Podcasts about plessis allan

You know what? I thought the Prime Minister was right to rule out working with Opportunity, until that One News-Verian poll. Now, I think he might have made a mistake. I'm not 100 percent sure, but I'm starting to lean towards this being an error. If you didn't catch the poll, the screaming message from it was that nobody gets to govern unless they have Opportunity. The centre-right bloc has a combined total of 57 seats. That's not enough. You need 61-plus to govern. The centre-left, once you take out the ridiculous thing TVNZ does by counting six Māori Party seats, which is just unreasonable, probably has about 55 seats. Again, that's not enough. Opportunity has nine. Both sides of the political divide need Opportunity's seats to form a Government. Now, look, things are going to change. One poll does not mean that's what happens on November 7 and Opportunity will almost certainly come back from this. This is probably too high for them. But I think the message here is clear: this scenario is now a live possibility in a way it wasn't before, especially after the failed coup, which must almost certainly dent the chances of an outright centre-right victory. That poll will have scared National Party MPs for two reasons. First, the centre-right doesn't win in that poll. Second, Opportunity did not die after Chris Luxon ruled them out. In fact, they went up instead. What he would have hoped is that by ruling them out, they would fade away as a political force. Instead, they shot up to 8 percent. Now, look, Opportunity is a pretty radical left-wing party, okay? They sit more comfortably on the left. But the fact is, the policies they're spruiking, the ideas National will say no to, are also ideas Labour will say no to. Chris Hipkins knows that if he says to Opportunity, "Yep, absolutely fine. Let's roll out a universal basic income. Let's introduce a land tax. Let's lift the age of youth crime to 25," he'll only last one term in Government because that stuff is nutty. It's nuttier than anything the Jacinda Ardern Government did with the Greens. Because of that, because Labour will say no and National will say no, it neutralises Opportunity. Neither side is going to put up with their more radical ideas. Both sides will only agree to the more sensible proposals. Which means Opportunity possibly becomes a viable support partner for the centre-right as well. And that raises the question: has the Prime Minister made a mistake by ruling them out? And does he now need to row that back? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chris Luxon stared them down and survived again. Now, it sounds like both contenders, or at least both people who thought they were contenders, Erica Stanford and Chris Bishop, were reasonably confident they had the numbers to roll Luxon yesterday afternoon. But then things swung Luxon's way early in the evening. About 8pm, I got a text suggesting the coup was falling apart and Luxon was shoring up his numbers. The people who had defected from him were defecting back to him. By this morning, the confidence had shifted back to Luxon's camp. It looks like, if I can put this really simply, the coup fell apart because of egos. Neither Chris Bishop nor Erica Stanford was prepared to go second on the ticket. They needed to work together if they wanted the numbers. They needed to coalesce around one candidate but they couldn't because both wanted to be leader. So, in the end, neither of them became leader. Now, I can't say the caucus has made the wrong call by backing Chris Luxon because, as I said, either choice was risky and difficult. But the situation the National Party finds itself in is the worst of all worlds. For a second time, the party has signalled to the country that it does not fully back its leader, and then left him there to do the job anyway. No one is going to believe the false show of unity that saw them standing behind Chris Luxon for 75 seconds while he told us his caucus was unified. It doesn't take three hours in a caucus room to establish unity. It takes five minutes. Three hours is what it looks like when there isn't enough unity. The people behind this coup, and this time it appears to be Erica Stanford rather than Chris Bishop, should reflect on what they've done. They have effectively blown the arms and legs off their Prime Minister, then pushed him out there to try to win the election for them again because they couldn't get past their own egos long enough to execute a coup properly. There's only one thing worse than a coup against a Prime Minister, and that's a failed coup. You do all the damage and end up with nothing shiny and new to show for it. This is going to hurt National. Mark my words, this is going to hurt National. The party will probably bleed votes to its coalition partners in the next three months. I'm still not convinced it will cost National the election but it certainly makes that outcome more likely. They only have themselves to blame for what comes next. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, as I warned you last night, they are coming for him again. The roll is on for Christopher Luxon. I didn't think it was going to happen this fast, but I knew it was going to happen. After I got off the radio last night at 7 o'clock, it ramped up, Thomas Coughlan wrote a piece late in the evening for the Herald confirming that National MPs were again phoning each other about his leadership. That, by the way, for people who've already asked me if I'm happy with the situation is not a media creation, get off that bandwagon. It is not the media creating the situation. The media are not forcing the MPs to try to roll him. This is the MPs trying to roll him in the media. They are telling you what is happening. Thomas Coughlan wasn't creating the situation - he was merely reporting on what was going on. Other media who were behind Thomas on this, then started phoning around, found out that Thomas was right and started reporting on the situation as well. The level of reporting became quite overwhelming today. As a result, the Prime Minister could no longer ignore what was now out in the open, and he called a caucus meeting, which will happen tomorrow at 9:30 in Wellington. MPs have already started landing in Wellington for that meeting. I think you would be a fool right now to say which way it is going to go tomorrow because there are about 17.5 hours between now and 9:30 tomorrow morning. There are multiple MPs who consider themselves to be in the running for leadership and those MPs will be using every one of those hours within reason to try to get the numbers for them. There will be horse trading between now and 9:30 tomorrow. There will be promises of jobs. Loyalties will shift. But what I would say is that it is going to be very hard for Chris Luxon to survive this. Because how do you survive two of these in less than 4 months? If, against all the odds, he manages to survive, does he have any authority left after that? I also think he is very close to losing the numbers if he hasn't already. I have counted by myself 3 loyal Luxon MPs who have left him. Two of them have joined Erica Stanford's camp. One of them has joined Chris Bishop's camp. If you've been following this over the last week, you will know that he only had a margin of 3 MPs in the rumored 27 to 22 vote in April. He has lost by my, my count, those 3 MPs, and those are just the ones I know about. He has possibly lost more than that. As I say, I think you would be a fool to say with certainty one way or the other that Chris Luxon will or will not be rolled tomorrow, but I don't like his chances. I don't think this is looking good for him at all. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How weird was National's re-announcement of its Budget Responsibility Rules? It was very weird. Essentially, National made exactly the same announcement that it made three years ago before the 2023 election. First, it would strive for a surplus. Second, it would reduce debt. Third, it would cut Government spending. Here's the question: has National achieved any of those things? Not really, has it? We don't have a surplus, even though National promised we'd have one worth $2.9 billion this year. In fact, we're still years away from any kind of surplus. Has it reduced debt? No. If anything, debt has increased by roughly another $41 billion. And when it comes to Government spending, we basically have the same number of public servants now as we did when Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins left office. So National hasn't even made much of a dent there. In that case, I'm sorry to say it, but you'd have to be either naive or foolish to believe National's promise this time around. In fact, I'm probably being too generous by even calling it a promise. Last time, National explicitly promised a surplus. It didn't deliver one, which makes that a broken promise. This time, however, it's merely "prioritising" a surplus. That change in language says everything you need to know about how confident Nicola Willis herself is about the chances of getting New Zealand back into surplus. I reckon Thomas Coughlan in the Herald absolutely nailed it with one line in his analysis: "Why has National drawn attention to its own failure?" Because that's really all it did. It simply reminded those of us who are concerned about the Government's finances that the National Party has failed to get the books back in order. I think the answer to Thomas' question is that National believes voters will still trust it and that it's trying to force Labour to make the same commitments, commitments National knows Labour may struggle to make. If Labour can't make those same promises, National hopes voters will see it as the more fiscally responsible option. And maybe that's true. Labour may not be able to make the same commitments, given its spending plans and the even more ambitious spending proposals of some of its potential coalition partners. So strategically, this may well work for National with some voters. But for many others, all the announcement did was underscore how little difference there is, in practice, between the way Labour and National manage the Government's books. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Finally, and after a long bloody wait, we've got a date for the opening of Auckland's CRL, the underground train line: September 13. Actually, the date doesn't really matter. September 6, September 20, September 13, who cares? What matters is that it's opening, it works and it's ready to go. This thing has been a long time coming. It's taken a decade to build. It's taken so long, and disrupted Auckland commuters and businesses for so long, that it's actually hard to remember a time when they weren't digging up the middle of the city. I don't know if you realise this but it's actually been talked about for 100 years. Back in the 1920s, it was called the Morningside Deviation. It was supposed to run from Beach Road near Parnell, then go under the CBD, up the hill, with a station at the Auckland Town Hall, before joining the western line at Morningside. It never happened because, like we always do, we quibbled about costs, worried about spending too much and delayed building a piece of infrastructure that we will never regret. Ten, 20, 100 years from now, no one's going to remember this debate about spending too much or overbuilding the cathedral ceilings of the CRL. People will simply use it every day. It will be normal. I don't think it's going too far to say that the CRL is a game changer for our biggest city. Auckland is besieged by traffic snarls. They're so frequent and so bad that I often choose to buy my stuff online rather than drive 10 minutes to a mall because I just can't be bothered with the traffic. This train line will give people the option to move quickly around the city without having to sit in traffic or risk their lives on a bike. It will definitely, definitely, definitely lead to densification around the city centre as developments spring up near the train stations. It will definitely save people time on their commutes as they travel faster and live closer to where they work. It actually feels to me a little bit like a coming of age for Auckland. Auckland likes to consider itself a world-class city. If you want to be a world-class city, you need some world-class infrastructure. So, September 13. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are beliefs that the latest autism figures better reflect society, with less people going un-diagnosed. An Otago University study has found autism rates have tripled over the past 15 years, with nearly 31,000 people diagnosed during the study period. That's 1.3% of kiwi kids, and 0.14% of adults. Autism New Zealand Chief Executive Dane Dougan told Heather du Plessis-Allan that a diagnosis opens the door for support. He says talking to people who've been diagnosed later in life is a significant, and helps them understand why the world seems different for them. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yeah, I don't know what to make of Shane Jones's prediction last night that the days of building big roads are over. He was at this infrastructure debate in Wellington and he said, and I quote, I personally don't see ever another four-lane highway being built in New Zealand in my lifetime. The politicians are going to struggle to justify the cost. Now he can't be right. because Mill Road is supposed to be 4 lanes. Mill Road is incredibly necessary. This is the road that runs south of Auckland, basically runs parallel with the motorway. It's crucial to getting commuters in and out of the city if we want to help them get in and out of the city faster, especially given how much development is currently going on in the Franklin District and Pairata and Drury south of Auckland. That road is supposed to be being built right now. If he is right that no four-lane highways will be built in his lifetime, and he's about 66, I give him another 25 years or so, right? If he's right that no other four-lane highways are gonna be built in the next 25 years or so, it means we're gonna be disappointed, yet again, by Mill Road, like all the other roads of national significance, being downgraded into two lanes, which basically means one lane headed north, one lane heading south. Either that or it's not gonna be built at all. Four-lane highways, by the way, are not flash, They're not extravagant. We should be able to afford them. The fact that we have another politician who was supposed to be all about supporting infrastructure, giving up on roads again, says clearer than ever that we have a problem here. And the problem is not that four-lane highways are unaffordable, it's that we are spending too much money in the wrong places if we can't afford them. We spend way too much. I don't know if you realize this, we spend way too much on entitlements. Just giving money to beneficiaries, giving money to pensioners, giving childcare who are on 1/4 of $1,000,000 a year, giving money to rich pensioners who can heat up their houses and they just use it to run their spa pools over winter. We do not spend enough money on infrastructure. We don't need to give up on four lane highways like Shane Jones has. We just need to stop wasting the money that we should be spending on four lane highways. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new poll shows Labour's ratings fall, whilst Opportunity crosses the 5% threshold needed to make it in to Parliament. The latest Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll shows Labour dropping to 27.7%, whilst Opportunity has risen to 6.1%. Senior Political Correspondent Barry Soper told Heather du Plessis-Allan that now that Opportunity has crossed the line, it's policies will come under more scrutiny. 'It's always nice to see a party rising in the polls, but they've got to stand or fall on their policies.' LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Labour Leader Chris Hipkins has called the latest Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll an 'outlier'. The poll shows Labour dropping from 31.5% to 27.8%, while National received a slight uptick to reach 31%. Former Labour Party Leader David Cunliffe told Heather du Plessis-Allan that even though this poll may be an outlier, Labour should still be cautious. 'I'd say it's an outlier, and I think the thing that makes, the most sense is to look at the poll of polls, but there is some movement in that that labour needs to take a real close eye on.' LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shane Jones has been chewed out by the Road Carriers Association for suggesting four-lane highways are a thing of the past. The NZ First MP says he doesn't expect any more to be built in his lifetime, because they're too expensive to justify. But Road Carriers Association Advocacy General Manger James Smith says this is one of the dumbest things he's ever heard from a politician. He told Heather du Plessis-Allan that four lane highways deliver safety and productivity. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sports Journalist Nathan Limm and ZB Rugby Commentator Hamish McKay join Heather du Plessis-Allan for the sports huddle. On the table today: Joseph Parker has explained what happened between him, his nutritionist and a cocaine test. The trio looks at the state of Netball - with international success but domestic uncertainty, are the Silver Ferns actually excited to head back to New Zealand? And Luke Metcalf has been called up for the Warriors - is he going to make the difference? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yeah, well, if Chris Luxon's week wasn't already bad, it's not much better. Not after he apparently announced off the cuff on ZB Mornings with Kerre that he's going to hold an MMP referendum if he wins the election. Now, where do I start with the problems with him doing this? The first is that it looks incredibly desperate. No one was asking for a referendum. It's not a topic of discussion. I mean, sure, we can all see that MMP is giving Chris Luxon heaps of trouble because he can't fire his Foreign Minister for being racist without ending the coalition and forcing a snap election. But that has not led to a clamour for a return to FPP. In that context, him suddenly announcing that he wants to get rid of MMP, which is basically what he said by calling for a referendum on the thing, looks like he just wants to get rid of the system that's to blame for his party polling around 30 percent and sometimes below 30 percent. That just looks incredibly desperate. Now, I'm not saying that he is desperate because I actually think what happened here is that Chris Luxon fell into the trap of doing what Chris Luxon often does: agreeing with the person he's talking to. And because Kerre really liked the idea, all of a sudden he liked the idea and off he went on a tangent. But for people who didn't hear the whole exchange and just see the headlines, this looks desperate. The second problem is that this is now dominating what should really be a very good news day for the National Party. Their star minister, Erica Stanford, has just released the new subjects for students in Years 12 and 13. Chris Bishop has finally revealed the date for Auckland's new train system. We should be talking about that but instead we're talking about the Prime Minister saying the second weird thing in a week. For the record, if there were a referendum, and there will not be a referendum, which is why this idea is cooked, it would fail. Look at how many people vote for parties that are only there because of MMP: the Greens, ACT, New Zealand First and The Opportunity Party, if you believe the polls. Meanwhile, the two old FPP parties, National and Labour, can't get themselves out of the low 30s. So it's going to fail and that is the third problem. A Prime Minister should never, if they can avoid it, back an idea that is destined to fail. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, I've come back from holiday to find Christopher Luxon having the week from hell, haven't I? The small business comments, the Winston Peters "go back to where you came from" comments and now Choppergate. The latest with Choppergate, by the way, is that the event Chris Luxon was telling Mike Hosking about on Monday, where he finished up in Whanganui at 10:30 and then had to get back to Auckland, was in fact a National Party fundraiser. Now, that would be a big no-no if he were using a Defence Force flight to get to a National Party fundraiser because you can't use Defence Force aircraft to get yourself re-elected, can you? But it is not a no-no because that is not what he was doing. He was using the flight not to get to the fundraiser but to get from the fundraiser to an event in Auckland the next day. His office says that was a prime ministerial event and that makes it acceptable. As far as I'm concerned, prime ministers should be allowed to use the Defence Force, within reason, to get around the place. The Defence Force has to keep those aircraft flying. They have to complete a certain number of flying hours and surely, if the choice is between flying for the sake of it or flying for an actual reason, the practical option is to choose the actual reason. That's what this is. Also, come on, we've got to stop nitpicking legitimate uses of things like Defence Force flights, for God's sake. Whether you like Christopher Luxon or not, whether you vote for him or not, he is the Prime Minister. That is the most senior elected position in New Zealand. It is a job that requires constant travel and work. The Defence Force should be flying him around the place to cut down his travel time, simply so he can use that time for something more productive. It is neither novel nor new that this happens. Go and watch the Jacinda documentary on Netflix. She gets picked up from Clarke's parents' holiday home in Gisborne in a Defence Force chopper. Prime ministers have been flown around the country, and around the world, by the Defence Force for decades. It says more about us, I think, than it does about Chris Luxon that this is an issue. Now, the other two issues Luxon is dealing with this week are proper problems that do warrant debate: his small business comments and Winston Peters' racist comments. But this, Choppergate, is just nitpicking. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is professional netball in New Zealand now in a death spiral? Unless something really significant happens to change the trajectory, are we watching the death spiral of a sport? I think all netball fans should be very concerned about the financial revelation from Netball New Zealand's chair: the organisation is expected to run at a loss of $6 million a year and it does not have enough money to absorb losses like that indefinitely. The last time I checked, Netball New Zealand had around $12 million in the bank. If that's still roughly accurate, they'll now have about half of that left and possibly even less. If they can't afford to run the competition next year in the same way they did this year, then surely the most obvious option, though not the only one, is to ask players to either play for free or accept another pay cut on top of the reduction they've already taken this year. And if players are asked to take another pay cut, or even play for free, isn't the most obvious response for the best of them to leave and play in Australia or the UK, where they can earn reasonable money? Let's say six players decide they need to be paid for the work they do and head overseas. I'm making that figure up but let's go with it. We've already lost eight players from the competition this year. Suddenly, we're talking about a dozen or 14 players leaving. That's the equivalent of two teams' worth of talent disappearing from the competition. Now you've got a much less compelling competition next year because the best players are gone. In that scenario, does TVNZ look at a significantly weaker product and decide, "I'm not sure we want to broadcast that"? And even if they do decide to stick with it, do the rest of us, the fans, tune in and think, "This isn't much good. All the stars are gone," and then stop watching? If the audience falls away, do sponsors start leaving as well because they're no longer getting the reach they expected for their investment? And if all of that happens, netball surely generates even less revenue in the years ahead. Does the cycle then begin again? With less money coming in, do players get asked to take another pay cut, prompting more departures and continuing the downward spiral? You can see how this could keep happening, over and over again, until there's very little left. That's why there has to be a circuit-breaker. Something has to interrupt the cycle. I don't know what that solution is. Is it privatisation? Is it joining the Australian league? I don't know. But it's clear that something major will be required to secure the future of Netball New Zealand. Because if it wasn't already obvious, the numbers should make it crystal clear: professional netball in this country appears to be at the beginning of a death spiral. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Forbidden Pharmacy is an art pop-up in Auckland's Shed 10 that took place on Friday, July 24. In the installation there are over 200 medicines that are currently unfunded in New Zealand but needed by patients. "The literal cost of living here is what it costs patients to either live, extend their life, or live well," Forbidden Pharmacy Spokesperson Ah-Leen Rayner told Heather du Plessis-Allan. "What we know is that an increase of 0.1% of GDP would clear the backlog, and that's of the medicines that Pharmac would like to fund if they had the money today. And that still leaves us investing only a third of what other developed nations spend on medicine access." LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you're a fan, like I am, of scrapping as many councils as possible because of how poorly the numpties on those councils are running the place, you're about to learn, as I am, that just because you and I like an idea doesn't mean everyone else does. We are two weeks away from Chris Bishop's deadline for councils to submit their amalgamation plans so that we end up with a few large councils instead of dozens of small ones. And, two weeks out, the wheels are starting to come off. Upper Hutt City Council has changed its mind. It doesn't want to amalgamate with Wellington anymore. By the looks of things, it made that decision this week. That's a little worrying because the Wellington amalgamation felt like the slam-dunk, easy one. It's been talked about for such a long time, the boundaries are obvious, there should just be one council and the carve-up of a small region into so many councils is unbelievably stupid. But despite all that, there's a problem. It doesn't look like it's going to happen easily. Wairoa is flat-out refusing to amalgamate with anyone and it makes a good case for why. As the ever-sensible Mayor of Wairoa, Craig Little, says, the efficiencies would flow to the centres, not the edges. Wairoa is on the edge and, to be honest, he's right, isn't he? Nelson wants to go with Tasman. Tasman doesn't want to go with Nelson. Canterbury has five different options for how it could do this but it doesn't know which one to choose. Hamilton also doesn't know how to do it. "Megatron" is apparently one option. Kaipara doesn't want to join up with the other Northland councils, although they're happy to join up with each other. Of course, this was always going to go this way when you think about it. Of course it was always going to descend into a fight. Auckland descended into a fight. It still is a fight for some people. There are still people who moan about the Super City in Auckland and it's been nearly 20 years. Spare a thought for Chris Bishop on this one because he's the minister responsible for all of this. His life already sucks. He's already breaking promises about Roads of National Significance. Auckland has already given him a good spanking over the density rules. Christopher Luxon has already taken away some of his favourite jobs. He's got the RMA reforms coming at him fast and those are going to be contentious as well. And now he's got this drama, which, in the next two weeks, is likely to blow up in his face.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

US President Donald Trump says he is close to deciding whether to launch “a massive attack” against Iran. But, senior fellow at Defence Priorities and a former US Marine Gil Barndollar believes that that like many of Trump's threats, this is unlikely. "He's already killed the Supreme Leader. He's already done a tremendous amount of damage to Iranian infrastructure..." he told Heather du Plessis-Allan. "You know, what more can he really do after that?" LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hayden Donald Jason Tasker sentenced to at least 22 years in prison for the murder of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming on New Years Day 2025. Police Association President Steve Watt said despite justice now being served, the impact the event has taken on her colleagues around the country will remain. "Our members often will carry that emotional weight of what they've witnessed, what they've experienced long after the headlines fade," he told Heather du Plessis-Allan. "You know, colleagues will continue to struggle with the grief, the trauma, and the reality that a routine shift can change lives within an instant." LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new campaign offering free round-trip flights between Wellington and Westport is the latest bid to save a regional airline route operated by Nelson-based Originair, but those taking up the offer must book a rental car in Westport first. The campaign hopes to draw interest while the Government decides whether to support the route in the long-run. Development West Coast CEO Heath Milne joined Heather du Plessis-Allan to discuss. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The United States has announced it will impose new tariffs on 60 trading partners, including New Zealand. After his previous tariffs were deemed illegal by the Supreme Court, Trump is using the excuse that the countries are not doing enough to stop the imports of goods associated with forced labour to justify the increase. ExportNZ Executive Director Joshua Tan told Heather du Plessis-Allan that even if New Zealand fixed the alleged issue it would likely not change the tariff. "Look, simply put, the Trump administration wants a way to to enforce higher tariffs across the imports, and this is the mechanism that they've chosen. There is simply no way of avoiding it." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ryan Fox returned to New Zealand on Friday, July 24, bringing along the Claret Jug following his triumph at the Open Championship on Monday. He spoke to Heather du Plessis-Allan about the feeling of extra pressure going forward. "There's gonna be a whole lot more eyeballs on me, and there's gonna be a whole lot more expectation." LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Right, is it just me, or is there anyone else out there who thinks it's mighty rich of New Zealand First to force Stuart Nash to resign, given the candidates and MPs they have defended for some of the most outrageous things they have said? Is it not rich that Shane Jones was on the radio saying, "Mm, yeah, sensible for Stuart Nash to have resigned," when he is the guy who referred to the Prime Minister needing to get out the kneepads for Narendra Modi when he visited, and he is the guy who used the phrase "butter chicken tsunami"? Now, I was aware of what was happening about 7pm on Wednesday. What was going on was basically that New Zealand First told Stuart Nash that he needed to quit or be fired. He tried to fight his corner but he was unable to do so and he was basically told that was the end of it. I have to be honest, I was really surprised by this. If this were any other party, it'd be fine, but it's New Zealand First. It feels off-brand for New Zealand First. This is a party that's made a virtue of resisting the wokesters and resisting the mainstream media. And then, the minute the wokesters and the mainstream media get upset at Stuart Nash, New Zealand First doesn't even hold its line for 12 hours. It just folds immediately. I mean, that has got to shake the confidence of voters who are attracted to New Zealand First because they think the party is going to provide some sort of bulwark against the creep of political correctness and so-called wokeness. Apparently not. They will fold within 12 hours. Now, I can only guess at why New Zealand First has folded on Nash and not on Jones. I'm guessing it's because there are more women voters in New Zealand than there are Indian voters. I'm guessing it's because Winston Peters prides himself personally on chivalry towards women and this would actually personally offend him. I'm guessing it's because Nash was already on his last chance after the "What is a woman?" thing and the aggro texts to Todd McClay. I'm guessing it's because Nash was not going to win the seat of Napier anyway so this gets New Zealand First out of an embarrassing defeat by a woman who's apparently distracted by her toddler. Because otherwise, immediately agreeing with the wokesters and the mainstream media does seem like quite a weird thing for New Zealand First to do, don't you think? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Okay, here's the news on the netball front. Objectively, I don't think what I'm about to tell you is good news. We've heard the administration staff of the three Netball New Zealand-owned teams, the Stars, the Magic and the Tactix, have been told their contracts are up at the end of this month and will not be renewed, at least for now, for next year. This has to call into question whether we're even going to have an ANZ Premiership next year because you can't run those three teams without those administration staff. And if you don't have those three teams, you can't run the competition. There are only three other privately owned teams in the league, making six teams in total. You can't have a competition of three teams. That's not enough to run a competition, is it? So, are we going to have the league or not? The worst-case scenario is the ANZ Premiership isn't happening next year. The best-case scenario is it is happening but Netball New Zealand can't be 100 percent sure right now. Maybe they're 80 percent sure. Maybe they're 75 percent sure. But that's not enough certainty to offer contracts because you can't afford to carry the labour costs of three teams when there's a 20 percent to 25 percent chance the competition doesn't happen. Either way, we're guessing. Do you know why we're guessing? Because, once again, the Netball New Zealand bosses are AWOL. They are apparently, at least at this stage, not doing interviews. The chief executive is in Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games. The chair, Alistair Carruthers, is not in Glasgow. He's in New Zealand, at least that's what we've been told. He's not doing interviews either because Alistair Carruthers does not do interviews when the questions are likely to be a little hard. Now look, up to this point, because this has been going on for a number of months, I think we've given Netball New Zealand a fair amount of grace. We know this is a tough situation for them. We know it's been going on for a while. The game has been bleeding talent and it's been bleeding money. They needed time to turn things around. They needed time to make decisions. They had a new board and a new chief executive. They needed time. But I think they've run out of time. I think this has probably gone on too long. When you're essentially telling the administration staff who run half the teams in the competition that they won't have jobs in 10 days' time, I think it will inevitably cause the public, the players, the administrators and the fans to speculate that there may be no competition next year. And I think it requires Netball New Zealand's bosses to come on and explain to us what the hell is happening next year because right now, this doesn't look good for netball in New Zealand. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, I think we can probably call it: in the end, no one cared enough about the controversies at the Football World Cup. We all just had a really good time watching it. Anyone hoping, and there were definitely people hoping, that this would be the World Cup where the corruption would finally be too much, the controversies would finally be too much, and something would be done about it, will be horribly disappointed. Already, it sounds like UEFA is ignoring calls to deal with FIFA president Gianni Infantino after US President Donald Trump involved himself in getting the red card overturned. And already, more than 200 of FIFA's member associations have formally backed Infantino for re-election. I think those two things should tell you more than anything else that nothing is going to come from any of the politics or any of the controversies. Instead, what's going to happen is that Infantino will celebrate yet another successful tournament. The football was great. It wasn't diluted by the extra teams, which is what people were worried about. It wasn't predictable. You had surprise successes like Cape Verde. Nearly seven million fans passed through the gates. That is, by the way, enormous. That's double the previous record, which was set in the US 32 years ago. Ninety-nine-point-seven percent of tickets were sold. They think the final will be the most-watched football match on record. Now, sure, in years to come we're going to remember that Trump got a red card overturned, just as we're going to remember the rainbow armband drama in Qatar. But, we're also going to remember that the Argies got really heated up and had a fight after the final, that Lionel Messi got a hat-trick and that Eli Just scored a double for the All Whites, who actually turned out to be not half bad and gave us some hope that maybe quality football is finally improving in this country. In the end, the controversies are just part of the story but they didn't stop people going to the games or watching the games, which is so predictable because this is what happens every single time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis joined Heather du Plessis-Allan for their weekly chat. On the Golden Bay Cement bailout, Willis defended the Government's decision to not change the ETS and instead provide funding directly to the company. "If we had said 'actually no, the ETS doesn't apply to you, Golden Bay Cement', there would have been a conga, well, there could have been a conga line of others who would have said, 'hey, we don't want the ETS to apply to us either.'" Willis also confirmed that Erica Stanford is expected to make announcements on a potential social media ban in the coming weeks. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government's carbon credit trading scheme could have shut New Zealand's only cement manufacturing plant, but Fletcher Building announced today it got a $60 million bailout to keep it running - the $60m is not a loan. NZ Initiative Chief Economist Dr Eric Crampton told Heather du Plessis-Allan that the bailout doesn't address the root cause of the issue. "It's a mess that's trying to solve what's actually a real problem in how the government's industrial allocations in the emissions trading scheme work - the design of those is not good, and they are particularly not good when it comes to cement manufacturing," he said. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today the Green Party announced their new energy policy to build a publicly owned electricity company called Kiwipower. The policy has a proposed $980 million four-year appropriation with the goal of cutting power bills and expanding renewable energy. "It's creating something called firming, which effectively is the power that kind of rumbles on in the background and is constant," Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick told Heather du Plessis-Allan. "These are the kinds of investments that are necessary for the sake of creating that secure and resilient energy system." LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The $1.66 billion mega-pipe solution to some of Auckland's water woes was officially opened today. Watercare's Central Interceptor tunnel runs for 16.2km from Point Erin in Herne Bay to the Māngere Wastewater Treatment Plant. "What it does is it creates, basically, a new backbone for our wastewater system, and will over time really reduce those overflows that are occurring into our harbours," Watercare CEO Jamie Sinclair told Heather du Plessis-Allan. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop spoke to the public today with more details about the RMA reform. Bishop confirmed all existing agreements, called Mana Whakahono ā Rohe, between councils and local iwi will be scrapped, replacing them with 'iwi participation agreements'. He told Heather du Plessis-Allan the one main goal is protecting Māori land, "and so the question is how you go about doing that in a streamlined way in the system where you don't have co-governance and you don't have broad cultural rights that are asserted". LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Question for you: was Donald Trump's speech to the American people a classic case of muddying the waters? For Trump, it was a relatively short speech, about 40 minutes, in which he claimed there had been Chinese interference in the 2020 presidential election, that there were extreme vulnerabilities in the election system that need to be closed and that China obtained more than 200 million American voter registration records. He then released a trove of documents that he claims back up these allegations. Now, the allegation that China interferes in the elections of Western liberal democracies is not new and, frankly, isn't even controversial. We know the Chinese do this. They've been doing it for years across multiple countries: the United States, Canada, Australia and even here in New Zealand. We've been subjected to interference as well. The claim that China somehow involved itself in the 2020 presidential election is also neither new nor controversial. That allegation has been made before. The question then is: if none of this is new or controversial, why give a speech? Why set aside time to address the American people and revisit it all over again? Whichever way you look at it, I think it's probably safe to assume it's because he's concerned about the midterm elections coming up later this year. He is either trying to rally support for the Save America Act, which would effectively return the United States to in-person voting with voter ID requirements, a system that would likely favour Republicans, or he's laying the groundwork for an excuse in the event Republicans perform poorly in the elections anyway. Or it could be both. And, given it's Trump, you can't rule out the possibility that he's going through this whole exercise so that, a few months from now, he can blame someone else, perhaps the Chinese, if Republicans underperform at the ballot box.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a speech to the American people Donald Trump has once again claimed fraud in the 2020 election, this time alleging Chinese interference. Former Republican Communications Director, Doug Heye, told Heather du Plessis-Allan, "I think trying to make any sense out of this speech is a fool's errand." LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rail Minister Winston Peters revealed the names of the two new ferries headed for New Zealand in 2029. The new ferry names are Kupe, after the first Polynesian navigator to discover New Zealand, and Cook, after Captain James Cook, who led an expedition to New Zealand with the Endeavour in the 18th century. Peters confirmed that KiwiRail would continue to own the Interislander ferries once they arrive, the Government had refused to commit to full KiwiRail ownership. He told Heather du Plessis-Allan, "we're just gonna get on and do the job, but most people will be delightfully happy with it." LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A native hawk in the Wairarapa has been confirmed as the second case of bird flu in New Zealand. The animal was sent to a wildlife hospital after suffering a head injury where the disease was found upon routine testing. Minister of Biosecurity Andrew Hoggard told Heather du Plessis-Allan that they are working with farmers in the region. "From an MPI perspective, we are touching base with all, I think there's about 13, egg producers or poultry producers in the Wairarapa. So, teams getting in contact with all of them just to check, are they confident in their biosecurity measures they've got?" LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

US Correspondent Dan Mitchinson joined Heather du Plessis-Allan to chat the latest news out of the USA. Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, has announced that US troops aged 30 or older will have to undergo testosterone testing as part of annual health screenings. Mitchinson said, "there are, you know, studies that show 1 in 4 men over 30 have low testosterone, and only 1 in 20 recognise the symptoms, but really this just seems like, why are you doing this?" "What is the point?" LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Trade Minister Todd McClay addressed media with his Swiss counterpart Helene Budliger Artieda at the Future of Investment and Trade (FIT) Partnership ministerial meeting in Auckland to announce trade partnership talks. Limited details are available as the talks are in the early stages. "What we've agreed today is to start a formal trade investment dialogue," McClay told Heather du Plessis-Allan. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster says that cases of unauthorised employees snooping on private information are growing. He told Heather du Plessis-Allan "it looks like at least 1 in 10 cases are employee browsing, and a greater percentage, up to a third, are, are what we call unauthorised access. So, people who have a right to look at material, but only for work purposes, and they're using it for their personal purposes." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If anyone on a council at the moment can't understand why so many of us ratepayers are so hostile towards them, sometimes bordering on hatred, can I just suggest they take a look at what's going on with these agreements with iwi? That might actually give them a bit of an idea. If you haven't followed this, Chris Bishop is planning to replace the Resource Management Act shortly and his replacement law will not allow councils to sign any more of these agreements. These agreements are called Mana Whakahono a Rohe agreements. In some cases, and certainly in the more extreme examples, they effectively cede significant decision-making power to iwi. The new law will not allow any further agreements to be signed but it will allow existing agreements to continue. So, of course, what's happening is that councils are rushing to sign as many of these things as they can before the law changes. The Far North District Council is trying to sign five of them, apparently without involving elected councillors in the process. They're reportedly not even allowed to see the detail. I've had a letter today from the Mayor of Carterton drawing my attention to the fact that Greater Wellington Regional Council, which covers Carterton, is doing exactly the same thing, despite objections from two of its constituent councils: Carterton and Kāpiti. Environment Canterbury tried to rush one through this week, then got busted and pulled it from the agenda. The fact that councils are being cynical like this will come as no surprise to anyone because they did exactly the same thing with Māori wards when they knew that, in many cases, their own ratepayers did not support them. But this gets much more difficult for the Government because it, particularly the National Party and ACT, said this co-governance stuff would end. Yet they are allowing it to continue under their new RMA laws by permitting these agreements to carry over. They need to change that law. They need to change it before it becomes law if they really meant what they said. Importantly, if they want to retain the faith of the voters who backed them to end this stuff, then they need to act when they have the chance next week, when the select committee report on the RMA reforms comes back. They need to say that these agreements will be rendered void under the new law and that whatever has been signed in a last-minute rush will count for nothing. This is the Government's big test. It's the chance to prove that what it said about co-governance wasn't just hot air. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All right - given the level of hostility we have at the moment towards local body councillors and councils, I suspect there'll be plenty of support for the idea I'm about to tell you about. But I would caution against getting too excited because it's a terrible idea. If you've been following councils around the country lately, you'll be aware of Benedict Ong from the Dunedin City Council and Ray Chung from the Wellington City Council. Both are making nuisances of themselves, which is why they're in the news. Benedict, for repeatedly receiving council emails and then immediately forwarding them to multiple journalists and leaking the information; and Ray Chung, for getting himself to the scene of a missing person during a flooding event in Wellington when he shouldn't have been there, and then telling porkies, or what looked a lot like porkies afterwards, about why he was there. Now, Ben McNulty, the Wellington Deputy Mayor, is so frustrated by this nonsense that he's proposing tougher sanctions for councillors like this to deal with what he calls "almost existential threats to democracy" caused by councillors leaking sensitive information. Ben hasn't said specifically what powers he wants but whatever it is he's proposing, I don't like it. Because while I have no love for the antics of Benedict Ong, Ray Chung or anybody like that, I respect the fact that both of them were democratically elected. They are just as entitled to council information and council access as the most well-behaved councillors. And if we start dreaming up ways to punish wayward councillors we don't like, we may find those very same rules being used against good councillors we do like if the wayward ones gain a majority. Whatever punishment we concoct is a punishment that can be weaponised against enemies. There is already a perfectly good punishment for councillors who misbehave and push things too far. It is the loss of office at the next election. Democracy already has a built-in punishment. We do not need another one. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How good is that Paul Henry announcement, eh? How good is that? ACT sent out a little media advisory last night about 7:30pm, saying there would be a major announcement. It would not be a policy announcement, no exclusive would be offered and there would be no embargoed material. I looked at it and immediately the texts started coming in. Is David Seymour resigning? Has somebody died? Is somebody pregnant? What's going on? I looked at it and thought, that's a lot of hype right there in that little media advisory. This better be good or the chat is going to be about damp squibs. But no, Paul Henry is absolutely worth all that hype. Paul Henry, I think, is the candidate get of the election so far. Don't forget, he was the highest-rated host of breakfast television in this country. He is immensely popular. He probably, I think, will single-handedly lift ACT's vote; at the very least, he will hold it up. Paul brings two things to ACT. The first is his absolute belief in New Zealand. That is authentic. He's been raving about New Zealand being paradise for years now. He's even done a TV show about it. When he says he wants to be in Parliament to sort out New Zealand's prosperity for the sake of his grandkids, I absolutely believe that to be true. The second thing he brings is entertainment. ACT has been struggling to break through on the right. The headlines have largely been hogged by New Zealand First. Paul Henry, I think, can get cut-through with his wit alone. Go and have a look at that press conference. He was very, very funny. Now, this is not to say that Paul Henry is going to go down well with everyone. There is a small group of people out there who absolutely hate his guts, but that is no loss to ACT because those people were most probably going to vote left anyway. My only hope for Paul is that he doesn't come to regret this decision because going into Parliament very rarely ends well for people who already have public profiles and successful careers. Somehow, though, I think if that is how it goes for Paul Henry, he's not going to give a damn anyway, so it probably doesn't matter. Ten out of ten. This announcement is brilliant for ACT's campaign. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Let's not pretend that this roading announcement is not a massive letdown for anyone who voted for the National Party believing it would deliver the roads it promised. It is a huge letdown. Of the 15 Roads of National Significance promised following the last election, only six have construction dates: Takitimu North Link Stage 1 in Tauranga, Ōtaki to north of Levin, the Hawke's Bay Expressway, Warkworth to Te Hana, Cambridge to Piarere and the Ōmanawa Bridge. I don't even know where that is. The rest of them? Well, good luck to you. The second Mount Victoria Tunnel, which is one of my personal obsessions because of how badly Wellington needs it, has no construction date. In fact, the pre-construction work could take us all the way through to 2037. That is incredibly disappointing. I've heard rumours for months that this was the case. I've kept asking Chris Bishop about it on this show and he has assured me the project was all go. But it's not really, is it? And remember what National said at the last election: spades in the ground in the first term. That is now a broken promise. Now, I have to give credit where credit is due and that is to Chris Bishop because he fronted up and got honest with the public about this. That can't have been easy for him to do - for his own reputation and for the political fallout facing the National Party ahead of the next election. I know he's been anxious about this day coming and it has come. I think he's handled it as well as he could.But this is a mistake that Chris Bishop and the Nats cannot blame on anyone but themselves. They cannot blame Trump. They cannot blame tariffs. They cannot blame the conflict with Iran. They cannot blame inflation. They cannot blame the Labour Party. It was obvious in 2023 that they were being too ambitious in promising all these roads. They were warned they were being too ambitious and the warnings were correct. Now there will be significant numbers of disappointed voters who will have to wait so long for the roads they were promised that - given how changes of Government work - they may never actually get them. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Official Cash Rate has gone up by 25 basis points. This is the first rise we've seen in three years. It was unanimous around the committee table that it needed to happen because of inflation. Even though petrol and diesel prices have fallen sharply since the Iran war ceasefire deal was struck, they're not back to pre-war levels yet and they won't be for some time. That, of course, is inflationary. You know what struck me, though? Even though this is the first hike in the Official Cash Rate in three years and even though there wasn't consensus among high-profile economists that this should happen - I mean, plenty of them were calling very strongly for it to be held for the sake of the economy - there isn't nearly as much angst around this as there was around any of the decisions Adrian Orr made. Even when they were decisions we wanted, we still got angsty because they were either too late, too early or whatever. Instead, the news conference was boring. So boring, in fact, that it was refreshing. Anna Breman slowly talked us through the decision with a slideshow. She let Paul, on one side of her, pipe up occasionally. Karen, on the other side, was also allowed to chip in. She took questions from journalists on video link. She explained really basic economic concepts to them. The impression you got the whole way through was that Anna Breman is in control. Because we knew this. This was not a surprise. We knew it was coming. It was very well signalled. Seventy percent of economists were expecting it. The market had priced it in. The NZIER Shadow Board was picking it. There was, as I say, consensus around the committee table. It gives the impression that she's not the victim of a knee-jerk reaction but is instead being quite deliberate in the path she's taken. You could argue that her job right now is every bit as hard as Adrian Orr's was, at least towards the end of his tenure. Because this Iran stuff is really mucking around with forecasts, isn't it? That news conference was so boring - and so angst-free - that it gives me some hope. The further we get away from COVID, and from the characters who were around during COVID, the more things might return to their boring averages. Maybe we'll get on with each other and get on with the jobs we're supposed to do a lot better. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Let's talk about the Chinese test of that nuclear-capable missile. More specifically, let's talk about New Zealand's response to it, which was quite full-throated in its criticism of China. I find myself unable to get as worked up about this as Winston Peters because, please correct me if I'm wrong, I can't see that China has actually broken any rules here. Before firing the missile, China alerted New Zealand, Australia and Japan, as required under international regulations governing tests of this nature. And even though there's been a lot of noise about China firing a nuclear-capable missile into a nuclear-free zone, it was only nuclear-capable; it was not actually carrying a nuclear warhead. It was a dummy. Sure, I'd admit they were pushing hard up against what people would be comfortable with. But then again, missiles are generally not things people are comfortable with. As far as I can see, the New Zealand Government's angry response is largely posturing because we're required to posture. The reason I'm not quite as worked up is that this doesn't actually surprise me. Anyone who's followed what China has been up to lately knows that it's building up its military and not just so it can put on impressive displays. I do wonder, though, whether China has made a bit of a mistake here, just as it may have done last year when it conducted live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea. This kind of activity from China could freak people out a bit, or, if not freak them out, at least wake them up to the fact that China is not simply a benign trading partner. It is a military superpower with clear strategic ambitions, probably involving Taiwan. So I wouldn't be surprised if this creates greater support in New Zealand for increased defence spending, which is actually something we need to do. Nor would I be surprised if it unsettles some of our Pacific neighbours and drives them closer to New Zealand and Australia, which is arguably what we want. In a way, I don't actually mind that China did this, if only because it might help us collectively wake up a little to what is really happening in our region. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How good was that All Blacks test? I want to say I'm a little surprised by the number of commentators moaning about it and saying they're not impressed - but if I'm completely honest with you, I'm not that surprised. Some of the criticism is fair. There were fumbles, there were discipline issues, the French scored first, they threatened throughout the game and it was a very close scoreline in the end. But some of the criticism feels like it's still stuck in 2011, 2013 or 2015, back when the All Blacks were at their peak. The norm has changed. The Northern Hemisphere has caught up since then. The French are not a side to be underestimated. We do it every time. We say, "Oh, they're not sending a full-strength team." It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether they send an A team, a B team or a C team. They have so much depth in that competition now. They're good, whoever comes here. So I think we probably underestimated who we were playing and thought there should have been - what was it Piney said? - 12 or 13 points on the French. Plus, don't forget, this was the first test of the season and it is always a shaky start, especially lately, for the All Blacks. It's also the first test for a new coach and this was a team that had only been in camp together for, what, 10 days? Something like that. When you consider all of that, it was actually impressive. It was a confident start. It was fast-paced. It was full of opportunity. There was a hunger for possession. I loved it. I loved watching a team that wanted to win and seemed to have some idea of how it was going to do it. Yes, of course, the critics make some fair points and you have to acknowledge them. But the All Blacks showed some spark and, most importantly, they won. If it wasn't good, it was good enough, wasn't it? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If there's any good that comes from this awful case of the man dying while waiting for help in Waikato Hospital's emergency department, it's that at least it's getting a lot of media attention. I don't know if you recall but basically the same thing happened in 2021 at Middlemore Hospital. It was strange to me how little attention it received at the time, especially given everything else that was going wrong. There were people waiting for ambulances and dying in their doorways. That was happening a lot. There were reports of overcrowded EDs, understaffed hospitals and all sorts of other problems. Yet, for some reason, it barely attracted any attention and I could never really explain why. Perhaps, in retrospect, it was simply that it didn't fit the narrative. It was a Labour government at the time, Jacinda Ardern was Prime Minister and the government was pouring large amounts of money into a range of areas, including hospitals. So there was no easy explanation for why these things were happening. Now, of course, it's much easier to explain: National government, austerity, therefore not enough money. There's a logical connection there, whether you agree with it or not. While I'm horrified that this has happened, at least it is getting the attention it deserves because it was predictable — and it was predicted. The problem is simple: we do not have enough nurses and doctors in our hospitals. Go into a hospital and tell me that's not true. Don't worry about the numbers that get trotted out every time we talk about this. We hear, "Oh, we've hired heaps of doctors, we've hired heaps of nurses," and so on. Numbers can be misleading. You can say you've hired two new nurses but are those nurses fulltime or part-time? If they're fulltime, then you've gained two nurses. If they're part-time, you've effectively gained one fulltime equivalent nurse. This is the kind of thing I'm told is happening at the moment. Ignore the numbers and look at what's actually happening. Waikato ED wait times are so long that the waiting room is overcrowded and people are queueing out the door. Does that look like a fully staffed department to you? No, because it isn't. And the reason I want this to get attention is that an ED is one place none of us can avoid. Rich or poor, we're all likely to end up there at some point if we need emergency medical help. It has to work. If it doesn't work, then people's lives are at risk. And the more attention that's focused on the fact that it isn't working, the greater the chance that something is actually done to fix it. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to make his first official visit to New Zealand. His arrival comes amid controversial comments from foreign minister Winston Peters, who says that Indians will be facing unfairly tough immigration laws upon arrival to New Zealand Senior political correspondent Barry Soper told Heather du Plessis-Allan that you would normally expect the foreign minister to greet an arriving Prime Minister, but Peters is abroad for the visit. 'He arrives back in the country the day after Modi leaves. he's in Japan quite conveniently.' LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Prime Minister says he's shocked the Family Court gave a staffer paid leave for five years until he was convicted of money laundering last month. Ex-lotto host Russell Harrison was arrested for transporting gold bas for the Comancheros in 2021. Chief Victims Advisor Ruth Money told Heather du Plessis-Allan that this is 'unacceptable'. 'As taxpayers don't need 5 years of taxpayers' money given to someone who's sitting at home having a cushy life.' LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you haven't yet caught up on the drama involving the former Lotto presenter and the gold-bar smuggling operation, you need to hear this because it basically involves your taxpayer money. The chap's name is Russell Harrison. You might remember him from the Lotto draws. He went on to a job at the Ministry of Justice as a Kaiārahi, a Family Court navigator. He took the job in June 2021 and later that same month he was charged with money laundering after meeting a man in an Auckland cemetery, where the man handed him $420,000 in cash. We now know that money was the proceeds of drug offending, although frankly, you could probably have guessed that at the time. He then went to New Zealand Gold Merchants and bought six gold bullion bars. Ten days later, he flew to Turkey to deliver them to the head of the Comancheros. When he was charged — bearing in mind he'd been in the job for less than a month — had he even turned up to work 20 times? I don't know. But when he was charged, the Ministry of Justice stood him down from his job and kept paying him his full salary for five years, right up until two weeks ago when he pleaded guilty. If you look at the salary range for that role, he may have received as much as $564,000 of taxpayers' money while sitting at home and drawing out the court process, all the while collecting an income. Everybody I've spoken to, including an employment lawyer, says this guy should have lost his job within months. The employer could reasonably have given him a few weeks but by the two- or three-month mark they should have sat down and sorted this out. An employer does not have to wait for the courts to find somebody like this guilty. They can conduct their own independent investigation and determine for themselves whether dismissal is justified based on the available evidence and, for example, the likelihood that the employee has committed the alleged offences. We don't know why the Ministry of Justice didn't do this because they're not talking about it. Instead, all we know is that they took an approach we are beginning to see repeatedly across the public sector: not really having much regard for the fact that this is absolutely taking the mickey out of the taxpayer. They simply kept spending the money on him for five long years. Now, hands up: which employer in the real world would keep you on full pay for five years after you're charged with helping the Comancheros? Answer: no one. Actually, disclaimer: the public service. But that's not the real world. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Meridian Energy's been granted fast track approval to take more water from Lake Pukaki. The Fast-track Panel's decision also grants permission to permanently install rock armour to boost resilience to wave erosion, when the lake's operating at lower levels. Major Electricity Users Group Executive Director Karen Boyes told Heather du Plessis-Allan that she has mixed feelings about the decision 'Some positive impacts possibly for consumers in the short term if we're using this water instead of fossil fuel fuels, but definitely some big concerns in the longer term.' LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Forsyth Barr stadium in Dunedin has a new face at the helm. Phil King is taking over as CEO of Dunedin Venues Management Limited, the organisation that owns the stadium. He told Heather du Plessis-Allan that his priority is, 'sort of focusing on our own strengths and delivering a bulletproof wide Dunedin business case to partners and promoters'. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A security company boss says ACT's newest crime policy could give clarity on how security guards can act. The Party says if elected, it wants accredited security guards to have the ability to detain and remove people, issue exclusion notices, and use force. Watchdog Security Chief Executive Brett Wilson, told Heather du Plessis-Allan that he expects only the top 10-percent of security personal would apply for a license. He says they'd be high calibre of staff, with the physical capability to carry out what's being proposed, given accreditation. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.