Podcasts about plessis allan

Stuart Nash turning up at the conference over the weekend - that was quite a coup for New Zealand First. Now, clearly what New Zealand First is trying to do is emulate what Reform - Nigel Farage's party - in the UK is doing. If you've been following what they're up to, they have had a huge number of politicians defect to Reform. And every single time it happens, the news media covers it and it makes Reform look like the party with the momentum. That is what New Zealand First is trying to do. That's why you had both Stuart Nash, formerly of Labour, and Harete Hipango, formerly of National, at the conference over the weekend. Now, despite the circumstances of Stuart leaving Parliament, he's actually a really big defection from Labour because he's a very capable politician. He managed to turn Napier into a red seat in 2014, despite the popularity of the Key Government at the time. He was one of the few ministers in the Ardern administration that voters on the right actually had time for. He is, and I think that's because he's a proper centrist in the Labour Party - not crazy left like a lot of them are, a little bit more to the right - which is why he's probably going to find a better home for himself in New Zealand First than the Labour Party of 2025. Now, I don't know if Labour realizes what they've lost with Stuart Nash leaving. I mean, of course, he's really been out of Labour since the moment Chippy fired him, but I don't think they even realized then what they'd lost because they haven't replaced him. And what I mean by that is they haven't gone looking for another true centrist politician. Back in the day, Labour had heaps of them. They had Phil Goff, David Shearer and just going back through time - Richard Prebble, Roger Douglas, Mike Moore - it wasn't that unusual to have a good little centrist or righty sitting in the Labour Party. Now, name one for me. I mean, you might have once been able to say Chippy, but he's allowed himself to be pulled so far to the left, I'm not sure you could call him a centrist anymore. Now, you cannot, as a Labour Party, win over the centre voter if you do not have politicians that the centre voter likes. And Stuart Nash, I think, was probably the last one of them. I would say: total coup for New Zealand First. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Better, faster, cheaper's the aim of the newly announced refresh to Auckland's transport governance. The government's introducing legislation to strip Auckland Transport of many of its powers - handing responsibility for major roads to Auckland Council, and local roads to community boards. Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown told Heather du Plessis-Allan the council should be able to make decisions, as going through Auckland Transport is frustrating. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The senior doctors' union says the Health Minister's proposal of arbitration, would've taken away their members right to decide. Simeon Brown wanted Health NZ and the union to let a third party decide the terms of the contract. The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists rejected this and called his proposal a breach of employment law. Executive Director Sarah Dalton told Heather du Plessis Allan that there were a lot of unknowns around the proposal. She says the minister signalled they didn't see the pot of money as being any different and that's a situation they didn't want to enter into. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can you please stop letting the Springboks get into your head? Cause that is clearly what they're up to. That's why Rassie Erasmus has expressed all surprise at Razor's selections. He wants the team to second guess themselves. Who cares what he thinks? Now, he said, Oh, I'm surprised Fabian Holland's on the bench. It's designed to make Razor and all the lads think they've got this wrong already. And this is why he's called in Fuff de Clark - he doesn't need Fuff de Clark. That means he's got 4 halfbacks. What do you need 4 halfbacks for? He's just trying to remind the All Blacks that he's got 4 more halfbacks than they've got. That's what he's up to. It's just getting inside the head. It's niggling them, and it's working, isn't it? Cause go and have a look at the polls that there are today. The 2 polls on 2 different news websites asking if we think that the All Blacks are gonna win. And both of them have got the All Blacks winning, but jeez, only by just that, it's by a tiny margin. It's only like 53%, 54%, to the Boks winning 46, 47%. Normally, we've got way more confidence. Like, normally, we've got confidence that is a little OTT. But this is Eden Park. This is the fortress. If you're gonna win anywhere, you're gonna win at Eden Park. Where's our confidence? Even the ABs are nervous. If you heard Scottie Hansen, the assistant coach on with us yesterday, he admitted that. Now look, I don't think the All Blacks are gonna lose. I think they're gonna win. Because this game is more important to the All Blacks than it is to the Springboks, because to the Springboks it's just another game. That's all it is, right? But to the All Blacks, it's defending the fortress and defending the fortress when they can see that the country doesn't think that they're gonna be able to, and the ABs thrive on this stuff. Remember when Fozzie was about to get the sack? Mark Robinson from NZR flew over to Joburg to give him the sack. Remember when that was about to happen? Suddenly, the All Blacks just rallied and beat the Springboks to stop him getting the sack because they had something to play for. And the same is true here, they've got something to play for. Plus, as Scotty Hansen said yesterday, the All Blacks seem to play better when they're nervous. It's when people expect them to win, when they expect to win that they weirdly drop the ball. Now, don't forget, we might have been beaten by the Argies, but the Boks were beaten by the Wallabies. So they're not on that much of a streak, are they? Relax. The All Blacks have got it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I'm going to suggest that Erica Stanford is on the right track with wanting to make it easier to deport criminals, but maybe she doesn't go far enough. So at the moment, the rules are that we cannot deport criminals if they've been here on a residence visa and they've been residents for more than 10 years. An example of this is the Mama Hooch brothers. These guys are not Kiwis. You know the ones I'm talking about, down in Christchurch. They're not Kiwis, they're Aussies and they don't have citizenship here, they don't have Kiwi passports. But even though they are two of the country's worst sexual offenders, we cannot deport them back to Australia because they've been here in New Zealand as residents for longer than 10 years. Now, Erica Stanford is proposing to change the rules so that that gets moved out to 20 years for anyone who's committed a serious crime like murder, rape, or manslaughter. Now I would say, scrap the time limit altogether. It doesn't matter how long you've been here - 20 years, 25 years, 30 years, 50 years. If you decide that you want to rape or kill someone, you go home and you lose the privilege of being here. Maybe we need to look outside of rape and murder and manslaughter as well. Perhaps we have lower time limits for other crimes - but further than 10 years, if you know what I mean. We take a line on those crimes, we push it out a little bit further. Because the key here is that it is a privilege to be in New Zealand and not a right. And I suppose what I'm suggesting is that we take a leaf out of Australia's book and get rid of other countries' criminals. As much as I don't always love what what Australia is doing, what I love a lot less is looking after other countries' criminals. So I reckon no time limit on those big crimes. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now, we need to talk about that Amazon announcement yesterday. These guys have taken us for fools in this country. They've looked at us in New Zealand and they've gone, let's take these guys for fools. That $7.5 billion wasn't new, it was already announced by Jacinda 4 years ago. It's not even actually a convincing number, because it looks like what they've done here is included their power bills. Now power bills are not an investment, they're an operating cost. The 1000 jobs that Amazon now tells us that they're supporting also looks questionable. It looks like they've included people who already work in the electricity sector - and some say the real number is more likely a few dozen jobs. Amazon's not building anything. All the data centres they tell us are now live, have actually been built by other companies, which means that you could argue that they haven't actually added anything material to the New Zealand economy. Because if they didn't use those existing data centres, someone else would just be using those existing data centres. In fact, you could argue that Amazon running those data centres is actually not the best outcome for New Zealand, because Amazon does not pay tax on all of their revenue here, which means if another local company used those data centres and paid full tax like they do, we'd all be better off. We'd be better off than Amazon using the centres and then sending hundreds of millions of dollars overseas like Google and Facebook do. Now, being critical of that announcement by Amazon yesterday is not the same as being ungrateful for the good that they're doing. I think you should interrogate an announcement just a little bit more than simply taking it at face value, because that is what Amazon wants you to do. They want to play us for fools. They want to make us believe that they're doing good when what they're actually doing is just making money off us. And that's fair. I don't mind them making money off us, they're a business, we're customers, but let's see it for what it is. Let's not be grateful for them doing business. I still like Amazon's product, but to be honest with you, I like it a little bit less than I did yesterday when they assumed that this country was full of stupid people who would just simply believe anything. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

ACT Party Leader David Seymour has set the cat among the pigeons, or the Huntaway among the cattle, by calling for New Zealand to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is a pact that's part of the UN's framework convention on climate change, which started in 1992 with the Rio Earth Summit. The main goal of the Paris Agreement is to keep long-term global temperatures from warming 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, and if not that, then well below 2 degrees Celsius by slashing planet-warming emissions from coal, oil, and gas. It's not working, the numbers are still too high, but who knows what they would have been had the Paris Agreement not been in place. It works as a binding but voluntary programme for the member countries. Every five years, countries are required to submit a goal or a plan for what it will do about heat-trapping emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases. And these goals are supposed to get more ambitious every five years – you're supposed to improve on what you did last time. The countries themselves decide what's in those goals, and there is no punishment for countries who miss the goals. Despite this, despite the fact that there are no teeth and no punitive measures if you don't meet the self-imposed targets, ACT says that the Paris Agreement needs to change, or New Zealand needs to leave. David Seymour says it demands targets that are disconnected from science and blind to New Zealand's realities. Net zero targets have been set without regard for the real cost to firms, farms, and families, they say, so they want New Zealand out, like the US. “At the moment, we face being punished for being a methane-heavy economy. I think it's about time that we, perhaps along with like-minded nations, I'm thinking South American nations like Uruguay that have a lot of livestock, also a lot of Southeast Asian nations which produce a lot of rice, which it turns out actually produces a lot of methane – we should be going to Paris saying, "hang on a minute', instead of our government officials making representations to the public that pay them on behalf of these global institutions, maybe they should actually be going on our behalf overseas to say, ‘you guys need to give a fair deal to methane-heavy economies,' because methane's a very different gas. It has a much different effect on climate because it breaks down over time, and therefore that scientific reality needs to be recognised.” So that was David Seymour talking to Heather du Plessis-Allan last night. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says it's not going to happen; we're not going to leave. It would only hurt and punish and damage our farmers. He says our competitor countries would like nothing more than to see New Zealand products off the shelves, and he added that, having worked in multinationals, the companies would just move to another supplier, a more public-friendly, a more agreeable, a more green-friendly supplier. He does have a point. Well, both men have points, really. David Seymour is quite right in that methane is a different sort of a gas, that New Zealand does it the best in the world. New Zealand produces food better than anybody else in terms of accounting for climate change targets and goals. But Christopher Luxon has a point too, because green and social accounting is part of global financial reporting. We're seeing it right down to the smallest business in New Zealand. Your bank wants to see you committing to various environmental targets, goals, achievements. If you don't, the money comes at a higher rate. And it's the same for them. Their masters, their overlords, want to see that the banks themselves have required their clients to commit to environmental goals. It's absolutely entwined within the way the world does business. I don't know how you can separate one from the other. It would be very easy for New Zealand to be made an example of, far harder for the US because it is a global powerhouse. Notwithstanding Modi, Xi, and Putin all getting together to try and form another cabal or block of power, but the US is too powerful to punish. Were we to say, "You know what, we're out," it would be very, very easy for us to be made an example of. We're small, quite loud, there would be some people around the world who would have heard of us, so if we're made an example of, it would only hurt us. Nobody else would care. Furthermore, Christopher Luxon says that New Zealand has taken farming out of the ETS, the Emissions Trading Scheme, and promises there'll be an announcement on methane targets in the very, very near future. So where do you stand on this one? As I'm aware, farming as an industry and farming as a science is constantly working to improve efficiencies in the way they do things. Our scientists and our ag researchers are working overtime to try and bring down any harmful gases caused in the manufacture of food. Farmers are implementing all sorts of measures, and if they don't, they're off the books. They are no longer clients of places like Fonterra. So you have to meet really high standards before you can consider yourself a farmer in the modern age. I would have thought farming as an industry understood the global realities, given that they are a major global player. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Finally, we have a serious party who has spent time thinking about it - and is now seriously suggesting that New Zealand should pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Now, that was what came from that ACT Party announcement that I told you would be coming today that you needed to keep an eye out for. ACT says Paris isn't working for New Zealand and it says we should push for the agreement to be reformed - and if it isn't reformed, then we should pull out of it. It isn't working, ACT says, because it's pushing up our food prices and it's pushing up our power prices and it's forcing the farmers off the land to make way for trees. And you can add to that list something that we've seen a lot of this winter and last winter - it is shutting down industry because of those high power prices. Now, there will be a lot of people who hear this from ACT and write it off as nutty climate change denier stuff. It is not. Think about the Paris Agreement critically, right? Set aside, you know, your vibes, whether you want to help the climate, set all of that stuff aside. Just think about this critically as to whether it works or not. And you can see it doesn't work. I mean, I stand to be corrected, but I cannot see any country that is meeting the targets. We will not meet the targets. The US, one of the world's biggest polluters, has pulled out. China, the world's biggest polluter, is still building coal-powered plants. I mean, we are fretting about the one coal-powered plant that we've got and they're building heaps of them. India, another one of the biggest polluters, is also doing the same with coal-powered plants. In which case, why would a country responsible for 0.17 percent of the world's emissions - or something like that - continue to persist with the Paris Agreement? Because we're not saving the planet, we're just making Kiwis poorer. And power is so expensive that we now have people who cannot turn on the heater every time Huntley burns expensive coal. Coal, by the way, which is not expensive, but which we have decided to artificially make expensive in order to save the planet. Now, the Nats have shot this down already and say it's not happening. That's smart politics for them, because they've got to hold on to the swing voters who might react badly, you know, without thinking things through to anything that looks like climate change denial. The Nats might want to be careful about what they rule in or out hard before the election, because they might need flexibility afterwards, given both of their coalition partners want out of Paris. ACT officially wants out unless things change, New Zealand First keeps hinting at it. And if National is honest with itself, they should want to get out of it too, because Paris is making us poorer, but not doing anything to save the planet. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've got to talk about Cornwall Park. So over the weekend, it was quite windy in Auckland. If you're in Auckland, you know what I mean - that was some crazy-ass wind that was going on out there, definitely found the drafts of my house. If you're out of Auckland, it was kind of like a day in Wellington, but in Auckland. So it was unusual for us. Now, I don't know where we got to in the end, but the forecast was for gusts of up to 120 km per hour. So the people who run Cornwall Park closed it on Sunday because of flying wood. They were worried that staff and punters might be struck by flying wood, so they shut the gates and they closed the toilets and they closed the café and they closed the creamery, and they closed everything - closed the big store, closed everything - because of the flying wood. Meanwhile, on Sunday, when Cornwall Park was closed, I went to another park, which was Victoria Park in the central city - which is also actually incidentally full of really old trees, and therefore bits of wood, lots of branches and twigs and stuff lying around. And despite the fact that there were three of us at the park and it was quite windy, none of us was struck by flying wood, remarkably. We also walked to the park down a road which is lined with old plane trees that have been there for at least 100 years. So if you're going to be struck by a flying tree - you know, like one of them falling down on your head - it'd be one of those. None of them fell on our heads, nor did any of their branches or any of their flying wood. Now, obviously, it's their park. So the Cornwall Park Trust board can shut the park if they like. And probably what they will say is that they didn't want to put their staff at risk. And there'll be a lot of people in this country who'll nod their heads and say - “Look, that is the wise thing to do. After all, it is windy and there could be wood flying all around, and it might hit a staff member right in the eye and blind them forever. You never know. Better to take care.” I look at this and think that's ridiculous that we are so worried and anxious - and frankly neurotic - that even wind is freaking us out now. I would urge the people who run Cornwall Park to get a grip. Farmers, they may be shocked to discover, often work outside in the wind, and there are lots of bits of wood flying around. The Department of Conservation probably want to reconsider this, but at the moment, they still allow us to walk around in the bush in high wind. There are definitely lots of bits of wood lying around in the bush, if you know what I mean. I mean, some people also have old trees in their backyards, and they're still there when it's windy, shockingly, and the trees don't always fall down in the wind. This, I think, is the perfect example of how we are getting to be ridiculous over safety. Yes, of course, you should reduce your extreme risks. Don't take unnecessary risks. But you don't want to be reducing every single risk. Otherwise, you're just gonna be sitting in your house all day. I don't think flying wood in a park on a windy day in Auckland is so extremely risky that staff must be sent home and members of the public must be banned from entry. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Consultation on the Government's proposed overhaul of the main secondary school qualification's open to mid-September. It includes axing level one, and replacing levels two and three with certificates, that aim to be internationally comparable. Auckland Principal Claire Amos doesn't want the system scrapped, and told Heather du Plessis-Allan that we need a system that has wraparound support. She says we need more structure and support around teaching and learning. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are questions over whether TVNZ cut too many jobs as it turns a surprisingly strong profit. The broadcaster's reported an after-tax profit of nearly $26million dollars - after an $85million dollar loss last year. But it comes after the broadcaster cut jobs - including canning production of programmes like Fair Go, Sunday and the midday and night-time news bulletins. Talking to Heather Du-Plessis Allan, CEO Jodi O'Donnell denied that the cuts were excessive. She says the company had to make decisions to ensure the business remained sustainable into the future. LISTEN ABOVE OR WATCH BELOW See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Police have a balance to manage as they continue the hunt for Marokopa fugitive father Tom Phillips and his three children. Police have released CCTV footage of a retail burglary in the King Country town of Piopio on Wednesday involving two people they believe to be the Marokopa father and one of his children. Lawyer Matthew Hague, who has served in the Police and Defence Force, says Police need to balance bringing this to a conclusion - with the risk of Phillips having weapons. But he told Heather du Plessis-Allan that this doesn't mean Police will be passive. Hague says they'll be working with the community, and using a variety of resources - but they'll be trying to avoid a direction confrontation. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Reserve Bank board chairman Neil Quigley has resigned “with immediate effect” in the wake of the shambolic handling of Adrian Orr's resignation as Governor. Finance Minister Nicola Willis made the announcement just before 6pm on Friday - the day after the Reserve Bank revealed Orr temporarily stepped down as Governor a week before the public was told he resigned The Finance Minister says she did not ask the Reserve Bank Chair to quit, following news he's resigned with immediate effect. Nicola Willis told Heather du Plessis-Allan that having completed key work streams with the bank, Quigley said the timing was appropriate. Willis says she raised criticism around the board's handling of information relating to the former Governor's exit. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now, I've got a huge amount of respect for the police, and I very much, almost weakly appreciate what it is that they do for us, but I think we have to call it. Tom Phillips is embarrassing them. I mean, the fact that he is still out there with his kids coming up 4 years now is embarrassing for the police because it looks like they're having rings run around them by a skinny guy from Mara Koppa. He makes a mockery of them every single time he pops up to nick milk from a dairy or shop in full view of the public in Bunnings, or do a job on a bank. Every time someone in the family pleads for him to come home, every time an international media outlet writes another fascinated piece about him being out there. Every winter, when our own media remember that the family are still out there and draw attention to it again, every time that happens, we are reminded that our police cannot find a guy and his kids in the bush around Mara Koppa. Now, I don't know what's going on here. I have a suspicion, I've shared it with you before, that the police are deliberately just leaving him to it.Cause if they wanted to, they could get him out. And you know that. We're a country of people who understand the bush, he's not the only guy in New Zealand with bush skills. The cops have got specialist teams, and if they don't want to use those teams because they don't wanna have a shootout, well, then we've got the Defense Force. The defense force can be used here - they've actually been used in the search beforehand. And you cannot tell me that our SAS can handle the Taliban, but can't track down a guy in the bush and be on him before he knows that they're there. You cannot tell me they can't do that. I suspect the police have made the decision to not find him, which, by the way, I actually think may be the right decision given how messy I think the family court business could in fact be in this case, but they are not trying to find him. And I just wonder if maybe they should say that out loud. Maybe they should just be upfront that he is out there until the day that Tom Phillips decides to come back, just so that every single passing winter doesn't make the police look like they're being beaten by Tom Phillips.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are questions over whether TVNZ cut too many jobs as it turns a surprisingly strong profit. The broadcaster's reported an after-tax profit of nearly $26million dollars - after an $85million dollar loss last year. But it comes after the broadcaster cut jobs - including canning production of programmes like Fair Go, Sunday and the midday and night-time news bulletins. Talking to Heather Du-Plessis Allan, CEO Jodi O'Donnell denied that the cuts were excessive. She says the company had to make decisions to ensure the business remained sustainable into the future. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well it's fair to say World Rugby's copping it today, even more so than yesterday. This is following the death of Shane Christie, the former Highlander who had the headaches and the memory loss and all those other symptoms that were consistent with CTE from too many head knocks. A former Wales #8 with early onset dementia, Alex Popham, has gone straight to World Rugby and the All Blacks' Twitter accounts and told them they've got blood on their hands. And our very own Scotty Stevenson has written a piece saying it's time to stop spending money on PR - this is obviously for rugby - and start spending money on helping the former players with these symptoms. Absolutely. I mean, there is no doubt that World Rugby could be doing more, right? The stand down period for a professional rugby player for a suspected concussion is - what do you think? 12 days. That's ridiculous. In boxing, it's 30 days. And if they actually lose consciousness and they know they've lost consciousness, it could be anywhere from 6 months up that they're forced to stand down. I think we've all seen pretty gnarly cases of head knocks recently or players talking about migraines over the summer period, only for them to be back on the field when they, if you were being careful, should not be back on the field. And who knows what World Rugby will be forced to do once these lawsuits are successful. But here's the thing - our ability to keep blaming the rugby bosses is going to run out, if it hasn't already. No player in 2025 can blame World Rugby if they end up with these symptoms in years to come. No one playing rugby in 2025 doesn't know that if you take repeated knocks to the head, you are opening yourself up to future problems. We know that. In fact, we already knew it when Shane Christie was playing professionally, even if we didn't know it as widely as we do today. It is terrible that this may be the thing that has happened to him and it is terrible that it is undoubtedly happening to rugby players playing today, but personal responsibility is now very much in play here. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If I'm honest with you, the passing of John Barnett on Sunday has actually hit our house quite hard over the last three days - because at the start, nobody knew anything about what had happened. And as the information has come out, we've realized that when my husband bumped into him on the street on Sunday afternoon, it was literally just before he died They stopped for a chat, husband went in one direction, Barnett went in the other direction, and it wouldn't have been another 200m or so beyond that, that John collapsed. Now, I don't think the full force of it actually hit me until I was watching the television news about this last night, because, you know, you're watching somebody alive on TV in the footage, but not alive in real life anymore. And what struck me last night was that I never realized how big a force John Barnett was for us in New Zealand. I knew what he'd done, we all knew what he'd done - Shorty Street, Whale Rider, all of that. But it wasn't until I heard the list rattled off that I realized the scale of the impact - Footrot Flats, Sione's Wedding, Whale Rider, Shortland Street, Once Were Warriors, What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, Outrageous Fortune, apparently commissioning Dave Dobbyn and Herbs to make 'Slice of Heaven', and apparently helping to rescue people in Dawn Raid. I mean, how much of what we consider to be intrinsic parts of our culture, or at least reflections of our culture back to us, were created or facilitated by John Barnett? It was really easy to forget that when you knew John, because he's really easygoing and really gracious, never reminded you of what a big deal he actually was. He was just Barney, who you bumped into almost every week on the kindy run or at the weekend sitting outside Dizengoff or strolling down Ponsonby Road. The last time I saw him and sat down and properly had a chat to him was over dinner at Prego not long ago. And the thing that struck me about him was how much into life he still was at the age of 79. He still had an eye for a good yarn, he was telling us about the story he never got around to making, which is of the only woman ever to be jailed in London for being a hitman. She was a Kiwi - and his eyes lit up and he cracked a big smile telling the story. He was still enthusiastic about telling our stories back to us. I will miss seeing John on my walks, not nearly as much as his family and his wife and his dearest friends will miss him - but how lucky were we that he spent his life giving us this part of New Zealand back to us? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I think it is significant that David Seymour has walked away from supporting his own bill to bring in four-year terms for the Government. He was the one who introduced this bill - but he's now pulled ACT's support. Every other party in parliament appears to still back it, but he's pulled support because the safeguards that he wanted are gone. His idea was that we increase the terms from three to four years. So you vote the Government and you get three years - and now he wants to make it four years, which basically means giving the Government more power. But he was only okay with that if we balanced it out by taking away some power. And his idea was to allow the opposition parties to control every single select committee, giving them the power. But that part of the plan, the select committee part, has been removed. So David Seymour doesn't support his own idea anymore, which frankly, I think is a good idea, because he has ended up exactly where I have been this entire time. No to four-year terms unless there are new limits, because as it is, Governments in this country do not have much in the way of limits. If they want to pass a law, they can - they can do it under urgency if they want to. They can announce and pass it in literally the same day. That is what happened with the pay equity law. Did you like that? You want some more of that? Because that would happen with four years. This is why Jeffrey Palmer said that we have the fastest law in the West. Other countries have ways to limit or control or check the power of the executive. They have upper houses, they have senates, whatever. We've got nothing. Given that everyone else in parliament seems to support this, it seems to me there's a fair chance this is going to go to referendum for us to decide, perhaps at the next election. And people who want four years will tell you that you must say yes because Governments don't have enough time to do what they want, which is utter bollocks, because they do have enough time. I've realized in the last couple of years, it's not because of lack of time they don't get things done, it's because of a lack of will. This Government had enough time to make changes to the supermarkets and make changes to the banks and make changes to the energy sector. They've talked about it enough - but they haven't done it because they don't want to do it, because it takes balls. I don't want four years because two blocks of three years of Jacinda Ardern's lunatic Labour administration was enough. Can you imagine how broke the country would be after two blocks of four years? Unless there are new safeguards brought in - and there are no safeguards proposed. So it's a hard no. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'll tell you what I found interesting over the last few days it's the enormous surprise at the start, and now the debate about Chris Bishop saying it's a good thing that house prices are falling. He was asked about this on Friday and he said, yes, it's a good thing and that we've got to decouple the idea that the New Zealand economy is driven by house prices - labelling it 'artificial wealth'. The immediate response to that was shock that anyone could say it, but especially a National Party minister. And now, 3 days later, there are still newspaper pieces expressing surprise that he's got away with it - in contrast to for example, Metiria Turei, who got smacked down for it, and Jacinda Ardern, who wouldn't go there. And what's more, the surprise is that the Prime Minister has now apparently contradicted him and said, no, he does want some modest and consistent house price rises. Look, Chris Bishop has got away with it because he's right. It is actually a good thing that house prices have come back. It sucks. It sucks right now quite badly, doesn't it? Cause none of us feel wealthy as our house prices drop. And it is definitely prolonging the recession because we're not spending like we normally would when our house price values increase, which makes us feel wealthy. But it is the short-term medicine that this economy needs for improvement, because we cannot keep plowing our money into property - we should be putting it into productive investments, for example, buying shares in Pic's or whatever. Now, I know people who are actually changing their behaviour because of what is going on with house prices. I know a woman who earlier thought about buying an investment property, but didn't - and will put her money into shares instead because it's much of a muchness now. To answer the question of why Chris Bishop can get away with it, when Metiria Turei got punished for it and when Jacinda Ardern wouldn't even go there for fear of public backlash - is because it is already happening. He's not threatening to do it to us like those two birds might have. It is already happening to us. He's actually said it before, by the way, so he is consistent. And maybe, just maybe, enough of us have already realized that this is the pain we have to go through - as much as we hate it right now - for the sake of future generations. And also, by the way, I like the fact that he said something that he truly believes in, rather than saying something that he might have thought we all want to hear. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'll tell you what I found interesting over the last few days it's the enormous surprise at the start, and now the debate about Chris Bishop saying it's a good thing that house prices are falling. He was asked about this on Friday and he said, yes, it's a good thing and that we've got to decouple the idea that the New Zealand economy is driven by house prices - labelling it 'artificial wealth'. The immediate response to that was shock that anyone could say it, but especially a National Party minister. And now, 3 days later, there are still newspaper pieces expressing surprise that he's got away with it - in contrast to for example, Metiria Turei, who got smacked down for it, and Jacinda Ardern, who wouldn't go there. And what's more, the surprise is that the Prime Minister has now apparently contradicted him and said, no, he does want some modest and consistent house price rises. Look, Chris Bishop has got away with it because he's right. It is actually a good thing that house prices have come back. It sucks. It sucks right now quite badly, doesn't it? Cause none of us feel wealthy as our house prices drop. And it is definitely prolonging the recession because we're not spending like we normally would when our house price values increase, which makes us feel wealthy. But it is the short-term medicine that this economy needs for improvement, because we cannot keep plowing our money into property - we should be putting it into productive investments, for example, buying shares in Pic's or whatever. Now, I know people who are actually changing their behaviour because of what is going on with house prices. I know a woman who earlier thought about buying an investment property, but didn't - and will put her money into shares instead because it's much of a muchness now. To answer the question of why Chris Bishop can get away with it, when Metiria Turei got punished for it and when Jacinda Ardern wouldn't even go there for fear of public backlash - is because it is already happening. He's not threatening to do it to us like those two birds might have. It is already happening to us. He's actually said it before, by the way, so he is consistent. And maybe, just maybe, enough of us have already realized that this is the pain we have to go through - as much as we hate it right now - for the sake of future generations. And also, by the way, I like the fact that he said something that he truly believes in, rather than saying something that he might have thought we all want to hear. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fonterra is confident farmers will vote to sell major brands like Anchor and Mainland. It's reached a deal to sell its consumer and associated businesses to French dairy giant Lactalis for $3.845billion. The deal still needs the approval of shareholders. Fonterra Chief Executive Miles Hurrell told Heather du Plessis-Allan that the offer is above expectation, and there will be a $2 capital return per share. He says, while the public have a strong emotional connection with the brands - the feedback has been positive. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Seems to me that Peeni Henare's shenanigans in the by-election right now is exactly the kind of thing that Labour has to knock on the head, quick smart, if they want to be in the game at the election next year. Now, as we were discussing earlier, even though Carmel Sepuloni has told Peeni off for saying that he wants to repeal the gang patch ban, he is not backing down. Right? He said it on Wednesday, they told him off on Thursday, and today he's not backing down. He's repeated it because he says it's his personal view. If not the Labour party's, and he has whānau experience. Now, why he's actually doing this, in my opinion, is because the Māori Party's doing it. That's the real reason, because if you have a look at what actually happened on Wednesday night in that by-election candidates meeting, it was the Māori Party candidate Orini Kaipara who first answered the question.The question was, will you repeal the ban? She said, yes, and after she said yes, Peeni Henare then said yes too. Now, maybe he does truly believe that it is the right thing to do. But as I told you, it makes no sense as a political calculation. Why would you chase the vote of 10,000 gang members if doing that means that you lose the votes of, I don't know, maybe 100,000 normal Kiwis who think the ban is a good idea. The only answer to that question is because you actually don't care about the 100,000 votes. You're not trying to help the Labour Party win, you're just trying to win your electorate seat. In one of the Māori electorates, and you will say whatever it takes to match the Māori Party. Now, Labour needs to sort this stuff out before the next election. If Peeni or other candidates or Willie Jackson or even the entire Labour Party keeps chasing the Māori Party down the nutty radical road, they will, they will lose middle New Zealand. Just like they did when Jacinda was being told what to do by Willie and Nanaia. If I was giving them advice, it would be to leave the nutty stuff to the Māori Party and go to the center themselves again. Maybe it means MPs like Peeni Henare will lose their seats, but that may be the sacrifice you have to make in order to win the election.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australia's introducing stricter measures across its childcare centres in efforts to better protect young children. CCTV cameras will be trialled at more than 300 centres - with work also commencing to develop a national register of childcare workers. It follows child sexual abuse allegations surfacing against one Victoria worker. Australia correspondent Oli Peterson told Heather du Plessis-Allan that some states have already banned personal mobile phones in centres. He says you've got to give the state and federal governments credit here for reacting to the situation and trying to beef up regulations as quickly as they could. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fonterra is confident farmers will vote to sell major brands like Anchor and Mainland. It's reached a deal to sell its consumer and associated businesses to French dairy giant Lactalis for $3.845billion. The deal still needs the approval of shareholders. Fonterra Chief Executive Miles Hurrell told Heather du Plessis-Allan that the offer is above expectation, and there will be a $2 capital return per share. He says, while the public have a strong emotional connection with the brands - the feedback has been positive. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm gonna say thank you to the Police Commissioner, Richard Chambers, for maybe reminding us to be grateful for what we have. He gave an interview to the Herald today and he said he thinks there is a fair bit of punching down on New Zealand going on at the moment. And he thinks that's unfair. He says: "With the world going a little crazy, I count us lucky that we are where we are." Now, given how much doom and gloom there is at the moment, it may surprise you to know that the accompanying poll in the Herald article actually agrees with him - as unscientific as it is. Most people rate their experience of living in New Zealand as 8 out of 10. 20 percent of people say they have an 8 out of 10 experience. Then the next one up is 10 out of 10. That's 15 percent. 7 out of 10 comes next, and 13 percent of us say that. So, 7, 8, 9, and 10 out of 10 account for 58 percent of the votes. Way more than half of us think that we are living in a pretty great place. Now, as I say, it's not scientific, but it is a nice reminder that actually most of us do know how good we've got it. It's really easy to fall into the trap of thinking the grass is greener on the other side, which is why so many of us are leaving and heading off to places like Australia. Actually, if the other side is Australia, once they get there, they are going to realize it's not that much greener. They're gonna go through the same stuff with the economy that they were going through back here in New Zealand.Life over there is expensive as well. And if the other side is Europe, it's definitely not greener over there. It's actually tens of thousands of refugees arriving on your doorstep. It's huge unrest over migrants in the UK. It's the threat of war just across the border. And it's cost of living problems there too. Now, I'm not Pollyannaish at all about New Zealand. I know life is expensive, I know there are people who have never had to budget who are now having to budget. I can see that the Government books definitely need tidying up, and we're completely overdue structural economic change. But at least most things are headed in the right direction. Education for our kids has been sorted out, red tape is being cut, the economy is turning around, the days are getting longer, and we live in a safe place with a good work-life balance where our kids can grow up fairly healthy. So thank you to the Police Commissioner, of all people, for reminding us of that.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The longer that this economic funk that we find ourselves in goes on, the more that Jarrod Kerr of Kiwibank is being proven right, isn't he? And we had a cut today - it was 25 basis points down to 3 percent - and now there's the expectation that we will maybe get down to 2.5 percent before this thing bottoms out. 2.5 percent is where Jarrod Kerr has been saying for months that we need to get to. But even though he's been saying it since at least September last year, if not earlier, the Reserve Bank has only just caught up with him. Up til now, they've been talking about 2.75 percent, 3 percent maybe. Now, what you should take from this is that the Reserve Bank is surprised by what Jarrod Kerr - and you could argue many of us - have been seeing for ages, which is that the economy is properly, properly stuffed. Like, stuffed enough that they should be cutting a lot more than they are. Why this is a surprise to them is beyond me, because you just need to look at what's going on with businesses today to see it. Fletcher: a massive loss. Spark: profit down massively, huge job cuts there. Kitchen Things: in receivership. Now, some of that will be absolutely because of poor decisions, but some of that is because we are in an economic funk - recession - as bad as anything in my entire life. I mean, the last time we saw anything this bad was the 80s, but some indicators say the 70s. So why the Reserve Bank hasn't cut more, including today, is baffling. They debated it, by the way - it did occur to them. Four of them voted for the 25 basis point cut that we got, two of them voted for a double cut of 50 basis points. That mean two of them can see what the rest of us can see, but the four win, unfortunately. The fact that they cut today and indicated they will cut more than they had previously expected to cut is a sign that they made a mistake when they didn't cut last time and opted to hold instead. The Reserve Bank is once again caught on the hop, making the economy worse than it needs to be. If only Jarrod Kerr was running the joint. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The longer that this economic funk that we find ourselves in goes on, the more that Jarrod Kerr of Kiwibank is being proven right, isn't he? And we had a cut today - it was 25 basis points down to 3 percent - and now there's the expectation that we will maybe get down to 2.5 percent before this thing bottoms out. 2.5 percent is where Jarrod Kerr has been saying for months that we need to get to. But even though he's been saying it since at least September last year, if not earlier, the Reserve Bank has only just caught up with him. Up til now, they've been talking about 2.75 percent, 3 percent maybe. Now, what you should take from this is that the Reserve Bank is surprised by what Jarrod Kerr - and you could argue many of us - have been seeing for ages, which is that the economy is properly, properly stuffed. Like, stuffed enough that they should be cutting a lot more than they are. Why this is a surprise to them is beyond me, because you just need to look at what's going on with businesses today to see it. Fletcher: a massive loss. Spark: profit down massively, huge job cuts there. Kitchen Things: in receivership. Now, some of that will be absolutely because of poor decisions, but some of that is because we are in an economic funk - recession - as bad as anything in my entire life. I mean, the last time we saw anything this bad was the 80s, but some indicators say the 70s. So why the Reserve Bank hasn't cut more, including today, is baffling. They debated it, by the way - it did occur to them. Four of them voted for the 25 basis point cut that we got, two of them voted for a double cut of 50 basis points. That mean two of them can see what the rest of us can see, but the four win, unfortunately. The fact that they cut today and indicated they will cut more than they had previously expected to cut is a sign that they made a mistake when they didn't cut last time and opted to hold instead. The Reserve Bank is once again caught on the hop, making the economy worse than it needs to be. If only Jarrod Kerr was running the joint. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So here's a little bit of happy news for anyone still feeling injustice over the petty way that Trevor Mallard turned the sprinklers on the Parliamentary protesters and made everything worse - he is coming home from his plum job in Ireland as the ambassador. As Winston Peters says, quoting The Seekers - the carnival's over. And it's a good job too, because it was always deeply unfair that Mallard could behave like a child and basically torment fellow Kiwis, and then be rewarded by his mates with a job that was funded by Kiwis. Now Winston's trying to spin this like he's bringing Trevor Mallard home early. He's actually not really at all. Trevor's due home in January. It's understood that he's gonna be back in November. Whoop dee doo- two months early in a three-year term is hardly a punishment or a massive recall, isn't it? I mean, if Winston wanted to bring him home early, he could have brought him home at any point in the last two years that he's been the Foreign Minister. But I will agree with Winston on something here, which is that I think we have got to stop appointing politicians to diplomatic jobs. He says full stop - I say as a reward. I still think that there will be some politicians who are exceptional and who deserve these jobs because they would do an excellent job representing us. And I've always thought it was a pity that Helen Clark never got a posting overseas. But often, they're just lousy at it, aren't they? I mean, Phil Goff stuffed up. He had to come back. Jonathan Hunt embarrassed us by wanting to claim the pension in the UK when he was already on a very good wicket from us. Kevin Rudd - the Australian version of all of this - got sent to Washington by the Aussies and then embarrassed them by posting weird stuff about Trump before Trump became President again, then having to go back through his social medias and delete it all. Being a politician doesn't necessarily make these people good diplomats, and Trevor Mallard is absolutely an example of that. He has never been accused of being diplomatic. In my opinion, the only reason that he ever got this gig in Ireland is because his daughter lives in Ireland, and because he was some sort of an avuncular figure to Grant and Jacinda and Chippy, who were in Government when he was appointed. That is not a good reason to send someone to an Ambassador's job. It's not a good reason to get a job that you and I are paying for. So as Winston says, carnival's over - good thing too. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So if anything, tonight's meeting at the White House is actually more important than Saturday's meeting was in Alaska - because this is the meeting with Zelenskyy. This is the meeting where the guy who has been invaded has to spell out how much land he is prepared to give up to Putin. And that is a lot harder than what happened in Alaska, which was just Putin laying down his dream scenario. And you can see that the European leaders realize that this is more important, because they're coming with Zelenskyy. You've got Keir Starmer of the UK, Emmanuel Macron of France, Friedrich Merz of Germany and a whole bunch of others - and they're going to be Zelenskyy's hype squad at the White House to try to stop Trump bullying him, which is actually fair enough after what happened last time. But I have to be honest, I find Europe endlessly frustrating over Ukraine. I mean, here they are dropping everything to rush over to Washington with Zelenskyy, to presumably stop Trump from taking too much of Ukraine's land away from them. But where was this haste in dropping everything and helping Ukraine to stop Putin taking Ukraine's land away from them? These European guys have absolutely supplied weapons, but the spend, when you look at it, has actually been tiny. I mean, they make such a song and dance about the fact that Ukraine has to hold the line otherwise Putin will come for them next. But then they hardly actually help Ukraine to hold the line. For a war that threatens them, Germany has put in less than 0.2 percent of GDP. The UK, much the same. France, less than 0.1 percent of GDP. And a few weeks ago, you'll remember they had the idea of putting European boots on the ground in Ukraine. They formed the Coalition of the Willing and it was all go - and then it never happened. No boots ever arrived. Now, those boots might actually have been helpful to Ukraine in being able to fight Putin off. And so it is somewhat rich that these leaders who are not prepared to actually really help Zelenskyy hold the line against Putin now suddenly want to help him hold the line against Trump. I mean, they are probably right, Putin probably does want Ukraine and then more afterwards, and forcing Zelenskyy to give up land only delays the problem and doesn't solve it, because Putin will just come for more later on. But what other option does Zelenskyy have right now? Because he cannot keep fighting like this if Europe won't actually help him fight, other than just giving him a few nice words in a hype squad. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I think what many of us are experiencing right now, re: Jacinda, Grant, Chippy and Ayesha not fronting publicly for the COVID inquiry is not disappointment, because disappointment requires us to have had a higher expectation of them. And I don't think that we did, because I think we got the measure of these people a long time ago. I think what we're experiencing right now is a sense of injustice, because these people had the power, and they used that power to do things to our lives that no other politicians in the history of this country have done. They told us not to leave our homes, they shut the border so that we couldn't leave the country or come back in. They ended some businesses through their rules, they effectively forced people out of jobs for not taking a vaccine that I would say most of us don't even bother with now. Now, we can argue about whether any of that or all of that was justified, but I don't think we can argue about how massive that was. It was huge, unprecedented power. Now, with power comes responsibility and accountability - and that's where they're letting us down because they are refusing to be held accountable, even if just in answering questions in front of us, for us to be able to see it. Now, right or wrong, their actions during Covid caused so many people to lose faith in Government. This was their chance, I think, to restore that a little bit. Instead, what they're doing is they're causing us to lose even more faith in Government. If these people ever tell themselves or us that they are here to serve, it is utter BS. They're not here to serve. If they were, every single one of them would put their country's expectations of answers ahead of their own ambitions, but they're not. It's more important for Jacinda to keep managing her brand and living her best international life of glamour. More important for Grant Robertson to keep pulling in that $630,000 a year at Otago. More important for Chippy to try to have another go - deluded - at being Prime Minister again and more important for Ayesha to preserve whatever credibility she has left as a health academic. But they should know, they can delay accountability, but they cannot prevent accountability. And they will be held accountable. Maybe through a future Commission of Inquiry one day or maybe just through the history books that eventually trash their reputations like history has trashed so many other politicians, including Muldoon's. Either way, add to the long list of unpleasant things that we've learned about them, we can now add cowardice to that list too. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I can't blame you if your assessment of Parliament today is that it's become a circus, because what happened today is kind of hard to defend or even explain. Chlöe was kicked out, Brownlee suspended her for a week and all of the Government parties voted for that punishment - and that includes New Zealand First, before Winston Peters then got up to tell Jerry Brownlee that the punishment wasn't fair, even though he just voted for the punishment. And then Debbie got up and said the C-word again. Now, Chlöe did actually break the rules. I mean, this is another one of those seemingly arbitrary or hard to explain rules in Parliament - that MPs can't accuse each other of being cowards. Nick Smith did it in 2003, he accused MPs across the house of not having the spine to debate a vote. He withdrew and apologized. Steve Chadwick did it in 2007, she accused the opposition of being absolutely gutless and spineless. She withdrew and apologized. John Key did it in 2015, quite famously when he yelled at Labour to get some guts over the war, but he got away with it and actually probably shouldn't have. So Chlöe did break the rules. But then, Debbie got up and said the C-word, and she didn't break the rules. So explain that. How is accusing other MPs of being spineless worse than dropping the C-bomb in the House of Representatives? I mean, sure, one is aimed at someone and the other one is just a swear word that's been dropped. But when you get into explaining that level of nuance on offensiveness, I think you've lost the audience. Plus, why is Gerry Brownlee all of a sudden the tough cop? I mean, this is the guy who was wringing his hands over the Māori Party getting kicked out of Parliament for 3 weeks for the haka in David Seymour's face and for refusing to turn up to the Privileges Committee and for them leaking the recommended punishment from the Privileges Committee. But when Chlöe says basically the same thing that John Key once said without punishment, Jerry comes down on her like a ton of bricks. Frankly, none of this makes sense anymore. I mean, it does on a level of detail and minutia, sure, but explaining it to a normal person, no sense whatsoever. But guess who's loving this? Chlöe's loving this, because Chlöe's learned from Te Pāti Māori and the haka that there's one surefire way to get attention, and that's to break the rules of Parliament and not be sorry. What a circus. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm happy to report to you that it looks like some of us want to play the old 'should Luxon be rolled' game. In the wake of the not-so-great polls that came out yesterday, there is a column by Andrea Vance - who I am name-checking because she's good and credible, and not just some junior reporter with an opinion. In her column, she predicts that Luxon is in trouble, that his caucus is getting impatient, that speculation about his leadership has reached fever pitch - and that if it doesn't improve, she is not sure that he's going to be the one leading the National Party at election time this time next year. Now, if this is really what National MPs are considering, they should ditch that idea immediately because Luxon's not their problem. I mean, he is a problem. There's no debate that with personal popularity sitting at about 20 percent, he is a drag on the National Party - but he is not their actual problem. Their actual problem is that the economy is stuffed and that they haven't yet figured out what to do to fix it, even though they've had 18 months. And it really doesn't matter who the leader is, whether it's Nicola or Chris Bishop, or Erica, or Mark Mitchell or Golden Balls, it doesn't matter. They still will not have a plan for the economy. Now, if they're worried about their polling right now, they should try playing the game of musical leadership chairs and see what happens to their polling then, because they're still not going to have a plan for the economy - but then they'll also have voters feeling like it's a shambles up the top in the Beehive and not sure what's going on there. Yes, they have a problem and yes, you can see it in the polls. So fix it. Come up with a solution. Come up with a credible plan for fixing the economy now and into the future. That is where the Nats should be directing their energy, not into undermining Chris Luxon. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Let's talk about this political poll. National is behind Labour. National's on 32, Labour's on 34. Now, this is not the first time that National has fallen behind Labour since the last election. The first time it happened was November last year. Then it happened again in January, twice. Then it happened again in March, twice. Then it happened in May, then it happened twice in June, and then it happened twice just in the last month. Now, it is becoming more and more frequent that this is happening. And if you see it in its graph form, it's actually quite arresting, what's going on here. This is not an aberration, this is a trend of National consistently losing ground and Labour consistently making up ground. This has been happening since the election, but it really started to gather steam at the start of this year. Now, I do not think that Labour will win the next election because I think their bedfellows and the Greens and the Māori Party are just way too nutty. I don't think enough people will want to vote for Labour, but National should be worried because these polls show that enough voters don't want to vote for National either, because right now, they are profoundly disappointing, aren't they? I mean, answer me this question - what has this Government done to help the economy? Apart from the investment tax boost incentive in the budget in May, what have they actually done? I feel like the answer is nothing. Yes, this economy was shot when they took it over, it's not their fault, but their election promise was to get it back on track. But in order to get it back on track, you actually have to do something, and they've done nothing. They're spending more than Grant, they're running deficits from here until basically the end of their possible term, and they're making announcements of things they might want to do sometime in the future, but they're not doing it just yet. If there is a vibe in this country right now, especially in places like Auckland and Wellington, it's a vibe that I reckon kicked in about 5 or 6 weeks ago properly, just after the halfway mark of this Government's electoral term, when people realized - you know what? We're halfway through and they've done nothing, and this economy still sucks. And that, I think, is what you're seeing in this poll, just a lot of disappointment. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Israel's expanding its military occupation of Gaza - forcing more than a million Palestinians out of Gaza City. Israel's security cabinet's approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan - in a nine hour meeting today. It involves moving Palestinians out of the main population centres - and into compounds in southern Gaza. Israeli journalist Haggai Matar told Heather du-Plessis Allan that Israel already controls over 85 percent of Gaza - and forbids Palestinians from going into it. He says it's basically pushing Palestinians into smaller areas of land - mostly areas that have been uninhabited and are very difficult to sustain life on. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I don't know what's worse, the fact that Willow Jean Prime is a lazy, disinterested waste of space in Labour's team, or the fact that Labour's been busted almost lying about this. So let me get you across what happened, and you can decide for yourself. In March, Willow Jean Prime took over the Labour Party education portfolio from Jan Tonetti, and her National Party counterpart, Erika Stanford, sent her a text to say congrats and I need to get you up to speed with the NCEA change process. It would be good if we could meet first and I can run you through where we're at. There is a policy advisory group of principals who are working on the details. You can have access to them as well as my officials and also NZQA. Willow Jean does not bother to reply. Two months later in May, Erica's office sends an email saying, basically, haven't heard from Willow Jean, would like to ensure cross-party engagement can continue. Can we set up a meeting? Willow Jean doesn't bother to reply. A month later in mid-Junne, Erica personally writes again, Willow Jean, yeah, you know, doesn't bother to reply. Next month, July, Erica then goes up a level and writes to Chippy. He doesn't reply either, but then the next day Willow Jean finally does reply, and she says she declines your invitation. Fast forward now to the 25th of July and suddenly Willow Jean writes to Erica wanting to meet because she's read in the Herald that the NCEA changes are coming soon. Erica writes back, basically says to her, mate, you missed your chance, we have already made the decisions. Chippy, meanwhile, complains publicly that the government, AKA Erika Stanford, hasn't been consulting with him and Willow Jean on the NCEA changes. So, tell me now, having heard that, what do you think is worse? That Willow Jean can't be bothered doing her job properly, or that Chippy has an amazing ability to lie with a smile? Now, here are the key learnings from this incident. Willow Jean is not a serious, hardworking, or clever person, and it is not ready to be a minister. Chris Hipkins is not as honest as his lovely smiling face would make you think. Labour is thin on the ground for talent if Willow Jean Prime is #8 in their party, and don't mess with Erica because she will pull a beautiful hit job on you, which is exactly what's happened here. But also, Labour are just rude and unprofessional. It doesn't kill you to reply to a message. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rare thing to be able to say- but Wellington City Council has just made a sensible decision and voted against erecting a fence along the entire length of Kumutoto and Queen's Wharf. Now, if you know the part of Wellington that I'm talking about here, it's the area seaside of the TSB Bank Arena and Fergs and Shed 5 and Foxglove and so on. That whole area at the moment has beautiful concrete walkways that have been laid, lovely seating and lighting and so on. And then there's a little barrier either side. If there's sea on the other side, there's a little barrier that comes up to a concrete barrier, maybe mid-shin for you. Now, council officials planned to erect a fence instead - a full-length fence either side of every walkway, up to about 1.2 meters or so, lining almost the entire walkway, 3.5 km of it, at the cost of maybe as much as $30 million. And they wanted the council - probably because they realized how this is going to go down with people - to rush through voting on it without talking to the public about it first. For once, Wellington City Council has actually done the right thing and pumped the brakes here. I think, to be fair to the officials, that this is coming from a good place and that this is the recommendation in a coroner's report. A coroner has had a look at somebody who's fallen into the water, died in the drink, and said: you should put a fence up. Because there have been a few examples lately, especially young men who've got on the raz and then fallen into the water, and that has been the end of them. But - this is gonna sound harsh - I don't think that you fence off an entire walkway because some young people sometimes have a drink and then fall in. I don't want, just as much as you - I don't want people to die needlessly in accidents. But there is a balance to be struck here between personal responsibility and safety measures that we put up to stop stuff happening. I think you go for an intermediate thing here. You stick up some lights, you make sure people can see where they're going in the dark, but you do not fence off the entire thing because that is overkill. It is not normal for us to have fences between ourselves and the sea. Take Auckland, where I live at the moment. Go for a walk under Auckland's Harbour Bridge, there are huge stretches exactly like this. No fence whatsoever. You're just walking there and there's the sea. It's a fall down, you just have to look after yourself and be careful. Walk on piers anywhere in this country, they often do not have fences. You've just got to watch where you're going. If you chuck up a fence, you stop people doing what they're supposed to do near the sea, which is sitting there looking at it, enjoying nature, or fishing off the walkway into the sea. Think about what the Wellington officials were trying to do here - they were literally fencing off the sea. When you fence off the sea, do you not think that you are going just a little bit too far? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So the Government just announced what they're calling the biggest change to road funding in 50 years. Once these changes kick in, petrol taxes are out and RUCs - road user charges - are in, for everyone. Not just truckies, not just EV drivers, not just diesel users, every single one of us. This is not really a surprise, the Government flagged this two years ago. But now the work is starting and Cabinet has agreed to start changing the law on it. And generally, I think this is a good idea. It's going to make it more transparent, as most of us have no idea how much we're paying to use the road because it's hidden in the petrol cost. But once it's stripped out, it's going to smack us in the face every month - or however often - we pay that bill. And it's actually a lot, tax makes up almost half the cost of petrol. It's also going to, if designed properly, change our behaviour for the better. Heavier cars should end up being charged more - as they should - because they do more damage to the roads. For example, electric vehicles, which are enormously heavy, will be pot-holing the road more than a lighter Suzuki Swift. That should, if we respond rationally to pricing, move us towards lighter vehicles and away from the trend of 'bigger is better' - which is better for road maintenance. But everything hangs off on enforcement. Because this is ripe for gaming. The same people who don't get a WOF and don't get a rego now won't get their RUCs. So if you're going from a simple system where it gets taken at the pump to a more complex 'count the Ks and file the paperworks system', how will you be sure everyone does it? In an announcement light on detail - that's the question I have. But in theory, it's a good idea. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I want to talk about kids being bashed by their families. We've had a really bad run of it - I don't know if you've realized - in the last few weeks. As far as I can see, just in the last 8 weeks, we've had the toddler in the suitcase, and we've had the baby in the bin in Auckland. We've also had a 2-month-old go to hospital with serious injuries that happened today, we've had a 3-month-old taken to hospital in Wellington in June, and we've had a 6-month-old critically injured at a Foxton Beach house in July. And we've hardly talked about this. I mean, we've talked about the toddler in the suitcase yesterday, world media talked about it too because it is so bizarre, it's hard to ignore. We also talked about the baby in the bin, that got about a day's worth of coverage, again, because that was pretty out there - putting a baby in a bin. But everything else, almost no coverage. Now, do you know why that is? I mean, part of it is obviously that this is now not unusual anymore. We just bash our babies all the time in this country apparently - but also because you're not actually allowed to talk about it. I don't know if you realize this, but the moment that Oranga Tamariki, which is the new CYFS, uplifts a kid, the Family Court orders basically automatic blanket suppression on it. Which means the police can't say anything, it means OT itself can't say anything, it means the media can't say anything. So the news coverage just basically dies. We get: "baby's gone to hospital," and that's the end of it. No more coverage. It's actually only when the child dies that we can talk about it in detail because there is now no young person to protect anymore. Now, isn't that the opposite of what we want? I mean, I think this is doing our kids a disservice. I understand why we did this in the first place, why we put these suppression orders in - the idea was to protect the privacy of these young people. But what it is also doing is protecting the privacy of the thugs in their families who put them in hospital or in the suitcase or in the bin. And what it also means is that no one then talks about what's going on. We're not horrified by the detail because there is no detail, so we don't talk about it, including politicians - and they should be the ones pitching solutions. At the rate that we're bashing our kids, this should be an election issue every single election - but it's not because we hardly talk about it because of the rules. So surely the rules should change. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can't accuse Erica Stanford of mucking around, can you? NCEA is gone. Marks out of 100 are back, grades from A to E are back, needing to pass 4 subjects at least in order to get the qualification is back. Now, how long have we been talking about the need to do this? About the fact that NCEA is rubbish, that it's been gamed, that it's not respected by employers, that it's not understood by parents? How long have we talked about this? And then within 18 months of Erica Stanford taking over the education portfolio, the changes are made. This is absolutely, by the way, the right thing to do. Nowhere, in none of the assessments of what's happening at NCEA Level 1, 2 or 3, do you hear anyone say - hey, you know what, this is a good system. It's always criticism. The ERA had a look at NCEA Level 1 last year and they found such big problems with that they recommended getting rid of it. NZQA last year found only half of year 12 students actually finished 3 full subjects. They didn't even get to do 3 full subjects, but they somehow managed to pass NCEA. NZCER found that learning was not the focus of school at NCEA level anymore, assessment was. The OECD two years ago found what we always know is going on lately and our ability to read, write and do maths was slipping. It had now fallen below the OECD average. The NZQA Insights paper found a huge number of kids got Level 3 because it's easy, but UE, the old equivalent, they couldn't get it because it's not easy. Now, none of this is news to us, right? Some of these reports actually date back to 2018, 7 years ago. Yet NCEA hasn't been scrapped until now. Now, this is brave, because any change this big is brave, but especially, it's brave right now at a time when secondary school teachers are already dealing with a lot. They have a curriculum refresh on the go. They've got new compulsory exams already now, they've got this. They are busy and they're about to get busier. And while I feel for them, and I do, our kids are too important and their education is too important to muck around. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

NZ on Air has its fingers crossed its financial support of Shortland St won't be forever. New Zealand's longest-running drama's been granted 2.5 million in funding for its 2026 season, to help the show transition to the audience's preference of online viewing. NZ on Air CEO Cam Harland told Heather du Plessis-Allan that they also provided funding last year, but hoped it would assist the show moving to a more financially sustainable place. But he says the economic environment for ad funded media hasn't improved. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New South Wales is celebrating its new programme - poaching cops from other states - and abroad. 21 experienced, poached, officers are graduating in the Australian state today - seven of them from New Zealand. The New South Wales Police Minister, Yasmin Catley, is attributing it to a historic pay rise last year - making them the best paid officers in Australia. Catley told Heather du Plessis-Allan she makes no apologies for taking police from elsewhere. She says the graduates are looking forward to the endless opportunities in New South Wales. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Trade Minister's hitting the phones, as it's confirmed US tariffs on New Zealand will be higher than when they were first announced. The Trump administration has confirmed base tariffs will now be 15 percent -- up from 10, in a decision that impacts countries including New Zealand. It's believed the new rate applies to those with a trade deficit with the US. Todd McClay told Heather du Plessis-Allan that he's seeking an urgent call with American representatives on this. He says it's disappointing and challenging for exporters, and while there are opportunities, tariffs aren't good for trade. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You know that story about the gang numbers cracking the 10,000 mark? That's classic gotcha politics, isn't it? It doesn't count when the number is 9,999, but once it hits 10,000 - or in this case, 10,009 - it's a thing, and it's the Government's fault. Is it the Government's fault though? I mean, should we actually be angry at Mark Mitchell for this one? I don't think so. I think that what we're seeing right now is the result of stuff that has already happened, mainly- with the deportation of criminals from Australia and the recession that we're in. Recessions lead to an increase in crime for obvious reasons, and the deportation of serious criminals will lead to an increase in gang numbers - probably for a while yet actually - until the likes of the Comancheros and any other heavy outfit that's been brought here from Australia has maxed out its recruitment drive in New Zealand. I think it's highly ironic that Ginny Andersen is the one moaning about this. Do you need me to remind you of Ginny Andersen? Ginny Andersen was one of Labour's run of Police Ministers who totally took their foot off the throat of the gangs when they were in power. Ginny Andersen was the Police Minister at the time that the gang was basically allowed to take over Opotiki for the tangi. Remember that? At least under this Government and this particular Police Minister, police have been given the understanding that they are to crack down on gangs. There have been a huge number of arrests. There are no gang tangi taking over small town roads anymore and there are no gang patches. Laura, the producer, lives out in West Auckland. She reckons she used to see a gang patch every single day, but doesn't see them now. None at all. Now, it doesn't mean that the gang members are gone. You can still see them around the place, they just walk around in their colours, you know, without the patches. Just look for someone wearing an unusual amount of primary colour red. That generally denotes a Mongrel Mob member. Look for somebody with a lot of yellow going on, that's generally somebody from the Comancheros. Lots of primary blue, that'll be your Black Power there. I saw one in his gang colours in Bunnings the other day. But at least they do not have the belief that they can walk around intimidating good people in public places because they don't have their patch on - and them being stripped of that belief actually counts for a lot. Now, I'm not happy the gang numbers have gone up, but they have. And I expect they're gonna keep going up for a while until this economy turns around and the pool of recruits available to the Aussie imports starts drying up. That is not the fault of this Government and it is also not the fault of this Police Minister. And what counts for a lot more is at least these gangs are being cracked down on now. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sad news today - Sir Michael Hill, jeweller, has passed away. Again, he's another larger-than-life figure in New Zealand business - the likes of which we don't seem to be making anymore. Now, I don't know if you realize - I mean, we've all grown up with Michael Hill just being a name we knew - but I don't know if you realize how amazing his story was. He did not start his jewellery business until he was 40 years old. Up til then, he'd been working as a manager in his family's jewellery business. He left school at 16 and headed straight there. He was there for 23 years, got married and had a couple of kids. But one day, his house burnt down. And the story goes that when he was watching his house go up in flames - literally - he decided he needed to change things. So he started his own shop and it was a success. It was more successful than his uncle's business. So he opened seven shops in seven years, and that was a success. So he then decided to open another 70 in seven years. And now, his business is global. It's in New Zealand, it's in Australia, it's in Canada. He's worked with Kim Kardashian, he's designed his own golf course, he has a luxury super yacht, he's got himself a knighthood. And isn't it remarkable, when you think about it, that all of those things happened after he took a massive risk when he turned 40? I mean, 40 is an age when most of us are either at the peak of our careers or absolutely firmly settled in what we're doing. Imagine just tipping it all up and deciding to start your own business at 40. What I love about Michael Hill's story the most was that he did the same thing that many successful people do: he set goals and he visualized them. He wrote his goals down for years in advance - seven years, sometimes even as many as 30 years. And then he imagined what it would be like when he was actually doing that and had achieved those goals. Successful people tell you to do this time and time again. But before you even get to the point of setting that goal, you have to believe that you can achieve it. And he clearly believed it in spades, and he thinks not enough of us believe what we can achieve. He was more, obviously, than just a man who was into money. He promoted art. He was very good at violin - in fact, so good, he founded an international violin competition for young players. He donated to health research. He took his New Zealand business to the world. And he showed, yet again, that you can dream big from a small place like Whangārei. He is an inspiration and he is a loss. But more importantly, he is an example to us all. We just need to set our goals and then go for it. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The news of the day, politically, is that surcharges are gone, as the Government's just banned them. You know what I'm talking about here, right? They're the little extra amount that you get pinged when you turn up at the dairy and you use your credit card, or you use your paywave - it's gone from May next year. The big sell behind this is basically that it's to help you with the cost of living crisis. Now, I hate to do this because I know you're thinking, "Oh, yay." And I'm totally gonna rain on that parade for you. Don't get excited, this is gonna fix nothing. You are still gonna end up paying that cost somehow, probably just through the cost of the bottle of milk that you're buying. Or your haircut, or your sushi or whatever it is - it's gonna be built into the price because the business still has the cost. Nothing is changing there. They've still got to pay that merchant fee. Now, a merchant fee is a very complicated set of charges which the business gets lumped with. And most businesses actually have no bloody idea what makes up that merchant fee. There's a fee from the credit card companies, there's a fee for moving money from the banks, there's the EFTPOS providers - the whole thing gets lumped into the merchant fee and that has not gone away. What's only gone away is the business's ability to be able to recover the cost of some of that through the surcharge. And by the way, the cost of that thing is actually quite big. I've read about one business - just one shop - that pays about $14,000 in a year just for that, just for the merchant fee, to be able to do business electronically. Now, what's going to happen if you go to that shop is, because that guy can't now pass it on to you with a 2 percent, 0.7 percent, 1 percent surcharge or whatever, he's simply going to add it to the cost of his product so that across the year, he makes that $14,000 back. Also, another reason why you shouldn't get excited about it is that this ban does not include anything that you buy online. So you're buying your Air New Zealand tickets? You're still gonna be paying that little $6 handling fee. You're buying some tickets for a concert from Ticketmaster? You're still paying that handling fee. Maybe you want to head along to Banksy? Yep, you're still gonna be paying yourself a nice little $8 handling fee. And the problem with that is that these are some of the most egregious examples, I would have thought, of surcharges just bearing no resemblance to reality - but they still slip through this. So instead of actually sorting out the backroom problems and the real gnarly issues - what has been charged by the banks and the EFTPOS companies and the credit card companies and really excessive surcharges - the Government's just taken the easy option and brought in a ban on the little stuff you buy from the dairy. Good headline. Unfortunately, though, just a charade. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Let's be honest with each other about something. That increase in rough sleeping that the cities are anecdotally reporting to that homelessness report will be caused by the shutting down of those emergency motels. I know the Government's trying to avoid having to admit that, but that is the big thing that's changed since the election. They've shut down the motels and some of the people who were in those motels, or who might have gone to those motels, have ended up on the streets. And I don't think that that's unexpected. That is not an unexpected consequence of taking a tougher line on the motels. Now, don't see me as tough or hard-hearted on this. I don't want anyone sleeping on the streets and I venture most of us don't. But I still think that shutting down those motels was a good idea because that was out of hand, wasn't it? I mean, spending $1.4 billion on emergency accommodation in six years was just way too much money. I prefer the line the Government's taking at the moment, which is to put the obligation where it actually should be, which is on family and friends. Which is to say that if someone finds themselves, God forbid, without a roof over their heads, the first place that they should go for help is not the state. It should be their mum or their brother or their auntie or their son or their friend. And only then when all of their options are exhausted and they really have no one to turn to, then should they turn to the state. But that is not what was happening with the emergency motels. The state was the first port of call. If you think about it, the state has stepped in to take over a lot of roles that we normally would have relied on each other for. And in some cases, it's unavoidable and in some cases it's for the best, for example - police, or whatever. But in this case, let's be honest, $1.4 billion is a lot of money that could have been spent on anything else that we are running dry on right now. Healthcare, cops, education. So actually, the first place you turn to if you don't have somewhere to sleep is your family. Only at the end of the road should the state step in. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The week has come to an end, and so Trish Sherson and Tim Wilson joined Heather du Plessis-Allan to Wrap the Week that was. They discussed Woolworth's latest promotion freebie and KiwiRail's confusing ban on melatonin and sleeping medications. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The former Work and Income boss says the Government getting 81 thousand people off the benefit is a big achievement, despite the overall number going up. Ministry of Social Development statistics show almost eight thousand more people were receiving a main benefit in June compared to March. It follows the coalition putting new requirements and sanctions in place for beneficiaries. Christine Rankin told Heather du Plessis Allan the increase is inevitable with the current economy, but the tougher conditions are the right move. She says until Louise Upston came along as Minister, there were no expectations for beneficiaries to do anything. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The recent wild weather in Nelson-Tasman could push up the price of our produce. Growers faced weeks of heavy rain and flooding that's damaged infrastructure, affected harvests, and disrupted supply chains. There are concerns about saturated soils meaning growers can't plant new crops, affecting vegetables like broccoli, lettuces, and spinach. Vegetables NZ Chair John Murphy told Heather du Plessis-Allan the market responds quickly to shortages. He says we will see prices grow marginally. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'll tell you why I don't like the money we're spending on Sunny Kaushal and the Retail Crime Advisory Group: it's not a good deal. I haven't got a problem with Sunny Kaushal, but he was offering his ideas to the Government for free. If someone offers you something for free and you then decide to pay for it, that is a bad deal. And it's not bad coin we're paying either. Sunny Kaushal is earning $920 a day. Between March 1st and June 10th, which is 102 days, he earned $95,112. He can claim up to $920 dollars a day. Now my sums tell me that means he's been working and claiming seven days a week. For 102 days straight. Nearly $100,000 for three months work ain't bad. Then there's the personnel cost of $330,000 for, what Sunny told us yesterday, lawyers and policy work. That's work which can mostly be done in-house by Government departments and ministerial offices, who do this all the time, and have probably already done work on some of the ideas pitched by the retail crime fighting unit. Frankly, at the cost of $330,000 I think we can all see someone's taking the mickey with their bills. Now, if you are offered something for free, why would you pay for it? That's how the Government gravy train works. Good for Sunny Kaushal. If I was offered that much money by the Government for doing what I was already doing, I would take it. But I expected better from National, given that we are broke and they are supposed to be careful with money. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.