Podcast appearances and mentions of John Macdonald

In this episode, host Grady Sheffield, the director of Campus Recreation at Towson University and senior advisor to Campus Rec Magazine, chats with John MacDonald, the director of Campus Recreation Services at the University of Utah. MacDonald didn't follow the traditional path into campus rec. With roots in outdoor retail and no undergraduate experience in recreation, he stepped into the field by building an outdoor program from the ground up. Since then, his career has been defined by authenticity, humility and a passion for connecting people — both on campus and beyond. Sheffield and MacDonald dive into the nuances of team development, the role of data in storytelling and what it really means to be a connector on campus. MacDonald's leadership philosophy is a masterclass in meeting people where they are while never losing sight of the mission.

We can safely say that someone who rides their motorbike at 110 kph in a 50 kph area is a threat. We can also safely say that someone who rides their motorbike at 110 kph in a 50 kph area and runs a red light is a danger. We can also safely say that someone who rides their motorbike at 110 kph in a 50 kph area, runs a red light and kills two pedestrians is a menace. This is a real-life story. And, upfront, I'm going to say that the person responsible is someone who should never be allowed to ride a motorbike or drive a car again. But under current laws, he can. And he is going to be allowed to. The person I'm talking about is Mark Kimber. And, in July 2022, he was doing exactly what I've just described. On Friday, he was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for the manslaughter of Karen and Geoffrey Boucher. And when he gets out of prison, his licence will be taken off him for three years. The Bouchers had been out for dinner at a restaurant in Bethlehem, about 8 kilometres from Tauranga, and were crossing the road when they were killed by this guy. Both of them died at the scene. But here's where it gets worse. If it could. Before the crash, he had 11 prior convictions for bad driving. These included careless driving, speeding, drink-driving, dangerous driving, failing to stop and driving while suspended. He also had 70 driving infringements on his record. What's more, in the time between the fatal crash and his appearance in court, he was done for speeding twice. Which tells me that this guy has proven that he will never change and he should never be allowed to have a driver's licence again. Tell that to the sentencing judge, though. Who seemed to think that this guy's childhood needed to be taken into account when she was sentencing him for the manslaughter of this innocent couple. I'm not going to get too bogged down on that side of it. Because it's the fact that this judge thinks losing his licence for three years is a tough enough penalty. At the moment, someone in New Zealand can lose their licence indefinitely and can only get it back if they've proved that they've done something about their drinking or drug-taking. But I don‘t think this guy should ever be allowed to drive again. Because he has shown time and time again that he doesn't give a stuff about anyone else on the road. If anything, it's the two speeding offences he committed between the time of the crash and his day in court that ram it home for me. When someone kills two people like this guy did, you would think that they might be a bit more cautious on the road. Especially, knowing that're going to be hauled through the court for it. But Mark Kimber didn't take his foot of the pedal. And it's my view that people like him need to be kept off our roads for good. And, instead of “indefinite disqualification” being the strongest punishment we hand out to repeat offenders like him, we should be taking their driver's licences off them for good. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Hutt Zone with John MacDonald focuses on the people, issues, events, and music that shape the Hutt Valley community.

Not as straightforward as it sounds. That's pretty much the message coming through loud and clear in this new report which says importing liquified natural gas to make up for our dwindling local supplies is do-able. But. You'll remember how, last year, when we had factories closing and people paying through the nose for their electricity, talk turned to what could be done, especially given we are at-risk of not having the gas needed to generate power. So the Government brought up the idea of importing liquified natural gas. Fast-forward a few months and four of the big companies have put their heads together, looking into the practicalities of importing gas. The outcome is this report out today effectively saying we could do it, but there are a few things to think about. The main ones being the price tag and how long it would take to get it happening. First up, the cost. Up to $1 billion. That's to get the infrastructure needed so that we can bring the gas in and store it. It could be done cheaper, but the gas would be 25% more expensive. Secondly, if we're up for that kind of spend, it wouldn't be an overnight fix. It would be about four years before we started to see the benefits. Another main point in this report is that we could spend the money and wait for it all to come online, but there could be years when we don't even need the extra gas. That's because power generation in New Zealand uses a combination of hydro, gas, and wind. And in the years when we have plenty of rain and the hydro lakes are full, for example, we might not need to import gas. So we could go down the route of spending all this money over the next four years —setting ourselves up— and the demand for gas that we might have now not being the same down the track. But that's a bit like pouring money into a fire alarm and sprinkler system and not using it, you know it's there and give it gives you security. That's how I see this gas importation business – it would be a back-up. And so-what if it wasn't needed all the time? The question facing us now is what do we do now that we have a better idea about the complexities and the cost? Paul Goodeve, chief executive of the Clarus energy company, thinks we need to ask ourselves whether it's worth doing without getting obsessed about the cost. Because as I said earlier, it could be done cheaper —at around $200 million— but that would mean the gas would be 25% more expensive. I'm no doubt that we have to bite the bullet and press go, and press go on the expensive option. Because if you or I, or the Greens or whoever, think that this is nuts and we shouldn't be importing gas and we should all have solar panels on the roof, that's la-la land. If you listen to the likes of Greenpeace, they'll say that importing gas shouldn't even be an option and we should be going full-bore with solar and wind power generation. Again, la-la land. Because the reality is, we need a mix of generation options. And even though it looks like importing liquified gas might not be as straightforward as we might have thought when the government started talking about it last year, what are the alternatives? Crossing our fingers and hoping for the best? No thanks. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you think the Government and councils would be “morally bankrupt” if they stopped paying people out when their properties are so flood-damaged that they can't live there anymore? And would you feel the same about people living in areas at risk of flooding being forced to pay more for flood schemes and sea walls because they're the ones who benefit most? That's what a panel of experts is recommending to the Government. But a climate policy expert is saying that would be, you guessed it, “morally bankrupt”. And I agree. What's more, I think this approach would let councils off the hook for allowing places to be built in crazy, at-risk locations. What's happened, is an independent reference group set up by the Ministry for the Environment has come up with a list of recommendations to help the Government work on some climate adaptation legislation. Adaptation being what you do when something like climate change and sea-level rise threatens to take-out an area. This group is made up of economists, people from the banking and insurance sectors, local government and iwi. So a wide range of people. And if I there's an overarching theme to their advice, it would be this: “You're on your own buddy.” And instead of looking to the councils and governments for hand-outs and direction, people should have to decide for themselves if they're going to stay living where they are. And if their properties get flooded and there's no way they can keep on living there, then they shouldn't expect their local council or Wellington to buy them out. Talk about hardcore. Talk about morally bankrupt. This group of experts isn't stopping there, either. It's also saying that, if you live in an area where there is a risk of flooding and things like sea walls and flood schemes are needed, then you and your neighbours should pay more for those things because you're the ones who benefit the most. So, if we apply that to some of the things that have happened here in Canterbury, that would mean people in the Flockton Basin area in Christchurch, paying more for the privilege of living somewhere that used to flood at the drop of a hat. Remember that? And how the council poured truckloads of money into a pumping system that stopped the water overflowing in the Dudley Creek area and flooding the streets and houses? The Christchurch City Council spent $49 million on a flood mitigation scheme in Flockton Basin. Elsewhere in town, it spent about $70 million to deal with flooding issues along the Heathcote River. That included buying-out people's houses. Some friends of mine had their place bought out as part of that scheme. But under these recommendations to the Government, the people in Flockton Basin would be expected to pay more than the rest of us because they're the ones who are benefiting directly from their streets and houses not flooding anymore. Also under these recommendations, my mates wouldn't have their house bought out by the council – even though they can't live there anymore because it keeps flooding I would hate to see us take this approach. Which is why agree with climate policy expert, Emeritus Professor Jonathan Boston from Victoria University, who is saying today that leaving people high and not necessarily dry like this would be “morally bankrupt”. He says: "One of the core responsibilities of any government is to protect its citizens and to deal with natural disasters and so on. That is above almost anything else." He's also criticising this group's recommendation that any changes be phased-in within the next 20 years, saying that the risks and impacts of climate change are going to continue evolving beyond this 20-year deadline. He says to put an end-date on it is "Morally bankrupt and highly undesirable". And, as I say, it would let councils off-the-hook. Because for me, if a council gives consent for something to built somewhere, then that same council needs to carry the can if it turns out that that something is somewhere it shouldn't be. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chris Hipkins is doubling down on saying the Covid Response Inquiry's terms seems to provide a platform for conspiracy views. The Labour leader also said the second phase —that began this week— excludes looking at any decisions made when NZ First was in Government. Hipkins told John MacDonald opinions from the likes of Brian Tamaki and Liz Gunn deserve to be heard but shouldn't overshadow submission on other experiences. He says if the Government's genuine in wanting all voices heard, it's important for it not to be dominated by a few people. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Labour leader and former Covid-19 Minister Chris Hipkins thinks phase two of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Covid-19 response is a platform for conspiracy theorists, and he is non-committal about turning-up to give evidence. The most committed I've heard him so far is saying that he's working on some written responses. But if that turns out to be the extent of his involvement, then he can forget about being prime minister again. Because let me remind you of a couple of things. While it was the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who, generally, fronted the Government's Covid response. It was Hipkins —as Covid Minister— who drove it behind the scenes. Secondly, if it was good enough for former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to front up in person to the UK's Covid inquiry, then it is more than good enough for Chris Hipkins to front up in person to our inquiry. In December 2023, Boris Johnson spent two days being grilled by the committee of MPs, which had the job of looking into how his government handled the pandemic. This is the guy who told people they had to isolate at home and then had parties at 10 Downing Street. This is the guy who disappeared to his country house when Covid was running rampant. This is the guy who, somehow, lost 5,000 WhatsApp messages from his phone, which couldn't be used as evidence at the inquiry. This is the same guy who told the UK inquiry that he was the victim of not being properly informed about the seriousness of Covid. Boris Johnson is the guy who is widely considered to have cocked-up the response in Britain but who, despite all that, fronted-up to take questions and take the heat over two days. And it wasn't pleasant for him. He was grilled. But say what you like about Boris Johnson, at least he fronted up. From what I've seen, at no point did Boris Johnson dismiss the inquiry in Britain as a platform for conspiracy theorists. At no point did Boris Johnson bang-on about the Covid inquiry in Britain creating an opportunity for theatrics from conspiracy theorists. And, at no point, did Boris Johnson hide behind written responses and weasel words. But that is exactly what Chris Hipkins is doing. He says he wants to be “cooperative” but “I don't want to see a whole lot of theatrics. I'm very interested in engaging with them on how we can capture the lessons”. To be fair, Hipkins probably does have a point about the time period covered by phase two of the inquiry and how it, conveniently, leaves out the time NZ First was in coalition with Labour, but he needs to get over that. Just like he needs to get over the fact that, yes, there will be no shortage of conspiracy theorists turning up at the inquiry. But so what? It's a free world. And we can decide for ourselves how much credence we want to give them. But Chris Hipkins shouldn't be free to decide for himself whether he fronts up in person at the Covid inquiry, or not. He was Covid Minister and he has to front. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Isn't it funny how the Government likes to talk about government support needing to be based on need, but seems to forget about all that when it comes to those nice middle-class people. Of which I am one. I'm not claiming to be nice, but I am what you would call middle-class. Which makes me fully qualified to ask why a family bringing in $229,000 a year should get taxpayer support to pay for their kids' early childhood education. It also makes me highly qualified to answer that question, and to say that a family earning that amount of money doesn't need or deserve that level of taxpayer support. The Government has expanded its FamilyBoost scheme, which is all about letting parents claim back some of the money they pay early childhood centres. The Government's done it because not as many people were taking advantage of the scheme as it had expected and which Finance Minister Nicola Willis had budgeted for. Before yesterday's announcement, families earning up to $180,000 a year were eligible to claim back 25% of their early childhood fees. Now families earning as much as $229,000 will be able to claim back 40% of their early childhood fees and I find it impossible to see how that can be justified. Granted, I'm looking at this through the eyes of someone who had kids going through the early childhood system 15-to-20 years ago. I'm also looking at it through the eyes of someone in Canterbury as opposed to somewhere like Auckland. Nevertheless, I still don't see why or how the Government thinks a couple earning that amount of money —way more than 200k a year— needs financial support. I saw some parents on the news last night at the centre in Wellington where Nicola Willis turned up to make the announcement yesterday, and they were all for it. But, of course they would be. I can say that because I know how, when you've got pre-school kids, you're still getting over the hit it has on the finances. You might be down to one parent working – that's if there are two of you. You've possibly got a decent-sized mortgage. Or you're paying rent. So, of course, you're going to think you need a leg-up wherever you can get it. But what parents of very young kids don't tend to think about is that it doesn't get any cheaper. In fact, it gets more expensive the older the kids get. Which brings me my other criticism of this expansion of the FamilyBoost scheme: what about the parents of older kids? What about the parents who have got kids at high school and have to come up with money for all sorts of things, such as uniforms, sports trips, music trips, laptops. You name it. Not that I'm saying that every parent with kids at the high school stage deserve the kind of carte-blanche handout the Government's giving parents who have got kids going to pre-school. But it highlights further how expanding the FamilyBoost scheme just doesn't make sense. And I think the opposition parties can be accused of tiptoeing around the issue. Especially Labour, which is banging on about the Government's changes yesterday to the FamilyBoost programme being “desperate”. Megan Woods is Labour's acting finance spokesperson and she's saying today that the Government is scrambling to help families dealing with the cost-of-living crisis. She's saying: "If Nicola Willis truly understood the cost-of-living crisis, then she'd have acted a long time ago." But what Megan Woods should be doing is ripping into the Government for thinking that families earning just on $230,000-a-year need government support to pay for their kids to go to pre-school. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government wants to free-up the laws relating to citizens' arrests. But should this include letting retail staff detain children and young people caught shoplifting? The Chief Children's Commissioner, Dr Claire Achmad, is saying today that it shouldn't. And I agree with her. But not for the same reason. She says allowing shop owners and shop staff to detain young people would contravene the right of children to be free from violence. She says that right applies to kids anywhere and everywhere - including in shops and retail outlets. Even when they're nicking stuff. Dr Achmad says shop staff have every right to ask for stolen stuff to be handed over. But it wouldn't be fair on the young offenders if the people in the shops also had the right to detain them. And I agree with her. But not for the same reason. Overall, I'm 50/50 on this idea of citizens arrests. At the moment, there are limitations on when and where they can be done. But the Government wants to loosen those limitations. And isn't ruling out loosening them to the point where shopkeepers could detain kids stealing stuff. When I say I'm 50/50, I'm all for security guards getting stronger powers to detain people. Providing they get the right training. But as for the rest of us. Forget about it. As for shopkeepers arresting young people. Forget about it. Because it's got danger written all over it. Danger from over-enthusiastic vigilantes going overboard. And danger for the people taking these young crims on. Which is why I don't want to see people in shops being given the green light to arrest or detain kids and young people stealing their stuff. That's where I differ from the Chief Children's Commissioner. She's opposed because of the kids' right to be protected from violence. I'm opposed because of the danger to retailers who, collectively, lose about $2.5 billion every year through retail crime. I detest shoplifting just as much as the next person. But if we give shop owners and shop workers the power to make citizens arrests of kids and young people caught stealing their stuff any time, any place - what do you think will happen? It would mean unfair pressure being placed on, often young, retail workers to intervene and put themselves at risk. I know some retailers would tell their staff either not to intervene or only do so if they felt confident enough to. But there would also be some employers who would see a law change as a licence to require their staff to intervene. And, as we've seen countless times, just because someone is 11, 12 or 13, it doesn't make them any less of a risk or less or a danger. There are kids who carry weapons. There are kids who have no regard for other people and who are quite prepared to use these weapons. Do we really want shop staff being given the powers to take these kids on and to try and arrest them? Of course we don't. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Hutt Zone with John MacDonald focuses on the people, issues, events, and music that shape the Hutt Valley community.

Today on Politics Friday, John MacDonald was joined by National's Vanessa Weenink and Labour's Reuben Davidson to break down the biggest issues of the week. They discussed student loan repayments – is there something that can be done to bring overseas loan holders back to New Zealand? Global companies like Uber are paying minimal tax over here – are we being ripped off? And ACC is planning to be more scrupulous when paying claims due to pressure from the Government to run a tighter ship. How will this play out? LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I didn't do any study after I left school —no university, no polytech— so I've never had a student loan. I know about debt though, thanks to the mortgage. And I reckon it would be very easy for me, as someone who has never had to pay off a student loan but who knows what it's like to have the responsibilities of a mortgage, to dismiss what a former IRD prosecutor is saying today. A former IRD prosecutor who says we need to go a bit easy on New Zealanders living overseas who are way behind in their student loan payments and are too scared to set foot here because they think they'll be arrested at the border. Dave Ananth is a tax barrister who has done work for IRD in the past. He says it's crazy that, at a time when we want and need skilled people working here, we are so hardcore with these people that they're just not coming back. Because they're too scared to come back. And I agree with him. Which kind of surprises me because I'm normally big on people not shying away from responsibilities and all that. But when you consider some real-life examples, I reckon it's very easy to appreciate the argument for change. Dave Ananth is saying it's all very well going overseas, but that doesn't mean people walk into well-paying jobs. The grass doesn't always turn out to be greener. So what he's calling for IRD to be lenient enough so that these Kiwis aren't scared of coming back. He says a bit of leeway would go a long way. One approach he thinks could work is IRD talking to these people and seeing if they could apply for some grace on the basis of hardship. Or agree to letting them come back, pay a few hundred dollars for a start and see how it goes. And I don't see anything wrong with that. Because what would you rather have? These people stuck overseas owing all this money? Or would you rather they were here making a genuine contribution to the country? It's a no-brainer. As this tax lawyer says, if nothing changes, it probably means some of these people never setting foot in New Zealand because they could potentially be arrested. Kiwis who have expertise in the likes of engineering and technology. There are medical people he says would be here if they didn't have the threat of arrest hanging over them. And he's giving some real-life examples to back up his argument. Such as a New Zealander living in Australia whose loan has blown-out to $170,000, mostly because of interest. Back in 2014, this guy completed his pilot training but couldn't find any flying work here, so he went over to Australia and worked as a commercial pilot for six years. Things got tricky for him when Covid hit, there was no more flying for him, and he had to take a low-paying job in a storage warehouse. Which meant he got way behind in his loan payments. Then there's the case of a woman living in the United States. Her debt has blown-out to $70,000 —$55,000 of that from interest— and she isn't coming home to see her sick mother because she's terrified she's going to be arrested at the border. As she says: "I've been petrified something's going to happen to my mum and she's going to pass away and I'm not even going to be able to go there." I was talking to someone this morning who said they went overseas for just a year, and it cost them $1,000. So there is no shortage of stories that show how this system just isn't doing anyone any favours. It's not doing the people with the student loans living overseas any favours and it's not doing the rest of us any favours. Because these people have the skills and expertise we are crying out for. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When there's an election campaign happening, how much do you care about the cost of the policies the political parties are pushing? Or, more to the point, how willing are you to trust the politicians when they say they've done the numbers, and they all stack up? My willingness to trust them is very low. Which is why I think we will be all the poorer for ACT and NZ First voting down the plan for a publicly-funded outfit that would have done the numbers and worked out the actual cost of election policies. Because until now, all we've been able to do is take the politicians on their word. And it's going to stay that way. Not that the concept of a separate costing agency is an overnight thing or a new thing. The idea has been around since 2016, when Green MP Metiria Turei first raised it. In fact, what she wanted —and what the Labour Party wanted too— was broader than what Finance Minister Nicola Willis eventually proposed to Cabinet. But which is now history thanks to the two minor coalition parties. Nicola Willis' version would have made the government of the day's financial information available to political parties when they were putting their policies together. But even that watered-down version was too much for ACT and NZ First, with David Seymour saying that it isn't warranted, because he doesn't think it would stop messy election-year debates about how party policies might be paid for. But it raises the question about election promises and whether us voters are still sucked in by the political promises on their own, or whether we are more discerning and whether we think it would be good to have more transparency. More scrutiny. I want more scrutiny. Because without it, all we have to go on is gut instinct. Or the believability of politicians. All politicians of all stripes and colours I'm talking about here – all we can do is take them on their word. Before I hold up National's tax cuts as an example of why we need a publicly-funded agency to go through political policies with a fine-tooth comb, let me remind of you of that daft idea Labour had before the last election of taking GST off fruit and vegetables. At first blush, it might have sounded like a good idea. But I wasn't sold. I don't think many of us were, because we had no idea how effective it would be. Not just from the perspective of whether it would actually make fruit and veggies more affordable, but also what it could mean for government coffers. Grant Robertson always poo-pooed the idea but then, somehow magically, came around to the idea just before the election. And there he was, telling us that he'd done the numbers and he'd realised that, actually, it would have all stacked up financially and we'd all have kiwifruit and broccoli coming out of our ears. But without the proof, it was all hot air. Same thing with National's tax cuts. We were told it was going to mean more money in our pockets, but not a lot was said about how out-of-pocket the Government might be because of it, and what that would mean down the track. And what happened? The tax cuts went ahead, and government revenue dropped. That foreign buyers tax was another one. The only expert analysis we had to rely on was what all the so-called “independent experts” roped-in by all the parties had to say about the policies they were roped-in to comment on. And all that did was create all the usual noise and confusion and we were back to voting on gut instinct because who knew what the hell to make of what was being said left, right and centre? How different things would be if all of these brilliant vote-catching ideas were put through the wringer by an independent, publicly-funded agency. How better informed we would all be. And how careful the politicians would be about selling us snakeoil policies that we only end up regretting falling for. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Having sold more than 30 million albums worldwide, legendary English rock band 10CC is celebrating their anniversary in style, their world tour bringing them to New Zealand's shores. They'll be hitting up Christchurch on the 10th of July, performing at the Isaac Theatre Royal. Co-lead singer and base player Graham Gouldman joined John MacDonald for a chat about life in the band, as well as reflecting on his growing appreciation for the songs. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government has obviously decided that its law and order week. It started with tougher sentences for people who attack first responders and prison officers – which is a good thing. Then it was tougher sentences for people who dish out coward punches – that can't come soon enough. And the latest are these tougher measures to try and do something about the rate of shoplifting. Again, something I've got no argument against. But here's where the seed of doubt starts to emerge. When it comes to crime, pretty much the only thing governments can do is make sure there are laws in place to try and deal with it adequately. The last government was accused of being easy-osey on crime. The previous Police Commissioner was accused of being the same. Then, National especially, promised things would be different under its watch, which is why we're seeing all these announcements this week. But where the rubber hits the road is what is actually done to catch the criminals —that's where the police come into it— and, once they are caught, what punishments are actually handed out to them. Which is where the justice system comes into it. And those two areas are where I see the Government's good intentions struggling. Because you ask anyone and they'll tell you that the cops are struggling to keep on top of things as it is. Even with a change in Police Commissioner —with the new guy seeming to be much more up the Government's street than the last guy— the police are still struggling to cope with their workload, aren't they? That's not a criticism of the police, it's just how things are. So that's one stumbling block. The other one is the justice system. How confident are you that, even when these criminals do make it to court, the judges they appear before aren't going to be unswayed by the usual talk about hard upbringings and misfortune and “poor decision-making”? In some respects, I see that as more of a problem than the lack of police resources. And when I say the justice system, I'm not just talking about the judges, I'm also talking about the people who represent these criminals. Because I think there is a systemic issue within the justice system that has taken years to develop and which, I believe, will take years to change. Where the lawyers fight for minimum sentences and where the judges often, it seems, fall for it. Which is why people are asking why the Government isn't requiring minimum sentences for shoplifting, coward punches, and attacks on first responders and corrections staff. It's setting higher maximum sentences, but no minimum sentences. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said on Newstalk ZB today that the Government might look at minimum sentences, but not for now. Despite the precedent that has been set with some of the ridiculously low sentences we've seen in our courts in recent times. Which is why, although I'm pleased the Government is doing what it's doing, I have serious doubts that the police and the justice system will deliver what the Government wants. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I don't like this idea David Seymour's pushing of privatising the Interislander ferry service and getting a private operator to run it, instead of KiwiRail. And if I was to sum up why I'm opposed to it as succinctly as I could, it would come down to just two words and one number. State Highway 1. Tell that to the ACT leader and Deputy Prime Minister, though. He's saying the Government doesn't need to own the ferries and that it would make sense for the Government to get its money out of the ferry business and use it to pay off debt or build things like roads. He reckons that history shows that governments are the worst at running businesses, and reckons private operators would do a much better job of owning and operating the ferries. But I think that would be too much of a gamble when you consider that Cook Strait isn't just a stretch of water, it's actually part of State Highway 1. And I wouldn't be happy having two private operators being responsible for getting us across that stretch of it. Because with private operators, they're only in it if there's a buck to be made. Which I don't have a problem with, but we already have one private operator running services on Cook Strait – would you really want to see that become two private operators? Two private operators who would have every right to pull the pin if they decided it wasn't worth their while continuing? Or what if one of them went under? Would you really be happy with one private operator having a monopoly on Cook Strait? Besides which, this talk of privatising the Interislander is just letting KiwiRail off the hook. You ask people in the street, and most will probably tell you that the Interislander service is pretty unreliable. That may or may not be 100 percent true, but I'm certainly not going to say KiwiRail is doing a brilliant job with the ferries. However, instead of talking about selling off the ferries and giving the job to someone else, the Government should be telling KiwiRail to pull its socks up instead. Because the service it provides between Picton and Wellington is an essential service that needs to stay in the Government's hands. I wouldn't even be up for partial privatisation like Air New Zealand, for example. Someone I was talking to was saying that they thought Air New Zealand was a great advertisement for partial privatisation. Saying that even though quite a few people have a beef with the airline in terms of its fares and where it does and doesn't fly to, you can't argue that the airline is a very well-run business. But that still isn't enough to convince me that it would be a good idea for the Government to wash its hands of the Interislander ferry service. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government's plan for tougher sentences for people who don't think twice about assaulting first responders and corrections officers is great. But I think there are some other people who should be included. Doctors and nurses. These are the people who, it seems, can be at just as much risk of being attacked. It's brilliant that the Government has got the ambulance paramedics in their thinking. But the threat doesn't necessarily go away once they've dropped someone off in the emergency department. In fact, it could be argued that, at times, hospital staff are at more risk than prison officers. Because, in prisons, there are all sorts of precautions and measures in place to minimise the risk of violence. There's none of that in hospitals, though. Not that I see the new law being a solution to this problem we have, where some muppets think it's ok to assault and injure the people who come to our rescue 24/7. The ambulance guy I heard on Newstalk ZB this morning sounded like he's in the “give it a go and see if it works camp”. Which I guess he's more than willing to do given he said that his paramedics are assaulted pretty much every day. He said, at least, a couple of times a day. Prison officers - there were 900 assaults on them last year. But guess what the numbers are for health workers? Numbers aren't available for last year but, according to Health NZ data, there were about 14,000 assaults on staff by patients, family members and visitors between January 2023 and December 2024. The number of assaults increased by 30 percent between the first half of 2023 and the second half of 2024. Fifteen out of 19 health districts saw increases in assaults on staff over the period. No assault on anybody is acceptable. Especially first responders. But, if we're going to judge the situation on numbers, then you could say that the nurses and doctors in our hospitals are at much greater risk of being assaulted than fire, ambulance, police and corrections officers. And emergency department staff, especially, should be protected by this new law. They're not. But they should. Then we get to the broader question as to how or why we've got to the point where a law like this is even needed. How has New Zealand become a place where some of us have a complete disregard for people who are just here to help? That's the wider question. And I reckon there are two possibilities. One, the ambulance guy on the radio mentioned. The other is something much bigger. First - alcohol and drugs. They are undoubtedly part of the problem. Because if you're off your nut on alcohol and/or methamphetamine, you're probably much more likely to have a go at a first responder, aren't you? More likely than if you weren't. And, while I think it's great the Government intends to crack down on first responder assaults, I don't think it's going to make a big difference. The other reason I think we're seeing more and more of this violence towards first responders and hospital staff, is something much deeper. And it's something that I think we are all guilty of - to varying degrees. Respect. Or lack of it. Society, in general, has way less respect for authority than it used to. And we are all more inclined to challenge authority these days than we used to be. So, maybe we shouldn't be surprised that there are some people who take that next-level and are prepared to fight against the authority of ambulance paramedics, firefighters, police officers, corrections officers, doctors and nurses. Sadly, I think that horse has well and truly bolted and I don't see us ever getting back to a time when the idea of assaulting or injuring first responders never entered anyone's head. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on Politics Friday, John MacDonald was joined by National's Vanessa Weenink and Labour's Megan Woods to delve into the biggest stories of the week. Parliament's pressed pause to remember Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Tarsh Kemp after she died yesterday as a result of kidney disease – what will happen going forward? Doctors are unhappy with the Government's new virtual GP service, are they right to be? And what are their thoughts on taxpayer money potentially going to Moana Pasifika, with Whanau Ora's funding of the association that owns them? LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you feel about the prospect of paying higher income tax rates and more GST? I think it's inevitable. So does the Inland Revenue Department. Because of our ageing population. Especially if people think we can have a whole lot more of us 65 and over —which is going to happen— and still provide the same level of assistance and support that is provided now. So IRD is making its case for more tax in what's called its “Long-term Insights Briefing”, which puts ideas on the table for governments to consider and to help the country plan for the future. It's saying cutting costs is one way, but it would be much better to generate more government revenue. To collect more tax. Which I agree with. It's saying today that the future is uncertain, and we need a tax system that can be changed relatively easily, which is why it's focusing on income tax and GST. Because those taxes already exist. Income tax makes up 52% of the tax take and GST accounts for 25%. So there's nearly 80% of the total tax take covered just through PAYE and GST. Company tax, by the way, accounts for just 17% of the tax take. Here are a few more numbers which IRD is using to justify more tax money coming in to cope with the ageing population. At the moment, 16% of us are 65-and-over. But we're on our way to, eventually, having a quarter of our population 65 and older and somehow, we have to pay for that. Because as the Infrastructure Commission pointed out this week, we're going to need less schools and more hospitals. But as we know, hospitals are a lot more expensive than schools and we're going to have to find the money somehow. IRD isn't giving any specific numbers. So it isn't saying what it thinks GST could or should be increased to. Likewise, it's not saying anything about what income tax rates could be increased to. It's just saying that we need to get used to the idea of paying more. Which is another demonstration, isn't it, of how the Government made a mistake reducing the amount of tax revenue it gets. Because I know it talked about us paying less tax and reducing costs at the same time. But running a country costs money, you can only cut costs to a certain point. And when you throw an ageing population into the mix —and the costs that come with that— we all have no option but to chip in a bit more money to pay for it all. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Infrastructure Commission's draft 30-year plan is the kind of big picture thinking we've been saying is needed, instead of the ad-hoc, politically driven approach we have at the moment. Essentially, the Commission says we're going to need less schools and more hospitals because of the ageing population. It also says we're going to need more roads and better roads, and we're going to have to do some serious thinking about how we pay for them. Its draft plan doesn't go into too much detail, other than we're going to have to have more user-pays. Already, we've got one commentator floating an idea that I don't necessarily like, but which I think is inevitable. Because, as the Infrastructure Commission is hinting at, the current way we fund roading in New Zealand has “yesterday” written all over it. Once upon a time, it was probably feasible or sustainable for the government and councils to pay for it all. Or us to pay for it all through our taxes and our rates and not have to pay anything else on top of that. But those days are gone. Which is why I think Matthew Birchall from the New Zealand Initiative think-tank is onto something. He reckons that we should do away with the current road-user charging model —which has people driving the likes of diesel vehicles paying road user charges— and replace it with distance-based charging for all vehicles, on all roads. So the more you drive, the more you pay. He says with vehicles becoming more fuel-efficient and electric cars growing in popularity, the current model isn't fit for purpose. In the next decade alone, NZTA reckons it will be short of about $4 billion to $5 billion. That's the next decade, let alone the next 30 years. He says we need a fairer system that directly links road user charges to those of us who use the roads and how much we use them. And, aside from being a very practical way of getting the money needed for roads, I reckon it would also work in favour of people who think we should all be on public transport. Because, chances are, it might be cheaper in some instances to take the bus. Matthew Birchall calls his idea “smart road user charging” – or smart RUCs. He says: “Under this system, fuel excise duty would be gradually phased out and replaced with distance-based charging for all vehicles." He says road users would choose between an automated “pay-as-you-drive” system or a pre-purchased RUC licence, similar to the existing diesel RUC system. And he says charges would vary based on factors like vehicle type, weight, and time of travel, ensuring that costs are allocated efficiently and equitably. I'm not sure about the equitably bit because I imagine people living in our bigger cities who might not be big income earners might live further out of town and, therefore, might be stung more than wealthier people living closer to the city. But, broadly, I think it's a great idea. In fact, I think it's a no-brainer. I don't love it. But I think it is inevitable. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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If we choose to ignore or downplay this new information out today about kids taking weapons to school, we'll be doing it at our peril. Because what do you hear people say time and time again when something terrible happens? These are people in the news who might be commenting about a stabbing or a shooting, or something like that. What is it we hear them say time and time again? “We never thought this sort of thing would happen here.” We hear people in the United States saying it whenever there's something like a school shooting. And you would think people over there wouldn't be surprised, given it happens so often. And we heard it here after the mosque shootings – which had a lot more credence because it's true, we never imagined something like that happening here. But this is why I'm sitting up and paying attention to these stats that have been released to under the Official Information Act. Because we are kidding ourselves if we think that an increase in the number of kids being caught with weapons at school is anything other than the proverbial canary in the mine. Last year, 526 students were stood down, suspended, or excluded for using or having a weapon at school. About 80% up on the numbers in 2018. And I bet there'll be no shortage of people of a certain age saying today that they used to carry a pocketknife around with them when they were young and it wasn't a problem. But there's a key difference between then and now, which is why I think we ignore these numbers at our peril. And it's got nothing to do with the weapons themselves. It's all about the way society has changed and the attitudes and thinking of the kids carrying these weapons and the lives some of them lead. Schools are like a slice of society. They're not little bubbles that are totally isolated from the rest of their communities. Even if there hadn't been any increase in the number of kids being caught with weapons – any amount of weapons getting past the school gate is way more concerning now than it might have been in the past because of that shift in attitude. When you were a kid, if you snuck something into school that you shouldn't have —a pocket knife or whatever— I bet it never crossed your mind that it might be useful if someone started giving you a hard time or something. These days, some people do think like that. Example: in May last year, we had that young guy fatally stabbed by another school kid at the bus stop in Dunedin. The guy with the knife was charged with murder but was, eventually, found guilty of manslaughter. Granted, it didn't happen at school, but it just as easily could. These days, people not only have weapons, they're also not afraid of using them. That's the big difference here. And that's why we need to pay attention to these numbers out today. Because here in New Zealand we are brilliant at sticking our heads in the sand, thinking bad stuff won't happen. And we need to wake up and start doing more than just assume that schools have got this under control. I see principals are saying today that they could do with a bit more support, in terms of the Ministry of Education putting more money into providing guidance for schools on how to deal with the issue of kids and weapons. But that's not enough. We will never be able to wind the clock back and change this attitude shift that has been happening in recent years, where we have people carrying weapons who aren't afraid to use them. Which means that we will never be able to stop some school kids from thinking that it's perfectly fine to leave home in the morning with some sort of weapon in their bag or their pocket. But we can do something about it once they arrive at school. And if that means random bag or pocket searches, then so be it. Because, if we don't, all the people with their heads in the sand will be rabbiting on about things happening here that they never imagined happening here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Opposition Leader has laid out his view of what's needed for peace in the Middle East. A wavering ceasefire remains between Israel and Iran after scolding from the US President, although both claim breaches by the other. Donald Trump claims his country's strikes this week destroyed Iran's nuclear programme, but early US intelligence indicates it's only set it back by months. Chris Hipkins told John MacDonald diplomacy is needed from everyone. He says bombing isn't the answer to ending a nuclear arms race, and anyone believing that should think again. When it comes to the rising number of children bringing weapons to school, Hipkins says the issue didn't come up when Labour was in Government. Figures show 526 students were stood down, suspended, or excluded for using or having a weapon at school last year – up 80% on 2018. Hipkins told MacDonald his party gave schools the power to search kids' bags, but it's not a realistic way to deal with this problem. He says it's time to get the Ministry of Education, Police, and schools to think of proactive solutions. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger is in campaign mode for this year's elections, saying that he thinks the Government might be onto a winner with its idea of forcing councils to put a cap on rates increases. I'm wondering if Phil does actually think it's a good idea, or whether he's just saying it. Because I think it would create havoc for local councils having Wellington telling them how much they could increase rates each year. And this isn't me banging the local democracy drum. This is me taking a commonsense view of things. Something you can't always credit politicians for – whether they're in central or local government. This idea that Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has been talking about in the last 24 hours doesn't fall into the commonsense category. Because yes, every time I see my rates bills I think, “that's a truckload of money”. And like you probably do as well, I wonder where it all goes. But that's what we elect local councils for. We elect them to run the outfit and make the decisions and decide how much they need to charge us ratepayers to pay for it all. And we have to like it or like it. Pretty hard to lump it. Which is why it's very tempting for politicians to bang on about keeping rates down and focusing on the basics. But here's where all that talk falls over and here's why it's nonsense for the Government to think it can tell councils how much more to charge ratepayers each year. And here's why Phil Mauger is wrong to say that it's a good idea. First of all: we're part of the problem. Because even though we don't want to pay more rates, we want more from our local council. We want libraries staying open later. We want footpaths fixed as soon as we see them start to crack. We want roads fixed, but we don't want road cones. We want the council to lend us money for community projects but then, when the rubber hits the road, we cry poor and say we can't afford to pay the interest. We want, want, want. And that means one of two things: either the council saying no or the politicians saying yes, because they think it'll get them re-elected. The other major issue is the whole funding structure for local government. Which is why I think the Government is taking a very narrow approach here. How on earth the Government thinks it could put a cap on annual rates increases without looking at the wider issue, I don't know. And that wider issue is the fact that local councils are being asked to do more and more under their own steam, without any extra funding to make it happen. Example: the Government wants more tourists coming here, but what about the infrastructure needed to support that growth? The Government doesn't pay for that. Local councils do. And the way things are structured at the moment, pretty much the only way they get the money they need to do all the things the Government and us ratepayers want them to do, is to charge rates. And the more we and the government want the councils to do, the more rates we have to pay. That's why this talk from the Government about councils needing to manage their finances better is such nonsense. And Phil Mauger needs to see that too. He thinks a rates cap could be a way of forcing the city council to look at the way it spends money, saying: “I'm open to it. I'm not saying it's the best thing since sliced bread but I'm certainly open to looking at it. I want rates to be as low as they can.” Phil, the only way that's going to happen isn't the Government putting a lid on rates increases. The only way that's going to happen is councils stopping themselves kicking cans down the road and not spending money. We see it time and time again. Councils go for the stuff people can see and ignore the stuff people can't see. Unsexy stuff like water pipes and sewerage pipes. They ignore them so well that, one day, it all goes pear-shaped and suddenly they're facing a gazillion-dollar upgrade. And how do they pay for that? What's the only way they can pay for that? Increased rates. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The US air strikes on Iran yesterday are a disaster. A disaster that New Zealand needs to stay well clear of. Before yesterday, the prospect of it happening was a disaster-in-the making. And, now that it's happened, it's an absolute disaster. Not because of what might happen today, tomorrow or the next day. But, what will happen when the world least expects it. Not just in terms of what Iran itself will do. I'm talking about the inevitable terrorism activity because of what happened yesterday. Because, if there's something US President Donald Trump seems to have forgotten in all of this - before he ordered those bombers to fly to Iran and back - is that history often, if not always, teaches us something about the future. When I heard about the attacks yesterday, the first thing I thought about was 9/11. When the world was changed forever after the Al Qaeda terror attacks. Why do you think they happened? What was the lesson that you think might have been learned from that? That Trump might have learned? The lesson 9/11 taught us was that the US and the Middle East don't mix. The September 11 attacks happened because of the United States' history of supporting Israel. That was the nub of it. And it might be why the US has been shy of launching attacks on Iran in recent years. Until yesterday, anyway. And what better display of the US supporting Israel can you get, than yesterday's airstrikes? Which is why I see some very grave consequences coming. As I say, it won't be today. It won't be tomorrow. And I hope I'm wrong. But do you really see these peaceful negotiations happening after yesterday? Seven bombers flying 37 hours from Missouri to Iran and back. Bombing three sites - involving not just the stealth bombers, but other fighter jets and a US submarine, as well. Seventy-five bombs dropped - including 14 “bunker busters”. Which, by the way, was the first time ever that these bunker busters have been used. And then we had Trump and his military bosses crowing about “severe damage and destruction”. But then turning around and saying they don't want war with Iran. Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that the US “is not looking for war in Iran” and that the “world is safer and more stable than it was 24 hours ago”. That's not how I'm seeing it, at all. And Donald Trump saying after the bombings, “now is the time for peace”. Really? Quite rightly, UN head António Guterres is saying “there is no military solution.” He's saying that the airstrikes are a dangerous escalation which “could rapidly get out of control - with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the region, and the world.” Which is exactly how I'm feeling about it. And I hope that the most-involved New Zealand gets in all of this is sending the air force plane to help kiwis who want to get out of Iran and Israel. There are about 80 New Zealanders in Iran and about 100 in Israel. And that needs to be it. Because this conflict is not something we need to be involved in. I'm pleased to see the Foreign Affairs Minister keeping his cool and not banging the drum about New Zealand doing its bit. Defence Minister Judith Collins is the same. In fact, Winston Peters says it's the most serious issue he's had to respond to during his whole time in politics. Likening the way the world is waiting to see what happens next, to the Cuban missile crisis in the early 1960s. When it looked like the US and the Soviet Union could go to war with each other after Soviet missile sites were discovered in Cuba. So let's get the Kiwis home who want to come home, and leave it at that. Because, if we sign-up to anything involving Donald Trump, we'll have absolutely no idea what we're getting ourselves into. Because, it seems, that the only country that had any sort of heads up before yesterday's attacks was Israel. And I don't want New Zealand having a bar of it. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government's been making it increasingly clear over time that it doesn't really give two-hoots about local democracy. But, in the last 24 hours, it's gone next level. First up, we've got housing minister Chris Bishop, who announced yesterday that he's going to be given special powers to ride roughshod over council plans if he doesn't like them. Essentially, if he thinks a council has a district plan that doesn't support economic growth and development, or won't do anything to create jobs, then he can come in over the top and say “nah nah nah, you're not doing that.” In fact, from what I've been reading, it seems any government minister is going to be able to modify or remove aspects of council plans that they don't agree with. Talk about big brother. But that's not all. Chris Bishop also got himself involved in a spat with the Christchurch City Council, saying that the council's failed attempt to push back on the Government's housing intensification rules was “nuts”. He's saying: “It is an inarguable, and sometimes uncomfortable, fact that local government has been one of the largest barriers to housing growth in New Zealand." Going on to say: “Christchurch City Council just outright defied its legal obligations.”Signing off with the accusation that the council was “nuts” if it thought it could get away with not doing what the Government wanted it to do. Now, even though I didn't have a problem with Chris Bishop declining the council's request for Christchurch to be treated as a special case and not have to go along with the Government's housing intensification policy, I think he needs to rein it in a bit. But this attack on local democracy doesn't stop with Chris Bishop. Shane Jones is at it, as well. Saying in a speech to local government leaders that regional councils have had their day and he wants to get rid of them. “What is the point of regional government?” That's what he said when he stood up at the lectern in Wellington last night. He seems to think that, with all the changes the Government is making to the Resource Management Act, we won't need regional councils anymore. Saying: “There is less and less of a justifiable purpose for maintaining regional government.” Which I do kind of get. Because I know a few people in local government and I have asked them recently where they see the likes of Environment Canterbury going if the Government is going to give the resource management act the heave-ho. Because that's what regional councils were set up to do in the first place. To implement the Resource Management Act. There have been a few add ons since then - like running bus services. And I've long been a fan of local government amalgamation. But for a government minister like Shane Jones to stand up and give a speech to local government people and tell them that he wants to ditrch regional councils - that is arrogant. Just like this plan to let ministers interfere in council plans if they don't like what they see. That's arrogant too. But it's more than just arrogance. It's an attack on local democracy. Which, apparently, is something the government values. When it suits, it would seem. Because, when he was announcing these new powers - which are going to be in force until all the changes to the Resource Management Act have gone through - he admitted it was a significant step. "But the RMA's devolution of ultimate power to local authorities just has not worked.” Which is code for saying: "Even though we say we're all into local decision-making, we're only into it when it suits Wellington". LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Christchurch's Mayor is back with John MacDonald to discuss the biggest stories from the week that was. The Government is giving the Housing Minister the power to overrule local councils, and Phil Mauger has some strong opinions on the topic. Housing intensification is still on the docket, but he's made it clear they'll be pushing back against it all the way. And why are there so many leafblowers out and about? Is that a good use of taxpayer money? LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How weird is it that there are different rules or expectations regarding life jackets, depending on where you are in the country? I'm not the only one who thinks it's weird. A coroner who has looked into the drownings of a 10-year-old boy and his mother thinks it's weird too, and is calling for change. And instead of local councils being responsible for setting lifejacket rules, she wants there to be a single rule for the whole country making life jackets mandatory on all small boats. Everywhere. And I totally agree. I know there'll be no shortage of people thinking that it's pointless making life jackets mandatory because, even where you have local councils now saying they have to be worn, there are still people who don't. But this is why a single, blanket rule for the whole country is needed. This follows the deaths of 10-year-old Ryder Ferregel and his mum Gemma Ferregel, in November 2022. They were on Auckland's Manukau Harbour and they were out on a 4.8 metre boat doing some scalloping. There were three other people on board the boat and what happened is it was hit by two waves in pretty close succession, and because of that, it capsized. At the time, no one on board was wearing a lifejacket. What makes this more tragic —aside from the fact that a woman and her son lost their lives— is that before the boat capsized, Ryder had been wearing a lifejacket but his mum said he could take it off because it didn't fit him properly and was riding up on him. So, by the time the boat capsized, there was no one wearing a life jacket. And coroner Erin Woolley is saying today that if they had been, Ryder and Gemma would have had a much greater chance of survival. And that's why she wants to see life jackets to be made mandatory on small boats, everywhere. She thinks we need a single rule for the whole country – not just rules set in different areas by different local authorities. It would also be clear to people who aren't boaties what the rule was, giving them licence to call people out for not wearing life jackets. For example: you're at the boat ramp and you see some muppets about to head out with no life jackets – even people in the car park there just watching the boats, they would know what the rule was and they'd be much more likely to say something, wouldn't they? What's more, if there was a single rule for the whole country, it wouldn't be left to local authorities to have local rules that only they can enforce. If there was a single life jacket rule for the whole country, the Coastguard —for example— could fine people for not wearing a jacket. It's crazy, isn't it, that they can come up to you when you're out fishing and fine you if the fish in your bucket are undersized, but they can't fine you for not taking the appropriate safety precautions. That's because lifejacket rules are set by local by-laws and it's the job of the councils to enforce them. Which coroner Erin Woolley wants to see changed. And so do I. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was bad enough that a patient at Hillmorton Hospital who had threatened to kill was still allowed to come and go and ended up killing an innocent woman at her Christchurch home. The fact this person had killed someone else previously, before taking the life of Faye Phillips last year, makes the circumstances behind the tragedy worse. On both occasions he was a mental health patient, which is why Ruth Money —who is the Government's Chief Victims Advisor— is saying that we must have a Royal Commission of Inquiry into our mental health hospital system. And I'm with her. I think it has to happen. Last week we were astounded to learn that Elliot Cameron had been allowed to leave Hillmorton as he pleased, because he was a voluntary patient. Apparently, it had been decided at some point that he didn't have to stay, but because he didn't want to leave, he wasn't forced out and he'd made all sorts of comments about killing people if he was forced out. And from the reports I've read, it seems staff had been helping him clean up his room, which may have led him to believe that he was about to be moved on. But who knows. Whether that was his motivation for murdering Faye Phelps, we'll probably never know. Either way, last week he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years. And today, we're finding out that it wasn't the first time he had killed someone. In 1975, he killed his brother. Shooting him while he slept at his parents' house. And when he committed that killing, he was a mental health patient. Just like he was a mental health patient when he murdered Faye Phelps. We haven't known this until suppression orders relating to the 1975 case were lifted last night, which means we now have more context for this terrible, terrible situation. Last week, I couldn't understand how anyone at Hillmorton could think that someone who had threatened to kill was fine to walk out the gate, get a bus to Mt Pleasant and do some gardening work for an innocent elderly woman. There is just no way that should have been allowed to happen. But the fact that he had already shown himself capable of killing someone makes that decision to let him come and go even worse. And if I was a member of Faye Phelps family —or if I was a friend of Faye Phelps— I would be absolutely livid, given these new revelations. What's unclear to me, from the reports I've read, is how aware Hillmorton was that Elliot Cameron had killed his brother 50 years ago. I think it's probably safe to assume that the hospital had some knowledge of it, given he's been a mental health patient for 57 years. And that he was found not guilty of murdering his brother back in 1975 because he was deemed to be insane at the time. So it beggars belief. As Faye's daughter Karen said last week: “Public safety must come first and should always have come first. Sadly, it wasn't prioritised, and the result is what happened to my mum.” And that's where the Government's Chief Victims Advisor Ruth Money is coming from too. She's saying: “Another patient who has warned of his intent and distress numerous times and yet he too has gone on to kill for a second time. "The public deserves an inquiry that can give actionable expert recommendations, as opposed to multiple coroners inquests and recommendations that do not have the same binding influence. The patients themselves, and the public will be best served by an independent inquiry, not another internal review that changes nothing." And I couldn't agree more because this is not the first time public safety has been compromised. Three years ago, there was the case of the Christchurch woman walking home after getting the bus from work and being stabbed to death just a short distance from her home by a mental health patient at Hillmorton. No updates on where the internal investigation into that is going. I understand it's “ongoing”, but that's exactly why Ruth Money wants a top-level inquiry. She wants more than internal inquiries and toothless coroner's inquiries. She thinks a Royal Commission of Inquiry into our mental health hospitals is way overdue. I think so too. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I've surprised myself a little bit with my reaction to the news the police are looking at introducing body cameras. Generally, I'm all for it. But the civil liberties people have raised some very good points about them being misused. One example they're giving is the potential for the cameras to be combined with facial recognition technology. Which I'm torn on, after finding out about facial recognition being used at the Richmond Club, in Christchurch, to keep an eye on people using the pokie machines. They're are asking how we're going to know - once police start wearing body cameras - when an officer is filming and when they're not. Is there a chance, for example, that you or I might be walking down the street and get filmed by the cops walking towards us? Which is why the head of New Zealand's civil liberties council is saying that there needs to be robust policies in place before any officer starts going around the place wearing one of these things. The bit Thomas Beagle is concerned about most, is the lines between body cameras and facial recognition getting blurred. He's saying: “Suddenly, it turns footage into data of who was where, what their names are, and what they were doing. In a way, that's really quite worrying and can be put together to build up the surveillance society.” So he wants clear, robust policies in place. Policies which make it clear, for example, who will be able to access any footage captured on the body cameras. He says if we're going to bring-in body cameras, we may need to look at the idea of having someone independent deciding when footage is released and who it's released to. He reckons that could be a job for the Independent Police Conduct Authority, making the very good point that the cameras not only need to serve the police well - but they also need to serve the public well. And that's the bit that has probably surprised me a bit. That I'm not as holus-bolus enthusiastic about police body cameras as maybe I expected myself to be. The civil liberties people are spot on - referring to cases overseas where police have refused to release body camera footage when officers have been accused of things like misconduct. I've also been reading a BBC report which talks about other ways these things have been misused. Or abused. It reports more than 150 examples of camera misuse by police in England and Wales. For example, officers turning the cameras off when they've been dealing forcefully with someone. Giving someone the old heave-ho. You know: “I'll just turn this thing off for a minute while we give this turkey what he deserves.” The BBC has also discovered cases where police have deleted footage and even shared footage with other officers on WhatsApp. But, before you think I've gone totally civil liberties on it - I'm all for the police wearing body cameras. For many reasons. For starters - it's crazy that security officers and parking wardens can wear them, but police can't. And, even though there are a truckload of examples of these cameras being misused, you could say the same about any bad police behaviour. There are dodgy cops everywhere - but that doesn't mean we get rid of the police. And, as police commissioner Richard Chambers is saying today, New Zealand is one of the few countries not using them. He says body cameras are great for gathering evidence and they're great for keeping staff safe. So he's going to have people working on options over the next 12 months and, hopefully, by that time - they'll be ready to press go. I see Chris Cahill from the police association is a bit worried about the cost. He's saying that some countries are getting rid of them because of how much it costs to store the footage. And, not surprisingly, he doesn't want to see the spending on body cameras meaning there's less money to be spent on frontline officers and police vehicles. He says: “It isn't the game changer that we thought it might be, but it has certainly got significant benefits and many officers in Australia don't want to deploy without it.” But all up, when I consider what Chris Cahill is saying about the cameras not being the silver bullet and the many cases overseas of these things being misused, I still think is a great move by the police commissioner. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Donald Trump won't be too happy with Helen Clark right now, because she's saying she doesn't want New Zealand to be an ally of the United States ever again. I'm with her on that one – while Trump is president, anyway. I'm also with Defence Minister Judith Collins who isn't saying anything about Trump doing a review of the AUKUS military alliance with Australia and the UK, to make sure that it's a fair deal for America. I think Judith Collins going all quiet about this cloud over AUKUS is the approach we should be taking more broadly, as well. And New Zealand should be more like Switzerland and keep pretty much every country at arm's length. As Helen Clark is saying, if you're an ally, you can get dragged into all sorts of things you shouldn't. Whereas, if you're a “friend”, you can keep your head down, treat every country pretty much equally, and stay out of international dramas you don't need to be involved with. I heard former defence minister Wayne Mapp saying that the fact Trump has said this AUKUS review will be done and dusted in 30 days, shows that it's unlikely that the U.S. is about to pull out. Tell that to Dr Emma Shortis —who is a senior researcher in international affairs at the Australia Institute— who is pointing out that the submarine part of the AUKUS deal includes a “get-out clause” for the United States. She reckons Trump is about to use that clause – not that she's too upset about it. She's saying today that AUKUS is "a disaster" for Australia and only ties Aussie ever closer to “an increasingly volatile and aggressive america”. And, with respect to Wayne Mapp, I'm going to listen to this expert from Australia. Understandably it's caused a fuss in Australia, because they're due to get a few nuclear subs from America as part of all this. Three second-hand submarines for $368 billion. On this side of the Tasman though, the Government is keeping shtum, with Defence Minister Judith Collins not wanting to get dragged into it. Which makes sense, because —at the moment— we've got nothing to do with AUKUS. The Government's been making noises recently about doing a bit of tyre-kicking and seeing whether we might get involved at a lower level. “Pillar 2” is what they call it. But there's nothing coming from the Government about Donald Trump running his eye over AUKUS to check that America's getting the best deal. Former Prime Minister Helen Clark isn't holding back though. She says: "I would not want to see us back in the position where New Zealand is expected to spend a whole lot more money on defence; expected to follow the US into whatever its strategic venture is. I'm old enough to remember the Vietnam War and New Zealand going into that for not a good reason at all and walking out the other end with Kiwis dying on the battlefield for no good reason. I don't want to see us ever in that position again." I'm with her on that one. Australia's possibly feeling that way too, given that it signed up to the AUKUS agreement when Joe Biden was president. And, aside from wanting to get the submarines, and aside from the fact that it's already ploughed $800 million into AUKUS, it might still be having a bit of buyer's remorse given Trump's unpredictability. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matt Doocey and Duncan Webb joined John MacDonald in studio for Politics Friday. They discussed Helen Clark's recent comments around New Zealand's relationship with the United States – do they agree? On the topic of privacy versus safety, when it comes to mental illness, is keeping people safe a higher priority than keeping someone's health private? And Tourism New Zealand's new 100% Pure marketing campaign has been launched, and Duncan Webb is not a fan. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Hutt Zone with John MacDonald focuses on the people, issues, events, and music that shape the Hutt Valley community.

I'm all for the push to have wool carpet used in government buildings but I think it's a mistake putting it in state homes. Kāinga Ora has announced that, from next month, there will be woollen carpets in all new state homes. It's also going to use wool if the carpet in existing homes needs replacing. Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says Kāinga Ora has managed to get a deal that will mean the wool carpet won't cost any more than nylon carpet. Which is interesting because, in December last year, KO said it had done some cost analysis work which showed that it could save roughly 34% using nylon carpet. So the wool carpet people have obviously sharpened their pencils. Nevertheless, is it practical? And my answer to that is no it's not. And will it end up costing us in the long-term? Yes it will, and I'll tell you why. But first, here's why I generally like the government's move to use wool carpet, but why I don't think it's a good idea in Kāinga Ora properties. It makes perfect sense for the Government to be doing what it can to support our farmers who grow wool, who've been pushing it uphill recently. Wool has almost become a burden for farmers because of the returns they've been getting. So good on the Government for going down the wool route, because it has to buy carpet, so why not buy the carpet that does the farmers a favour, while it's at it? Especially, when you consider the amount of money the Government must spend on carpet. I don't have a dollar figure for you, but I was reading a briefing that was written for the incoming government after the last election, which said that the Government has approximately 1 million square metres of office accommodation around the country, costing approximately $330 million a year. That's a lot of potential floorspace for carpet and that's a lot of potential floorspace to get our farmers' wool all over. But here's why I don't think it's a good idea having wool carpet in state homes. Government buildings —such as government department offices and schools— generally have cleaners going through pretty much every day. And so if the DOC office or the local primary school has wool carpet, they get cleaned pretty regularly, don't they? A Kāinga Ora property is different. The only time cleaners get sent into a state house is when someone leaves or is booted out. And this isn't me tarring every state housing tenant with the same brush, because most tenants are probably very good. But we'd be naive to think that every tenant vacuums the carpets every day. We'd be naive to think that every state house tenant is a cleaning freak and will do everything they can to keep stains out of the carpet. I remember when we put wool carpet in —it was when the kids were still quite young— and we did everything we could to stop it getting marks and stains on it, but it still got stains and marks on it. And I've seen nylon carpets in action, and you can't deny that they are brilliant for keeping clean. I've seen red wine spilled on nylon carpet and you can pretty much just wipe it away. That's the kind of carpet that Kāinga Ora should be using. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Labour's leader says Te Pati Māori should focus on the issues most New Zealanders care about. Parliament last week voted to hand down the harshest suspensions in history to three MPs over a haka performed during the Treaty Principles Bill vote. Labour's Willie Jackson and Adrian Rurawhe argued the punishments were too harsh, but also suggested the Party could compromise or say sorry. Chris Hipkins told John MacDonald housing, health, and education are the main things Māori around the country raise with him. He says that Te Pati Māori made their point around the haka, but he thinks people want to see them get back to debating the big issues now. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm not exactly sure where to start with this, because it is just so tragic and there is so much to it. I could start by ripping into the people who run Hillmorton Hospital, in Christchurch, for not doing more to try to prevent one of their patients murdering a woman at her home in Mt Pleasant – because I want to rip into them. I could start with the thought that ran through my head when more details emerged at Elliot Cameron's sentencing yesterday for the murder of 83-year-old Faye Phelps, but I'll come back to that. Where I'm going to start is with what the cousin of Elliot Cameron said after the sentencing. Because it doesn't just relate to this tragic case, it relates to other tragic cases we've seen too. And it's all to do with how out-of-kilter things have got when it comes to protecting people's privacy versus protecting people from danger. Alan Cameron is the cousin of the killer, and he is saying that people like Faye, and anyone else this guy did garden work for or had dealings with, should have known that he was a mental health patient living at Hillmorton Hospital. Especially given his threats to kill someone if he was forced him to leave the hospital. They should have known that he'd been in mental health care for most of his life. Alan Cameron says: “Just shoving people out into the community isn't good enough, without ensuring that there are supports. I feel if more could have been done it might well have made a difference. "To protect his privacy they won't involve the family, but he wanted my involvement." He says people should have been informed that his cousin was living at Hillmorton because they could've then decided whether they wanted anything to do with him. He says: "It would have put others on alert to observe him and to keep a note.” And I couldn't agree more. Because Faye Phelps had no idea. She was completely in the dark, all in the name of protecting this man's privacy. Just like the probation people couldn't knock on the doors of people living near that guy who was released from prison and ended up murdering the Colombian woman living next door to him. She was in the dark too, because it would have breached that guy's privacy, as well. So when are we going to wake up to the fact that this obsession with privacy is killing people? Because there is no way that Elliot Cameron should have been allowed to come and go from Hillmorton and do gardening work for people without those people whose homes he was going to having any idea about him. You could say that anyone can ask questions but when you hire someone to do gardening, you ask them about things like their availability, price etc. Faye Phelps was never going to ask him if he was mentally unwell, was she? She should have been told. Because, if she had, she might still be alive. But we will never know that. Or more importantly, her family and friends will never know that. Either way, Faye Phelps and the people who loved her were let down big time. As Faye's daughter Karen says: “Our family never thought in a million years something like this would happen. The reality is it could be any member of the public next.” Which brings me to what went through my head when I saw the reports on the sentencing yesterday. Straight away I wondered how many other patients are walking out the gates at Hillmorton, jumping on buses, and none of us have any idea. Faye's daughter Karen is thinking the same, saying: “Public safety must come first and should always have come first. Sadly, it wasn't prioritised, and the result is what happened to my mum.” As for Hillmorton Hospital – you would think, wouldn't you, that the people running the place would have learned a thing or two from that tragic case three years ago when one of their patients stabbed a woman to death in broad daylight. Maybe they have, but it doesn't look like it. And they need to learn pretty quick that protecting people's safety has to come first – even if it means breaching someone's privacy. I think it's outrageous that Hillmorton Hospital thought it was fine for a guy who repeatedly threatened to kill to come and go as he wanted, and not tell innocent people that their gardener living in mental health care and has been for most of his life. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How would you feel if the Government came out and said solar energy is the future and it was going to throw everything at it? Because that's something I think it needs to seriously consider doing. For me, there would only be one fly in the ointment – I'll get to that. But it's not enough for me to say that the Government shouldn't be ploughing money into solar energy. Lodestone Energy is in the news today talking about its latest solar farm, which will cover 42-hectares in the Clandeboye area in South Canterbury. There's also the big solar farm being built near Christchurch Airport, among others in the South Island. Which is brilliant. But I think our reliance on private operators to get these things up and running is very risky. Which is why I think the Government should be getting some skin in the game, as well. Now before you start thinking, “what about SolarZero?”, that's different to what I'm talking about. That wasn't about solar farms, that was a joint venture between the Government and a private outfit which supplied solar panel kits to homeowners. But it does show the risk of relying on private outfits because SolarZero went into liquidation and that was it. I'm not saying that Lodestone Energy, which is behind the solar farm at Clandeboye, is a risky bet. I only want the best for them. But as anyone in business will tell you, nothing is guaranteed. That's why we don't have a solely private health system. Why we don't have a solely private education system. If anything, state ownership is —at the very least— a backstop. And that's why I think the state needs to get more involved in solar power generation. The potential fly in the ointment is use of land that might otherwise be used for things like growing food, but I can live with that. The Government might point to the Christchurch Airport solar farm and say that the Crown has a 25% share in the airport, so it's already investing in solar generation, but that would be dancing on the head of a pin. I'm talking here about the Government allocating money to the construction and operation of state-owned solar farms. But how would you feel about that? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“A complete balls up”. How about that for what might be quote of the day? That's how Christchurch city councillor Andrei Moore is describing the council's handling of the housing intensification row. It's a row that has been shut down for good by Housing and Resource Management Minister Chris Bishop, who has rejected Christchurch's bid to have its own, separate housing intensification rules. Which I have no problem with. If he had given-in to Christchurch, it would've opened the floodgates right around the country. So good on Chris Bishop. It's a final decision too, by the way. No correspondence will be entered into. The council can't blow any more money running off to the environment court. So Christchurch has to like it or lump it. What it's going to mean is high density, multi-level residential housing in the CBD (good), Riccarton (good), Hornby (good) and Linwood (good). Even if it means neighbouring properties losing sunlight. Which is not necessarily good - but that's just reality. We need to get over that. Not that I've felt that way from the outset. When these new rules were first proposed three years ago, I didn't like the sound of them. And there was no shortage of people saying they felt the same way. And I suspect that a lot of people will still be very unhappy about the prospect of a new place going up next to them and losing their sunlight. But that's just reality. I accept that now. Because what other option is there in a city where the population is only going in one direction? Do we want the city to spread out even further, chewing up land that is much better used for things like growing food? Of course, we don't. If there's one very small example of how the city has just kept on spreading outwards, it would be Musgroves - the second-hand building supplies outfit in Wigram. I'm still amazed at how that place is surrounded by buildings now. When I remember it being pretty much in the wops not all that long ago. And, if we don't allow the city to become more built-up, we're just going to see more and more houses built in places like Rolleston and Prebbleton. Which aren't in Christchurch - they're in the Selwyn district. Which means more and more people travelling into the city every day, using Christchurch's roading infrastructure but not paying a bean towards it. Because they pay their rates to Selwyn. But let's come back to councillor Andrei Moore - who is saying today that the council has ballsed this up. He said back in April that he thought it was nuts that the council was insisting on pushing back on more intensified housing in Christchurch. He said - and I agreed with him a hundred percent at the time (and I still do) that “it's high time we wake up and deal with the reality of city growth”. What's more, it hasn't been cheap. The most recent, available figures show that the council has spent about $7 million fighting the Government's proposals. It's not a total loss for the council. Three of its ideas have been accepted by the Government, which include increasing the building height limit on the old stockyards on Deans Ave to 36 metres. Mayor Phil Mauger says: “We obviously wanted to get our alternative recommendations approved. So, to only have three of them get the tick, is a kick in the guts.” As a result of the Government telling the city council to pull its head in, we're potentially or eventually going to see 10-storey apartment buildings within 600 metres of suburban shopping areas. Even if it means neighbouring properties losing sunlight. Urbanist group Greater Ōtautahi thinks it's brilliant and gives the city certainty. They say the quarter-acre dream of a standalone house on a large section is unsustainable. Spokesperson M. Grace-Stent says: “Not everyone wants to live the exact same lifestyle. Allowing more housing to be built allows people to make that choice for themselves.” They say: “We want people to be living near the city centre, near the amenities, not pushed out further and further into the Canterbury plains”. And they'll get no argument from me. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Hutt Zone with John MacDonald focuses on the people, issues, events, and music that shape the Hutt Valley community.

Imagine a school having $800,000 in the bank. Imagine all the things a school could buy with that amount of money. This is a state school I'm talking about, not a Flash Harry private school that can put the call-out to the old boys and the old girls when it needs cash to do something. So a state school with $800,000 in the bank, and this state school has to spend that money fixing up a cock-up forced on it by the Ministry of Education. The cock-up I'm referring to is that disastrous experiment called the “modern learning environment” – where our kids have been the guinea pigs, forced into huge barns instead of your old-school single-cell classrooms. And the school I'm talking about, having to spend $800,000 of its own money to get out of this ideological nightmare, is Shirley Boys' High School in Christchurch. Good on it for flipping the bird at the modern learning environment, but I think it's crazy that the school has to dip into its own reserves to pay to sort it out. I know whether it's the school that pays or the Ministry of Education that pays, it's all pretty much taxpayer money. But the difference is Shirley Boys' is spending money it's actually got in the bank, which could be spent on all sorts of other things. That's why I think the ministry should be paying for this work. I've been anti this modern learning environment nonsense right from the outset. Which was pretty much straight after the earthquakes when schools in Canterbury needed rebuilds. And what happened is the powers-that-be jumped on the bandwagon and started telling schools that this is how it was going to be. That, if they wanted classrooms, they were going to be barn-like structures with up to 200 kids in them. To be fair, it wasn't just the Government and the Ministry of Education forcing this one. There were some teachers and principals who thought it was a brilliant idea too. I've mentioned before how I was on the board of our local school for about six years, and they got sucked into the modern learning environment frenzy. In fact, they didn't wait for new buildings. They had the caretaker knocking out walls left, right and centre every weekend, it seemed. And I thought it was nuts at the time and I still think the concept is nuts. As does Shirley Boys'. As does Rangiora High School, which did the same thing. It cost them even more – they spent $1.5 million turning their open-plan classrooms into single classrooms. But here's what the principal at Shirley Boys', Tim Grocott, is saying about why they're doing it. "The level of distraction was just too high. There was too much movement going on. They can hear what is happening in the class next door. Particularly if something was being played on TV or anything like that. So that level of distraction was a negative factor." He says the school did a formal inquiry into how the kids and the staff were finding the open-plan set-up and found that there was widespread unhappiness and so the school had no option but to do something. So it started the work during the last school holidays and will finish it during the next holidays. Tim Grocott says the changes that have been made so far have gone down very well. He says feedback has been “overwhelmingly positive and instantaneous”. I bet it has. He says: “The staff on the first day were absolutely thrilled. One of our teachers was hugging the walls in her classroom because she was so thrilled to have walls. The boys are just much happier too." Tim says he thinks that open plan classrooms are a flawed concept that just did not work for his school. Are they ever. And the Ministry of Education needs to admit that and needs to front-up with the money to pay back Shirley Boys' High School for the $800,000 it's spending to fix up this flawed concept, and elsewhere too. Or, more correctly, it needs to front-up with the money to pay schools back for the mess caused by this failed experiment. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John was joined by Matt Doocey and Tracey McLellan this week for Politics Friday. They discussed the situation with Shirley Boys High School, who have spent $800,000 to move their school away from the modern learning model. Is it fair that schools have to foot the bill for this? The decision has been made around punishment for Te Pati Māori, does this affect Labour's view of working with them in future, and is there really gas to be found in New Zealand? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I love this idea the Commerce Commission and the Grocery Commissioner have come up with, of supermarkets giving us everyday low prices instead of the ever-changing, so-called “special prices”. The supermarket specials that really brass me off are the ones where you might see meat in one of the fridges, and they'll have a sign showing the price per kilo. That means absolutely nothing to me. Maybe there are some shoppers who know all the ins-and-outs of prices per kilo, but I'm not one of them. The other thing about specials is that, most of the time, it feels like the supermarkets are yelling “special special special” at me, but it doesn't look like much of a special. I'll be the first to say that I'm in the lucky position of not having to rely on supermarket specials. That's a financial thing, but it's also because I'm no longer at a stage of life where there are three kids at home and where it's not unusual to kiss goodbye to $400+ a week at the check-out. But I've never been one of those people who buy their bananas at one place because they're cheap and my mandarins somewhere else because their cheaper. And, when I see and hear the ads about specials, they pretty much don't register with me. And it's not just because I can afford to pay what I have to pay. And it's not just because the supermarket shops are cheaper these days because there aren't three kids living at home. It's also because I see supermarket specials in the same way I see cafes with signs outside saying “great coffee”. They can tell me what they want as much as they like, but whether I believe it or not is another thing. The other week I went into Pak 'n Save and when I hit the fruit and veg section there was a sign telling me that the 99 cent broccoli heads were an amazing special. I wasn't that convinced because they seemed pretty small to me, but I grabbed a couple anyway. But as I kept moving around the fruit and veg section, I saw another bin of broccoli heads —again with the sign saying 99 cents a head and “amazing special”— but these things were about twice the size of the smaller ones at the start of the fruit and veg section. What was that all about? And it's little examples like that —as well as the one I mentioned earlier about specials being based on price per kilo— that demonstrate how much of a rort this whole “special” thing is. So I agree with Grocery Commissioner Pierre van Heerden who is saying that doing away with specials and having everyday low prices instead would be more straightforward and transparent. He also thinks it would allow any new operators coming into the market to put real pressure on the existing supermarkets. I'm not as sold on that bit, because I don't think there are any foreign supermarket companies interested in coming here. But if he thinks that, that's fine. The only problem I've got with this idea is that it's going to be voluntary —for now, anyway— whereas I think it should be compulsory. The Commissioner says they'll give the supermarkets a year or so to get with the programme, but I want to see this happening ASAP. So does Consumer NZ. Its boss, Jon Duffy, says: “We know New Zealanders love a special. We also know there's not much that's special about supermarket specials.” He's spot on there. He says: “Everyday low prices would benefit all shoppers, so would price transparency. Right now, it's so hard to know what's a fair price because the prices of certain goods fluctuate so much.” And that's the nub of it right there. If you go to the supermarket today and see all these signs saying special here, special there, all you can do is take their word that it somehow is a special. And like the sheep most of us are, we think ‘aww, on special…I'll get a few of those”. But how do we know we are actually getting the best deal? We don't. Which is why the Grocery Commissioner and the Commerce Commission think the days of the supermarket special should be numbered. I think so too.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger joined John MacDonald this morning for their regular catch up. In the wake of Raf Manji's comments about capping rate increases, how does the Mayor feel about its achievability? ECAN is making a case for a passenger rail in Canterbury – is it a good move? And is selling off Lichfield Street car park a wise decision? LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I am really torn. Because when it comes to facial recognition technology, I've always been of the view that if you're not doing anything wrong, there's nothing to worry about. But, at the risk of sounding like I'm going a bit “civil liberties” on it, I'm starting to change my tune a bit. Which I'll admit is a bit weird considering the Privacy Commissioner has announced that he's all good with the facial recognition trial that Foodstuffs supermarkets have been doing in the North Island. But what's making me feel uneasy is the potential for this tick of approval from the Privacy Commissioner to be seen as a licence for anyone and everyone to use facial recognition however they want. Because there's an outfit in Christchurch —which isn't a supermarket— using facial recognition technology right now. Which shows why the Privacy Commissioner is also saying that, as well as the Foodstuffs trial being all good, we need to tread carefully with how this technology is used. He's not saying it outright, but I think we're on a slippery slope if we don't make sure there are better legal safeguards in place to make sure businesses and organisations —and individuals too possibly— don't start using facial recognition however and wherever they want. So that we don't look up in two years' time and realise that we've got a runaway train on our hands. Which is why I don't think Michael Webster giving his tick of approval for what Foodstuffs North Island has been doing —saying that it complies with the Privacy Act— is the be-all and end-all. I know you would think that it might reassure me that I've been on the right track thinking that only people breaking the law need to be worried about facial recognition technology. But I'm not so sure. Because it's not just supermarkets in the North Island giving facial recognition a go. The Richmond Club, in Christchurch, is also using it. I've seen a photo of a poster on the wall at the Richmond Club telling users of its pokie machines that it's trialling facial recognition software to help it keep an eye on problem gamblers. The sign says: “The Richmond Club is currently trialling facial recognition software - however, this is only in the gaming room.” The poster says: “Such footage is used in conjunction with our CCTV surveillance cameras and other publicly-available sources of imagery to assist in identifying individuals for a variety of reasons.” And it goes on to say that it's all about identifying problem gamblers and that all footage is destroyed when someone who has been playing the machines leaves the room. The person who sent me this photo said they spoke to half of the people in the gaming room at the time and none of them were aware that facial recognition was being used, despite the sign on the wall. And they didn't like the sound of it. Which I can understand. Because using pokie machines isn't illegal. Even though I can't stand pokie machines, they're not illegal. Just like having a gambling problem isn't illegal. Stealing stuff from a supermarket is illegal, but going and playing the pokies on a Saturday afternoon isn't. Yes, the Richmond Club is legally obliged to look out for problem gamblers, but does it need facial recognition to do that? There's no doubt it's probably very useful, but I reckon the club could easily look out for people without facial recognition. And I would, generally, say that using facial recognition to track people doing anything that isn't illegal, is not what it should be used for. I heard the Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster saying this morning that people are, generally, happy for it to be used to try and stop crime. But at the same time, people are concerned about it being misused. He referred to a survey his office did which found that two thirds of people are happy to see increased use of facial recognition if it reduces theft and enhances personal safety. But it also found that 49% of people are concerned or very concerned about facial recognition technology being mis-used. These survey findings also said that 64% of people are concerned about not being told about or agreeing to the use of facial recognition technology. So the Richmond Club in Christchurch is ticking the box on that front, with the poster on the wall telling people that it's trialling facial recognition in the gaming room. But I think we're in real danger of this technology being used in ways that most of us would consider to be over the top. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Leeann Watson, CEO of Business Canterbury, joined John MacDonald to give a quarterly update. Are we seeing signs of recovery in Canterbury? What would a commuter train mean for the city business scene? And will the Government's new approach to WorkSafe make a difference for local businesses and how they operate? LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If there's anyone who shouldn't be told they can wind things back on the health and safety front, it's a New Zealander. Because generally, we are absolute shockers when it comes to this sort of thing and our health and safety laws are the only thing standing between our “she'll be right” attitude and misery and tragedy. Especially when you consider that —even with the health and safety laws we have at the moment— our workplace fatality rate is 60% higher than Australia's and more than 500% higher than the UK's. So a perfect time, isn't it, for us to be getting rid of what the Government says is WorkSafe's “safety-at-all costs mentality”? Just in case you think I'm a health and safety freak, I'm not. But I'm also enough of a realist to know that, without these laws, more people would be going home at the end of the day injured or not going home at all. Another reason why us New Zealanders are the last people to be told we can go a bit easy on the old health and safety is that we have very short memories. I haven't forgotten the 19th of November 2010, when the first Pike River explosion happened. I remember distinctly getting home from work that afternoon and all of us watching the live coverage. That was what set-in-train a huge overhaul of health and safety laws because, as we eventually discovered, the guy who ran the mine wasn't the hero we all initially thought he was. Pike River was where it all started. And the government is setting out today to walk all over the progress that we've made since then – apparently because we've gone too far with it. But even though I'm just as capable as the next person of shaking my head at some of the things businesses and employers are required to do in the name of keeping people safe, I'm not happy about the screws being loosened. But what the Government has in its favour is that most people haven't experienced the consequences of things going pear-shaped at work. That's why it's so easy to dismiss health and safety as an overreaction. But I bet if you have known someone who has lost their life at work or if you know someone who has been seriously injured at work, then you'll have a much more realistic view of things. The irony is we've got the Government on one hand saying today that its crackdown on badly-behaved state housing tenants has worked But, on the other hand, it's saying that it wants to be less heavy-handed on employers who don't do everything they can to keep their people safe. Which is why the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety, Brooke van Velden, wants WorkSafe to ditch what she's calling its “adversarial nature” and to move from managing risk generally to critical risk. But what on earth does that mean? Do you know the difference between “general” risk and “critical” risk? Example: is an extension cord running across the floor somewhere at work a “general risk” or a “critical risk”? The answer to that depends on the consequence. If the consequence of a power cable running across the floor in the office is just a bit of a nuisance and nothing else, then you could probably categorise it as a “general risk”. But if that cable lying across the floor means someone trips on it and they bang their head pretty hard on a wall and get some sort of brain bleed, then that becomes a “critical risk”, doesn't it? See what I mean? The idea of taking the pedal off the metal and only taking “critical risks” seriously probably sounds great to many of us. But dig a bit deeper or even think about it for a few minutes and you'll realise that it's a huge mistake. It's a bit like Trump coming in and saying that all this Paris climate change stuff is nonsense and suddenly you've got people around the world saying, “yeah yeah, enough of this climate change nonsense”. And the reason that's happening is because people like Trump are giving people permission to go all climate change-sceptic on it. Which is exactly what the Government is doing with its loosening of the health and safety laws. It's giving people permission to go easy on health and safety, which is the last thing us New Zealanders need when our default position is “she'll be right”. It is a disaster waiting to happen, all over again. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Leeann Watson, CEO of Business Canterbury, joined John MacDonald to give a quarterly update. Are we seeing signs of recovery in Canterbury? What would a commuter train mean for the city business scene? And will the Government's new approach to WorkSafe make a difference for local businesses and how they operate? LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I can't find an exact figure but from what I have seen online, I'm pretty confident in saying that there are hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid fines in New Zealand, and that figure is about to rise even further. Because the Government is dreaming if it thinks people fined for not sending their kids to school are going to suddenly start sending their kids to school, and that they're even going to bother paying the fines. They won't. They'll just ignore them. They won't pay up. Because if they don't feel bad about not sending their kids to school, they won't feel bad about getting a fine. And they won't feel bad about not paying it either. A fortnight ago, Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced that the Government is going to spend $140 million over the next four years with one aim: getting more kids to turn up at school regularly. And I said at the time that we'll wait and see, but it seemed that he had stopped banging the drum about fining parents whose kids don't go to school. And I said, we'll see, because leopard and their spots, and all that. And it turns out I was right to be doubtful, because the leopard hasn't changed its spots and today, he's telling these parents that the Government is out to get them. But it won't make one bit of difference. And I've said before that I think starting school later is an idea worth considering because I want us to get creative when it comes to truancy. There's no evidence to show that fining parents works. In fact, there's evidence to show that it doesn't work. In the United States, for example, Texas, Pennsylvania, and California went through periods where parents could be heavily fined if their kids were repeatedly absent. Parents were fined $500 for every absence. Some states even used ankle bracelets for kids who were repeat truants. It didn't work because it created mistrust in the system and in authorities and the truancy rates got even worse. So what might work, if fining parents isn't going to work? Well this is where Sweden comes into the conversation. I'm not a fan of any sort of financial penalty because, as far as I'm concerned, anything that takes money away from families isn't good because that affects the kids themselves. But if you want a financial penalty approach, in Sweden if a parent is on a benefit of any sort, their payments get cut if they don't send their kids to school. Apparently it's had a positive impact. And I think the reason it works way better than fining parents is that it takes money away without these parents having any choice. Whereas if they get a fine, it's still their choice whether they pay it or not. Plus, here in New Zealand, I think there's a culture where some people just don't give a damn about fines – that's why so many just don't get paid. Which is why I think that the Government's plan to fine parents who don't send their kids to school won't make one bit of difference.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if the key to transforming your workplace isn't just new strategies but a shift in culture? In this episode, John MacDonald, President of T Bar M Camps, shares how he and his team built trust, transparency, and alignment with their Christ-centered mission—creating a workplace where employees feel valued, engaged, and empowered. Find full show notes here: https://bit.ly/436johnmacdonald Share the love. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate it on Apple Podcasts and write a brief review. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-flourishing-culture-podcast/id1060724960?mt=2   By doing so, you will help spread our podcast to more listeners, and thereby help more Christian workplaces learn to build flourishing cultures. | Follow our Host, Al Lopus, on X https://twitter.com/allopus  | Follow our Host, Al Lopus, on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/allopus/ | Email our host at al@workplaces.org

Guest – The Reverand Canon Dr. John Macdonald preaches Isa 61:1-4 Ps 96 Rom 10:9-17 John 20:19-31