Podcasts about Duplessis

Day Of Epiphany by Canadian author/actor, Jerome J Bourgault is the recent winner of CANREADS Award for Historical Fiction 2026, available now on Amazon and Indigo.   Bourgault's highly anticipated book is an exploration of a dark chapter in Canadian and specifically Quebecois history: the “Grande Noirceur” (“Great Darkness”) of 1944–1959.  The Catholic Church wielded its influence through the provincial government, controlling education, healthcare and orphanages. Day of Epiphany is both powerful and unsettling, as it examines the systemic abuse and scars left by religious institutions.  An uncomfortable reminder, some would prefer left alone…   Day Of Epiphany delivers why in shocking detail.Day of Epiphany takes place in 1950s Quebec as the province languishes under the oppressive dual authorities of the Roman Catholic Church and the autocratic government of Maurice Duplessis.  In the small town of St-Jolain, young Sister Cassandra Lalonde works tirelessly as a teacher at the Ste-Madeleine (Ste-M) Orphanage. It's a difficult life for the children, but Cassandra has hope for four of Ste-M's best and brightest young teens—Suzanne, Hélène, Diane, and Eleanora, with whom she has forged a powerful bond.  Day Of Epiphany is their journey. After an explosion closes the orphanage, the nuns and children return to find the rebuilt facility has been re-designated by the Duplessis government as a psychiatric hospital, and the orphans have been “reclassified” as mental patients. To make matters worse, Ste-M has been merged with a notoriously brutal psychiatric hospital from another parish, whose patients and staff are fully integrated with the resident population of the new Sainte-Madeleine Institute. In the living nightmare that follows, Sister Cassandra struggles to recognize God's hand in such darkness. As casualties begin to mount, Cassandra must resort to increasingly drastic measures to protect those under her care.  Bourgault's Day Of Epiphany is a must-read story of moral complexity, personal resilience, loss and redemption. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.

On this episode of The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian speaks with award-winning French-Canadian author, actor, and educator Jerome Bourgault about his powerful historical novel, The Day of Epiphany. Set in 1950s Quebec during the era of Maurice Duplessis, the novel explores the tragic true story of the Duplessis Orphans—children who were reclassified from orphanages into psychiatric institutions through political and bureaucratic manipulation, leading to decades of abuse, neglect, and lifelong trauma. Brian and Jerome discuss the social and political realities of pre–Quiet Revolution Quebec, the dangerous concentration of power between church and state institutions, and the role of historical fiction in bringing difficult chapters of history to life. The conversation also examines how authoritarian tendencies can emerge gradually through conformity, bureaucracy, fear, and the erosion of accountability. In his closing commentary, Brian reflects on the lessons of the Quiet Revolution, the importance of critical thinking and empathy, and why democratic societies depend on citizens who remain willing to question power rather than surrender their judgment to institutions or political movements. A compelling discussion about history, literature, democracy, and the enduring warnings that the past may still be offering us today.

The sermon centres on the martyrdom of Stephen as a powerful testament to the cost of faithful witness, drawing a stark contrast between the ease of faith in the West and the extreme persecution faced by Christians globally. It highlights how persecution manifests in diverse forms—from state control in China and Nigeria to imprisonment and violence in Eritrea and North Korea—while emphasizing that true faith is often refined through suffering. The preacher underscores that Stephen's death was not merely a result of religious conflict but a consequence of his bold proclamation that Jesus, not the temple or the law, is the true revelation of God. Through stories of resilience, forgiveness, and the transformation of trauma, the message calls the church to recognize its privilege, repent of complacency, and stand in solidarity with persecuted believers. Ultimately, the sermon urges listeners to embrace their identity as part of a global body of Christ, where suffering is not a sign of failure but a participation in the redemptive mission of Jesus, and where faithful witness, even at great cost, remains the essence of Christian discipleship.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST — Where do magazine designers go after all the magazines are gone? That's a question we've often pondered in recent years. Well, if you've been paying close attention, you'd probably guess, as it turns out, a lot of them go to Cupertino. And much of this migration can be traced to 2014, when today's guest, AIGA Medalist and Emmy award-winning creative director Arem Duplessis, left his storied job at The New York Times Magazine to go to work at Apple. You might be asking yourself, "Why would one of America's most high-profile magazine designers leave a coveted job at an iconic publication—one that brought him global recognition, countless awards, and deep creative satisfaction—for a famously secretive company known, well, for locking away its talent in a vault of non-disclosure agreements?" But the better question might be, "Why wouldn't he?" Duplessis is arguably one of the most influential creative directors of his time. His ten years of covers for The New York Times Magazine shaped its vision and identity. As creative director at GQ, he helped create the now-ubiquitous Gotham family of fonts. And he's blazed the trail for print designers in search of digital futures. While the departure of big-name magazine designers like Rem to Silicon Valley may strike fear in some, it reaffirms what many of us have long known: Despite years of slumping newsstand sales and magazine closures, the all-purpose skills of elite creative directors are still very much in demand. As former ESPN creative director Neil Jamieson says, “Why wouldn't Apple be hiring magazine designers? No category of designer is more multifaceted. Beyond the fundamentals, they do branding, packaging, identity, storytelling. They have experience on set, with video, social, and short-form storytelling.” There's no question there's a dire need in the corporate field for these kinds of skills. The question that remains unanswered, so far, is: Can that kind of digital work ever deliver the same creative fulfillment that magazines do? We talked to Duplessis about learning to scuba dive in his Dad's Virginia quarry, the modeling career that wasn't, cutting his teeth at the controversial hip-hop magazine, Blaze, adapting to life on the West Coast, and what he's planning for life after work. — THIS EPISODE IS MADE POSSIBLE BY OUR FRIENDS AT COMMERCIAL TYPE AND FREEPORT PRESS. A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

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.

You know what I've learned never to do? Predict that this year's Football World Cup is going to be a flop. Because it never is. This year, there are problems anywhere you care to look. A single ticket is so pricey it'll take you three months to pay off. Security is ridiculous. Parking costs 300 American dollars. Water costs 10 NZ dollars. Everything is a rip-off. Then there's the politics. The US won't let the African referee in. Iran doesn't want to be there – and they're in our first-up match. And structurally? It's messy. It's too hot. There are too many teams. Three host nations is a logistical nightmare. So maybe this is it. Maybe this is the year it all implodes for FIFA. But I suspect it isn't. I suspect this World Cup will go off – just like they always do. Just like the one without beer in Qatar. Just like the one clouded by corruption in Russia. Just like the one where everyone feared pickpockets would steal everything in Brazil. In the end, despite all the noise, despite everyone hating FIFA and their decisions, the World Cup always works. And the reason is simple. Fans want to see the stars, and this is where they see the stars. More importantly, this is where they see those stars playing for their country, not a club in Europe. Hate FIFA as much as you want, but that part still matters. Because we don't have many global moments left where the world comes together. And a tournament built around the world's most popular game, featuring the world's biggest stars, is still a massive attraction. So yes, there are problems. But I suspect this will be a success, despite the predictions. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So that was what we waited months for, eh? Labour's cheaper public transport policy. A policy so predictable that we actually did predict it four hours before it was released. And it was predictable because it's not a new idea. It's an idea they took from 2022, dusted it off, and tried running out again with the tiniest of tweaks. Being predictable is a problem because it's not interesting. It means it won't get cut-through. It's not a policy that creates the kind of buzz they need after months of policy drought. You know what else is a problem? Their maths. There is no way this is going to cost $65 million a year and save 1.3 million public transport users an average of $1,200 a year. $1,200 times 1.3 million users is $1.6 billion. They're either fibbing about the cost, or they're fibbing about the benefit. I think it's a bit of both. What's worse for me, though, is that this policy suggests Labour may not have any ideas other than spending money. It's what they do every single time there's an election or a crisis. Cost of living crisis post-Covid? Hand out $350. Child poverty? Give mums of newborns $70 a week for a few weeks. Want to win an election? Make a year of university free. That doesn't grow the economy. It doesn't actually fix the fundamental problems we have, like high inflation or low wages. It just throws money at the symptom—stretched budgets—and grows the debt. It's not running a country. Spending money is the easiest thing in the world to do. You and I could run the place tomorrow if that was the extent of the thinking required. I'm disappointed this is what Labour made us all wait months for. They've got another five months. They need to do more than this with future policy announcements if they want a proper chance at the election. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I don't love the idea of the LNG terminal. Never have, probably never will. But I'm fast coming around to the idea that there is no solution to our energy problem that we're going to love. Our electricity system—our wider energy situation—is so broken now that whatever we do to try to fix it is going to have to be so drastic or expensive, it's going to hurt. For the LNG terminal, the problem is the cost for what is really a short-term band-aid. We're running out of gas fast. The entire country is. It means we all have to get off gas. But that won't happen overnight. It'll take years, so we'll probably run out before we've all switched to alternatives like electricity. Hence the terminal – it will tide us over with gas until we're all off it. A billion dollars plus to get us through a few years? That's pricey. But not doing it—losing the Pan Pacs of this world—that's much more costly. That's a billion dollars, year after year after year, in lost revenue, income, and tax. And this terminal is going to help Pan Pac stay here. That company is the last big pulp mill that hasn't upped sticks. Maybe they do in the end, but the LNG terminal will keep them here for longer. Yes, the LNG terminal decision hasn't gone well for the Government. It's going to divide opinion, if it hasn't already. They've already had to backtrack on the gas levy that they spent weeks defending. It's hardly going to look climate-friendly to the townie swing voter. But it's a tough call that probably needed to be made. And we've got more of these coming, because the LNG terminal won't fix our energy system completely. It's an expensive solution for a short-term fix – but at least it is a fix. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.

Now, I can't imagine Labour's woken up feeling awesome this morning about how that reset is going. What do you think? This is a reset – you do realise that. After months of saying nothing, having no new policy and generating headlines for Ayesha Verrall singing weird songs about ducks, they started this week with a classic reset move. They got themselves a story in the Herald on Monday, claiming Nicola Willis tried to hide secret spending in the Budget. Then they followed it up really quickly with a list announcement, unveiling the policeman candidate. And then tomorrow they were supposed to have their big, substantive policy announcement – something they haven't done in months. It was meant to be this run of good news. Unfortunately for them, it's gone a little bit pear-shaped, hasn't it? The “secret money” has turned out to actually just be an accounting provision. The list announcement got derailed by Greg O'Connor taking a crack at them. Then the new guy for one of the Māori seats revealed there's some tax relief policy coming – which he wasn't supposed to say. Then Chippy got busted for using his government KiwiSaver to buy a bach, and the policeman didn't tell his bosses early enough that he was off to join the Labour Party. All of this is not a good look for Labour, because they can hardly expect to convince voters they're ready to govern if they can't even get 24 hours' worth of announcements to go to plan without being derailed by four or five different issues. But to be fair to Labour, the last 24–48 hours is really not the end of the world. A lot of this is pretty beltway stuff – at least the parts involving the policeman are. In five months' time, when the election rolls around, no one but the biggest political nerds in this country will remember any of it. Five months gives them plenty of time to fix all of this, but they really do have to get on and fix it, because this is the same problem, just repeated – the same problem as the Ayesha Verrall duck-song situation. It looks like a party unable to get its act together and just do one thing properly. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is it just me, or did anyone else notice what a contrast it was watching Christopher Luxon cracking jokes with Anthony Albanese, compared to what it was like when Jacinda Ardern visited Australia? For all her kindness and communication when she was Prime Minister, she would use those trips to Australia to give then–Prime Minister Scott Morrison a tongue-lashing—usually over the 501 deportees, which was pointless because the Aussies weren't going to change their minds. This weekend, though, was a bit of a love-in. And that's despite the fact that we've done something that could genuinely have upset the Aussies. Because Nicola Willis has probably gone a bit too hard, having cracks at them for their capital gains tax changes in their budget—which they're very sensitive about, because they're copping huge blowback. And yet…it was no drama. Albanese wrote it off as cheekiness. And then, instead of yet another trans-Tasman drama, he was cracking jokes with Luxon about Kiwi immigrants. They were taking turns going first with the questions, and they were affirming each other—welcoming closer ties, strengthening shared resilience. It's turning into a bit of a cliché thing to say now, but Luxon is in his element overseas. He sounded every bit the statesman—someone who has thought deeply about the degrading state of international affairs and what New Zealand needs to do to weather the coming storm. And I thought, as I listened to him pitch how kick-ass Australia and New Zealand are going to be, that he was doing a better job of selling Australasia to the world than the Prime Minister of Australia was. He's a big-ideas guy—selling his country and his region and getting on with people is his party trick. Isn't that a better strategy, when you think about it, than always fighting with your only ally? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Unusually for me, I feel like I should come to the defence of Gen Z. These are the kids aged 14-29. We complain a lot about them, about how soft they are, how they lack resilience, and what a bunch of complainers they are. The latest to join in this week was Michelle Obama, who said they aren't developing the resilience they need because of a culture of instant gratification. And then told them they need bad bosses and boring jobs if they want to be successful. Now, Michelle Obama is right. We've all had to pass through the boring jobs. For me it was the drive through at McDonalds in Bombay. We've all had to be paid poorly – $32,000 a year is what I started on. We've all had to have the awful boss, or bosses. Gen Z is only experiencing what we all did, and like we also did, they have unrealistic expectations about how awesome and fantastic life is going to be as soon as they get their first paycheck. And sure, some of them do have a lack of resilience. That's what happens when your parents are Gen Xers and millennials who helicopter parented you and gentle parented you and you never learned how to feel properly sad or uncomfortable. But they are also, I think, better at setting boundaries than any of us before. And some of that is what we're seeing and calling "complaining" and "a lack of resilience". We put up with demands to do extra work, unpaid. They know that's a rort. We went to parties and get-togethers we didn't want to just because we thought we had to. They say no. We allowed our bosses to give us zero pay rises while inflation shot up. They know that's basically a pay cut. I think it's two sides of the same coin. And again, we probably have gentle parenting to thank for teaching them to use their words and set boundaries in a way that most of us never learned. So next time we hear criticism of Gen Z, and trust me they're annoying so it will happen, it might pay to ask; is this a lack of resilience, a lack of toughness, or is it just that they know how to say no? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

I'm not one to get excited at election time about the outside chance that small parties like Opportunity make it into Parliament. But I reckon this year is different. If Opportunity plays this right, they might just do it. Yesterday's Roy Morgan poll had them at 6%. Now, I don't know how much stock I put in that poll because it was very volatile. National went up 5% and Labour went down 7.5%. Swings that big have got to be questioned because they don't seem credible. But this is now a trend for Opportunity. They are now close to, or over, 5% in multiple polls and knocking off 5% is the one thing they must do. It's the biggest hurdle for a new party. Voters don't want to vote for a party if they think it's not going to make it in. It's a weird part of our voter psyche that makes no sense. But never mind – it might not matter for Opportunity if they can keep polling this high. I reckon they are benefiting from the same thing NZ First is at the moment: frustration. Like with Pauline Hanson, Nigel Farage, and Donald Trump, voters are so frustrated by regular politicians ignoring them and their concerns for decades. That's why they want to blow things up, break up the supermarket duopoly, break up the gentailers, buy back the BNZ, and stop the immigration. For voters on the right, NZ First is their "blow it up" party. For voters on the left, it's Opportunity. They're the party for voters frustrated by Labour never being brave enough to do anything bold and for voters frustrated by the Greens being too weird. Opportunity is a radical left-wing party with a land tax and a universal basic income, fronted by a nice lady from Auckland. If they can play this right, if that polling holds up, 2026 might just, to coin a phrase on this show, be their year. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

Credit to Simon Watts. Some time ago he told me he was going to do something to stop councils like the Far North District Council. They put ten iwi representatives, not elected by ratepayers, on a committee with six councillors who were elected, with full voting rights, thereby outnumbering the elected folk. I sent him a text two weeks ago asking him when I should check back in with him to see what he was going to do. He responded. Asked me to give him two weeks. Two weeks ran out yesterday. Yesterday is when he announced that he would be changing the law to take those voting rights away from unelected representatives on councils. This has become something of a race relations issue because the greatest number of unelected members that get attention are Māori, iwi reps, and mana whenua reps. But it's actually more than that. It also involves youth representatives, under 18's who haven't even learned to live in their own houses and pay their own power bills, who are given permission by councils to vote on council issues without being elected. And yes, it is about race relations and trying to stop the spread of this strangely fashionable idea that one ethnicity gets special treatment. But it is also about a fundamental of democracy – you choose who governs you. Ratepayers are being bled for money at rates none of us would've thought were possible ten years ago. For our entire lives that has come with the right to then also vote for the people who we best trust to spend that money, even if that is a low bar. Somehow in the last few years that has started to change, and councils have told us how much to pay and then also who will govern. That needed to stop. Yesterday's decision is welcome. But I'd like it to go further. I'd like all unelected representatives now removed from councils because, in many cases, they are a cost. They are paid, sometimes, the same as elected representatives and they are unnecessary in an age where advice and input is easier to find than ever. But given the likely kickback this will get from the handwringers, good on Simon Watts for making the right call. And on deadline too. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I don't think anyone should be offended by Pete Hegseth saying that New Zealand is freeloading off the American military. This is not a controversial thing at all to say. The Australians have been privately complaining about us sponging off them for decades – they've urged us to lift our spend to 2% of GDP for decades. We have kept our spending at only 1%, or thereabouts, for decades. Wayne Mapp, the former Defence Minister, probably said the quiet bit out loud when he said yesterday that we don't need to lift our spending any higher than it is because we have so much water between us and everyone else that it makes us basically the safest nation on Earth. Which is A, probably what most of us think anyway about why we don't need to spend more, and B, an unbelievably short-sighted thing to say. We know the world is heating up out there, right? From Ukraine to Iran to Taiwan. We know Xi wants to take Taiwan. Some reckon it's going to happen in months, not years, worst case scenario. We also know that we don't know what that sets off in our part of the world. Now Mapp is right in what he's implying. An invasion of New Zealand is not really a concern, but shipping routes are, aren't they? Just look at what's going on with the Strait of Hormuz – imagine that's us trying to get our food out and our fuel in. We would not be able to keep a shipping route open by ourselves. We would need Australia or the States, and they are not going to help us if we're not prepared to help as well. Our gear is getting old, our frigates need replacing, they're old tech anyway. A billion dollar frigate can be sunk by a $300 drone nowadays, so we're going to need drones and we're going to need lots of them. We can't look around the world in 2026, as our only ally, Australia, spends more on defence, and as NATO lifts its spending, and see China making inroads into the Pacific and think we don't need to up our dollars as well. Of course we do. Say what you like about the shortcomings and the errors of the Trump administration, and there are plenty, but there is one thing they have been right about and have actually managed to start fixing, and that is that Western countries need to spend more on defence, and that includes us. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.

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.

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/