer. That is obviously not the logic of a normal person who has just been in the same building as someone with a gun who wants to kill them. And if we're being honest, it probably doesn't help that Trump has now had so many assassination attempts on his life that it's starting to feel like each time it happens, you care a little less. It also doesn't help - frankly - that it's Trump. He is so unconventional that it is more believable he would stage a false-flag event like this than, say, Barack Obama, who is far more conventional. I'm resisting the temptation to take the mickey out of people who don't believe the assassination attempts were real. As silly as it seems to me - and I do think it stretches credibility to believe Trump would stage not one but at least two attempts on his own life, given how much could go wrong when weapons are involved - part of me actually takes comfort in the number of people thinking this way. I might not agree with where they've landed, but I like the fact that they are assessing the facts for themselves and reaching conclusions different from mine, different from the majority view, different from the consensus. It's strange that this is where some people's minds go. Clearly, someone tried to kill Trump at the weekend and thinking otherwise is a conspiracy theory. But maybe conspiracy theories aren't all bad if they at least show that people are exercising their brains independently. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I've tried very hard to understand the Government's decision to essentially cancel SailGP in Auckland next year and I just can't. I cannot understand what has gone on here because, as I understand it, this has come down to a few hundred thousand dollars. Let me run you through the timeline. We've been fighting for SailGP to stay in New Zealand - particularly in Auckland - for the past few years. In October last year, the Government and Auckland Council agreed to pay a combined $5 million for SailGP to be held in Auckland. That agreement was made in October. Then, in February, SailGP requested additional funding, which would have come out of the Major Events Fund. That request appears to be what prompted Louise Upston to say no. Finding out how much that request was for was incredibly difficult. No one wanted to give me a number. Eventually, I was told it was less than a million dollars and may have been closer to $500,000. If that's true, then turning down SailGP over $500,000 is frankly nutty. That is peanuts for a Government - and money that would almost certainly have paid for itself. I would argue it was a wise investment. SailGP is not just about what people spend in Auckland when they come here. Just like the America's Cup, it's about what people around the world see when they're watching. They see Auckland's beautiful harbour on a stunning day. They see crowds having fun. They see beautiful buildings and incredible maunga. You cannot buy that kind of international exposure. We have blown tens of millions of dollars on the America's Cup over the years. We paid for Linkin Park, for God's sake, to come to Auckland. We set aside $70 million for major events just like this - and yet we turned down one of the hottest sailing events in the world over $500,000. Even on a purely political level, this makes no sense to me. Auckland has been desperate - begging the Government - for help with events like this to revive the city. We've only just got that momentum underway and then this happens. It's an election year, in a city you must win to win the election, and it's a city already showing signs of leaning left. I am open to arguments to the contrary - but to me, this just looks like a really bad decision. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Good on Chris Luxon for ditching his regular spot on Breakfast. That's from Tina. I disagree with Tina. I don't think Chris Luxon should have given up on Breakfast the way he has, pulling out of his weekly slot. I mean, obviously it's his prerogative to do it. And the truth is, in New Zealand—and in our media—we actually have more access to our Prime Ministers than in many other countries. Loads of other Prime Ministers—think Australia—do not take the number of questions after news conferences that Chris Luxon does. They don't turn up to news conferences as often as he does, or as Jacinda did, or Helen did, or John Key did. In some countries, like Canada, you can go a very long time between drinks when it comes to hearing from the Prime Minister. The truth is, Chris Luxon isn't good at media interviews. A lot of the trouble he's faced has come from stuffing them up. You had Tova with the “how many Māori ministers do you have?” stuff-up recently. You had Mike Hosking last year with the “will you or will you not have fired Andrew Bayly?” stuff-up. And then there was the “I don't know how to be any clearer with you guys” bollocks from earlier this year. There's just a long list of mistakes he's made in media interviews. So if he's not good in media interviews, on balance, he's probably better off not doing them—especially in an election year. The trouble is, people will see this for what it is: that he's running scared. Or, as Mike Hosking once said of Jacinda when she didn't want to appear on his show, running for the hills. He's trying to get away from situations he can't handle very well and those situations are media interviews. And by the way, it's not just Tova O'Brien on Breakfast—it's Jack Tame on Q+A as well, both on TVNZ. Now, I don't think he can credibly blame the Maiki Sherman door-knocking situation or the Benedict Collins perceived bias for this. These are different programmes. That's the press gallery reporting to One News; this is TVNZ Breakfast. They're different. But I don't think people are going to care. And I say this having analysed the situation: most people out there just don't care. They hate the media, so they're going to say, “Fair enough.” But this is what Jacinda started. When she did it, I said, watch this, this will start a thing and it will happen all over the place afterwards. And if you didn't like Jacinda doing it, then you have to hold the same standard. You can't hate what Jacinda did and then love what Chris Luxon has done. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a surprise, Labour has agreed to support the India free trade agreement - although it wasn't really a surprise when it was announced today. I told you last week it would happen this week and Labour would give it the green light because there was really no other way for them to go. If Labour had said no and blocked the agreement, they would have been accused of stopping New Zealand businesses - like apple growers - from making money that is effectively there for the taking. I think Labour simply dragged this out for political reasons. Saying yes straight away would have meant acknowledging they liked what Todd McClay and National had done. Instead, they dragged it out, looked like they were agonising over the decision and pretended they improved the deal by getting National to hire 14 more inspectors to focus on migrant worker exploitation. All of that was done to give the impression the deal isn't actually as good as it seems, while still saying yes so businesses can benefit from it. And let me remind you: this is an incredible accomplishment when you think about it. Remember when Chris Luxon said during the 2023 election that he wanted this deal signed in his first term? He was poo-pooed for dreaming. Ambitious, yes. Likely, no. And yet here we are. Todd McClay - a trade minister who keeps knocking it out of the park with the Gulf States FTA and the United Arab Emirates FTA - has done it again. Even more impressively this time because this is India. A huge market and New Zealand has just secured access. And by the way, who do you think was more painful for McClay to negotiate with - the Indians or Labour?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The fightback has started, hasn't it? National's leadership team have clearly come out of yesterday's caucus meeting with very clear instructions: get the National Party vote back off New Zealand First. And they've come out hard. It started with Nicola Willis on Mike Hosking just after 7am, warning that Winston Peters might pick Labour after the next election. The attack from her on that show was so pointed I was actually surprised - because these two are mates. They drink together, they work together, they're on the same floor as each other in the Beehive. But then, five hours later, the Prime Minister is on The Country with Jamie Mackay, saying almost exactly the same thing. Which tells you Nicola didn't just react in the heat of the moment, coming off the high of what happened in caucus. These are the lines they've decided to go out with. They have decided to attack New Zealand First. The question is: what took them so long? Because this is what they needed to do months ago, when it became obvious they were bleeding votes to New Zealand First. That is what's happening here. New Zealand First - and Winston - are going up and the National Party is going down because National voters are shifting across to New Zealand First. Right now, 52 percent of Winston's supporters voted National at the last election. This is exactly the right strategy Nicola Willis and Chris Luxon should be taking - because it's true. There is a risk that New Zealand First goes with Labour. Even though Winston says it ain't going to happen, there is a risk. He's done it before. In 1996 he told voters to help him put, quote, “Jim Bolger in opposition where he belongs”. And who did he pick after that election? He picked Jim Bolger.Of course, Winston's not going to admit he's open to Labour - even if he is - because then he can't rely on stealing all of those National Party voters. They're not going to go to him if they think he's going to put Jacinda's lot back in charge. This is exactly the attack Luxon and Willis need to launch on New Zealand First if they want to keep their jobs by keeping the polling up. So let's see if it works. I reckon it might. Watch the next poll. Watch for National going up and New Zealand First either going down or plateauing. That will tell us whether the fightback is working. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, blow me down - they had a leadership vote in caucus, called by Chris Luxon himself, and he survived. Good on him for doing that. That is exactly what I said he had to do if he wanted to shut this stuff down for the next week and a bit that Parliament has left to sit. And even if you think sticking with Chris Luxon was the wrong call by the National Party - which, by the way, I do; I still think he needs to go before the election - you've got to respect the fact he had the courage to do this. Leadership votes are always a big risk. They're always a guess. It doesn't matter what the MPs say to you. It doesn't matter if they tell you they're going to support you. When it comes down to it, and it's a secret ballot, it's always a roll of the dice. It takes real steel to do that and he had it. Now the question, of course, is: is that it? Right - is it going to be quiet all the way through to November's election?He's going to be the leader, nothing more to say? Not necessarily. I think this increases his chances of staying on because it has to have killed off any spill momentum his detractors might have had - at least for now. And it has to have lifted his confidence, which in turn has to lift his media performance, surely to God. But ultimately, none of that really matters. It's the polls that determine his future. If National keeps on this downward trend they've been on for two years, and if it drops another 2 percent and is sitting on 27-point-something in the next few weeks, all of this is just going to start up again. MPs will see themselves at risk of losing their jobs, they'll freak out and the chatter will resume. What this does do is, first, buy him a significant amount of time to lift those polls. And second, it has to earn him a grudging respect from his MPs, who now have to look at this and say he's more of a formidable opponent than they might have thought. Even if it's just grudging respect for calling the bluff of the leakers, that's what he's done. It turns out they never had the numbers they pretended they had. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Obviously, what everybody in politics is talking about today is what's going to happen at the National Party caucus meeting in Wellington tomorrow morning, regarding the Prime Minister's ongoing leadership. Now, I can't call it. I can't tell you what's going to happen. On the one hand, the Prime Minister is under more pressure than he was before the weekend because of last night's One News-Verian poll. Usually, that poll is quite generous to the National Party - it tends to overestimate National to a degree. But last night, not only did it put the National Party at 29.7 percent, it also predicted a change of Government. That means this becomes not just a backbenchers losing their seats problem, but a ministers losing their jobs problem. On the other hand, Luxon has managed to get himself through a tough round of media interviews this morning with grit, steel and confidence. And his chief troublemaker, Chris Bishop, has now ruled himself out of the leadership in that Q&A interview yesterday, which surely means the move against the Prime Minister has lost some momentum. There has been a lot of poo-pooing of the polls, which I frankly just do not buy into. I have not seen any evidence that we have the kinds of polling trouble here in New Zealand that they've had in the UK, the US or Australia - where the polls call it for one side and then the other side basically comes through. Largely, we don't have that problem because we run MMP. They run first-past-the-post systems. And that actually matters because just a little bit of inaccuracy in those countries' polling can mean quite a big surprise if a bunch of marginal seats fall in a way you weren't expecting. We don't have that here - our mistakes in polling marginal seats get smoothed out by the party vote. Also, National is now sitting at around 29.7 percent in four polls in a row and there was another one about six weeks ago that started this all off. That means what you saw last night is not a rogue poll - it's a trend. Choosing not to believe the polls feels like the last refuge of those who are in complete denial about what's going on here. But ultimately, it's not really up to us, is it? It's not up to us as voters and it's not up to us as commentators. It's up to caucus - the National Party caucus. If the Prime Minister can get himself through tomorrow and then weather whatever happens in the seven days after that and then get himself through caucus Tuesday week - so he's got two caucuses to get through - then he will most likely survive until at least well after the Budget. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I know there's a suggestion that maybe - just maybe - Moana Pasifika can be saved. But do yourself a favour and don't waste your time hoping for it because I think this is going to be the club's last season. I don't relish saying that because Moana Pasifika was absolutely one of the highlights of last year's Super Rugby season. But it has never stacked up financially, has it? The only reason it was able to pay its way for a while was because it received a temporary injection of Government money from various agencies. There was a bit of financial help from New Zealand Rugby, a bit from World Rugby and of course the fact it was majority owned by a charity that drew tens of millions of dollars in Government income. Once that Government contract was cut, the financial support came to an abrupt end. Now the money has run out. It's lost its big star - Ardie Savea is now in Japan. It's losing games, sitting at the bottom of the table again and the fans have drifted away. You could argue - and it would be a fair argument - that Moana Pasifika was never really given a fair go because it doesn't even have a true home ground. But even if you gave it a home ground and even if you had a star like Ardie Savea every single season, I'd still say it wouldn't make enough money to wash its face - because none of the clubs do. Or very few of them, anyway. So if you're hoping against hope that someone swoops in to save Moana Pasifika, tell me who? It can't be New Zealand Rugby - because if they step in for Moana Pasifika, are they also going to start bailing out the Hurricanes when they make a loss? It can't be the Government either, especially with the prospect of a global recession hanging over us. That basically leaves private business. And if private business people do step in, it will be entirely out of generosity. And how long does generosity last if there are no results in the bank and no results on the field? So I'd say: put your hopes away. This will be Moana Pasifika's last season. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In my opinion, National MPs need to bite the bullet and ask Chris Luxon to step aside. I don't enjoy saying this because personally I like Chris Luxon and have a fair amount of respect for him. But I think the chances are now very high that this is going to happen before the election. He is going to lose the leadership and perhaps the only real choice National MPs now have is how messy they allow this to become. I'll explain why I think he loses the leadership — and I think it's simple maths. National's polling is really poor. It's sub-30 in multiple polls. You can't write those off as rogue results. The numbers are consistently bad and at that level the party is on track to lose around 11 MPs in November. Those 11 MPs do not want to lose their jobs and within that group are the people now agitating for a change of leadership. For that agitation to stop, National's polling would need to lift enough to save at least some of those MPs' seats.So how does the polling improve? The economy would have to improve. And is that going to happen between now and November? No, it's not. In fact, the economy is more likely to come under further pressure, particularly because of the situation in Iran and rising fuel costs. The most likely scenario is that the economy gets worse, National's polling deteriorates further, and those 11 MPs — and potentially more — lose their jobs at the election. Meanwhile, the destabilising campaign we saw in the Herald today continues. Someone is deliberately and repeatedly planting stories in the media. That won't stop. It will continue to drive the polls down and make Luxon look increasingly like a lame-duck Prime Minister. So if we assume the economy doesn't improve, the polling doesn't improve and the destabilising continues, then the most likely outcome is this: about three months out from the election, in the depths of winter, the National Party loses its nerve and rolls Chris Luxon in a desperate attempt to save the furniture. I see no realistic alternative to that outcome. That's scenario one: hope and pray. And yes, that is technically a strategy — maybe something miraculous happens, the way COVID saved Jacinda Ardern in 2020. But that's hope-and-prayer stuff. Scenario two is that they pull the pin. They replace Chris Luxon with someone else and call an early election, allowing that person to seek a mandate while still enjoying a honeymoon period — and before winter and the Iran-related pressures make voters even more miserable than they already are. If I were in the National caucus, I'd be opting for the second scenario. Because the polling is now so consistently bad that a leadership change is likely to happen anyway before the election. They can't avoid it — they can only choose when it happens and how messy they let it get. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We can be a bunch of moaners in this country, can't we? Now, from my point of view, that announcement yesterday - which we talked about on the show - that pharmacists may soon be able to hand out a range of publicly funded medicines without patients having to go to a GP first, is a no-brainer. It's wonderful because we're talking about low-level medications: Pamol, maybe some eye drops, for fairly common and uncomplicated illnesses like conjunctivitis or head lice. And this isn't anything new for pharmacists. They're already looking at conjunctivitis and going, “Oh yeah, mate, that's conjunctivitis - you need the eye drops.” They're already dispensing the medications. The only difference is that, if this proposal goes through, they'll be able to hand out those medicines at the same subsidised price you'd pay if you'd gone to the GP first. You won't have to buy it over the counter at full price. And the good news - why this really is a no-brainer - is that it takes pressure off GPs, or the EDs, that poorer people often have to go to first if they want medication for cheap or for free. And secondly, it saves time for patients. They don't have to go through all the faff of booking and attending a doctor's appointment first. So who would moan about this? Let me tell you who: GenPro. GenPro's moaned about it - the GP advocacy group. They're warning that this runs the risk of misdiagnosis because maybe a pharmacist might look at conjunctivitis and say, “Oh look, it's a pus-y eye, here are some eye drops,” without realising it's actually caused by an ear infection. But please remember: these are pharmacists who are already making these calls. The only difference here is what you pay for the medication. So any misdiagnosis they're worried about may already be happening. So why are they really moaning about this? I'll tell you why. GenPro knows this will take pressure off GPs - and that undermines what they actually want. They want GPs to stay under pressure so they can complain about GPs being under pressure, so they can argue for more money for overworked doctors. Frankly, they should just be honest about that. They may well have a decent argument to make - I suspect they do - but they won't convince many people with a straw-man argument. Right now, they just sound like a pack of moaners dumping on a really good idea. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you haven't watched the Bunnings video yet showing its staff being attacked, I recommend you go and watch it - especially if you feel uneasy about the company using CCTV for facial recognition. It's a compilation of incidents that have occurred in its stores. The first incident shows a man pulling a knife on a staff member and threatening them so he can walk out the door with two trolleys' worth of stolen goods. That happened at the Porirua store. The next incident shows a man holding a box who runs at and knocks over a staff member, while another man behind him tries to steal a second box. That happened at the Takanini store. The incident I found hardest to watch is a man approaching a staff member at their car in a mostly empty car park. He sidles up to them, then smacks them in the head when they're not expecting it. He then chases the staff member as they run away and trip because they are so frightened. Now, let's be clear about what's going on here - Bunnings is releasing this video as part of a PR campaign. It's trying to convince us that it needs to use facial recognition technology in two of its Hamilton stores. What blows my mind is that it has to go to these lengths. It's been trialling facial recognition since 2018. It's fought its way through a tribunal process in Australia. It's had the Privacy Commissioner here, and the equivalent over the ditch, watching them. It's engaged a Māori digital sovereignty expert. It's released at least two of these video compilations. And all of this, so far in New Zealand, is just for permission to operate in two stores. Not all stores - just two. Two Hamilton stores. That's because there are still enough people worried that Bunnings will take our biometric data and sell it, lose it or wrongly deny entry to some innocent person. I would have thought this was a slam dunk. I would have thought the answer would be: yes, absolutely - go ahead and use facial recognition if that's what you need to do to keep your staff safe. Because sure, something might go wrong one day with the CCTV. But go and watch those videos. Things are going wrong right now. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has begun and we now have a clearer picture of how it's going to work. It doesn't just cover the strait itself. It runs along the entire Iranian coastline, out through the Gulf of Oman, which the strait feeds into, and then further again into the Arabian Sea. At least two ships have already been turned back. One of them, unsurprisingly, was headed for China. Now here's the key point. If - and it is a very big if - the United States can successfully keep oil tankers away from Iran, the impact could be fast and severe. We're talking 10 to 20 days. Iran can apparently store only around 13 days' worth of oil production. Once those tanks are full, they're forced to start shutting oil wells. And that's something they really don't want to do. Shutting down an oil well can permanently damage its production capacity. There's no guarantee you ever get it back to where it was. Restarting wells is expensive, risky and slow. Beyond that, there's the wider economic hit. Around 90 percent of Iran's oil exports go through Hormuz - and they've continued exporting despite the war. In fact, they've been earning more, not less. Iran has no real alternative route. So if exports stop, so does the cash. No oil money means no imports, the currency falls, inflation explodes and you start seeing cascading economic problems very quickly. The oil production damage is pretty much a slam dunk. The bigger debate is how fast the broader economy feels it. Because there's a counter‑argument here: Iran may already have as much as 160 million barrels of oil floating at sea. If that's right, China keeps getting its oil, Iran keeps getting paid, and this can drag on through to mid-July. And that's the worst-case scenario for the rest of us. Because then this isn't a short, sharp shock - it's a long siege. And that hurts globally. Even the small amount of Iranian oil that's been leaking onto the market in the past six weeks has been helping to keep prices down. The Economist is calling this a big gamble and that's exactly what it is. This has the potential to cripple Iran quickly - or to strangle the world economy very slowly. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Right, here's a question I'd like to answer: Do we all have strange priorities in this country, or is it just the evening TV news that does? Last night, I sat through 13 minutes of TV One telling me nothing had happened with the cyclone before we finally got to the Iran situation, where something actually had happened. First, One News took us to a reporter in the Bay of Plenty, who told us a tree had come down on the main street. A couple of older women joked about going for a swim in the swell, but really, nothing much had happened. Then we went to Gisborne, where wastewater had flooded, and the guy in the caravan from the previous night was barely affected - because, again, nothing much had happened. Next stop was Hawke's Bay, where nothing had happened yet. Then the Coromandel, where Simon Mercer reported large storm surges in Whitianga - but nothing had happened.After that, the Far North, where the river was high - but nothing had happened. Then the weather presenter wrapped it all up, and we were told Breakfast would be covering it in the morning - just in case something did happen. Finally - after 12 minutes and 45 seconds of this - we got to the Iran situation, where peace talks had broken down and the US delegation had left. That is a conflict that will affect every single one of us. The weather will impact some people - potentially quite severely - but the situation in Iran will affect everyone here. Diesel is tipped to hit $4 a litre, food prices will rise, inflation is forecast to peak higher than after COVID at around 7.5 percent, and ANZ is predicting three OCR hikes this year as a result. I wondered whether this reflects audience interest - maybe people can't get enough of the weather and don't care about a conflict in Iran. But I checked the Herald this afternoon. Both stories were top trending, and there wasn't much between them. So, I'd suggest the evening TV news might want to rethink leading with 13 minutes of nothing. I understand that pictures matter in television. And yes, they've paid to send reporters around the country, so they need something to show. But pictures of nothing are still nothing - and there's only so much time people will spend watching nothing before they simply switch off. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hands up—who knew the ANZ Premiership starts tomorrow? This is netball. I'm guessing not many hands went up, which is a worry. It's somewhat forgivable, given the state of netball's head office at the moment. It doesn't have a permanent CEO, and the chair and several board members have recently resigned. So you can understand why things are a bit of a mess and the communication strategy isn't quite working. But it's also not forgivable, because this is a pivotal season for netball. This season has to work. It probably won't, but it at least needs the best possible chance, because professional netball in this country is fighting for its life. There's no broadcast deal this year. Sky pulled out at the end of last year, so netball has had to pay TVNZ just to get it on TV2. That means there's no money coming in from Sky, and players have had to take a 20% pay cut—those who are still here, anyway. Nine Silver Ferns have already moved to the Australian competition, where they earn double what they do here. And that will keep happening unless the local competition can start generating revenue again and paying players properly. So you can see how important it is that this season gets things moving in the right direction. It seems netball bosses are pinning their hopes on free-to-air TV being the game changer. Before, you had to pay to watch; now you can watch for free on TV2. The idea is you might fall in love with it again, start watching regularly, maybe even go to matches—and before long, netball secures another deal with Sky. But will you watch it again? Will you love it again when nine Silver Ferns are already gone, and the competition isn't as strong as it was last year—when you probably weren't watching anyway? Probably not. And the fact that neither of us even knew the season was about to start is probably not a good omen. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Actor Jonathan Butler-Duplessis attended high school and college in Champaign. After more than a decade in regional theater, he made his Broadway debut in Hamilton. He discusses his life, growing up in the C-U area, and his work.

Pippa speaks to Mzananda Animal Clinic’s Marcelle Du Plessis about their upcoming fundraiser, Paws on the Promenade. Lunch with Pippa Hudson is CapeTalk’s mid-afternoon show. This 2-hour respite from hard news encourages the audience to take the time to explore, taste, read and reflect. The show - presented by former journalist, baker and water sports enthusiast Pippa Hudson - is unashamedly lifestyle driven. Popular features include a daily profile interview #OnTheCouch at 1:10pm. Consumer issues are in the spotlight every Wednesday while the team also unpacks all things related to health, wealth & the environment. Thank you for listening to a podcast from Lunch with Pippa Hudson Listen live on Primedia+ weekdays between 13:00 and 15:00 (SA Time) to Lunch with Pippa Hudson broadcast on CapeTalk https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk For more from the show go to https://buff.ly/MdSlWEs or find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/fDJWe69 Subscribe to the CapeTalk Daily and Weekly Newsletters https://buff.ly/sbvVZD5 Follow us on social media: CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jacinda Ardern is back in the news after transcripts of her behind-closed-doors testimony to the Royal Commission were published by the New Zealand Herald today. While the contents of the testimony contain few surprises, the transcript is notable as much for what it omits as for what it includes. There are no expressions of regret, no apologies, and no acknowledgment of wrongdoing - an outcome that may not shock those who followed the Government's approach during the COVID-19 pandemic. The exchanges themselves are largely evasive, particularly on the issue of vaccine mandates. At one point, the Commission chair told Ardern it would be remiss not to ask whether she had divided the nation. Ardern responded by asking, “In what regard?” - a reply that struck many as disingenuous, given the scale of public opposition at the time, including prolonged protests directly outside her Beehive office. The testimony also reflects the familiar style critics associate with her leadership: lengthy explanations and abstract language. When asked whether she had regrets, Ardern responded that “regret is a curious word,” avoiding a direct answer. The timing of the transcript's release is striking. Just days earlier, a documentary about Ardern debuted on Netflix and has since attracted renewed public attention, earning an Emmy nomination and sparking fresh debate about her legacy. Conversations about the film are occurring across the country, with many viewers reporting mixed emotions after watching it. Some New Zealanders have expressed discomfort about the animosity directed toward Ardern after her resignation and her subsequent move overseas, saying the country should aspire to be more tolerant. Others argue that accountability remains a fundamental principle of public office. They note that Ardern stepped down before facing voters in the next election, declined to give public evidence to the Royal Commission, and has largely avoided direct public scrutiny since leaving office. The one form of accountability she has not escaped, critics say, has come in personal encounters with members of the public, where she has faced blunt and often hostile feedback - a factor some believe contributed to her decision to leave the country. Whether public sentiment toward Ardern would have softened had she chosen to testify openly before the Commission is impossible to know. What is clear, however, is that her private testimony has done little to change hardened views. For many observers, it reads as more of the same careful language and deflection that characterised her responses throughout the pandemic. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You might not like Donald Trump's boorish ultimatums or his threats to end a civilisation but it worked, didn't it? Iran backed down with 90 minutes to spare. The Strait of Hormuz will be reopened and they will go to Pakistan for ceasefire talks in two days. Now, some are arguing this is yet another case of Trump chickening out - but it isn't. He got what he wanted, didn't he? You accuse him of chickening out only if he doesn't get something. If he gets what he wanted, then the tactic worked. And what has he had to give up to get it? Nothing. The only thing he's had to give up is his plan to attack - which may or may not have been bluster anyway because it's Donald Trump. Iran, meanwhile, had been refusing to go to Pakistan for peace talks. It would not agree to anything other than a permanent end to the fighting and wouldn't accept a temporary ceasefire. It was holding the strait to ransom. Today, it has had to give up on all three positions. That does not mean this is an outright victory for Trump. Take a look at Iran's 10 demands. There is no way the US is going to agree to that list. Pulling its military out of the Middle East is simply not going to happen. The US has bases all over the region - Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. It's also hard to see the world agreeing to Iran's plan to continue tolling oil ships to the tune of $2 million a pop. What that means is that this is far from over for Donald Trump. He can't accept those terms. If Iran is able to set up a shipping toll booth and make money at will, he will end this bombing campaign with Iran in a stronger position than when he started six weeks ago. In fact, he can't claim any real victory if he walks away with the Revolutionary Guard still in charge - still able to create the same chaos it has for decades. Today, he can probably claim he won the battle. That would be fair - especially if the oil that's been held up for weeks does start flowing through the strait in the next 14 days. But claiming that he's won the war? Not even close. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If your business only works when you're working, it's time to redesign how it runs. In this episode of Sharkpreneur, Seth Greene interviews Lady Jen Du Plessis, DC, The Scaling Architect, who shares how she went from knowing nothing about mortgages to becoming a top-producing leader who helped fund more than a billion dollars in loans. A celebrated Amazon best-selling author, podcaster, and TV host, she's helped more than 8,000 entrepreneurs transition from practitioner mode to scalable companies that don't require daily intervention. She breaks down the mindset shift, systems, and leadership habits that drive real harmony and long-term growth. Key Takeaways:→ Teams can't execute consistently without documented, repeatable processes.→ People struggle when they aren't empowered with clear workflows and expectations. → Scaling a business requires clarity about vision, values, and voice. → AI is useful, but it can't replace the human touch. → Know when to hire using lead indicators and KPIs, not out of desperation. Affectionately known as The Scaling Architect, Lady Jen Du Plessis is the Leading Expert in helping powerhouse business owners create a company that runs smoothly without them - achieving massive revenue growth while gaining more freedom and fulfillment in life with grace and ease. Who would have ever thought that little "Jenny Who Ain't Got a Penny," now Dame Lady Jen, a member of the Royal House of Cappadocia and the Royal Order of Constantine the Great and Saint Helen, would have become a numerous #1 Amazon best-selling author, host of 3 top ranking podcasts, and producer and host of her TV show Business on the Vine. Connect With Jen:Website: https://www.ladyjenduplessis.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenduplessis/X: https://x.com/JenDuPlessisFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenDuPlessis22LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenduplessis/