POPULARITY
Categories
Don't forget to Like & Subscribe to GET SIMPLIFIED!In this episode, the Simple Men welcome #5 ranked 185lbs UFC fighter, Brendan Allen to Austin, TX. Join the guys as they discuss Allen's origin story, previous fights, and potential upcoming fights!Find us on Instagram:@thesimplemanpodcast @simplemanmartialarts@bjjdamien@nickyrod247@ethan.crelinsten@nickyryanbjj@b_allen185@allywolskiMerchwww.simplemanma.myshopify.comMarek Health:
We return to the podcast circuit in 2026 to examine Scott Galloway: NYU professor, prolific podcaster, and, more recently, part-time life coach for struggling young men.Joining him on an episode of Modern Wisdom with Chris Williamson, we are invited into one of the few remaining forbidden conversational spaces: men, masculinity, and men's problems. You may have been misled by the relentless popularity of Joe Rogan, Modern Wisdom, The Tucker Carlson Show, Triggernometry, The Diary of a CEO, Huberman Lab, and several dozen adjacent properties into thinking these topics are already discussed at length on a near-weekly basis. Alas, this turns out to be a dangerous illusion.In reality, even mentioning men's issues requires an extended ritual acknowledgement of women, failure to perform which risks immediate cancellation. Braving these cultural headwinds, we wade into manly dialogue about masculinity, sex differences, and male malaise. Along the way, we ponder the intricacies of culture war evolutionary psychology, anthropological wars over Man the Hunter, optimised dosages for manly whingeing, and whether making boys learn French verb conjugations qualifies as a human rights abuse.So get your notebooks ready for some important notes from two of the most masculine men in the modern male podcasting space. Men...LinksModern Wisdom: The War On Men Isn't Helping Anyone - Scott GallowayThe Diary of a CEO: Scott Galloway: We're Raising The Most Unhappy Generation In History! Hard Work Doesn't Build WealthAcademic papers ReferencedChanges in gender-based hiring bias (large meta-analysis): Schaerer, M., Du Plessis, C., Nguyen, M. H. B., Van Aert, R. C., Tiokhin, L., Lakens, D., … Gender Audits Forecasting Collaboration. (2023). On the trajectory of discrimination: A meta-analysis and forecasting survey capturing 44 years of field experiments on gender and hiring decisions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 179, 104280.Epidemiology of alcohol use disorder by marital status (US, NESARC-III): Grant, B. F., Goldstein, R. B., Saha, T. D., et al. (2015). Epidemiology of DSM-5 Alcohol Use Disorder: Results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions III. JAMA Psychiatry, 72(8), 757–766.Protective effects of marriage on life expectancy (US Medicare sample): Jia, H., & Lubetkin, E. I. (2020). Life expectancy and active life expectancy by marital status among older US adults: Results from the US Medicare Health Outcome Survey (HOS). SSM – Population Health, 12, 100642.Widowhood and well-being (contrary to claims of increased happiness): Adena, M., Hamermesh, D., Myck, M., & Oczkowska, M. (2023). Home alone: Widows' well-being and time. Journal of Happiness Studies, 24(2), 813–838.Meta-analysis of the widowhood effect on mortality (men and women): Shor, E., Roelfs, D. J., Curreli, M., Clemow, L., Burg, M. M., & Schwartz, J. E. (2012). Widowhood and mortality: A meta-analysis and meta-regression. Demography, 49(2), 575–606.Marriage and life satisfaction across the life course (multi-country): Mikucka, M. (2016). The life satisfaction advantage of being married and gender specialization....
Dans cet épisode solo, j'analyse le parcours de Ludovic du Plessis et Champagne Telmont, une maison centenaire reprise avec une promesse aussi simple que radicale : faire le meilleur champagne possible, sans compromis environnemental.Leur secret ? Une mission qui tranche, des décisions visibles (même quand ça bouscule les codes) et 5 leviers concrets que vous pouvez appliquer dès aujourd'hui pour construire un projet solide, aligné… et durable.Au programme :Clarifier sa mission pour qu'elle serve de boussole et accélère toutes les décisionsChoisir le bon véhicule et les bons alliés pour aller plus vite (reprise, partenaires, distribution, réseau)Transformer ses convictions en choix concrets : retirer le superflu pour investir dans l'essentielPiloter sur 3 tableaux : business, qualité, impact avec 1 indicateur clair pour chacunNe pas construire seul : équipe + réseau comme actifs stratégiques pour débloquer des étapesUn épisode 100% actionnable pour tout entrepreneur ou toute entrepreneure qui veut concilier ambition, exigence produit et impact.Bonne écoute !
Le bleu, sans rendre amoureux comme le chante Michel Louvain, c'est quand même la couleur préférée des Occidentaux. Mais, pourquoi ? Script: Geneviève C. Bergeron https://www.facebook.com/genevieve.bergeron.3194 Montage @DEADWILL Adhérez à cette chaîne pour obtenir des avantages : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN4TCCaX-gqBNkrUqXdgGRA/join Pour soutenir la chaîne, au choix: 1. Cliquez sur le bouton « Adhérer » sous la vidéo. 2. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hndl Musique issue du site : epidemicsound.com Images provenant de https://www.storyblocks.com Abonnez-vous à la chaine: https://www.youtube.com/c/LHistoirenousledira Les vidéos sont utilisées à des fins éducatives selon l'article 107 du Copyright Act de 1976 sur le Fair-Use. Sources et pour aller plus loin: Pastoureau, Michel. Rouge : histoire d'une couleur. Paris, Points, 2020, p.17. Pastoureau, Michel. Bleu : histoire d'une couleur. Paris, Points, 2020, p. 40 Pastoureau, Michel. Noir : histoire d'une couleur. Paris, Points, 2020, p. 86. Pastoureau, Michel. Blanc : histoire d'une couleur. Paris, Seuil, 2022 Mollard-Desfour, Annie. Dictionnaire de la couleur, mots et expressions d'aujourd'hui, XXe-XXIe. Le bleu. Paris, CNRS éditions, 2013, p. xxix. St Clair, Kassia. Secret Lives of Colour. John Murray Ltd., 2019, p.181. p. 189-192. Pastoureau, Michel et Dominique Simonnet. Le petit livre des couleurs. Paris, Éditions du Panama, 2005, Couleur https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couleur Mollard-Desfour, Annie. Dictionnaire de la couleur, mots et expressions d'aujourd'hui, XXe-XXIe. Le bleu. Paris, CNRS éditions, 2013, p. xxiv-xxv. Explication de l'axe blanc vs noir et de l'ajout du bleu au Moyen Age. Ça vient des Météorologiques: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9t%C3%A9orologiques_(Aristote) Pastoureau, Michel et Dominique Simonnet. Le petit livre des couleurs. Paris, Éditions du Panama, 2005, p. 17 L'art gothique (notions avancées) https://www.alloprof.qc.ca/fr/eleves/bv/histoire/l-art-gothique-notions-avancees-h1285 Les vitraux, symboles du divin LE VITRAIL, UN ART DE LUMIÈRE https://www.saint-denis-basilique.fr/decouvrir/les-vitraux-symboles-du-divin Histoire de la Sainte-Chapelle https://www.sainte-chapelle.fr/decouvrir/histoire-de-la-sainte-chapelle La Leçon d'anatomie du docteur Tulp octobre 1998 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Le%C3%A7on_d%27anatomie_du_docteur_Tulp DIGITAL COLLECTION https://sammlung.staedelmuseum.de/en/work/the-interior-of-the-oude-kerk-in-delft Marc Chagall https://www.marcchagall.com/fr/decouverte/themes/reve/paysage-bleu-1949 Femme en bleu lisant une lettre https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Femme_en_bleu_lisant_une_lettre Jacob Christophe Le Blon https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Christoph_Le_Blon Guillemette, Mélissa. « Le bleu », Les années lumières, Radio-Canada, 15 août 2021. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premiere/emissions/les-annees-lumiere/segments/rattrapage/1672614/chronique-couleur-avec-melissa-guillemette-bleu La société sous Duplessis https://www.alloprof.qc.ca/fr/eleves/bv/histoire/la-societe-sous-duplessis-h1645 Blue Monday (jour) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Monday_(jour) Heure bleue https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heure_bleue Sang bleu https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sang_bleu Les Schtroumpfs https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Schtroumpfs Mollard-Desfour, Annie, Bénédicte Rivière et Blexbolex. De vert de rage à rose bonbon. Toutes les couleurs de notre langue. Paris, Albin Michel jeunesse, 2006, p. 11. Autoportrait avec palette https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoportrait_avec_palette Période bleue https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A9riode_bleue Salon bleu https://www.assnat.qc.ca/fr/patrimoine/lexique/salon-bleu.html Caron, Barbara-Judith. « 140 ans après son apparition, le bleu de méthylène intrigue toujours », Moteur de recherche, Radio-Canada, 24 mars 2025. Autres références disponibles sur demande. #histoire #documentaire #couleur #bleu #blue #pigment #indigo #colors
It's that time of the year where we pick our politician of the year. For me, it's the same person as last year. Political commentators, myself included at times, have an unfortunate tendency to sometimes choose politicians because they're good at playing the political game. And if you're into that, you might pick Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke for collecting her Time magazine award. Or Chris Hipkins for resurrecting his party's fortunes from a horror 2023 election result. Or Labour's Arena Williams for giving good speeches, or Shane Jones for getting attention. But at a time when we all acknowledge our country is in a bit of a polycrisis, slipping further behind the pack, I think the most important measure is not whether a politician is good at politics, it's whether a politician is making a difference. And no other politician is making as big a difference as quickly, in an area as important, as Erica Stanford. Already kids are learning more than they have been for years. The results from her phonics changes a couple of months ago were so dramatic a staff member in her office burst into tears. She's doing this despite increased resistance from teachers' unions. Parents are raving and teachers themselves are noticing the difference. Nothing is more important than our kids and educating them properly. And on the politics, she can play politics as well as anyone. You watch closely as her opponents learn that lesson. Just ask Willow-Jean Prime. So, Erica Stanford it is. Because nothing beats having a good idea, being brave enough to execute it and helping to turn this country around. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Surely that judge throwing out the election result in Auckland has started the clock ticking on postal voting. This case may not seem a big deal given that it involves just 79 votes, in just one subdivision, in just one relatively small local board election in Auckland. But the 79 may just be the tip of the iceberg. It may be that hundreds of ballot papers in that subdivision were stolen from letterboxes, filled in and sent in as legit votes. Now Ken Turner from the Waitakere's is also considering legal options because he reckons something funny happened with 212 votes in his election too. None of this is a surprise to me because years ago when friends of mine were flatting, as happens, mail turned up for previous tenants. Some of that mail was voting papers. So my friends filled the papers in and sent them all back in as legitimate votes and no one ever got in trouble for it. We all know the mail voting system is ripe for being gamed. But perhaps in our naivety we hadn't imagined it would go from a bunch of silly flatties to what seems like may have been an orchestrated rigging of an election. Postal voting should go the way of the horse and cart. It's not the only reason so many of us can't be bothered with council elections, but it is a significant part of it. You get the mail, pop it on the counter, forget about it, find it after election day is well past, or find it too hard to remember where to find a post box. Not only does it make it harder to vote, it also makes it harder to trust the election outcome. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It's no surprise that Nicola Willis has pushed out surplus by another year. That now makes it three years in two years, as in she has delayed surplus by three years in just the space of the two years she's been at the Finance Minister's desk. Had she kept her pledge, the one she made about tidying up this country's books when asking for our votes in 2023, we would be seeing a surplus next year. Now it's 2029 at the earliest. Getting our books back in order is important if we don't want our kids to pack up and leave for Australia when they're old enough to. Nicola can blame everyone from Treasury to Trump if she wants, but she has not done enough to get us back to surplus. She has defended, and kept, Jacinda's wasteful policy of paying for one free year for university students. The policy has been repeatedly criticised as a flop that doesn't actually make anyone go to university. Cutting that would save us in the vicinity of $1 billion over four years. She has given welfare to households on more than $200,000 a year by giving them money for childcare. People on that kind of coin don't need benefits. Cutting that would save $1 billion in a little over five years. She still hasn't cut or income tested the Winter Energy Payment, which is going to people who are still in the workforce and being set aside for nice trips to Fiji. Cutting that would save $1 billion in less than two years. Trimming it would save less, but it would save something. She has cut 2000 public servants when Grant and Jacinda added 14,000. Be in no doubt - money is tight. But there is still a lot of waste that could be cut if Nicola Willis was brave enough. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ludovic du Plessis donne un conseil clé qu'il martèle à ses équipes comme aux étudiants : pour réussir, il ne suffit pas d'avoir une “jambe business” et une “jambe marketing”. Même en courant très vite, il y aura toujours quelqu'un de plus rapide. Ce qui fait réellement la différence, c'est le réseau pas un réseau “pour le réseau”, mais l'intelligence de bien s'entourer, de construire des relations utiles et solides dès le plus tôt possible.Un rappel puissant : un bon network peut devenir un accélérateur de carrière et vous faire “brûler 10 étapes”. À découvrir dans l'épisode complet.
This business of Australia tightening up its gun laws feels like it runs the risk of distracting from the bigger problems over there. I don't think guns were the problem on Sunday. Australia already has some of the tightest gun laws in the world. This is a race relations problem. This attack was predictable. There was no shortage of warnings. Jewish businesses have been set alight in recent years, synagogues have been attacked, obviously Jewish people have been hassled, Israeli people have been denied customer service in Melbourne, cars have been set alight in an anti-Semitic attack and two nurses in Sydney lost their jobs for bragging on TikTok that they would kill Jewish patients. There is a timeline on Time magazine's website of all the events leading up to Sunday that is confronting. The Albanese Government knew there was a problem brewing. They asked the special envoy on anti-Semitism to give them a set of recommendations. For the last six months they've had those recommendations and done nothing. So, tightening up gun laws is never a bad thing. Checking in on a licence holder every few years rather than never must be a good thing. But if the Aussies think that's the fix for what just happened, they are misguided and allowing themselves to be distracted. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you weren't already feeling confident about 2026, I've got two reasons you should. At least two major retail banks see signs of an economic recovery and we have a new Reserve Bank Governor. No pressure on Anna Breman, but she hasn't arrived a day too soon given that the old lot were still managing to stuff things up until literally the last chance they had, with Christian Hawkesby saying the wrong thing and sending wholesale market rates, and therefore fixed term interest rates, up by 30 basis points. To be fair to him, he was only the fill in. And if we're honest with ourselves it's more hope than certainty that the Swedish import will be any better than Hawkesby or Adrian Orr. But then again you could argue it really would be hard to be worse given the last four years. But we're here for the good news. The good news is that Anna Breman arriving as the new broom coincides with ASB, and now Kiwibank, all saying it's on. They're seeing signs of a recovery for 2026. Kiwibank's call arguably matters more than the others because they've been the gloomiest. They were calling for more rate cuts than the Reserve Bank was prepared for. They were warning it was more grim out there than the Wellington bankers realised. They were right. So here's hoping they are right again when they say sales are already up, and when sales go up, everything else follows. House prices are up 2-3% next year. The economy is growing 2.4% and then it's 3% the next year. I don't know about you but that combo - a new person in charge of the central bank and growing consensus that the recovery is now on - is probably the best Christmas present i could wish for. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Time Magazine has just named its Person of the Year for 2025. And it's not a single person. It is "the architects" of AI. The magazine says "no one" had as great an impact this year than the people “who imagined, designed, and built AI". This was the year that we stopped talking about how clunky AI is and instead started sprinting to deploy it as fast as possible. And now the risk-averse are no longer in the driver's seat. Which may be true, but the risk averse are still a really big proportion of us, aren't they? I think there are broadly three categories of people when it comes to AI; 1) The ones using it, 2) The ones apathetic about it and waiting to be convinced that they need it, 3) The ones terrified of it. It's the terrified ones that fascinate me. They're the unions convinced AI will take jobs. They're the 47% of Kiwis who don't trust companies to use AI ethically. They're the rule-lovers who want the Government to set up more rules for AI. They're the artists and musicians who are pretending that they can stop AI learning from (they call it stealing) their ideas. They're the people complaining that AI photos and videos and songs are somehow evil and misleading. Resisting AI is not a strategy. It's happening and it's not going away. Resisting it is like a repeat of the resistance towards the computer decades ago, which even Time magazine called a fad at the end. The way to deal with AI is to accept it's going to fundamentally change everything and then figure out how to make that work for you. A case in point is Disney today giving OpenAI permission to use its characters, like Star Wars characters, to make videos. Like Mark Cuban said on the show yesterday, AI is going to be big, and we have no idea how big yet. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
So, to the Nicola Willis v Ruth Richardson debate. Here's a challenge to Nicola Willis: do it this year. Do it next week. I'm hearing that having challenged Ruth Richardson to the debate, Willis' office would prefer to do it next year. I can understand why. By next year the momentum will be gone and we'll all have moved on to other things and it, probably, won't get as big of an audience. Next week though is a big week. The Government is opening its books. It sounds like Nicola might be pushing out surplus, again, for the second time in two years. Then we've got the GDP number and that's coming off the back of the Taxpayer's Union campaign calling her out for her big spending, which kicks off today. So next week there's much more energy around a debate. If it's pushed out to next year, I would read it as the first sign of losing courage. And if I was cynical, it's the first sign of them hoping this will fizzle and die because frankly, it was a political mistake to challenge Ruth Richardson to a debate. Regardless of what you think of her, Ruth can article all the problems with Nicola's big spending budgets and debt gathering in a way that most members of the media can't, which is to say she will mount a case that Nicola is spending too much and taking us down exactly the same path of economic trouble that Grant started us on. And I suspect that will convince a lot of voters that we have a problem here. And we do. We have a problem when we have a government that promised to cut spending and yet spends more than Grant and will, by mid next year, have taken on $45 billion more in debt, which will by then account for almost a quarter of our total debt. This is an important debate, because what is more important for a government to do well than run the country's books? So, next week? How about it? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Cast your mind back a couple of weeks to what the boss of Auckland Port Roger Gray said. He told us New Zealand is a country that says 'no' so often, Miami cruise bosses he spoke to had taken to calling us 'No Zealand'. Yesterday the Government unveiled its plan for how we stop that, which is a rewrite of the RMA because the RMA is part of the problem. It has turned 'no' into an art form in this country. No to your new deck, no to that road, no to you putting a door on the side of the house rather than the front of the house. We are a country the size of Japan geographically, yet we have 1200 planning zones each with its own unique, bespoke set of rules, while Japan has 13 zones. Chris Bishop's proposal is to take that 1200 and drop it down to 17. It's still more than Japan, but about a 98.5% reduction, which can't be sniffed at. So prolific and ridiculous are the stories that we can all tell about our encounters with the RMA that I think you'd struggle to find anyone who opposes change. The trouble has always been agreeing on what change looks like and that is no different this time around. This RMA reform is welcome, overdue, brave, and almost certainly going to help the country grow. But mark my words: it will create all kinds of political problems. Just look at the case of Auckland and Wellington. Both cities need to build more houses but the minute the rules change to make that a reality, the nimbys start complaining. And that will happen with the RMA. Because sure, your property rights are being strengthened so you can do what you want on your property. But it's the same for your neighbour, which means if he wants to build that big whatever you have to look at, you might not be able to say no. None of us want to lose our views, have a road running right next to us or want the infrastructure development to kill the precious, indigenous snail. And those things might happen because we are all losing some of our ability to say no. Now, I think that's a good thing. There's been too much 'no', clearly, otherwise we wouldn't be 'No Zealand'. But saying yes will take some getting used to. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
So tomorrow's the big day, isn't it? And it is, I think, not an overstatement to say that the eyes of the world, well, at least politicians around the world, are going to be on Australia and whether the social media ban will actually work. And that is still a live question, isn't it? We're less than 24 hours from the thing taking effect and none of us can totally say for sure that we know it's going to work. For two reasons: one, it's the internet, so there's always a workaround out there. And two, it involves kids, and if there's a workaround, kids will find the workaround. I'm going to call it for you now: it's not going to work, if your definition of working is that 100% of children under 16 get kicked off and stay off until they're 16. But I think it is possible that it is going to work if your definition is a little bit more flexible, which is that most kids get kicked off and stay off because their parents force them to do it. And I think that is the key thing here, like it always is, parents getting involved. Talking about whether it works or not, actually I think kind of misses the point here, which is that this gives parents something that they haven't had yet, which is permission to keep their kids off social media. Because what parents have been finding is it's very hard to keep 14 year old Susie off social media, off Facebook, off Instagram, off TikTok, off Snapchat, because all Susie's friends are on it. And if Susie's not on it, then she becomes the weird kid, and nobody wants their kid to be the weird kid, right? So you relent and you let Susie on it. This has the potential to flip all of that pressure around. Now everyone's off. Now the kid that's on it, little Johnny's on it, Susie comes home and says, oh Johnny's on TikTok, can I go on TikTok? You go, no, Johnny's a naughty kid from a family that has no rules, no boundaries, no discipline. Susie, you've got boundaries and discipline your parents care about, you stay off. It gives permission for the parents to be able to do that kind of thing. And if you're a parent, you know peer pressure is massive, isn't it? Especially in the teenage years. The Aussie government's doing its bit by bringing us to this point. The tech companies are being dragged into doing their bit and ultimately this will live or die in Australia based on whether Australian parents do their bit and actually step up to the plate and parent properly. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Here's a question for you... is our summer holiday too long? Are we going to the beach and staying away from the office for too long? There's a chap called Toss Grumley who thinks so, he's written a column about it. He's a young mover and shaker, business advisor, director, investor in multiple New Zealand entities. He reckons that our summer breaks are so long now that we're pretty much winding down from November and then we're only sparking up again in February, which means that we're taking about 10 weeks of productive conversations out of the business calendar and it's hurting our productivity. And we have no retail spending in January really to speak of, and businesses have poor cash flow at the start of the year when they come to have a look at it in April, May because they are taking excessively long shutdown periods. Now, I think Toss has got a point here. We do this. This is why you'll see the Reserve Bank leaves the economy basically in park for two months until they come back in February. But then again, I don't want this to change. Do you? I would rather work flat out for 11 months a year and then take a nice long break over summer than work all year round at an even pace. I think this is just human nature because summer is for enjoying. Summer is for spending with your kids, it's for going out there, having a swim, getting out in the sun, doing all the things that make life worth living, seeing your family, all the good stuff. Plenty of countries do this too, we're not the only ones. Try getting anything done in Europe in the month of August and you are out of luck. This year, the Bank of England just by way of an example, you go look at any central bank, Bank of England will not make a single decision for the entire month of August and then also for the first two weeks of September. Now, maybe Toss has a point that the summer is getting too long. Maybe we should be powering ourselves right up until Christmas, then stopping and then coming back after maybe 4 or 5 weeks and getting stuck into it again at the start of February rather than taking 10 weeks off with our brains. Fair enough. But can I just say this ... I urge caution here. We have a really great work-life balance in this country. We understand that life is for living, not just for working. We have a joy about our lives. Don't throw that away too easily.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Accusations of mouldy school lunches from Haeata Community Campus has caused much back and forth between principal Peggy Burrows and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour as blame is passed around. In an effort to get to the bottom of who is telling the truth Heather du Plessis-Allan grilled Seymour about the facts of the situation. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In the end, I think Andrew Coster had to go. Look, you realize he's won a big victory today, don't you? Cause it's a big admission from the Public Service commissioner today that Andrew Coster didn't do anything wrong himself. He hadn't committed any personal wrongdoing and it's a big admission also that there was no cover-up. And the reason that it's a big admission is because of the number of times lots of ministers and also the new police commissioner went out there in media and said cover up, cover up, cover up, and then also in some cases said corruption. Now what I think this proves is exactly what I had intimated a few weeks ago. Yes, this was a scandal, but it was not the A plus plus plus plus plus plus scandal that these guys were kind of racking it up to be. That was politics. They wanted to play the game of the bad guys are out, we're the new guys, it's a new broom, that kind of thing. I didn't rate Andrew Coster as a police commissioner. I think he was rubbish at that job, but I always thought that he would be good at running the social investment agency because he's the kind of guy that likes the warm fuzzies and the early intervention, which is what the social investment agency was. It was never about hard policing. He was about warm fuzzies, the Social Investment agency is about warm fuzzies. So it is in a way a pity that the warm fuzzies guy cannot lead the warm fuzzies agency anymore. But ultimately, like Brian Roach said, he had to go because even though he did nothing wrong, the buck stopped with him at the police, and he made a series of bad calls that meant none of us could ever fully trust his judgment again. And he was going to be a political target. Who wants to be the minister or the government that protects the guy that protected Jevon McSkimming, even if he's the guy who didn't know that he was protecting the bad guy? And ultimately, we've probably got away lightly. I didn't want to have to pay him $124,000 but that was the low end of things. That was his notice period. It was probably the very least you could pay him. But count today as a small victory for Andrew Coster because he's cleared his reputation even if he's lost his job.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The big health news today is that the WHO is essentially calling for the funding of weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic for people who would otherwise not be able to afford it. So basically, make it not just for the rich, but for the poor as well. The WHO doesn't actually say governments should be the ones funding the drugs. An alternative interpretation of what they've said is that the people who make the drugs should drop the price to make them more affordable, but that's obviously not going to happen because profits. So you can probably assume, the bill lands with governments around the world. Now, that's a nice idea. And given how effective these drugs are in dropping weight off people, it would probably make a massive difference to the obesity rates in New Zealand, but it is simply not affordable for New Zealand. We have done the numbers before on the show. I'll run you through them again, OK? The drugs cost $500 a month. There are 1.5 million Kiwis who are considered obese. If we funded these drugs for all the obese people in this country at the moment, it would cost this country $9 billion a year. $9 billion is what we pay for all of our jails and the staff who run them. The Ministry of Justice, the whole court system, customs and our police force and our entire defence force. That is how much money $9 billion is. It is not affordable for us, it's not a one-off either. You don't just pay for it for a year and everybody's fat problems are solved and on we go with life and everybody can eat what they want to. These drugs, according to the WHO, are meant for long-term use. So that's $9 billion every single year, and the minute these people come off the drugs, they get fat again, right?So you have to keep funding it. Not a chance. Here's the happy news though. These drugs come off patent or start coming off patent in about 3 months, 4 months' time, which means that in short order, you can expect to buy knockoffs for knockoff prices. Which means punters who want to lose weight should be able to fund it themselves, and that is ultimately where the buck should stop, isn't it?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Government has announced the details on its plan for rates caps - councils will be capped at 4%.They will not be able to raise their rates by more than 4%, and the plan will start being implemented in a couple of years' time, sort of mid 27, and then will be fully in place by mid 2029.There will be exemptions to the rate cap. The high growth councils will be exempt from the cap. Councils that experience a natural disaster, something like bad weather, a quake, whatever, they will be exempt. Councils that need to catch up on infrastructure underinvestment, which I thought would have been most councils, they will be exempt.They will have to apply. The exempt will not be automatic. They will have to apply for an exemption, but those are the grounds they can apply on, which I think sounds like potentially a lot of councils who will be able to get around the 4% cap.Now, on the politics of it, it is incredibly smart to announce this - it is incredibly popular. One poll found that about 75% of people want to see this happen, and I really want this to work.I really want this to force councils to sharpen their pencils and start cutting out the nice to haves like the disco toilets and the bus stops with the gardens spouting from the top. And I want them to be able to be going through their staff list and maybe discover like Wellington has in the last week, about 330 people who probably don't need to be paid for by the ratepayer.And this will definitely, I think, do that. It will force a bit of discipline.But what does worry me is that this isn't dealing with the actual problem that we've got in local government, which is that we have a bunch of numpties sitting around the council tables making bad financial decisions.After this, we will still have numpties sitting around the council table, and those numpties will still make bad financial decisions.And if there's one thing that we've learned from recent experience with Wellington City Council, it's that when numpties cut spending, They cut spending on important things like pipes and for some weird reason they keep on spending on the dumb stuff like disco toilets, and I worry that that will happen around the country and we will simply end up with another crisis like we're having at the moment of deferred maintenance.Having said that, It is obviously a much better situation if the numpties have less money to waste rather than more money to waste.So on balance, the rates cap is probably an improvement on the status quo, isn't it?Even if only for the certainty it gives the rest of us that our rates bill next year will not force us out of our homes.In that respect, this has got to be good news.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
La balado reçoit le professeur-agrégé Jonathan Durand-Folco pour une plongée dans son dernier essai Le fascisme tranquille: Affronter la nouvelle vague autoritaire paru chez Écosociété. La discussion permet d'aborder la démarche intellectuelle qui guide l'auteur alors qu'il tente de comprendre les mécanismes qui préludent à l'instauration de l'autoritarisme dans la vie démocratique américaine et québécoise.
I've reached the conclusion that when it comes to the banks and mortgage rates, the only option you've got left is to hustle. You're on your own here. It has been 2 days since the Reserve Bank cut the official cash rate, and by how much do you think the big banks have cut their fixed rates? No, not a jot. Not, not a single basis point. Absolutely nothing has come off their fixed rates. It's not particularly helpful from the banks cause, you know, we're trying to get the country out of recession and the point of cutting the OCR is that the mortgage rates come down and then when you refix, you've got more disposable cash and the more cash you have, the more you're gonna spend and the faster we're gonna get out of this recession. So thumbs up and thanks very much to the big banks for not helping. Obviously, it's smart business for them. They need to make as much money as they can. The prediction is they will eventually cut the OCR cut their mortgage rates, but it'll be next year. It won't be this side of Christmas, and no one's going to be able to force them. There is, everybody has fired all their bullets at this stage. The Reserve Bank's cut as much out of the OCR as it can. The critics have written their columns, have given their interviews. Nothing's happened. The government's accepted all the recommendations of the select Committee inquiry, and I think we all know that that's a damp squib. And to be honest, when it comes to the government, for them to do anything meaningful to the banks, it would have to be. Something as massive as breaking up ANZ and ASB and the horror that that would send through the investment community would potentially be worse than us paying too much in mortgage interest rates at the moment. So, The only conclusion you're gonna reach is that you're on your own. No one is coming to save you from the banks. No one's gonna force them to pass on the OCR cuts if they don't want to. You're gonna have to hustle. So when you refix, demand a better rate. Look at what the advertised rate is and then tell them to shave 50 basis points off and if they don't cross the road to another bank that will. That is competition. You're on your own. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Can I give you a positive spin on the recession that we're just coming out of? I mean, maybe it's not so much a positive spin, but maybe it's an explanation for why this recession was harder than it needed to be - but why it actually did need to be this hard. If you've been following the commentary around the Reserve Bank's last two OCR decisions, you'll know there's been a fair bit of chat about the wealth effect and how that has made the recession worse. Now, the wealth effect is the thing that happens when your house goes up in value. You feel rich - you're not rich, you just feel rich - so you go out and spend more money. And then, of course, when it does the opposite and goes down in value, you feel poor. You're not poor, you just feel it, so you shut your wallet. And that is part of the reason why this recession has dragged - because our house prices are not going up. They have gone backwards, and so we're not spending, which means that we're not spending our way out of the recession. Now, the thing about this is that the Reserve Bank has actually done things to deliberately keep our house prices suppressed, right? Things like debt-to-income ratios. Some of the stuff is not their fault, like people leaving the country and therefore not wanting to buy a house - supply and demand, blah blah blah - but some of it is the fault of the Reserve Bank, who've done this deliberately. And I warned you about this on the show before. I said this to you in August, I said I was worried that the Reserve Bank was keeping house prices depressed and that it would drag out this recession longer, which it has. And I've been talking privately to Brad Olsen about it as well, who's been keeping an eye on it too, and we've been debating the merits of it. But here's the silver lining - we actually needed to let go of this property obsession. It's been hard, but we needed to do it because we have got to stop putting our money into property and we've got to start putting our money into businesses and other productive assets. And this is the breakup that we needed to have. No breakup is nice, and this one isn't either. So I text Brad Olsen this morning, yet again. He goes, “Oh, here we go. Here's a text from Heather.” I said, “Brad, are you still sure that it was worth it to break up with our property obsession given how hard it has made this recession?” And he just replied with, “Yes, I do.” So what I would say is, if you're doing the glass-half-full thing, at least we will come out of this recession less in love with houses and more likely to put our dollars into stuff that will actually make New Zealand richer - and that's got to be a good thing. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
So the Ports of Auckland boss Roger Gray is onto something, isn't he? Because we are a country that loves to say no. He said in a speech to a crowd at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron in Auckland that he went to Miami to speak to four major cruise liners to find out why the cruise ships aren't coming here as much as they used to. And he apparently says that they call us 'No Zealand' because we just say no to everything. Is he wrong? I mean, look at the news that's been around just for the last couple of days, right? Santana wants to dig $7 billion worth of gold out of the ground near Cromwell. The locals say no. Eric Stanford wants to change the curriculum so our kids can actually get a decent international education and have a future ahead of them. The unions say no. Chris Bishop wants to scrap regional councils because they just waste everyone's time and money and say no to things, and the perpetually concerned looked at that and said no. We say no so much that the Government has created the fast-track approvals process to basically bulldoze through all the 'no's' they know are gonna come. Some of it is the rules that we've created for ourselves, right? Because the RMA is just one giant no factory. But some of it, I think, is actually cultural. We have a great life here in New Zealand, even if you're rich or poor, whatever your circumstances, you can enjoy your life in New Zealand. Temperatures aren't too extreme, there aren't creatures trying to kill you all the time like in Australia, foreign enemies aren't trying to kill us all the time like places in Europe, and we don't actually really have to struggle too much to get by. So we can cruise, and so we do cruise. So we just don't try. We just say no, we just don't want to change that much. On the bright side, I think this attitude is changing at the minute. I mean, I hate to make things about politics all the time and look to politicians for help, but I think it is because we have some brave political leaders at the moment who are prepared to ruffle some feathers. The mayor of Auckland who was just getting on with changing the port and making money for the city, and the RMA minister Chris Bishop who's scrapping the regional councils, which is a massive thing to do. And everyone's crush, Erica Stanford, who's completely overhauling education despite the educators saying no to her. So when we have to say yes, when the going gets tough like it is right now, I think that we can say yes. My hope is, though, that we get stuck in the yes setting and we stay here and break the habit of the constant no setting. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Government has announced this afternoon that it is scrapping regional councils - and I reckon you need to put this on your list of some of the best news that you have heard in a long time for turning this country around. Regional councils have got to go. It's not so much the elected councillors, right? I mean, obviously they have to go as well. But we simply don't need that layer of bureaucracy with regional councils, when we already have city and district councils and we already have central Government. It's just far too much. But scrapping the elected guys, that's only gonna save us a little bit of money. We're talking peanuts here. The real money is going to be saved in the stuff that happens in the back office at the regional councils, the stuff that's done by the unelected officials and the consultants that they bring in. And when I'm what I'm talking about here is the plans. Now let me tell you about the plans - you probably don't realize it because this stuff is so boring it will put you to sleep - but regional councils around this country are blowing tens of millions of dollars and wasting years upon years on planning new rules. The Waikato Regional Council's Healthy Rivers Plan Change 1, let's just call it PC1 for short - PC1 at last count has cost $23 million. That was about 3 years ago. The plan is not even fully implemented yet, so you can add to that $23 million. Now, that is just the plan for the rivers in the Waikato. It's not the plan for rivers anywhere else in the country, it's for nothing else in the Waikato, just the rivers in Waikato - and it's already cost $23 million. Bear in mind every single region, and there are 11 of them, makes its own plans. So you could take that $23 million and just add to it. Around this country, we're just racking up the millions. This stuff, as I said, takes years. The Waikato river plan, PC1, that was notified in 2016. A decade on, it's still not in full operation because of appeals and all kinds of wrangles around it. And this is where huge amounts of the rates that you pay are wasted, right? So scrapping the regional councils is potentially a massive, massive saving for us. The question is - what do the Nats replace it with? If they then replace the regional councils with a system where maybe we have just one set of rules or four sets of rules or ten sets of rules that regions can choose from, pre-written rules that they can roll out that they don't have to plan themselves rather than designing their own, that may in fact be a better system. Now the devil is in the details, but so far this has the potential to be some of the best news for this country. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Let's talk about Air New Zealand. Look, if I was Air New Zealand, I would feel pretty beaten up after the weekend's opinion pieces. Bruce Cotterill wrote a piece in one newspaper complaining that if Air New Zealand want to charge as much as they do, then they have to do the job better and be on time more often. And then, Sam Stubbs wrote a piece in another newspaper telling them to stop overcharging domestic travellers. Now, I cannot explain the timing. I can't explain why both those guys wrote harsh pieces about the same airline on the same weekend. But what's weirder about it is that I almost did exactly the same thing. I almost had a bit of a rant about Air New Zealand myself this weekend, because I had to pull out of an event on account of their ticket prices. What it was is the husband and I were planning to go to a thing in Wellington. We started doing all the organizing, had the babysitter covered, organized to work out of Wellington for the day - and we went to book the flights and saw the flight prices. It was pretty close to $1000 return per person, and I could not justify that. That is ridiculous. Now, I don't have a problem, as I've said 1000 times to you, with Air New Zealand making as much money as it wants to. I wanted to make money, I'm a shareholder - and we all are shareholders through the Government. It does have to balance that with customer loyalty though, because Air New Zealand is now so overpriced that I cannot justify using it. For the first time in my working life, I don't have Koru anymore, I cannot justify the expense. And while I have the same problem as Bruce Cotterill, I don't want to fly Jetstar out of loyalty to Air New Zealand. But I reckon, give it a year. Because I reckon this time next year, I'm going to be flying Jetstar. The flight from Auckland to Wellington on Air New Zealand for the event was $500 per person, just one way, right? Auckland to Wellington, $500. The same flight on Jetstar at a better time was about $150. That's Air New Zealand's problem right there, they're chasing their customers away. One day, they're gonna wake up - and they don't realize it now - but they're gonna be surprised at how popular Jetstar is and they're gonna regret the fact that heaps of us tried out the orange bird and found it's not that bad. And Air New Zealand will want us back and struggle to get us back. And maybe the reason that Bruce and Sam - and maybe even me - criticized Air New Zealand on the same weekend is that we're only saying what everybody's already thinking. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Either Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is telling porkies, or he's the most out-of-the-loop person in Wellington. His claim that there's “no talk” of rolling Chris Luxon is complete nonsense. There is talk—serious talk. I can tell you for a fact that senior National Party ministers believe Luxon can't continue in the job. MPs are actively discussing whether to pull the pin and replace him. If they do, the most likely successor is Chris Bishop. But—and this is crucial—they haven't decided to do it yet. Why? Because it's risky. Rolling a sitting Prime Minister has only happened once before, with Jim Bolger, and that didn't end well. MPs know that sticking with Luxon might pay off if the economy improves next year. Better economic conditions could lift National's polling and save seats currently at risk. But there's a flip side: if the polls don't recover, Luxon's unpopularity could drag National down further. Like it or not, modern elections are presidential in style—voters focus on who they want as Prime Minister. Jacinda Ardern boosted Labour's vote in 2017. Luxon is part of why National's vote has fallen. Would Chris Bishop do better? Maybe. But it's a guess. He could also do worse. And the instability of rolling a sitting PM could make things even worse for National. So MPs face two high-risk options: stick with an unpopular leader or gamble on an unproven one. It's a call I wouldn't want to make—but they're making it right now. It may never happen, but trust me: the talk is real.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
I've got a possibly controversial opinion about standing up at concerts. Last night, I went to see Metallica. Incredible show - way better than I gave them credit for yesterday. But here's what happened. We were in the stands, seated tickets. A few rows ahead, there was this guy who, the second Metallica hit the stage, jumped to his feet. Everyone else stayed seated, but not him. Hands in the air, devil horns flying, head-banging, air guitar, singing every lyric. He was having the best night of his life - and honestly, watching him made the rest of us enjoy it more. Not everyone agreed. People behind him started throwing cans. They hit him in the back; he ignored it. Then a couple of women clambered over seats, smacked him on the back, told him to sit down. He ignored that too. Eventually, a guy from way back stormed down, leaned across rows, got into a shouting match, even tried to physically drag him into his seat. After a few minutes, the head-banger gave in and sat down. But he couldn't help himself. Every time a new song started, he popped back up - horns up, air guitar blazing -before remembering he was “supposed” to sit. This went on until he finally squeezed into the stairwell so he could thrash without blocking anyone's view. You could tell it wasn't the same; cramped space, less freedom. Here's my take: If you're at a concert, you should be able to stand up and have the best time of your life - even if you bought a seated ticket. If someone in front of you stands, sorry, you're going to have to stand too. It's not okay to demand someone sit for the whole show. It's music, not a movie. And it's Metallica, not the Symphony Orchestra. I'm with the metal-head from last night. He paid good money to enjoy himself. If that means horns up, air guitar, and head-banging - let him do it. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There would not be a drama today about the Breakers basketball team not wanting to wear the rainbow flag on their jerseys if the basketball league had stayed out of politics in the first place. Now, if you haven't caught up on this, there is unnecessary upset today because it's emerged that the entire Breakers team will not wear that little rainbow Pride flag on their jerseys during Pride Round next year because some of the players don't want to. And it's for religious and cultural reasons, apparently. So because some of the players don't want to, the whole team won't. Now, as you can imagine, this has absolutely blown up and it has led to accusations of homophobia, accusations of bigotry, accusations of cowardice. And look, I don't know, maybe all those accusations are right, but this didn't have to happen. They didn't have to have this drama if they hadn't tried to get all of the players to wear a symbol that you can guarantee some players wouldn't want to wear, because statistically that had to be a possibility when you had 150 players rostered on for any particular season.Now, I don't think that this kind of rainbow-washing helps anyone. There is no need for a random sports league to run any kind of a week, whether it be Pride Week or Indigenous Week, or Women's Menstrual Rights Week. I don't know what kind of week, you just don't need it. Maybe it sells a few tickets - probably not a lot - but it can backfire and it has backfired in this case. So now instead of looking inclusive to the rainbow community, the NBL looks the complete opposite and has accusations of homophobia coming at it. Now, you would have thought that everyone under the sun would have learned from the massive rugby league debacle three years ago when those seven Manly players refused to wear the Pride jersey. And yet, the basketball league decided to start up its own Pride Week the very next year, having learned nothing. Now, I say this all of the time, and I will say this again - sports needs to stay out of politics. There is no real upside in it and there's way too much downside, and this is a case in point. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
OK, quick quiz for you. Think of the Labour Party. Who is the climate spokesperson? Yeah, no, you didn't get it right because it's Deborah Russell. I know. I didn't think it was that either. I didn't know it. And you know what, it's my job to know this kind of stuff. But to be fair to me, in the entirety of this year thus far, Deborah has only put out 3 press releases on the climate and the third one was today. And guess what it was about? It was announcing that Deborah is going to the annual Global Climate conference, COP 30, and she's gonna be leaving on Sunday and she's gonna be coming back Saturday, which means she's there basically for a week because of course she is, because who doesn't want a week in Brazil on the boss's credit card. I see what Deborah's doing. But let's also see this for what it is, right? Deborah's contribution to the climate this year is 3 press releases and a long-haul flight to Brazil return. So all up, a net negative contribution to the climate, which pretty much is the story though. And just not to pick on Deborah here, because this is what everybody's doing. This is the story of every single COP, isn't it? Thousands of people fly into a place burning up who knows how many emissions, only to have a gab fest, issue a bunch of press releases and really achieve nothing. A massive net negative for the climate. That's what COP is. You know what the big news story out of COP is today? That it's failed. 1.5 is dead. It will not be achieved. This was what we were told we needed to do to save humanity. Hit 1.5, keep the temperature rises to 1.5, no more. We have known for a while that 1.5 is dead. It is now officially dead. So Deborah is flying to a conference that has already admitted that the aim of COP 26, which is four conferences ago, which was to keep 1.5 alive, is actually dead in the water. In which case, it begs the question, why do we keep wasting emissions to go to an annual get-together that fails every single year? I think I've got the answer, because it means a week in Brazil. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
So it turns out the woman with whom Jevon McSkimming had an affair, whose warnings police ignored and who police charged instead of investigating McSkimming, is still facing charges. This is the news today. And the police are having to defend this. Now, the charges don't relate to messages that she sent about McSkimming. Those charges have been dropped. They relate to messages that she allegedly sent to another policeman - the officer who originally arrested her - and the emails she allegedly sent to his wife. Now, this is undoubtedly going to look bad for police because it will look like they are still persecuting a victim. But how about we take the emotion out of it and look at it again? Just because Jevon McSkimming is a creep and clearly the villain of the story doesn't mean that she is necessarily innocent. I mean, look at the allegations. Allegedly emailing a police officer is one thing. Allegedly emailing his wife is something else. And this is after some pretty bunny-boiler behaviour, including sending 300 emails to McSkimming and others over a series of years. Now, there will be some people who have complete sympathy for her in this, who will say that the allegations show that she is a woman driven mad by being ignored and gaslit by the very people that she was asking for help. And that may well be true, and I suspect that it is, and I feel sorry for her, and I feel sorry for the horrible situation that Jevon McSkimming, the absolute creep, has put her in. But I still don't think it justifies alleged lawbreaking as a response, because that logic is the very same logic that is used by the soft judges who read cultural reports about offenders' childhoods and then excuse them for what they did because of what was originally done to them when they were kids. Do you follow what I'm saying? Now, having said all of that, if you're of the view that she only sent a bunch of emails, so who really cares? Then why do we have the law? Now, that's a fair debate. We can have a debate about that law because not everyone loves the Harmful Digital Communications Act. But if the law exists, and if you allegedly break that law and the police, despite realizing how bad it will look for them to charge you, still choose to charge you, then isn't there a case to answer? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Well, I think we can all see how this is going to end for Andrew Coster, and we could see that last night - he's gonna lose his job running a Government agency. No one in charge can say that yet because of employment law, but it is absolutely going to happen - because there is no way that a man can do what he has done at the highest levels of police and then possibly continue to earn an income from the taxpayer. Him losing his job is the right outcome here. But here's the question that I think is up for debate - is Andrew Coster a bad man? Or was he just bad at his job, showing poor judgment, incompetence, naivety, whatever? And I'm going to suggest that it was actually the latter. He's not a bad man, he was just bad at his job. It doesn't seem like he did what he did because he wanted to hide what Jevon McSkimming had done, it sounded more like he tried to make it go away because he didn't believe that it was true. It sounds like he believed McSkimming was just the victim of a really bad breakup - he'd ended an affair, she hadn't taken it well and now she was trying to destroy his reputation online, and so Andrew Coster seemed to have thought, maybe what he needed to do was try to prevent these horrible lies from destroying the career of a good man. So he tried to hurry things up and shut things down and hide emails from ministers and not tell the people appointing the next Police Commissioner that there were complaints against McSkimming, and he got angry at police officers who tried to raise concerns. Except, as it turns out, Andrew Coster was wrong. Jevon McSkimming was not a good man, he was a creep. And that woman's allegations should have been listened to. She wasn't destroying the career of a good man, she was alerting authorities to a bad man. But Andrew Coster was a police officer, and it is 101 of policing to investigate allegations and listen to complaints, not shut them down, so he failed at the very basics of his job. And unfortunately for him, while he may not be a bad man, he ended up doing things that I think we can agree are bad things - misleading, shutting down good police wanting to raise concerns, protecting a creep. Now I don't know, is there really that much difference in the end between being a bad man and being someone who thinks they're doing the right thing - but doing bad things? For him, the outcome is actually pretty much the same, whether he was bad or bad at his job. He has lost his job and he's lost his reputation. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Well, entirely predictably, the debate about selling state assets has already kicked off ahead of election year - with Winston calling the idea a 'tawdry, silly argument'. And Chris Luxon then shooting back that Winston's view is not surprising, because he's been there for 50 years, for goodness' sake, he's got a lot of entrenched views. I'm actually surprised that Luxon and National are prepared to take this to the election, because you can already see it, right? You know how it's gone in the past, this is going to get heated. And National is not really known at the moment for having the stomach for potentially unpopular ideas, so good on them for doing it - cause this has got to be done, if only to inject some private sector work ethic into these places. I don't even know if I need to lay this argument out for you, but I will: We know that the public sector is slower to get things done than the private sector, we know it's more likely to waste money, we know it's less likely to make money. We got the figures last week, just on sick leave. Public sector workers take more sick days than private sector workers. The partial sale of the power companies that happened under John Key's watch has already proved what can happen if you get some private discipline in there. I mean those four power companies are now worth twice what they were when we sold half of them, so we haven't lost any value. And they pay more dividends, and we got to put money in our pockets. And they've proven that we can do things differently to the way that it was done in the 80s and 90s, which freaked out Winston with the 100 percent sale of things like BNZ, 100 percent of BNZ, 100 percent of New Zealand Rail, 100 percent of Petrocorp. We can sell 49%, less than half and we can still control the business. We get the money out of it though, we get some discipline into it and we make even more money from it. Now, of course, I think the power company sales are an example of it going well. Others will blame those same sales for a drop-off in investment in renewable energy generation or an increase in power prices - which is exactly why this will be a contentious debate, because we all see it differently. So good on the Nats for having the courage, by the looks of things, to go there next election. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Well, at least someone's resigned at the BBC. In fact, two have resigned, both the director general and the boss of news - and the fact that this bias scandal at the BBC has claimed two of the most senior executives there tells you how serious it is. And it's not just serious for the BBC, it's serious for basically all the mainstream media outlets in the English-speaking world. Because even though the rest of us didn't splice together two pieces of what Donald Trump said to make it sound like he was encouraging his followers to take a fight to the capital, and even though the rest of us didn't hire the son of a Hamas official to voice a documentary about Gaza, many of us take the BBC's content, don't we? Often unchecked. There are some media organizations out there that are so beyond reproach that other media outlets - like ourselves - will take their content and not re-verify it, because it's the BBC and we shouldn't have to re-verify it. And if they're infected by bias, we all become infected by bias, don't we? Whether it's their obvious bias on Gaza, their bias on trans issues, their bias on Trump - which they have been well and truly busted for - their bias becomes everybody else's bias, because we're taking their content. This is the kind of stuff that has crashed and still continues to crash public trust in the media, because if you thought that the media was unfair on Trump, now you've been proven right. And if you thought that the media was soft on Hamas, now you've been proven right. If you thought that there was all this stuff going on where the media had fixed views on trans issues, now you've been proven right. All you need to do is look at that whistle-blower's dossier that was leaked last week. For the most part, that will explain all of it to you. And by the way, as a member of the media, my faith in the BBC has been really eroded by what's just happened - not just because they sliced together two pieces of Trump's speech to make him say something he didn't say, but because they knew it and sat on it for so long. This happened a year ago. It took a whistle-blower's frustration to eventually write a dossier and then to leak it explicitly - because the BBC weren't doing anything about it - for the BBC to actually do something about it, like the resignations that we've seen in the last 24 hours. It's not good enough what's happened at the BBC, and jeez, if this is how media outlets are still behaving in 2025, despite all the evidence that they are losing public trust - it's gonna take a really long time for us all to get it back. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Heather du Plessis-Allan reveals the details of the report into Dame Noeline Taurua. The report includes the complaints from Silver Ferns players which lead to her being stood down in September. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
I think I am more interested in seeing how Zoran Mamdani goes than any other Democrat that I can remember in a very, very, very long time, because I genuinely am not sure if this is gonna go brilliantly for him. And he's the next big thing, or he's the next big disappointment, because there is no way, is there? Like, no way at all he's gonna be able to do everything that he's promised. I mean, he might be able to do a rent freeze in New York City. Sure, that's an easy thing to do. That's a stroke of a pen. Off you go. But it might backfire. Like it might lead to fewer housing units being added, which ultimately makes the problem worse. He can pick something else to do. He could do free childcare, hugely expensive. He could add a 2% tax on incomes over $1 million, but he may find those incomes start disappearing from his city. Either way, he's gonna have to pick some of his pet projects and go with just a few of them, because doing absolutely everything is just not gonna happen. And that's gonna lead to disappointment surely for the voters who truly believe he can do all these things. My gut though says that the disappointment will not be great, because if there's one thing we learned from Donald Trump, it's that breaking promises doesn't actually really matter that much if you represent something to voters. Donald Trump represented the anti-establishment, so people stuck with him even when he broke his promises. Mamdani represents the anti-Trump, so I think people will stick with him even if he breaks his promises. I actually suspect, by the way, that this is going to be very good for Donald Trump. I think he's going to love having Mamdani around because he will be able to use everything that Mamdani does to berate him and the Democrats. Every time a promise is broken, he's going to, because Mamdani is the opposite of him, right? So Mamdani just becomes the bad guy in all of his stories from here on and he pumps himself up. However this goes for Mamdani, I think we can all agree this is now turning into a must-see show. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Originally broadcast November 6, 2025 Intimate partner violence affects more women in the United States than breast cancer and diabetes combined. Health care providers can be a lifeline for survivors, yet many still struggle to know how to talk about it or where to begin. In this Conversations on Health Care episode, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Virginia Duplessis, associate director at Futures Without Violence and director of the National Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence. Duplessis... Read More Read More The post Intimate Partner Violence: Health Care Providers' Role appeared first on Healthy Communities Online.
How good is this idea of bringing Michelin to New Zealand in the hope that some of our restaurants will get some stars awarded? Now, this is not free. We have to pay for it and we have to pay actually quite a lot of money for it. It's costing Tourism New Zealand nearly six and a half million dollars, and that's just for the first three years. And I don't know how much you have to pay after that. But take a look at what the Aussies did when they looked at this last year. It was going to cost them $4 million for the first year, $5 million for the second year, $7.5 million for the next year, and then basically for a few years thereafter, something like another three years, it was going to cost them another $7.5 million. By my calculations, in the space of five or six years, they were going to have to fork out to Michelin about $40 million. Aussies looked at it, said, nah, but we've said yes, and I reckon we are doing the right thing. This is grown-up, first world tourism. I think about the trip that I just did last weekend to Melbourne with a couple of girlfriends. Food was a huge part of it. The one of us who was doing the bookings found the good places to eat. They found the places that everybody in Melbourne is talking about, got us into those places, lunch and dinner. This is what tourists do. They come to a city for an event, then they tag on great food, find all the great restaurants and go try them out. And here in New Zealand, we are really good at food. The entire time that I was in Melbourne, I kept thinking that for all the raving that people do about Melbournian eateries, actually in New Zealand, you can get just as good, if not, in my opinion, a whole lot better. And actually, paying $6 million for this is not really all that much. When you think about what gets spent on tourism campaigns that you can never actually be sure really work. Back in April, the government pumped twice as much as this, $13 and a half million into advertising New Zealand to Aussies. What do you get for that? I mean, you get maybe a guess that some Aussie tourists came here as a result. For this money that we're giving to Michelin, you get actual stars potentially. You get international prestige. You get the sense for tourists that they have landed in a first world city eating international great food. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
I'm baffled by the Police Commissioner writing that open letter telling off Stuff today. You probably missed this thing when it actually happened, which was back in September, but in the week that Tom Phillips was shot and the kids were saved from the bush, Stuff got its hands on some of the audio of the police chase, and they published it. And they got in trouble with the coppers immediately, and then the cops started an investigation into Stuff. Today, the police boss, Richard Chambers has written an open letter in both main newspaper outlets - as in the Stuff guys and the New Zealand Herald, saying the police have decided not to charge Stuff, but don't do this again, it's really, really bad. Now, I cannot explain to you why Richard Chambers thought this was a good idea - because either way you look at this, this is not a good look. I mean, it either looks like he's trying to bully the media into being good boys and girls, or he hasn't got the cojones to actually do the thing that he's threatened and just go and prosecute Stuff. But what's even weirder about it is - I just don't think that this warranted the cops getting this vexed about it. I mean, as I said, you probably missed it when it happened, because the audio wasn't that interesting. It was mildly informative, because it told us that the police officer who got shot was alone and exposed like we suspected. And it showed how he got in touch with various members of the community, locals, to find out if they could hear Tom Phillips on the quad bike, so that he could track Phillips down. But really, other than that, it wasn't interesting enough to draw public attention to it again - unless of course, you are trying to bully Stuff. And while I think this audio wasn't that interesting, I did find it refreshing, actually, to have a media outlet be brave for once and publish something that the authorities didn't want them to publish and tell the public something that the authorities didn't want them to know - basically doing their job. So on the whole, I think I'm on the side of Stuff on this one. Mainly because I don't like what this looks like, which is the police trying to publicly shame them for doing their job. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
#efc #mma #ufc #dricusduplessis #podcast #storytimepodcast For more information on Knox Hydration & the Founders Legacy Fund visit: http://knoxhydrate.com/founderslegacyfund In this episode of Storytime, Joshua sits down with Graeme Cartmell, VP of Talent for the EFC, to talk about the upcoming title fights set to shake up 2025. The conversation dives into the early days of the EFC, Dricus du Plessis' beginnings in MMA, and the global excitement around his upcoming clash with Khamzat Chimaev. Graeme reflects on working in a family-run business, the evolution of African MMA, and the process of discovering the next great fighter. He also shares insight into how the EFC develops athletes for the world stage, their pipeline to the UFC, and the organization's relationship with Dana White and his team.USE CODE "SUPERJOSHUA10" to get your discount on any purchase with Super Mushrooms. Visit https://supermushrooms.co.za/ for more. Don't forget to like and subscribe FOR MORE INFO EFC - https://www.instagram.com/efcworldwide/ Graeme Cartmell - https://www.instagram.com/efcgraeme/Dylan Ray - https://www.instagram.com/imdylanray/ Joshua Eady - https://www.instagram.com/justblamejosh/Storytime Podcast - https://www.instagram.com/storytimepodcastjosh/
Regter Marlize du Plessis het die Fishrot-beskuldigde Sacky Shanghala se aansoek om verlof tot appèl van die hand gewys. Die voormalige justisieminister wou teen haar vorige uitspraak, wat hom slegs beperkte toegang tot bykomende dokumente gegee het, appelleer. In haar beslissing het Du Plessis verklaar dat Shanghala geen buitengewone omstandighede aangetoon het om 'n appèl te regverdig nie. Sy het haar voorneme beklemtoon om voort te gaan met die lank uitgestelde Fishrot-verhoor, wat sedert 2019 vasgevang is. Alle partye is opdrag gegee om 'n voorverhoorkonferensie by te woon wat vir 25 November geskeduleer is.
The primary election in the New Orleans mayor's race is just over a week away, and here on Louisiana Considered, we're bringing you conversations with the top 3 candidates. Today, we'll hear from state Senator Royce Duplessis (D-LA). He spoke to the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate's editorial director and columnist Stephanie Grace about the tactics behind his campaign, his plans if elected and why he believes his lack of city council experience is an asset. Solitary confinement is the subject of a new book co-written by incarcerated journalists and outside experts. It argues that the practice — which has been used in Louisiana — hurts mental health and doesn't make prisons safer.A mobile museum paired to the book arrives in New Orleans by bus later this month. The Gulf States Newsroom's Kat Stromquist spoke with co-author and incarcerated writer Christopher Blackwell about the book, “Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement.”___Today's episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Alana Schreiber. Our managing producer is Alana Schrieber. Matt Bloom and Aubry Procell are assistant producers. Our engineer is Garrett Pittman.You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at noon and 7 p.m. It's available on Spotify, Google Play and wherever you get your podcasts. Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you're at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you'd like to listen to.Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!
Brendan Schaub recaps UFC 319 Khamzat Chimaev vs Dricus Du Plessis and explains why DDP will never beat Khamzat Chimaev, how other fighters have only one way of beating Khamzat, how Khamzat's win might seem boring to some but it's no different than MLB pitchers pitching a shutout, how Brendan personally witnessed Khamzat finishing world class wrestlers/fighters in his camp, Aaron Pico's UFC debut being so good but can't get over the heap of fighting top tier fighters, why fighters from other organizations almost always get destroyed by UFC fighters, Dana White saying Jon Jones fighting at the White House is a one in a billion shot, this weekend's UFC China card with Johnny Walker fighting Zhang Mingyang and much more.Shopify - https://shopify.com/schaubMint Mobile - Get your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at https://mintmobile.com/schaubProgressive - https://www.progressive.com/Drive Fast All Gas Giveaway - Enter to win my Custom 800+ Horsepower RAM TRX + $10K cash: https://drivefastallgas.com/collections/new-releasesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Khamzat Chimaev is the brand new UFC middleweight champion as he dominated Dricus du Plessis for 25 lopsided minutes in the main event of UFC 319. Now that Chimaev has shown he can deliver big results in a five-round fight, is there anybody at middleweight who can beat him? Following Saturday's pay-per-view event, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew react to the card, Chimaev's impressive showing, the fan reaction, and who could be next for "Borz" and du Plessis. Additionally, they recap Lerone Murphy's Knockout of the Year contender against Aaron Pico, Murphy getting champ Alexander Volkanovski's attention, other standout moments, and much more. Follow Mike Heck: @m_heckjr Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Khamzat Chimaev is finally getting his chance at UFC gold, but will Dricus du Plessis keep him waiting? This Saturday at United Center in Chicago, du Plessis puts his middleweight title on the line against Chimaev in the main event of UFC 319. It's the biggest fight of the year and one with major stakes as to the future of both competitors. Will Chimaev finally grab gold or will du Plessis stake his claim as one of the best fighters on Earth? Ahead of this weekend's event, MMA Fighting's Alexander K. Lee and Jed Meshew preview the the middleweight title fight main event, the co-main event bout between Aaron Pico and Lerone Murphy, Bryan Battle's tough weight miss, the rest of Saturday's big event, and much more. Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell are joined in studio by special guest, UFC lightweight Matt Frevola, to break down the UFC Middleweight Championship fight between Dricus Du Plessis and Khamzat Chimaev. Plus the fellas go over the rest of the UFC 319 card. This edition of Pregame Preview is sponsored by Cuervo.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This Saturday, the highly anticipated UFC middleweight championship bout takes place in Chicago in the main event of UFC 319. Dricus du Plessis puts his championship on the line for the third time against the undefeated Khamzat Chimaev. What is at stake for both fighters outside of the championship belt? On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel discusses the wildly intriguing fight between du Plessis and Chimaev, and what a win can mean for both men. Additionally, topics may include Aaron Pico's UFC debut against Lerone Murphy in the co-main event and Pico getting the attention of featherweight champ Alexander Volkanovski, the UFC's multi-billion dollar new streaming deal with Paramount, Dana White promising fighter pay will go up with the bonuses, and much more. Follow Mike Heck: @m_heckjr Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
We're on the road and we missed Hard Knocks but we're talking some ball with some NFL futures and Michael Porter Jr is addicted to women (00:00:00-00:24:41). Hot Seat/Cool Throne including John Mateers venmo transactions and Shohei getting sued (00:24:41-00:50:46). Mt Rushmore of unsexy things that we find sexy (00:50:46-01:11:13). A Special Guest joins the show to hang out, talk football, hottest guys in Hollywood and more (01:11:13-01:25:12). Dricus Du Plessis joins us in studio to talk about his upcoming fight at UFC 319, trash talking, how long we could last in a fight against him, his style and tons more (01:25:12-02:07:51). Dana White joins the show to talk about the massive deal with UFC and Paramount Plus, UFC 319, getting oiled up and more (02:07:51-02:30:02). We finish with listener submitted pardon your takes (02:30:02-02:42:19).You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/pardon-my-take
Before Dricus du Plessis and Khamzat Chimaev battle in a UFC middleweight championship bout at UFC 319, check out the roads each fighter took to Saturday's main event matchup. Follow Mike Heck: @mikeheck_jr Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
On today's episode of UFC Unfiltered, we break down the massive Paramount + TKO deal — a jaw-dropping 7-year, $7.7 BILLION U.S. rights agreement starting in 2026. First, Jim and Matt catch up with middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis — gearing up for his fourth straight title fight and third defense. Dricus weighs in on Saturday's epic UFC 319 title showdown against Khamzat Chimaev and shares whether he thinks his unique style is finally getting the respect it deserves. Next, the guys chat with viral slam KO artist Elijah Smith. Now $50K richer after sending a message to the bantamweight division, the 22-year-old talks about his journey from football to MMA. In the back half of the interview, Elijah's ex-UFC fighter dad joins in to share his perspective as Elijah's trainer and mentor. Listen in as the guys break down the wild action from last weekend's UFC Fight Night and make their picks for Saturday's UFC 319 card!