The Latest from Kerre Woodham Mornings https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/ NZME KERRE WOODHAM MORNINGS Audio Opinion This is the show that delivers a little bit of everything. News, opinion, analysis, lifestyle an 2024-03-29T14:42:08.720Z en Kerre Woodham: The OECD report isn't news https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-the-oecd-report-isnt-news/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-the-oecd-report-isnt-news/ Well, it's news, but it's not really, is it?   An OECD report has found that New Zealand's students are among the worst behaved kids in the world and that bad behaviour has worsened in the last two years. Shock me. A report released this morning by the Education Review Office has called for classroom behaviour to become a priority, and to nationalise the approach to dealing with bad behaviour.   At the moment, each school must set its own policy, around discipline, about rules, about consequences and they're not getting anywhere near the sort of support and professional help that they need nationwide to deal with bad kids, sad kids, anxious kids, unwell kids, kids with special needs, kids with special neurological needs, as well as the physical. There's a whole plethora of children, and their needs and their learning abilities would be diverse enough if you didn't take into account the bad kids, sad kids, anxious kids, unwell kids. I cannot even imagine what it is like in a modern classroom.    On the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning, Ruth Shinoda, who's the Head of the Education Evaluation Center at the Education Review Office said she'd like to see three things happen.    “The first is we're saying, look, let's have more of a national approach, which isn't still doing the same thing but is making sure that schools can access the same support and are really back to succeed. The second is we do need to support our kids, so let's have greater prevention. Let's make sure we're setting them up to succeed at school. And lastly, let's really help those teachers with the expert support and the skills they need. But yes, we do think things like taking cellphones out of classrooms will help.”    Yeah, and it probably will. We're going to have a chat to a bit later in the day about the states in America that are banning kids from under 14, from having TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram accounts. There is so much, so much, that can be said about the reasons for poor behaviour.   Covid, of course, has been blamed, and countries around the world are seeing distressed kids, sad kids, anxious kids turning up at school. Children who don't know how to interact with one another. Who were terrified at the thought of ‘in real life’ because their teaching has been done online, their social interactions have been done online, and people in the flesh are quite a different thing.   So, it's happening all over the world, but an OECD report has found our students behaviour is the worst. You only have to look at the news reports of the poor behaviour among society in general to understand that the poor behaviour of the children springs directly from the poor behaviour of the parents or caregivers. They haven't come from nowhere. They haven't been born bad or sad or mad. Their home life shapes them, society helped shape them. What on Earth are the teachers supposed to do? By the time a child is five, a lot of the habits have been ingrained anyway.   There is nothing as any parent or caregiver knows like the joy of helping children learn and helping them develop their full potential. Each child is different and to be able to watch them grow is such a privilege. To be a part of that process, it is truly, truly wonderful. If teachers were actually able to teach, to do that, to work alongside parents to bring out the very best in each child, it would be the most wonderful job in the world. If parents were presenting to the school well rested, well fed, well-mannered kids, you would have queues of people lining up to be teachers. For those who have the privilege of being able to teach kids who can learn because they've had a good night's sleep and a warm, dry bed, because they've had dinner, it might not be flash, but it's enough to fill their stomachs, it's enough to allow their brains to calm down, settle down, and grow. To have children who have been supported from the time they are born to understand that learning is something precious. That lear... 2024-03-27T23:23:11.000Z Kerre Woodham: Should you put caveats on second chances? https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-should-you-put-caveats-on-second-chances/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-should-you-put-caveats-on-second-chances/ When it comes to second chances for people, do you put caveats on those second chances?   So you're allowed a second chance, but you must refrain from being in the public eye. Or you're allowed a second chance, but you must always present a subdued demeanour and never look as though you're enjoying life ever again.   When you have done something dreadful, absolutely appalling, when you have done something criminal and you have been convicted for that, at what point are you allowed to work again? To participate in the community or society again?   And I ask this for two reasons, a) because the Wellington Repertory Theatre is in the news after casting a convicted rapist in the lead role for its run of the play ‘Murdered to Death’. Now, it's a lead role so Harrison Stuart 's face is on the posters. He's a big part of the social media advertising campaign and given that he was convicted of sexual violation by rape, some of his fellow actors say that they're distressed, and his victim survivor is particularly distressed.  Harrison Stuart was studying drama at the time of his trial so he could perhaps argue that this is his job, this is what he's trained to do. He's come out of prison; he's trying to get work in the field in which he studied. He's done his time; he's entitled to do his job and the Repertory Theatre seems to be standing by that. They say that crew and cast were consulted on a comprehensive risk management plan surrounding the casting of Stuart, including banning him from being alone with anyone and forbidding him drinking alcohol before or during any interaction with the cast and crew. So, they say they have fulfilled their obligations.   Jessica Te Wiata is the victim survivor, she had to endure two trials before a jury before Stuart was found guilty of indecent assault and sexual violation by rape in 2021. He was a former friend; her trust was horribly betrayed. He was sentenced to four years in prison but was out after two due to his good behaviour. She says Stuart has not accepted responsibility for his actions —he didn't then, and he hasn’t now— and she would have liked to have been consulted before he was cast, and his photo was put on the posters.   So, should Stuart be allowed to work in his chosen field? Given that he studied to be an actor, he could argue you know that is what I do. Others might say goodness, out of prison and barely washed the prison grime off you and there you are front and centre on the stage, posters all around town, any thought that this perhaps might cause pain for the victim, the victim 's family? What are the caveats you would put on this young man finding work again? If he doesn't find work, he's going to be a drain on the taxpayer for the rest of his life.   What about Kiri Allan, the former Justice Minister who has a trial upcoming after being taken into the cells by police after crashing a car. Drinking, the police dogs were called, I mean it was just a shambles. I can't think of a Justice Minister who fell from grace so spectacularly, but I interviewed her yesterday around the Civil Defence Report and the deficiencies in the Hawkes Bay Civil Defence response to Cyclone Gabriel, because she was, as well as a former Justice Minister, a former Civil Defence Minister. And she had absolute institutional knowledge of what the response was at the time, and she had a very good oversight and overview of Civil Defence in New Zealand. Should that knowledge be lost? I don't think so.   I had a few texts from people saying this is an outrage, I'm never listening to talk back again and how dare you and how dare you have her on.  I didn't just have her on a whim because I fancied a chat and a catch up. I had her on because she knows her subject, she knows the topic. I felt she added value to the conversation. Is she supposed to go away and never be seen ever again? She has to earn a living and that's what she's doing, she set up a consultancy firm. The trial is still to come but you k... 2024-03-27T00:02:41.000Z Kerre Woodham: How much should we rely on Civil Defence? https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-how-much-should-we-rely-on-civil-defence/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-how-much-should-we-rely-on-civil-defence/ The independent review of Hawke’s Bay’s Civil Defence response to Cyclone Gabriel has been completed and it is damning. Former Police Commissioner Mike Bush conducted the investigation and released the findings yesterday.    MB: You know, there's a lot of experts out there, a lot of people who do know how this should be done, and I think all those people stand ready to provide advice and support. One of the things we said in the report was the current national model and the way it works in with regional/local does set good people up to fail. So, we've, we've got to look after those people, but the resources and the capability and experiences out there, what we've got to do is have a model that actually leverages all that, coordinates that, and gets it in as soon as possible.    So, there are good people and they are set up to fail. Basically, the review found the region was not well prepared for a natural disaster of this scale. Would anyone have been prepared for that? Unlikely, but basically the review said you have to plan for the worst-case scenario. It was unlikely it would have been on that scale. It did occur on that scale, and thus the worst-case scenario should have been planned for.   It found the severity, speed and scale of the disaster overwhelmed the officials involved in the response. They thought that they knew how to do Civil Defence because they'd been through Covid-19. This natural disaster was nothing like Covid-19. They had no idea what to do.   It's not just Hawke’s Bay though. Mike Bush found the National Emergency Management system is not currently fit for purpose, so we should all be concerned. He said a complete overhaul of the system is needed. That's something that's been recommended for years. And Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence said they absolutely accepted the findings and were ready to do a complete overhaul of the system. Although having heard the train wreck of an interview on Heather's show last night with Hinewai Ormsby, who's the chair of Hawkes Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management’s joint committee, I do wonder how effective that overhaul is going to be.    HO: So, the recommendations from today, we agreed, and we added them. That we’d get an independent implementation team and leadership team, to be able to take these recommendations.  HDPA: I’m asking you this question because I’m slightly alarmed that you don’t know the details.  HO: Well, no, we’re fully committed to the recommendations and implementing change.    I mean Hinewai Ormsby may well be a very effective human, but when it comes to communicating, she had a bad attack of the Costers, and I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about in the bureaucratic speak. None. And surely in a crisis, clear communication is absolutely vital. If you've got a bad attack of bureaucratese, it's going to be very tricky to get information out and get information out quickly and expeditiously.  Nonetheless, they have said that they will implement the findings, but when you're being let down by the national civil defence structure, which is not fit for purpose, how effective are you going to be? The National Emergency Management Agency has not yet released its review into the weather events of last year - that is due out in December, and that will probably make for more grim reading.   The review of Hawke’s Bay’s response also pointed to a number of precautionary measures that may have mitigated some of the damage. The dredging to remove excess shingle, the managing of forestry slash, the flood protection maintenance, all of which a number of you callers and texters said needed to be done. Yet you'd said it before Cyclone Gabrielle, and you certainly said it afterwards. These were things that you had pointed to, and when you look at Auckland's floods, a number of people pointed to the fact the drains hadn't been maintained and cleared that they quickly became blocked, causing tiny rivulets to become rivers.   So, there is much that can b... 2024-03-26T00:13:55.000Z Kiri Allan: Former Emergency Management Minister on the results of the review into the Cyclone Gabrielle response https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/kiri-allan-former-emergency-management-minister-on-the-results-of-the-review-into-the-cyclone-gabrielle-response/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/kiri-allan-former-emergency-management-minister-on-the-results-of-the-review-into-the-cyclone-gabrielle-response/ The independent review into the response to Cyclone Gabrielle has found that Civil Defence was unprepared for the disaster, the system not fit for purpose.  Former Minister for Emergency Management Kiri Allan thinks the report hits the nail on the head.  She told Kerre Woodham that this is not a new recognition.  Following the Christchurch Earthquake in 2011, Gerry Brownlee said that the system was absolutely unfit for purpose and instigated a series of actions seeking to address it.  Despite this, Allan said, the system still doesn’t have the agility and the ability to be responsive when major events occur.  LISTEN ABOVE  2024-03-25T23:13:10.000Z Kerre Woodham: Blame the dolphin! https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-blame-the-dolphin/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-blame-the-dolphin/ Interestingly, Marie has sent in a text immediately on the very thing I wanted to talk about. “Kerre what a third world, Banana Republic New Zealand has become. I was at the SailGP yesterday, the final thank God, not Saturday. It was simply amazing. New Zealand in the last six years has slipped into a pathetic nation of nothingness. Useless do-gooders stripping any opportunity to move forward in what could be one of the most incredible events on the water next to the Americas Cup. Yesterday was simply fantastic. Shame on us for being so short-sighted", says Marie. Now, normally, Marie, I would agree with you and I'd have some sympathy with Sir Russell Coates, who’s apoplectic in his monosyllabic kind of way, but he's still extremely cross about the fact that racing was brought to a halt on Saturday. And I do normally have sympathy with people who find themselves suddenly hog-tied by red tape. But when it comes to the SailGP, don't get me wrong, it's a brilliant concept. It is clever, it is fun to watch whether you watch it on the telly or in real life. It is brilliant for the sailors and the spectators alike, as Maria attests in her text. What's not to love when you've got a sailing Grand Prix, that's what it's been described at, and that's what it looks like. Fanging it round a beautiful course, the very best in their field from around the world. Ten international teams travelling the world to the most beautiful places in the world taking each other on in  high-speed yacht racing. It's really cool. Totally get that. But Sir Russell's now warning that the New Zealand League of SailGP is in doubt after proceedings were brought to a halt in Lyttleton Harbour on Saturday after a dolphin was sighted on the course. So dolphin ahoy, in line with SailGP protocol, racing is delayed to allow marine life to pass through safely. In this case, the dolphin hadn't read the protocol and didn't understand that they were supposed to move through expeditiously and get through to the other side to allow racing to proceed. The dolphin thought well this is cool, or whatever dolphins do without wishing to be anthropomorphic about it. The dolphin thought look at all these people, fantastic, I might hang around and see what's happening.  Not realising that while it hung around inside the racecourse arena it meant racing couldn't take place. So everyone's waiting for the dolphin to shove off. The dolphin hadn't read the protocol, so it's still in its little dolphin sanctuary doing what dolphins do. And now, Sir Russell is apoplectic in his quiet,  monosyllabic way.  Coutts says the league has never had an aquatic incident involving an aquatic animal in 35 events around the world. And in his chat with Jason Pine on weekend Sport on ZB over the weekend, he blamed environmentalists, academics, red tape, the Harbour Master and iwi for the hold up and racing.  AUDIO  So they're very clever. We've all seen the Dolphins surfing the wake and dolphin watching is fantastic and it's brilliant. But you signed the protocol. You know that that's what has to happen. That that's why you haven't had an event involving an aquatic mammal, because there is the protocol to allow them to proceed. If you're gonna blame anyone, blame the dolphin for not moving on. I understand that you want to find a place where there's great viewing for spectators on land. You know that's part of the thrill of seeing the crowds there. It's great for tourism. I'd hate to see it lost. But is there nowhere else in New Zealand where you could find a suitable venue? And I'm genuinely asking. I don't know a lot about yachting. I've only got back into the Americas Cup since they did the foiling, and since it became really exciting and just a brilliant spectacle to watch. But has been nowhere else in the whole of New Zealand, in this island nation that you could hold the SailGP? Why hold the race where the dolphins are? You know there's Auckland - you know they've had the Americas Cup there... 2024-03-25T00:08:06.000Z Christine Rose: Chair of Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders on the safety of dolphins during SailGP in Lyttleton Harbour https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/christine-rose-chair-of-maui-and-hector-s-dolphin-defenders-on-the-safety-of-dolphins-during-sailgp-in-lyttleton-harbour/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/christine-rose-chair-of-maui-and-hector-s-dolphin-defenders-on-the-safety-of-dolphins-during-sailgp-in-lyttleton-harbour/ Having SailGP in Lyttleton Harbour is being likened to planning a motorcross event in Kiwi habitats.  SailGP CEO Russell Coutts slammed the cancellation of Saturday’s racing after a dolphin was spotted on the course. He claims the species isn’t endangered and are smart enough to be aware of the boats around them.   Chair of Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders Christine Rose tells Kerre Woodham they were concerns for dolphin safety before the event went ahead. Rose says at this time of year, the Hectors dolphins are particularly vulnerable due to calves being slower swimmers and more shallow divers.   There has been an increase in probable boat strike deaths of dolphins in the harbour and noise and other disturbances can also impact their ability to socialise and feed.  LISTEN ABOVE 2024-03-24T21:37:31.000Z Kerre Woodham: Did we actually need the public service increase? https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-did-we-actually-need-the-public-service-increase/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-did-we-actually-need-the-public-service-increase/ Back in 2022, Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr was appearing before a Parliamentary Select Committee trying to explain how and why the bank was too slow in moving the OCR and therefore increasing interest rates. He was asked by Parliamentary Select Committee member Chloe Swarbrick whether the Reserve Bank was deliberately engineering a recession to rein back inflation.    “I think that is correct. I mean, we are deliberately trying to slow aggregate spending in the economy. The quicker inflation expectations come down, the less work we need to do and the less likely it is that we have a prolonged period of low or negative growth.”    We talked about that at the time, that when you engineer a recession that's a nice, neat little phrase, and it needed to be done. Interest rates needed to go up to get the spending down. He said that while there might be a recession and a decline in the economy, the central bank was forecasting it could be job rich, and said the country was relatively well positioned internationally.   That was 2022.   Today in 2024, this is what a recession looks like. Big job losses across the private and public sector. Big ticket retailers struggling. Mum and Dad homeowners with mortgages making tough decisions about their spending.   When bankers and politicians took percentage points in interest hikes, they took numbers. They debate theoretical concepts about the economy, and which levers they might need to pull to make the economy move in one direction or another. It sounds like a game, but ultimately, they're playing with people.   When you're talking about numbers, you're talking about people, and the job losses across the economy are going to be painful and unsettling right now. Last week, it was the media, this week it's public service workers, and they have been in the gun and were an election talking point.    The ACT party wanted to see public sector job cuts and they wanted to see a lot of them, 15,000 to bring the public service back to 2017 levels. David Seymour said last year, over the last six years we've seen a 30% increase in the size of the public. He said we have equally seen a 30% increase in public spending after inflation in population growth. Yet there is widespread dissatisfaction with the quality of public services, and I think there is a fair point there.   When you look at my favourite from Waka Kotahi, the poor manager that sent the e-mail saying we have no idea why we're here or what our purpose is or what we're doing. He proposed that his own unit be disestablished because there was no clear direction from the government about what they should be doing or how they should be doing it. He couldn't see the point of his job. No.   When you've got the Ministry of Education. Who are outsourcing the curriculum? What do they do? I can understand outsourcing. Perhaps the building of new schools. You know you can't expect the teachers to put the tool belt on and get to work hammering and sawing. But when it surely that is a core function of what the ministry should be doing, directing the writing of the curriculum.   You know, I think for a lot of us, we've looked from the outside into the public service and thought. What are you doing? Why are you doing it? To what point? And what markers are there to say that you are doing it well?   There has been a constant theme when it comes to changes of government that National trims down the public sector and then they hire out to consultants. And then when Labour comes and they bring back the public service jobs and don't hire as much when it comes to consultants, but this last administration did both. They hired more people within the public service on full time jobs and also spent a packet on consultants. I know how unsettling it is when you don't know if you're going to have a job tomorrow. You know, working in the media, you feel like you've got a target on your butt, and probably public service workers feel much the same.    David Seym... 2024-03-22T00:41:37.000Z Liam Dann: NZ Herald Business Editor on the GDP drop and New Zealand moving into a technical recession https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/liam-dann-nz-herald-business-editor-on-the-gdp-drop-and-new-zealand-moving-into-a-technical-recession/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/liam-dann-nz-herald-business-editor-on-the-gdp-drop-and-new-zealand-moving-into-a-technical-recession/ New Zealand has entered a technical recession after drops in two consecutive quarters.   Stats NZ GDP data shows the economy contracted 0.1 percentage points in last year's final quarter.  It also fell 0.3 in the September quarter.  Herald Business Editor at large Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham that GDP per capita decreased 0.7% in the quarter.   He says it's a quite deep recessionary environment by that measure, and that's what people are feeling on an individual basis.  LISTEN ABOVE  2024-03-20T23:18:34.000Z Jenee Tibshraeny: Herald Wellington Business Editor on the Commerce Commissions study into the banking sector https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/jenee-tibshraeny-herald-wellington-business-editor-on-the-commerce-commissions-study-into-the-banking-sector/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/jenee-tibshraeny-herald-wellington-business-editor-on-the-commerce-commissions-study-into-the-banking-sector/ The Commerce Commission says the banking sector lacks competition.   Its study has found a two-tier system with the four major banks having an apparent focus on maintaining profits, resulting in stable market shares, high profits, and an underinvestment in their platforms.   Herald Wellington Business Editor Jenee Tibshraeny told Kerre Woodham that the Commission says if we give a smaller bank, Kiwibank, more capital, it can grow.   She says the problem is the Government's trying to tighten its purse strings, so any money it gives Kiwibank will be questioned.  LISTEN ABOVE  2024-03-20T22:35:42.000Z Chris Hipkins in studio with Kerre Woodham https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/chris-hipkins-in-studio-with-kerre-woodham/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/chris-hipkins-in-studio-with-kerre-woodham/ Labour leader Chris Hipkins admits his party’s Auckland light rail and KiwiBuild policies were “undeliverable” when proposed ahead of the 2017 election. Hipkins, speaking to Newstalk ZB this morning, made the concession amid his reflections on the 2023 election campaign in which he believed Labour struggled to resonate with voters who had “decided it was time for a change”. The Remutaka MP joined ZB host Kerre Woodham for an hour of discussion and talkback. Woodham pressed Hipkins on Labour’s woeful result in the last election, receiving less than 27 per cent of the vote. Hipkins accepted now was the time to rebuild and assess whether the policies Labour took to the election needed to be revised. Woodham questioned whether Labour’s inability to implement some of its policies during its six years in government was a primary contributor to the party’s demise. Hipkins then admitted not all of Labour policies as proposed ahead of the 2017 election were deliverable. “You can’t always come in with delivery-ready policies in the way that I think we thought you could,” he said. “Auckland light rail and KiwiBuild were massive commitments, and the reality is they were too ambitious to do from Opposition. We shouldn’t have gone into the campaign promising those two things.” Labour leader Chris Hipkins told Newstalk ZB host Kerre Woodham his party needed to rebuild. Photo / Michael Craig In 2017 under then-leader Jacinda Ardern, Labour promised to build light rail from the Auckland CBD to the airport within a decade. However, progress stalled and any recent work on developing light rail in Auckland had been scrapped by the current Coalition Government. KiwiBuild promised 100,000 affordable homes across the country within 10 years, but that target had to be dropped as it was deemed overly ambitious. “Light rail is not undeliverable, but the way it was proposed in 2017 was undeliverable and KiwiBuild, the 100,000 [homes] in the timeframes that they were talking about was also undeliverable.” On the most recent election campaign, Hipkins argued it “didn’t really matter” what Labour campaigned on as people wanted change. “That was a very difficult mood to shift.” At the party’s recent caucus retreat, Hipkins said MPs would be discussing what tax policy platform Labour would run on in the 2026 election campaign after Hipkins’ proposal to strip GST off fresh fruit and vegetables failed to impress voters. MPs David Parker and Grant Robertson, who last night gave his valedictory speech, had worked up a wealth tax proposal ahead of the election but this was shot down by Hipkins. Just this week, Hipkins conceded the Labour Government should have done more to address public concerns about unruly state housing tenants as the current Government seeks to use the threat of eviction to improve behaviour. He referenced the matter this morning, saying he thought Kāinga Ora was “too slow” to relocate people as an alternative option to eviction. Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the NZ Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime. 2024-03-20T20:30:31.000Z Kerre Woodham: What a sad and sorry mess https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-what-a-sad-and-sorry-mess/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-what-a-sad-and-sorry-mess/ We knew it was bad.   You knew it. I knew it. Anyone with half a brain knew it was bad, but now we have the data to back up the calls, the stories, the headlines from last year. Police stats supplied to the Dairy and Business owners group show that in 2023, 148,599 crimes were reported at retail locations. Lot of figures in here, I'm sorry, 148,599 crimes.   So, if you break that down, that is 12,383 retail offences reported every month. 2850 per week.  407 retail crimes per day. 17 offences per hour. 407 retail crimes per day. How did that policing by consent policy work out for you, huh?   That is triple the crimes that were reported in 2020. Five times higher than the figures for 2015, and that is only reported crime. There is so much crime that you saw, that I saw, we all saw that probably, almost undoubtedly, went unreported. It's only when it got serious that it was reported.   What a sad and sorry mess. The figures also showed that assaults on retail workers were up 20% on 2022. But 121% higher than in 2015. We all knew things were bad. Did you have any idea it was this bad? Possibly if you work in retail, you did.   The previous administration tried a softly, softly approach to offending and it is clear it does not work. And it is expensive to try and turn around youths who are set on a bad path. Worth it, but really, really expensive. It is just so dispiriting, that's the thing that gets me. You could, I could see this all unfolding, but we weren't in the position to make decisions to turn it around until the election. And even then, so much has happened. So much money has been wasted. There's only so much that humans can do, that turning around the damage that's been done is going to be really difficult.   But we could see it, could we not? I mean this is something we talked about ad nauseam and people said I'm getting sick of you bashing the government. Well, you know, they deserve to be bashed. What happens when you tell people that their bad behaviour won't see them evicted from government housing? Shocking, their bad behaviour continues.   What happens when you tell people they won't be evicted for nonpayment of rent in their Kainga Ora state funded accommodation? Guess what? They don't pay the rent. The total amount owed in rent arrears has increased from $2.3 million in September 2019 to $17 million September 2022. Three years of saying to people, hey, if you don't pay your rent, we won't move you on. What happens? They don't pay it. We knew that.   What happens when you tell people that they're victims and that they are not responsible for their own actions? They believe you. And they blame others for their behaviour and the outcomes that result from their behaviour. When you create a climate where everybody's a victim, where the government and only the government can help you, you are not the author of your own destiny, you are not self-determining individual. (That is what sets us apart from the primates for the love of all its holy, the fact that we are self-determining, that we are responsible for our actions).   This is what happens. And we all saw it coming. Everybody, that is, except the people who were in the position to make the decisions to turn this around.    2024-03-19T23:43:29.000Z Kerre Woodham: Ending the Sustaining Tenancies Framework is common-sense https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-ending-the-sustaining-tenancies-framework-is-common-sense/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-ending-the-sustaining-tenancies-framework-is-common-sense/ One of the keystone policies of the last government was its Sustaining Tenancies Framework. It was the best and the worst in a way of Labour, because in theory and on paper it makes a certain kind of sense.   You give one of the most dispossessed and tragic of humans a home. They don't have one. They never had a show from the time they were born. If you look at some of the children taken in by Oranga Tamariki - 4-year-olds who are so emaciated they can't walk, who are so traumatised they can't speak. They grow into adults. They have very few prospects. They are homeless, you give them a home. Then, you do not give up on them, no matter how bad their behaviour might be. The theory goes that the person is cosseted and loved and supported and eventually they realise that although their childhood was absolutely dreadful, although they have been let down by every single person who was supposed to care for them throughout their lives, they will not be let down by the Labour government and Kainga Ora and lo! Magically and with tears all round, they become a good human who understands their contract with society.   Except, except, except, how do you measure it? Who has to pay the price while this process is going on? It's the other tenants who have to put up with this unruly, disruptive, damaged, anti-social tenant while this process of transmogrification takes place. They are the ones who are terrorised. The neighbours are the ones who have to get the kids back to sleep when the all-night parties wake them. They are the ones whose lives are threatened when they finally complain. And to make matters worse, you have 25,000 people waiting in motels watching as a small number of anti-social tenants trash their new Kainga Ora homes. And then they watch as they're evicted, but not out onto the streets.   The Sustaining Tenancies Framework saw the anti-social tenants evicted from one K.O. development and put straight into another in another community. It must have been galling for those desperate for a home to call their own. And it must have been galling, too, to be a grateful, happy tenant of Kainga Ora, looking after your home, grateful for the opportunity to have somewhere safe and reliable in which to live. So, you take the scones round to meet your new neighbour, only to find that they have been evicted for appalling behaviour at their last home and now they're living next door to you. Where is the sense in that? Even the kindest people in the world think that ending Sustaining Tenancies is a move in the right direction. Bernie Smith is the former CEO of the Monte Cecilia Trust: “It’s certainly a move back to the real world. We've had softly, softly, which has created a lot of mayhem among many tenants and homeowners who have tried to live peacefully but found it impossible. You know, the previous government time and time again said that we are the good government, and that's why so many people were coming out of the woodwork identifying that they were homeless because the Labour Party loved the people. We know that the issue was generations and the making and what made it worse was that they decided to allow tenants to remain in their home and aided the illegal activity, no matter the issues that they were creating for their neighbours and it's unacceptable.”  It was unacceptable and everybody knew that - those who had to live next door, right next door in the same complex, those who lived in properties next door. And it's a tiny number, for the most part Kainga Ora tenants/Housing New Zealand tenants are deeply grateful for the opportunity to have somewhere to call their own. Somewhere they can get back on their feet, where they have a home address, where they have a neighbourhood where the children can go to school. It's a tiny number that causes the problems. But their impact is vast and huge.   Back in 2022 Kainga Ora moved 605 tenants because of antisocial activity. Now that's a lot. That's a lot of impact. Sixteen they... 2024-03-19T00:12:12.000Z Kerre Woodham: Do you really expect tax cuts? https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-do-you-really-expect-tax-cuts/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-do-you-really-expect-tax-cuts/ I wanted to get into this on Friday when the IRD released it’s figures about the online gambling tax, and we were overrun by events. So, let's have a look at this today for the first hour at least because the Government books are open, the numbers have been crunched, and reality is starting to bite.   The size of Grant Robertson's hole has been revealed, and the optimistic numbers National was throwing around before the election, are proving to be just that - optimistic. In August last year, during the election campaign, National announced it was going to fund $14.6 billion worth of tax relief, and it was going to pay for it by re-prioritising spending and introducing targeted revenue measures like a new foreign buyer tax on some houses.   You will recall the ‘Back Pocket Boost’ package - it included changes to income tax brackets to compensate for inflation, introducing Family Boost childcare tax credit and increasing Working for Families tax credits. It's all coming in July 1st this year.   According to National, that would mean an average household with children with an income of $120,000 would be better off by $250 a fortnight, Labour said that's absolute tosh, that 99% of Kiwi households would not get that $250, only 0.18% of them would. National said don't care, doesn't matter. An average household with no children will get up to $100 per fortnight, a full-time minimum wage earner will get $20 per fortnight. Whoop, open the champagne. And a super annuitant couple would get $26 more per fortnight. And when they were quizzed about how they were going to pay for that, when National was saying too that Labour had spent all the money, they talked to their targeted revenue measures like the foreign buyer tax on some houses, like the plan to raise revenue from online gambling.   So, all very well and good, and obviously it was attractive for people doing it tough. Attractive enough for some people to tick blue, to put National in the driver's seat when it came to forming a government. Other people ticked blue because of the claw back on the landlords able to claim interest deductibility. However, IRD put up its own costings when it came to the online gambling revenue and that came in vastly lower than what National envisaged prior to the election. That means that over the four-year forecast period, the gap between National's pre-election costings and the IRD's works out at more than 500 million - which is the second blowout the government’s had with news last Monday that the government's reinstatement of aforementioned interest deductibility would come in at $800 million more than National had costed at the election, mainly because of the horse-trading with ACT during the coalition talks.   So, all the numbers are coming in, it's worse than we thought. There's only so much you can do when it comes to public service cuts. You're not going to get as much money as you thought, but a lot of people knew that at the time. You know, everybody was saying there just aren't going to be enough foreign buyers paying that tax to help cover the cost. IRD said the online gambling revenue is vastly optimistic. It said it at the time - it's done the costings now. So why don't we just call it? We cannot afford the tax cuts. We could never afford the tax cuts. We knew we couldn't afford it. We didn't vote in National because we wanted an extra $100 a fortnight, did we? We voted for National, we voted for ACT, we voted for the Greens because they weren't Labour.   The Greens got their largest share they've ever had of the vote and saw more MPs in Parliament than they've ever had. That hasn’t aged well, but nonetheless they got their biggest share of the vote in their party's history because they weren't Labour. Because the people who could not vote for any of the right-wing parties couldn't vote Labour. ACT went up, National went up. New Zealand First were returned to Parliament because people were not going to vote Labour. That's why we h... 2024-03-17T23:49:43.000Z Kerre Woodham: Before everyone gets too uppity about the Greens, all parties' MPs live in glass houses https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-before-everyone-gets-too-uppity-about-the-greens-all-parties-mps-live-in-glass-houses/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-before-everyone-gets-too-uppity-about-the-greens-all-parties-mps-live-in-glass-houses/ Green Party MP Darleen Tana has been suspended amid allegations she is linked to migrant exploitation at her husband’s company. A statement from the Greens’ co-leaders said Tana was suspended on Thursday afternoon because it was a conflict of interest with her small business portfolio.   The claims first came to light on February 1 when Tana informed the party a complaint had been made to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) by a worker at her husband’s business, E-Bikes NZ.   “On February 9, the party was notified of a second complaint to the ERA,” the statement reads.  These complaints included allegations against Ms. Tana. Ms. Tana has not been a director or shareholder of E Cycles NZ since 2019.”   She was suspended after it became apparent, she may have previously been aware of the allegations. As Green party co-leader, Chloe Swarbrick told Mike Hosking this morning, an independent lawyer is conducting the investigation.   Now these are only allegations - as we know there is to be an independent investigation. If Darleen is lost to politics that would be a shame. She appears to be no dumb bunny - Darleen holds degrees in Chemical Technology and International Business Management with senior leadership experience in European telco (1997-2014), and SME manufacturing/retail in e-mobility here in Aotearoa (2014-2020).  But the Greens don't have all their sorrows to seek in the one day what with Golriz Gharaman pleading guilty to shoplifting yesterday and James Shaw quitting the party. Before everyone gets too uppity about the Greens and their moral failings though, all parties' MPs are living in glass houses, and it would not behoove them to throw stones.  We're only going back a few years - we simply don't have the time to go any further back - and there are some egregious sins that have been committed by MPs across the spectrum from 2017 onwards.    Most of us can commit errors of judgment, even criminal activity of drink driving and continue in our jobs?    Is it the party selection process or is it the fact that we are all flawed and imperfect?  And we have to accept that it's across the political spectrum now.   No one party is blameless or faultless.  2024-03-15T02:03:01.000Z John MacDonald: 100 days and they're still together https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/john-macdonald-100-days-and-theyre-still-together/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/john-macdonald-100-days-and-theyre-still-together/ Every government minister will be going for the takeaways and cracking open a bottle of something tonight, won’t they?   They might even put a movie on as well, but they’ll probably nod-off after a few minutes.  Because that 100-day plan the boss dreamed-up, done and dusted. Delivered. KPIs met. It went to the wire with Shane leaving his big health announcement to the last minute. But we got there team!  Christopher Luxon will be on the ministerial WhatsApp group telling them to enjoy the spring roll and chips, but reminding them that the next 100 days start on Monday.  And, whatever you think of the Government, there’s probably one thing we can agree on: it’s not prone to sit around and over-think things. And, for you, that might be a good thing. It might not be, either. I’m probably somewhere in the middle.  And while I can’t say it’s blown my socks off - I can say it’s exceeded my expectations on one thing. And because of that, I’m giving its first 100 days a pass mark.  I’ll get to that shortly. And it’s probably how Christopher Luxon is feeling too. Because, as he has often said, he’s never really satisfied. Always thinks things can be done better.  And with the first 100 days ticking over today, he’s already thinking about the next 100. So, it wasn’t bluster at the start - that’s how he’s going to keep on doing things. Quarterly targets. Every three months.   As he himself admits, he’s running the country just like a chief executive runs a business or an organisation.  And is he ever. Just look at the screws going on the public sector. Which I think is getting a bit out of control. Example being this nutbar situation where you’ve got one public department chief executive paying his own airfares to fly around the country and talk to staff about cost-cutting.  But while the Prime Minister is on to the next 100 days, let’s have a think about how we rate the first 100.   For starters, I’d describe them as: Stop and Start.  The Stop bit is all the policies and initiatives of the last government that it’s pulled the plug on. Stop 3 Waters. Stop the Smoke-free stuff. Stop the blanket speed limit reductions. Stop the Auckland light rail project. Stop Fair Pay agreements. Stop the Lake Onslow hydro scheme. Stop the inter-island ferries project. And that’s just a few.    The Start bit, is all the things that aren’t quite happening yet but, you know, ‘at least we’ve made a start’.  And, let’s be honest, that’s probably acceptable in just the first 100 days. Especially when you compare it to the pace the last government seemed to work at.  But I’ve felt —especially in the past couple of weeks— that the Government’s been more focused on ticking things off on the list so it can say it’s ticked things off... it’s felt more interested in that, than the substance of what it’s actually ticking off.  And we know why that is. The clock’s been ticking. 100 days. Get it done.    Which has meant that some of the stuff it’s announced feels pretty half-cocked to me.  For example, its announcement the other day that the first of its boot camps for young criminal offenders would be up-and-running by the middle of the year. With Oranga Tamariki running it.  Not run by Corrections or the military. But by Oranga Tamariki. How you have a child welfare organisation running what the Government describes as a “military-style academy” I’ll never know.   But they had to announce something, so it’s been lumbered with Oranga Tamariki because the military obviously doesn’t want a bar of it. Nor Corrections. So social workers are now going to be running boot camps.  The emergency housing changes announced on Wednesday and this daft idea or expectation that private landlords will take on tenants currently living in motels with a bit of a financial sweetener from the taxpayer and the option of kicking people out after 90 days.  I don’t know about you, but every landlord I heard from about that said they wouldn’t be touching that with a bargepole.  The ga... 2024-03-07T23:45:55.000Z Kerre Woodham: The bootcamp is worth a try, isn't it? https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-the-bootcamp-is-worth-a-try-isnt-it/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-the-bootcamp-is-worth-a-try-isnt-it/ The pilot for military-style academies that are designed to turn around persistent young offenders will get underway by the middle of the year. Ten young people initially, and they'll spend up to four months —that is all the legislation allows— within their Academy.   And therein lies the problem, because according to all the best experts and best practice, it takes at least 12 months to break old habits and establish new ones. But the legislation doesn't allow it, so the four-month pilot will go ahead in the middle of the year.   It will be run along military lines, although under the auspices of Oranga Tamariki, and that bodes ill. They couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. They don't seem to have been a terribly good manager of the young people in their care thus far.   But there will also be a rehabilitation component and trauma informed care approach, whatever that means. I'm assuming counselling sessions, a psychological component to work on what is triggering these young people to behave the way they do.   It will be for the most persistent and serious young offenders. And again, the key will be the length of the program. You can't unlearn bad habits that have taken years to become entrenched in just a matter of weeks. You and I know that. You know when you're trying to turn around our own bad habits, it's hard. So, imagine these young people who have only ever known the life they have known that has led them down this path being asked to completely transform their lives in a matter of weeks.   The other key is the support for the young people when they emerge from what is basically a cocoon. They're insulated from reality, therein their own world. They don't have to make any decisions for themselves that's taken care of. For the first time in their lives, perhaps they'll be expected to be somewhere. They'll be given food regularly. They would have to forage to survive. So, you come out of that and back into real life and that's where in the past, the programs have tripped themselves up.   Blue Light, which used to run discos in my day, is a registered charity that works in partnership with the police to deliver a range of youth programs and is the type of organisation that will be providing wrap around care once young offenders try to reintegrate back into the community, as Blue Light’s Chief operating Officer Brendan Crompton explained on the Mike Hosking breakfast this morning.    "In the New Zealand context, you’ve got two choices. When kids offend, they can either do a community-based sentence, which is what Blue Light runs, or kids can go to youth jail. So those already exist. What they’re looking at is the most persistent youth offenders, and they’re not a big group. But there are a group of persistent youth offenders who will become persistent adult offenders, who need more intensive time and support. Away from, essentially, either negative parental involvement, because the parents’ involved in gangs or crime themselves, or more commonly, what I call parental non-involvement. The parents don’t know where their 10, 11, 12-year-olds are at three o’clock in the morning.   “So they’re saying, how can we? How can we have a residential programme that’s more intensive? And then obviously the part that is where we’d be involved is when the kids are released from that period inside. What’s the wraparound support to make sure they aren’t back off and offending again?”    It is hard. One of my most memorable callers was a man called Joe who left Hawkes Bay after coming out of prison. He’d been involved in gangs there. He had to leave and come to Auckland to get away from the gang influence, the gang lifestyle. He didn't want to go to prison again. He was done. But it is so, so hard trying to start a new life. He did incredibly well. He got a job; an employer and was very honest about his past. His employer was willing to give him a chance, but try and find rent, try and find a place to rent and pay the rent on... 2024-03-06T00:11:56.000Z Kerre Woodham: The roads have to be paid for https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-the-roads-have-to-be-paid-for/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-the-roads-have-to-be-paid-for/ Well, whoofty! Where do we start with transport after the huge policy drop yesterday? Fifteen roads of national significance have been given the go ahead, no ifs, no buts. Despite the eye-watering expense, the Prime Minister says they are essential to building a productive economy. How are we going to pay for it? Good question. Because basically it's just picking a number and multiplying it by the time the roads are finished. A number of different options have been proposed and some are more concrete than others, Transport Minister Simeon Brown outlined some of them with Mike Hosking this morning.    “We're not increasing fuel taxes until 2027 and by that stage there will not have been an increase in fuel excise for six years. So, the reality is funding is needed to pay for the infrastructure that New Zealanders need to be able to get around quickly and safely. And so we're not increasing fuel taxes till 2027. The New Zealand Transport Agency, their role is to develop what's called the national and transport program that will outline when these roads will be built, how they'll be funded in terms of specifics for each particular project, but with our expectations very clear, they need to be looking at a range of funding and financing tools, whether it’s PPP’s, value capture,  build-own-operate transfers, and my expectation is they’ll be getting all that straightaway.“    Yes, so many different ways of doing it because there's a lot to pay for.   Along with the building of the 15 roads of national significance, we've also got a half billion-dollar pothole prevention fund (that will be popular) and the establishment of a Road Efficiency Group, the scrapping of Road to Zero, replacing it with targets for drink and drug testing, $4.4 billion in public transport spending.   So, Simeon Brown mentioned a few of the ways that the transport budget will be funded. We've got the fuel tax hikes in 2027. The rego’s going up, that's not a big deal in terms of extra expense, an extra $25 and then another $25. We've got an increase in fines being looked at as well, some fines could double if you're not wearing your safety belt, (hopefully we'll see that for the use of cell phones while driving as well). We've got the value capture taxes.   If you're living in an area where public transport suddenly opens up land, then you will have to pay more for it because you're land in theory becomes more desirable. We've got reducing costs by fast tracking the roads through the consent process. We've got congestion charges. You know Uncle Tom Cobbley and all really when we look at it.   We've got so much that we can, and perhaps should be doing.   Now of course, the cycling coalition have said it's not fair and this is ridiculous and other countries around the world are creating more cycleways. We do need cycleways as part of a cohesive transport plan. But cycles aren't going to carry the bulk of goods that we need to get to our ports for export and distribute around the country as imports. So, we need roads. The cycle lobby has to accept, surely in their heart of hearts, late at night as they're lying there in bed, planning their wet weather gear as they cycle into work the next day, they have to know that for their cycles to get here, they have to be brought in from another country and then distributed around the country. You can't put 100 cycles on top of a cyclist. You need a truck to do it. So, we need the roads.   I did think Simeon Brown didn't quite understand public transport when he said, well, public transport users have to pay their way too. At the moment we're trying to get people into public transport where they can ease up the congestion on the roads that we have now. The roads will take some time to build and as generally happens, when you build more roads, more cars fill it, so we need a public transport option as well.   What's fair?   What's not?   I think congestion charges make sense. Value added I’m in two minds on. I know a... 2024-03-04T23:12:34.000Z Nick Leggett: Infrastructure NZ CEO on the Government's draft transport plan https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/nick-leggett-infrastructure-nz-ceo-on-the-governments-draft-transport-plan/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/nick-leggett-infrastructure-nz-ceo-on-the-governments-draft-transport-plan/ Infrastructure NZ's welcoming the renewal of National's Roads of National Significance programme.  The Government's draft transport plan features a half-a-billion dollar pothole prevention fund and 15 new major roads.   It'll be funded in part by a $25 dollar increase to vehicle registration fees in each of the next two years.  CEO Nick Leggett told Kerre Woodham that the previous Government initiated just one new road in six years, so we were left with nothing in the pipeline.   He says we need these roads; they've connected people for millennia and will continue to.  Leggett says even as we de-carbonise, we are still going to need them, and they need to be of a higher quality.  LISTEN ABOVE  2024-03-04T22:20:17.000Z How can school food programmes be run efficiently? https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/how-can-school-food-programmes-be-run-efficiently/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/how-can-school-food-programmes-be-run-efficiently/ Associate Education Minister David Seymour says free school lunches can’t continue at such a cost – arguing there’s no evidence it works.   The previous Government committed more than $300 million to fund the school lunch programme to the end of this year. The programme will be reviewed by Seymour, looking for ways to make it more efficient.   Charity KidsCan supports schools and early childhood centres across New Zealand with breakfasts and lunches.  CEO & Founder Julie Chapman tells Kerre Woodham that school food is one of the main sources of nutrition for many children.   Chapman agrees there needs to be more rigour across the level of waste or surplus food, and explains the use of a portal used by KidsCan that calculates quantities based on demand.  LISTEN ABOVE  2024-03-04T01:20:57.000Z Kerre Woodham: School lunches https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-school-lunches/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-school-lunches/ We thought we'd start this morning with the review into the efficacy, or lack thereof, of school lunches. Associate Education Minister David Seymour says free school lunches, as they stand, are a prime example of wasteful public spending. They'd like to do away with them altogether, but he told Mike Hosking this morning that his party is just one within the coalition government. Tthere are other parties who want to have some way of addressing kids turning up at school hungry, so as he told Mike Hosking this morning, David Seymour says they'll just have to find a more efficient way of delivering the meals to the children who need them.   It would be more efficient if it fed more people. It would be more efficient if it didn't waste as much as 25% - which is the evidence that's come up in the past doesn't actually get eaten by. Kids. Or it could be more efficient if it was targeted at people with greater need. For example, you'd be people saying, well, it's got to be universal. I heard your guy on earlier saying the most efficient way is to give it to everyone. Well, it's illogical. It can't be more efficient if you're giving it to people that need it and don't need it at the same level. So, we're going through the process of taking papers to cabinet and getting cabinet to agree on it. One thing I can say is we will not be spending $350 million because we just can't afford it right now. We will do it in a way that will be more effective and efficient and is a good use of taxpayers money.    And there are efficient ways to deliver food to hungry kids. The government isn't the only organisation doing it. Others have been doing it for years and years and years, and you would have to argue you have been doing it effectively. Kick Start Breakfast collaboration between Anchor Milk and Sanitarium Weet-Bix - they have been delivering breakfast to kids who need or want it. You might come from a family that can afford to stock the pantry, but you forget, or you've been to swimming and you're racing to get to school, there's a breakfast there available if you want it. It's not, as Boyd Swinburn says, you have to put up your hand and say hi, I'm a poor kid whose parents either can't or won't feed me. It's there if you need it or want it. I think they have provided 180,000 breakfasts every school week. So at least that's milk and Weet-Bix in your tummy. I know some vegan lovies might like to have the spirulina shots and the spinach is the way to start the day, but you know something in your tummy, milk and Weet-bix is perfectly good for generations of children and perfectly good for somebody who's starving. You've got KidsCan - they provide free food, clothing and health products for children in years 1 to 13. They deliver offerings that can last on the shelf for months at a time, once a term.  They deliver things like pasta, muesli bars, baked beans, and if you're hungry that's available. If you've left your lunch at home that's available. And nobody is criticising either KidsCan or Kick Start Breakfast for not making these offerings universal. Well to a certain extent they are universal in that everybody can have them if they want them. What they're not doing, is forcing every single child to sit down and devour what they put in front of them. The food and other items that are being delivered by charitable organisations are there for those who need it and there's no shame in accessing it. And there are ways that kids could access food paid for by the taxpayer without publicly shaming them. Boyd Swinburn, I think, was being provocative when he said, children shouldn't have to put up their hand and say I'm poor. That's ridiculous. There are other ways of doing it. Also, Seymour's right about wanting to see value for money because the previous government hadn't put school lunches in its long-term budget costings. They've dipped into the Covid-19 emergency money, which was all debt. The Covid response and recovery fund, that's where th... 2024-03-04T01:01:55.000Z Kerre Woodham: Christopher Luxon isn't leading by example https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-christopher-luxon-isnt-leading-by-example/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-christopher-luxon-isnt-leading-by-example/ This annoys me because I shouldn't have to be talking about it, and because in the scheme of things, given what the country is facing, there are far, far bigger fish to fry.   However, it speaks to an attitude, and it speaks to leading by example, and it speaks to having an understanding of what people, ordinary people, people who might be losing their jobs, people who might be losing their homes, people who are struggling to keep hold of their business, it speaks to what they are going through.   In a time of redundancies, at a time of belt-tightening, at a time where people are really struggling, people who never thought they would be in the position of struggling, why is the Prime Minister claiming a $52,000 accommodation allowance to live in his very own apartment?   You'll recall he campaigned, and we enthusiastically cheered on his calls for a reduction in public expenditure. The public servants across Wellington are waiting for the axe to fall in numerous government departments, almost every government department, as their managers have been asked to make savings of 6.5% after the wanton overspends of the previous administration. That is quite true.   Yet he's not leading by example.   I know that $52,000, when you compare it to the sort of wastage that was going on when Grant Robertson thought $600 million found down the back of the couch was just chump change, you know $52,000 is neither here nor there in terms of government expenditure.   And I know he's perfectly entitled to claim the allowance, he’s not fiddling anything. MP's outside of Wellington are able to claim just over $30,000 a year to cover their housing expenses. Prime Ministers, a bit more. And if you're required to be in Wellington for your job but you don't actually live there, a decent employer will give you an accommodation allowance, that is quite normal.   But in the PM's case, he already has a house he can use that's supplied by the taxpayer, Premier House. He doesn't want to live there. It's fair to say Premier House needs a bit of a glow up. Like all old girls, perhaps it could do with zhoosh. But the two previous PM’s, Hipkins and Ardern, say well yes, there are a few leaks and certainly it could do with an upgrade, but it's perfectly liveable. Adern and her family lived there during her tenure, Hipkins didn't but that's because under the rules, he couldn't. Wellington based MPs can't live at Premier House. It's precisely for Prime Ministers who live outside of Wellington. Christopher Luxon is one of those.   So, he has a house that's available to him courtesy of the taxpayer. Needs a bit of a do-up. Plenty of houses that people are living in need a bit of a zhoosh, can't afford it at the moment so you don't do it.   He has an apartment amongst the homes he owns and there's no crime in that. But you know, he owns a few homes. One of them is an apartment in Wellington. He owns that, it's his free and freehold. Does he really need to claim the $52,000?   I think the optics look bad.   It will be the first time in 34 years, according to Newsroom, that a PM will claim the payment. You would think, given his salary, he'd be able to afford to pay whatever living expenses he has.   At a time when all New Zealanders are really feeling the pain, forgoing a $52,000 taxpayer funded allowance when you can have a house you can live in, but you choose not to would be a really sensible idea.   I know it's not much. But again, it's about leading by example, about showing that when you're calling for austerity, when you're calling for every single taxpayer dollar to be scrutinized, when you have a house that's available but it's not the flashiest and you might not want to live there, surely that is your choice.   I don't know, I expected more, quite frankly.    2024-02-29T23:48:33.000Z Kerre Woodham: What is happening with NZ immigration? https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-what-is-happening-with-nz-immigration/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-what-is-happening-with-nz-immigration/ Now, what on Earth is going on within immigration New Zealand? Ever since the days of the late, unlamented Iain Lees-Galloway, the department has been struggling. A pause was placed on the processing of grandparents' visas, that was before Covid. Migrant workers are still being exploited by unscrupulous employers, despite a number of reviews under former Immigration Ministers. Last year it was revealed that there were nearly 200 employers who had had their licenses to hire migrants revoked because they were not delivering on what the law requires and on what was promised. Immigration New Zealand are investigating 167 more businesses. Immigration Minister Erica Stanford accepts that there were a number of pressures on Immigration New Zealand staff. The reopening of borders after Covid-19,  unprecedented demand for workers, and new staff in the department did result in visas and applications being processed one per week instead of one per day, which really slows things up. But then if you're asking staff who are new to the department for extra checks and to be super scrupulous, there's going to be a lag. There was also the merging of six visas into one, and a new IT system that's not fully operational. We knew about that, still not fully operational.  At the same time, we have unprecedented numbers of people flocking to New Zealand. But are they the people we need to make New Zealand a better, stronger, more resilient society and economy and in turn, are they getting what they're being promised?  It's a huge commitment to leave your family, to leave your home country, to take your own family, to pick up everything you own and come to a brand new country, a brand new culture. And the expectation is that your skills will be recognised and you'll have a place here, that you will belong here.  Are we in turn giving migrant workers what they're expecting? Look at the nurses. We have nurses coming here spending tens of thousands of dollars to do so, just on their applications. That's before you even take into account airfares, rent and the like. And yet they're being told that their skill sets are not what hospitals are looking for. Canterbury Hospital in its ‘situations vacant’, they had a need for nurses in maternity, oncology, acute general surgery, that sort of thing. But in their ‘sits vac’ they said applications from nurses who had recently completed their competency assessment programs would not be accepted. So basically saying, if you're new to New Zealand, you've just done your competency as assessment, don't bother applying. There has been a huge influx of internationally qualified nurses coming to New Zealand since our borders opened.  Of the newly registered nurses in the October to December quarter, 63% were trained overseas. To be fair to Andrew Little, the former health minister, he did say there were a lot of nurses wanting to come to New Zealand, and finally they're here. Despite being trained, despite completing their competency, the rejections just keep coming for them. At Gore Hospital 80, international nurses applied for a job, none of them had the necessary qualifications or experience. So where do we need to fix things?  I'm not going to say where does the blame lie, where do we need to fix things? Do the health authorities need to be clearer with immigration?  That the sort of nurses they’re after are experienced nurses that won't require wrap-around care for the first couple of years to get them up to the speed of the positions that are available. Do the recruiters need to be much clearer? What if you're a brand shiny new nurse, keen and eager and desperate to start your career in a new country, your language is fine, you've done the cultural competency, but you just don't have the experience and that you understand that?  You can understand Gore Hospital if you've got a sole charge nurse, it's not fair on the hospital, the patients or the nurse herself or himself to put a nurse in charge of the entire... 2024-02-28T00:14:07.000Z Kerre Woodham: Who do you believe about the Ministry of Education? https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-who-do-you-believe-about-the-ministry-of-education/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-who-do-you-believe-about-the-ministry-of-education/ Where to start from this morning's program?!   The Mike Hosking Breakfast was the gift that kept on giving, what with Stuart Nash effectively cutting any ties that remained with an existing Labour Party you would have to say, to say ‘I was all for getting tough on the gangs, but nobody would support me.’  And then we had Jan Tinetti responding to National’s press conference yesterday saying so many projects have been promised, and yet we've looked, and they simply can't be delivered. There's not a snowballs chance in hell, we can afford them because the cost overruns are so extreme.   And then further to the Ministry of Education and further around the education portfolio, there's a story from BusinessDesk this morning showing that the Ministry of Education's consulting bills surged by 450% since 2019. 450% in five years (really four years). They went to the top-tier consultancy firms, ones like Beca that picked up $15 million over 5 years, PwC, $13 million, KPMG $7.7 million.   The surge in spending came after the Labour government directed the Ministry of Education to get cracking on a new school property capital program. Things like new classrooms, upgrading school buildings, school facilities, that sort of thing. But yesterday the coalition government announced that some of these projects are in doubt after Erica Stanford, the current Minister of Education, said that promises had been made to schools that simply could not be delivered. Work is paused on 20 projects, up to 350 projects in various stages ranging from design, basically just drawings on a board through to pre-construction could now be scrapped.   The current government is blaming the former government. Erica Stanford says it's not unusual to have isolated examples of projects that experience delivery challenges, and there have been cost overruns —that's fine— but this is of an unprecedented scale. She says Labour have left a system of systemic and embedded challenges that cannot continue. She says there is evidence that Chris Hipkins, as previous Minister of Education, knew there was too little funding for what had been promised but let schools continue, basically designing their dream projects without telling them that there simply wasn't the money for it. They had to operate within a budget. Labour's education spokesperson and former education Minister Jan Tinetti says no, the money is there.    “But we're not up to our ears in debt and I'm very proud of our fiscal record and I will push back on that. What I am saying is that National are manufacturing, a crisis here that doesn't exist.”    So, are they?   I think we agreed that there has been underfunding on school buildings and under the Key government. Labour said, right, we'll make this good. We'll build all the new classrooms that anyone could ever possibly hope for in new schools, and we'll do it right now. We'll give them all of the everything.   But the money has to be there, doesn't it? Chris Hipkins says well yes, National’s giving tax cuts to the rich instead of putting that money into schools and school buildings, instead of delivering on the promises made by Labour, National says we simply cannot deliver on those. The cost overruns are extraordinary.   So what, then, are we paying the consultants for? If you're spending $15 million with one consultancy company, wouldn't you want them to come up with accurate costings? So, you had an idea of where you were going? And what could be done with that money? I mean, I guess when it comes to building projects. You would understand, perhaps the Ministry of Education outsourcing, but a University of Auckland Professor Nicolas Lewis has researched government spending on consultants. And not only is the ministry looking for consultants when it comes to building projects, which I could give them a pass on, although you would have to wonder at the scale of the spending. But they also rely extensively on consultants for policy development. Effectively,... 2024-02-26T23:56:38.000Z Kerre Woodham: Gang Patch Crackdown Will Send a Message https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-gang-patch-crackdown-will-send-a-message/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-gang-patch-crackdown-will-send-a-message/ As promised, the coalition government has announced legislation designed to make life just a little bit tougher for gangs. They are not the first government to try and control the range and the breadth and the strength of the various gangs in this country, they are unlikely to be the last. As far back as 1972, Labour leader Norm Kirk promised in the run up to the election that he would take the bikes off the bikies. Very un-Labour, but that's what he promised at the time -a promise which actually proved legally impossible to implement. The courts have stood in the way of many a government's good intentions. So he promised to take the bikes off the bikies, unable to do so, his government introduced legislation in 1973, that was aimed at the gangs trying to prohibit unlawful assembly. Further legislation in 1976 enabled the confiscation of vehicles used to commit offences. But along with the stick came the carrot, and that's what I'm hoping to see as well. That is something that Christopher Luxon said they would do,  that they would make it tough for gangs, but they would do everything they could to help gang members who wanted to leave, leave, and work with community groups to try and prevent gangs from recruiting young people. In the 70s, government schemes tried to hinder gang recruitment by helping underachieving students get into jobs when they left school. They also provided fun and games in the form of recreational and sporting activities outside of school, sort of blue light light discos but for the big kids to try and see that there was an alternative way of life. In the mid 70s, work cooperatives for adult gang members were set up. Now you'll probably remember these, but if you're of a certain age because that's when Muldoon came in and in the mid 80s, millions of dollars was given to gang collectives for work related activities. Millions. Most funds, to be fair, went to genuine projects in some cases, in a shocking revelation, they supported extravagant clubhouse renovations and opulent lifestyles. If only we'd had social media back in the day, nothing would have changed. The abuse of the schemes resulted in their cancellation in 1987. Interventionist approaches have always been tried along  with the 70s and 2006. Youth workers put on services for high risk young people and families, parenting information support programs aimed at reconnecting youths with their culture that spread throughout the country. Then along came Michael laws and in 2009 at Wanganui District Council passed a bylaw banning gang patches in the city. Other cities said right, we're on to that too. But in 2011, a High Court judge found the bylaw to be unlawful on human rights grounds. None the less gang regalia was banned from places like schools, swimming pools and government buildings in 2013. So it can be done, but there needs to be a willingness, I guess, to do it. So since the 70s, we can see we've tried to a) prevent at-risk kids from joining gangs, b) tried to offer alternative pathways for gang members to leave if they wish and c) we've tried to make it tough for gang members to do their business, nothing unusual here. So the last Labour administration adopted the Rob Muldoon approach to it -  to work with gangs, give them a seat at the table, treat them with respect ,treat them as equals. Did that work? Did they respond with respect and a desire to work with the community? Not really, no. All it did was give the gangs their cojones to do exactly as they wished. It used to grind my gears (a lot used to grind my gears during lockdown so maybe I was overreacting), but it used to grind my gears when you'd see funerals and tangi rules under lockdown with everyone else but not gang members. No, no. They would have convoys and leaning out of their cars and gathering in far more than 50 people. Televised, didn't give a fat rat's arse. Borders - they were for other people. Any criticism of gang activity was greeted with accusations of racism... 2024-02-25T23:51:42.000Z Kerre Woodham: Fees free hasn't worked, what next? https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-fees-free-hasnt-worked-what-next/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-fees-free-hasnt-worked-what-next/ If the aim of the former Labour government was to get more students from lower income families into tertiary training, it doesn't work.   There is, according to the Tertiary Education Commission who reported to Parliament this week, no discernible evidence that the fees-free —the first-year fees free scheme introduced by Labour— has improved participation from low socioeconomic groups at all. Nada. None.   So that was the stated aim. We will pay the first year of your course fees, therefore lower socioeconomic families will feel more confident about sending their kids into training and education. Didn't happen. Doesn't work.   Okay, so that's good. A scheme was trialled, it didn't work. It costs the taxpayers $340 million, but at least now we know it's not getting the stated desired outcome we won't go throwing good money after bad. This was all I ever wanted from the last administration. You know, they were trialling new things, and do they work? Well, in this case, we actually have a measurable outcome. No, it doesn't. The stated intention did not provide the desired outcome.   National in its coalition horse trading agreed to replace first year's fees free with final year fees free to reward those students to stick at their studies. And I always thought that made much more sense. And of course it's not fees free at all. Taxpayers who already fund the lion's share of the cost of degrees will be paying the costs of that final year, but a more educated, better trained society is a good thing. So, let's see that as an investment. We're getting something in return for the investment.   But if we are still trying to get students from low-income families into tertiary studies, simply replacing the first year with the final year isn't going to change things. What will work is investing in organisations that are already doing that work, and measuring outcomes, and getting good results. Organisations like First Foundation.   They partner a decile one or two student with potential and promise with a corporate and the corporate helps fund their fees. Each of the scholars gets $4K a year for three years to go towards their university costs which minimises their student loan. Many of the kids who get First Foundation scholarships are the first in their families to attend university, so they are matched with a mentor who can help them overcome challenges and help them achieve their goals. They have a mentor that's been there, done that, and knows what it's like so they can support them through that. And then the corporates they're partnered with will arrange for at least four weeks of paid work experience every year, which means they can grow their skills and know how to do work relationships in a safe work environment. Many of them end up working more than that during the uni holidays and the like because they're good workers.  So, here's an organisation that is achieving exactly what Labour said it wanted to do, and that was to take kids from lower-income families and give them the option of study. Christopher Luxon made a commitment during the election campaign to fund organisations and NGO's that are delivering what government departments cannot. He already said he'd do it with mental health. Imagine what First Foundation could do with $340 million, which is what we spent in a year on the fees free first year scheme? Imagine how many kids would be given the opportunity to see if university, a degree, being the first in their family to graduate from university, imagine what they could do.   On the one hand, I would love to see NGOs that have got a proven track record in delivering get that money instead of it going to the final year of study. I’d also love to know whether you think a university degree is still worth it?    2024-02-23T00:41:54.000Z Kirk Sargent: First Foundation CEO on the barriers to tertiary study https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/kirk-sargent-first-foundation-ceo-on-the-barriers-to-tertiary-study/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/kirk-sargent-first-foundation-ceo-on-the-barriers-to-tertiary-study/ The application of the last Government's fees free policy may not have done enough to target the people it was aimed at.  The Tertiary Education Commission has told a select committee there's no discernible evidence that the first-year free policy helped more low decile school students into university.  First Foundation CEO Kirk Sargent told Kerre Woodham that while removing financial barriers to education makes a major difference in what young people are able to achieve, it is not the only hurdle.  He said that community and knowledge are two things that need to be taken into consideration.  Sargent said that their job is to connect with young people on a personal level, building a community and knowledge that gives them the confidence to travel outside of their home regions and remain there for study.  LISTEN ABOVE  2024-02-22T22:11:28.000Z Tim Hazledine: Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Auckland on the https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/tim-hazledine-emeritus-professor-of-economics-at-the-university-of-auckland-on-the/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/tim-hazledine-emeritus-professor-of-economics-at-the-university-of-auckland-on-the/ Benefits are on blast at the moment, but one professor thinks a universal basic income may be cheaper.  Data from the Ministry of Social Development shows that 109,000 kiwis on the Jobseeker benefit have received it for at least a year.  Tim Hazledine, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Auckland, suggests we scrap the welfare system altogether, replacing it with a universal basic income.  He told Kerre Woodham that currently, the amount the government spends on various social handouts and programmes is more than what a universal income of $300 a week would cost.  He said that giving every adult $600 a fortnight regardless of their financial earnings is fiscally neutral, and would give them certainty and assurance.  LISTEN ABOVE  2024-02-22T00:23:27.000Z Kerre Woodham: The complaints about Oranga Tamariki are the same every time https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-the-complaints-about-oranga-tamariki-are-the-same-every-time/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-the-complaints-about-oranga-tamariki-are-the-same-every-time/ We have in the news yet another report into Oranga Tamariki. Yet another damning indictment into an organisation that should never exist. The Chief Ombudsman has called for changes “on a scale rarely required” at Oranga Tamariki. He reviewed about 2000 complaints over four years for his report children in care, complaints to the Ombudsman, 2019 to 2023. He said he could not yet provide reassurance that Oranga Tamariki’s practices and processes were consistently operating as they should.   You could have basically taken any report that's been written over the last 20 years, and it doesn't matter whether it's called CYFS or Child youth and Family or Oranga Tamariki, it is the same complaints time and time and time again about an organisation, I repeat, that should not exist.  If parents and caregivers gave their children even the most basic and rudimentary of care, like just didn't kill them, we wouldn't be spending more than a billion dollars a year on a government department that is constantly criticised. And I really feel for the people who work there. You would go in there with the best of intentions, and they would be crushed out of you within months, I'd imagine. CYFS, child youth and family, whatever, are roundly attacked for taking babies off mothers. The next day, they're roundly attacked for NOT taking babies off mothers, for not acting soon enough.   There have been criticisms of this organisation since I can remember. I mean, I'm going back in the far mists of time, but I remember them all. Since 2017, I'm just going back to 2017, and I've been talking about this since the 1990s, but since 2017, 65 New Zealanders 17 or under have been killed/murdered. Some of them youth fighting but since 2017, 65 New Zealanders 17 or under have been killed - 24 of those were aged under 12 months. Those weren’t youths fighting in the street. They were the most vulnerable children and homes killed by their carers since 2017.  I am going right back now: Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson. They were murdered by their stepfather when they threatened to tell the authorities that he was sexually abusing them. So many adults knew that they were being abused. Teachers knew and warned the authorities. CYFS workers knew, police knew. They'd complained to the police. The police had investigated. They couldn't find any evidence. Their own mother. She was a hapless soul who tried to get away. She was in a terrible, violent, oppressive succession of relationships that resulted in numerous children, and she couldn't keep them safe.    If I say those names and you were around at the time, you'll remember the school photo of those two girls. They were gorgeous, bright, brave intelligent. But they were only 11 and 12, there was only so much they could do. They knew the risks they were taking; they phoned the authorities themselves. They were trying to get help from the adults. Their mother knew. They told friends they would die. They'd been threatened with death by their stepfather if they told. And they told their friends they would die, and they did. He stabbed them. While a whole bunch of adults knew about this abuse. Their mother was very sad and regretful. She said she'd never be in a violent relationship again. She said she would like to see trained social workers employed in primary schools so abuse to children could be detected and dealt with quickly by professionals. She was calling for major changes at CYFS, with whom she remained angry, saying there are a lot of questions to answer over its management of her family's case.   But is it CYFS fault or Child Youth and Family’s fault or Oranga Tamariki's fault?  How can a government organisation prevent dysfunctional families from abusing the most vulnerable? Surely you need eyes and ears within those families. Oranga Tamariki has a more than $1 billion budget. Wouldn't that money be better spent on trying something different? Although when you do try something different, then all hell brea... 2024-02-22T00:11:43.000Z Kerre Woodham: Exercising is harder for some than others https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-exercising-is-harder-for-some-than-others/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-exercising-is-harder-for-some-than-others/ Hands up all those who felt personally attacked this morning when you heard the stories about New Zealanders and obesity? Not you? Just me then?!   All morning we've been hearing stats like these: one in three New Zealand adults is carrying enough excess body weight to affect their health. That would be people with a BMI of 30 or above. There's an increase in obesity, with that, an increase in preventable diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Half a billion dollars of the health budget is being spent on obesity-related diseases that are preventable, and so on and so forth.   In Mike's interview this morning he made the point that we all know what we have to do to be fit and healthy, we're just not doing it. Some of you are, but some of us are not. I have absolutely no excuses. None. I finish my shift at midday and although I have to monitor news sites, I can do that with headphones while moving my butt. I can afford a gym membership. I joined way back in antediluvian times when pink and grey G-string leotards were still the go and leg warmers was a thing. And they keep your gym membership pegged to about then, so I think I'm paying about $0.33 a month, a ludicrously low amount of money.   So even with the cost-of-living crisis, I can still afford a gym membership. The gym is literally across the road from my workplace. Short of Les Mills arranging for six of their finest, most muscular and gleaming trainers to carry me across the road to the gym in a sedan chair, it could not be easier for me to get to a place of focused exercise and training and yet do I do it? No, I don't. No. My excuses are many in legion. Summer is slipping away. The nights are getting darker and cooler, so while summer’s here I want to head to the beach and wallow like a manatee in the waves bobbing and diving and splashing for the pure joy of it. Not grimly swimming lengths in a chlorinated pool for 50 minutes or sweating alongside other desperate individuals in a 7th Circle of Hell that is the RPM room - dark and blacked out and full of sweat and enthusiastic woo hoos!   And I could walk around the block, and enjoy the Tui, and the kids playing in the parks and all the other lovely sights of summer. But I have deadlines and calls to make and all that sort of thing. So many excuses. And I have all the time in the world, unlike those poor parents who are up at the crack of dawn, working all day, picking up the kids, and collapsing at home at 7pm to gird their loins to do it all again the next day. How on earth do you fit in exercise, even meal prep and healthy eating when that is your daily grind for at least seven or eight years?   Richard Beddie, the CEO of Exercise New Zealand, was just one of the many voices commenting on the Health New Zealand report on the population’s health. Specifically in his case, was concern about our level of exercise.   "The worst statistic we have is our physical activity levels, because while obesity and things like smoking and alcohol are relatively common within the Western world, and are generally not getting better with the perhaps exception of smoking, it is actually the physical activity and we are actually one of the worst in the Western world. New Zealand really has a problem with activity, and I think part of it lies from this idea that we think of ourselves as a sporting nation, but actually what sport is about is about watching rather than doing these days." People say “oh you run though” and I'm like, “no, I ran nine years ago.” I did a marathon, that was a long time ago. And personally, I agree with you. I think I should run a marathon and never have to think about exercise again but that's just not the way it works. We all know what we should be doing. We probably started off like a hiss and a roar in January fired with good intentions, but where are we now?   We were having a debate about this in the office and the boss was saying it's all about priorities, you know. Well, I don't kno... 2024-02-21T00:01:11.000Z Kerre Woodham: How are the benefit sanctions cruel? https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-how-are-the-benefit-sanctions-cruel/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-how-are-the-benefit-sanctions-cruel/ The criticisms have come thick and fast in the wake of the coalition government's announcement that there would be sanctions applied to job seekers who choose not to actively look for work, despite help and support that is supposed to be coming from MSD officials. If after all that help and support you, choose not to take a job, then sanctions will apply.   I'm starting to know what you mean when you say the media is biased. All of the images shown on all of the mainstream media show an aggressive looking Luxon laying down the law, and emotive headlines from the Greens and the like, talking about the cruelty of it all.   Minister for Social Development Louise Upston says she has written to the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development to make this government’s view clear that they want to see all obligations and sanctions applied. If job seekers fail to attend job interviews, to complete their pre-employment tasks, or to take work that is available, then there needs to be consequences and that will come in the form of sanctions.   She also announced that from June, the ministry will begin work check-ins for job seekers who have been on benefits for six months, particularly young people. These check-ins, she said, will make sure job seeker beneficiaries are taking appropriate steps to find employment and are receiving the right help. They reckon the checks will capture about 2500 mainly younger people per month.   Now the former social development minister Carmel Sepuloni, says people deserve to be supported into meaningful long-term employment, and sanctions will not do this. She says this government is quickly building a legacy of cruelty. Instead of supporting people to provide for themselves and their whanau, this government has actively sought to push people further and further into poverty.  How? How are they doing that? By asking you to work if you can? To offer you help and assistance to get work? How is that cruel? I would argue allowing people to stay on benefits when they have the ability to work as far more cruel. And if the taxpayer is funding a benefit for a person and their family, that person is not providing for themselves in their whanau. They are state dependent. That's not being self-sufficient. That's not self-supporting. That's not having choices.   And okay, if the sanctions that National are proposing don't encourage people to seek long term employment, which of Labour's policies did? How did Labour help these young people find meaningful work? The stats under the previous government are pretty damning.   Stats New Zealand released numbers yesterday and showed the number of youth not in employment, not in education, and not in training rose by 3000 people over the December quarter. I mean one is bad enough, but 3000 in one quarter? The rate for young women also increased to 14%, up from 12.5%.   Young people are disproportionately impacted by tightening economic conditions. It's worrying that 40,000 people under the age of 25 are currently on a job seeker benefit. That is an increase of 66 per cent compared to six years ago, at a time when employers have been screaming out for someone, anyone.   40,000 people under the age of 25 on a job seeker benefit, an increase of 66% compared to six years ago! I would argue that's the cruelty. Not the suggestion that sanctions will apply, but only if you fail to do the most basic requirements of finding a job. Former WINZ CEO Christine Rankin agrees. She says it is absolutely no fun on a benefit.   “Being on a benefit is just poverty, you know, that's your future. You rot on a benefit. This government is being responsible. This is a courageous policy and you know it's taxpayers money and for beneficiaries to be on this for 13 years is an absolute disgrace, and it is a long standing Labour view that they have a right to be on benefit and not work if it's a basic job, you've got to find something big and paying very well before they'll push it ...... 2024-02-19T23:54:42.000Z Fay Amaral: Youthtown CEO on the reasons so many young people are on the Jobseeker benefit https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/fay-amaral-youthtown-ceo-on-the-reasons-so-many-young-people-are-on-the-jobseeker-benefit/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/fay-amaral-youthtown-ceo-on-the-reasons-so-many-young-people-are-on-the-jobseeker-benefit/ Criticism of the Government’s welfare reforms have been coming in thick and fast.  Figures from Stats NZ have revealed that 40,000 people under the age of 25 are currently on the Jobseeker benefit, an increase of 66% compared to six years ago.  The Government plans to increase the number of check ins for those on the benefit and reintroduce sanctions for those who don’t meet their obligations.  Youthtown CEO Fay Amaral told Kerre Woodham that there are common factors among this demographic that keep them on the benefit, notably mental health and confidence.  She said that young people aren’t being given the right support in schools, which results in the belief that if they don’t have university entrance or a degree, they won’t be able to get anything.  LISTEN ABOVE  2024-02-19T22:19:39.000Z Kerre Woodham: Prime Ministers stark message must be followed with action https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-prime-ministers-stark-message-must-be-followed-with-action/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-prime-ministers-stark-message-must-be-followed-with-action/ The Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, in his State of the Nation speech over the weekend, spelled it out loud and clear for those who haven't yet got the message.  New Zealand is in for a world of pain over the next couple of years. He slammed the dumb and stupid policies of the previous government, and said while he believed New Zealand was the world's best country, and had the world's best people (a little bit of jingoism to sweeten the message), it was in a fragile state as we face a rough economic forecast and a massive infrastructure deficit.  He also accused the Labour government of leaving National a $200 billion hole in the nation's transport plan. Finance Minister Nicola Willis said this morning on the Mike Hosking Breakfast that the coalition government has already started making the tough decisions. Auckland Light Rail is the case in point. That was a project which continued to escalate in cost, which Labour continued to fantasise about and which was clearly unaffordable. So we have canceled that, we've been decisive, we've stopped pouring cash down that particular hole. But look, the other examples are areas where we're just going to have to do things more efficiently.  Not every road needs a cycle lane clipped onto it. We need to be much more open to using other forms of funding and finance to deliver roads, whether that's time of use charging, whether that's tolls to get some roads built, it's time for a bit of real talk about what it will take to get a country with the modern infrastructure we need. And that was Finance Minister Nicola Willis talking to Mike Hosking this morning. Labour leader Chris Hipkins shot back, calling National's accusations absolute nonsense and called another allegation in the State of the Nation speech an out and out lie. But then he would wouldn’t he? Thomas Coghlan from the New Zealand Herald has produced an excellent article unpacking the claims and counterclaims, specifically around the $200 billion transport hole. He says the truth involves a heavy lathering of hypocrisy on both sides and an answer that doesn't offer a neat binary verdict on either of Chris's truthfulness or otherwise. He does say, though, that before Labour cries foul at this horrendous below- the-belt attack on their fiscal honour, quote unquote, we shouldn't forget that Labour made the exact same attack on National’s allegedly unfunded Roads of National Significance Programme back in 2018.  They were slammed by then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as unfunded.  So they've been doing it all day ref. There's obfuscation and finessing of stats and data and what have you , but there is absolutely no doubt, as anyone who has participated in this show knows, that the previous administration made some dumb, dumb decisions. And allowed dumb, dumb decisions to be made by government bodies.  We've all known this for a very, very long time. We've been ranting about this and accused of being disloyal and Labour haters and women haters because it was Jacinda Ardern who was the Prime Minister. There was none of that. It was just that you and I could see. That there were some really stupid decisions being made. Good money going after bad with no end in sight of when the money tap would be turned off. And it's you and me who are providing this money. So pardon me if I'm really scrupulous about where that money goes. I want to know there's going to be a result and for the life of me I could not see one in so many of the projects approved by the previous administration.  I think I said that to Christopher Luxon when he became Prime Minister. We don't want to hear about what the previous government did. It's gone. It happened. It's appalling. We ranted about it at the time it's over but I think he made the point, we're starting a very long way behind the start line. There's a lot to fix before we can even begin to get projects underway that we passionately believe in and that we passionately support. So yeah, I think fair... 2024-02-19T00:51:22.000Z Shayne Cunis: Watercare Central Interceptor Executive Programme Director gives an update on the Central Interceptor tunnel https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/shayne-cunis-watercare-central-interceptor-executive-programme-director-gives-an-update-on-the-central-interceptor-tunnel/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/shayne-cunis-watercare-central-interceptor-executive-programme-director-gives-an-update-on-the-central-interceptor-tunnel/ Watercare Auckland is aiming to reduce wet-weather overflows into streams and beaches.  The massive Central Interceptor tunnel will store, as well as transport stormwater and wastewater, taking it to the Māngere Wastewater Treatment Plant for processing.  Due for completion in 2026, the project is 16.2 kilometres long and the largest wastewater infrastructure project in New Zealand history.  Watercare Central Interceptor Executive Programme Director Shayne Cunnis joined Kerre Woodham to give an update on the project.  LISTEN ABOVE  2024-02-16T00:39:05.000Z Kerre Woodham: When ideology collides with the real world https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-when-ideology-collides-with-the-real-world/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-when-ideology-collides-with-the-real-world/ I can't help but enjoy the rich irony.   NIWA, the Crown owned weather research institute, has had a big spend up on its vehicle fleet. Four big, grunty Chevy Silverados to be exact - 2024 models, apparently judging by the regos, retailing to you and to me for around $ 172K.   Although I have no doubt that NIWA managed to squeeze that down a bit —I hope they did, I hope they negotiated— the utes were bought despite the fact that the government is currently trying to reduce the emissions from all the vehicles it owns.   Agencies must purchase battery EV's, or if they're not suitable, a plug-in hybrid. If neither of those are suitable, the agency's chief executive has the ability to sign off on a different vehicle. Mainly an ICE vehicle.   NIWA is a Crown-owned enterprise, so it isn't bound by these rules, but according to the protocol, it must have regard for the rules. NIWA’s chief executive John Morgan signed off on the purchases being necessary given the weight of the boats the cars will be towing.   “We investigated all the options in the market,” he said. “There was no viable alternative to the Silverado's given the weight of the boats they'll be towing. We test drove a wide range of trucks, large and mid-sized Utes in a variety of real-world driving conditions to determine what was going to be the most suitable and safest for our staff. There are no Bev or PHV options available that can perform the role required.”   No, and I think that's the point.  I would have no problem with this at all if it weren't for the virtue signalling. It's not just virtue signalling, but real-life implications for real-life businesses.  Remember when we were talking about the greenhouse auditing that the banks are requiring of their customers? Several New Zealand banks have pledged to ensure their investment and lending portfolios are aligned to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Banks are ‘helping’ (which is a loaded word) business customers reach for net zero with lower interest rates for hitting sustainability targets and by helping firms with transition plans. So what that means, and what businesses told us was happening, was that when they apply for a loan or when every year they must reply to their bank.   What are you doing to offset your emissions within your business? How are you reducing your impact on the environment? You have to show your commitment or risk financial penalties. You get threatened with higher interest rates on loans or no loans at all. Farmers know all about that.  If you're not performing, Fonterra won't pick up your milk. If you are not committed to reducing your greenhouse gas emissions as much as you possibly can, there are real world financial penalties.    We had the owner of a transport firm ringing when we were discussing this. He wanted a loan to buy a new truck. Whoever was on the end of the phone is committed to changing the world, obviously, but probably hasn't driven a truck before, said, well, have you looked at an electric truck? And he said yes, I have. I'm not a Neanderthal. (Of course, he didn't say that I'm exaggerating). But he said, you know. Yes, I have looked at alternatives, but there is nothing on the market at the moment that is going to be able to do the job I need.   Well, you better start looking further afield because there's going to be higher interest rates if you are committed to ICE engines in the future. You know, if you want a loan, hmmm, there may well be higher interest rates in the in the next couple of years.   So there are real world implications for people who have no alternative.  Blind ideology and desire do not create vehicles fit for purpose. Just wanting them to work doesn't make them so.   So, there's NIWA with its noble mission statement on its website: “The challenges of reducing our national greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to a changing climate are hugely important and affect all New Zealanders.”  What they mean is except us, because we need b... 2024-02-15T23:57:25.000Z John Tookey: AUT Professor of Construction on the Government's plan to tackle construction costs https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/john-tookey-aut-professor-of-construction-on-the-governments-plan-to-tackle-construction-costs/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/john-tookey-aut-professor-of-construction-on-the-governments-plan-to-tackle-construction-costs/ The Government is promising to tackle construction costs.  Stats NZ data shows the cost of building a house has increased by 41% since 2019, making housing even more unaffordable for Kiwi families.  Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk wants costs to go down.  He's vowing to streamline the consenting process, saying the little guys have been shut out because of red tape.  AUT'S Professor of Construction John Tookey told Kerre Woodham that the situation is more complicated than people think.  LISTEN ABOVE  2024-02-14T23:06:57.000Z Kerre Woodham: What's the right solution for the future of NZ Super? https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-whats-the-right-solution-for-the-future-of-nz-super/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-whats-the-right-solution-for-the-future-of-nz-super/ I did laugh when I saw the Retirement Commissioner’s report out yesterday, because I thought here we go again, round it comes the first of the twice-yearly discussions on whether we should lift the age of eligibility for the New Zealand Super- which we have been discussing for as long as I have been a journalist, I think, and that is a very, very long time. You do get occasionally a political party with an attack of the braveries, an attack of the cajones, and it's usually National. They wanted to raise the age of eligibility to 67 in the past two elections, but in the horse trading required to form the coalition government this time round, they've agreed to leave the age at 65. And in a report released yesterday, the Retirement Commissioner says cool your jets, calm the farm, young people don't need to worry - not only is national Super sustainable, raising the age of eligibility would be unfair for certain population groups. The manual workers, those who are in poor health, those who are just hanging on by their fingertips to the age of 65. Retirement Commissioner Jane Wrightson says New Zealand Super is a taonga that protects New Zealanders from poverty in old age. Claims that New Zealand Super is unaffordable are not supported by independent, publicly accessible analysis, she says. Now, leaving aside that by stunning coincidence, independent analysis always seems to support the views of the commissioning body, there is provision within New Zealand's economy for paying Super in future years. Those in support of raising the age say well look at New Zealand's aging population. In 1996, there were 5.7 people aged 16 to 64, supporting every retiree. At the moment there are 4.4 working age people and the 2060s, we’ll be looking at 2.2 supporting every retiree. So we're going to have a lot of older retirees who are getting Super for longer, and fewer young people, fewer working people who are able to support that. So I take that point. But that is why we set up the Super Fund in 2003, the Cullen Fund, as it was known. In just over 20 years, we've amassed close to $70 billion. And we haven't really tapped into it yet. Withdrawals from the fund will begin in the 2030s. Substantial drawdowns will not begin until the 2050s. So we should have a bit more in the coffers then. So paying for the Super isn't going to be the massive problem it appears if you're looking at it through the binoculars of 20 year old vision. It's more a matter of what's fair and what's not. If you're earning more than $100,000 a year and there are about 50,000 retirees who are, if you're earning more than $100,000 a year through your job or through your investments, do you really need the Super? Wouldn't it be better spent on a young person who was born in less than ideal circumstances? More investment in the first 1000 days of a child's life that's born behind the 8-ball. The Super is to keep people out of poverty, not to use as gin money. You know, a lot of older people laugh about the fact they get the Super and just use it to buy a nicer bottle of gin or put it in a savings account for their grandchildren. Some donate it, which is jolly decent of them- but you know, there's a lot of clipping of the ticket that goes along the way. However, those older New Zealanders who are earning good coin can say, well look, we contributed to the Super Fund while we were working, that money was put aside and not spent on things we could have enjoyed, so we can use that money later. We've paid our taxes. We're just like everybody else. We except we earn more money. We deserve to get it. It's ours. It's an entitlement. It's not a benefit, and there's a big, big difference. What do you say? What do you think is fair? Are there any people in their 20s and 30s who believe that the Super will be there for them? Well, you should, because the Super Fund is there to look after people just like you. As the New Zealand Initiative pointed out as well, by the time you take into... 2024-02-14T02:07:11.000Z Theresa Gattung: Compatico Founder on their matchmaking services for over 40's https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/theresa-gattung-compatico-founder-on-their-matchmaking-services-for-over-40s/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/theresa-gattung-compatico-founder-on-their-matchmaking-services-for-over-40s/ Today is Valentines Day, but not everyone is coupled up.   Over 40’s are calling time on dating apps, finding it harder and harder to find a partner.  They’re fatigued by the endless swiping, cautious of scams and catfish, and looking for a safer and more bespoke way of finding love.  Theresa Gattung, former Telecom CEO and co-founder of My Food Bag, is the founder of Compatico, a premium matchmaking service designed to help people find their life partners.  Gattung told Kerre Woodham that their service is an entree to possibility.  She said that while it is a matchmaking service, what it also offers is the opportunity to be a part of a community.  LISTEN ABOVE  2024-02-14T00:11:07.000Z Kerre Woodham: Emergency services need an upgraded system https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-emergency-services-need-an-upgraded-system/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-emergency-services-need-an-upgraded-system/ Further to the story yesterday regarding the police’s planned withdrawal from social services call outs, there's been a damning indictment of our 111 system.   According to papers released after an OIA put in by RNZ, the government was warned a year ago that the 111-emergency call system is so old, so slow, and so fragmented, that it is causing deaths and injuries.   So, the emergency services put together a business case asking for money to upgrade it and integrate it. Labour, however, dropped the project last August when they were in government, to replace the system. It's shared between police and FENZ. In the papers, both police and FENZ made the plea that there was an urgent and pressing need to replace it.   Now I don't know about you, but there are only a few agencies I'll believe when they say it's urgent and pressing. If police and FENZ say it's urgent and pressing, they're two of the few agencies I'll believe. You tell me you've got an urgent need, officer, I'll believe you.   However, I guess the Labour government had bigger fish to fry, or more things to worry about last August, so they passed the buck on that one. According to the emergency services, a major flaw in the system is that it can only take phone calls. Why is that a problem? Well, these days you need text, and you need video. It's also unable to liaise with social media platforms and has poor integration between apps. And it's a problem because the papers cite an example of a woman who was stabbed to death by a partner who overheard her making the 111 call.   It must have been harrowing for the call taker, harrowing for the woman's family. A modern solution, argue the emergency services, could have enabled the woman to notify police by a method other than a voice call, which the man would not have detected. So, there have got to be silent ways of making your danger known and I totally accept.   Other examples offered in the business case to Parliament when the request for an upgraded system was made include a man drowned at a beach and the time it took an ambulance and a paramedic to get there after a 111 call to them, when police and surf rescue at the same beach were not alerted by the fragmented system, so there's not one that joins up the dots. That says, is there anybody in this area? Anybody on this beach? Yep, we are ...  cool, off you go.   Firefighters were called out by 111 to help a woman tend a man who had collapsed when confronted by a shooter. But the system didn't let police who were hunting the shooter know that they were there. So, the frontline responders and the woman are unaware of the danger that they're in.   They take a lot of calls. FENZ takes 350,000 calls a year and uses the old system, ‘Card’, to dispatch crews to 85,000 emergencies. Police handle 1.4 million 111 calls a year and 1.8 million 105 calls. A quarter of which are upgraded to an emergency.   You'd have to wonder, given the discussion we had with Chris Cahill yesterday, how many of those 111 calls are necessary. I mean, we have to do our bit too. If you leave accident and emergency departments for accidents and emergencies, and if you leave 111 for genuine emergencies, that would help out a lot.   But at the same time, there is just no excuse for not having a fully integrated system across all our first responders, surely. The idea that surf lifesavers and police didn't know that there was an emergency happening on the beach they were at, it's just ludicrous.   Now there's a suggestion that the 111 system —this comes from Matt Doocey, who's the Minister for Mental Health— that the 111 system add a fourth option alongside fire, police, and ambulance, and that would be mental health crisis. That is a great idea in theory. Absolutely. You know, you don't want a police response when you're having a mental health crisis. You need mental health professionals. Dial, 111 in crisis, you get one. Or do you?   First, we have to ensure we have sufficient mental health p... 2024-02-13T00:03:25.000Z Kerre Woodham: The police have been left to pick up the pieces for too long https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-the-police-have-been-left-to-pick-up-the-pieces-for-too-long/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-the-police-have-been-left-to-pick-up-the-pieces-for-too-long/ Funny old thing, last Thursday, Matt rang in - a serving police officer. He was calling in response to comments that the police simply don't have the time to turn up to burglaries and assaults at supermarkets. We were talking about Foodstuffs looking at introducing facial recognition cameras and other forms of security, because the thefts and the assaults on staff have got completely out of hand. Matt said, oh well, the police will rock up and they will deal with that. You don't need to do citizens arrests or this sort of security. The police don't rock up. That's the very point. They don't rock up unless it is really, really serious, and then you might see them He said the reason police couldn't respond to criminal matters was because they were dealing with so many social services call outs and that there needed to be a change. I think you'll find once the police go down the path of reducing the call outs for mental health matters, as they have in one of the particular organizations over in the UK, you'll see that frontline police will have a lot more time on their hands. So that's what you do. Then you move on to family violence, of which very few matters end up in court, or I would have to say lead to any meaningful outcomes. And if you do that, we'll have a lot of police with a lot more time on their hands to attend things like this. I mean, we've got a progressive government now that's going to make a big change, but it will take time. But these are things you got to do in order to advance our society, I think. Well I agreed with him. Police are dealing with so many family harm situations. They're dealing with mental health callouts. I've seen them with, you know, two officers dealing with one woman at North Shore Hospital. They were there for hours. Multiply that by 1000 times across the country and they're kind and they're gentle and they're patient, but is that their job? Psychiatric patients and their families were too, back in the mists of time, that when all the institutions were closed, there would be help and there would be care, and there would be assistance for them within the community. Many, many, many of these people can live in the community perfectly well. Provided they have the sort of care that was promised. Was it delivered? No, it wasn't. And who is left to pick up the pieces? It's our police. So I said to Matt, well, it would be great if we did see that sort of shift, if we did see social problems becoming the issue of social agencies. They were the ones that dealt with them, but I would probably see that in my grandchildren's time. You know, they would see that, I wouldn't. Then what do you know, a briefing to Police Minister Mark Mitchell, the police proposed a managed withdrawal from non-crime social problems. So the family harm call outs, the mental health and the child protection calls, gradually, the police would say no, that's not for us. Here's the number you call. Police attendance to family home call outs have increased 80 per cent in 10 years. Yet more than half of the family harm investigations don't involve an offence being recorded, so there's all these police dealing with sad people, not bad people. They're dealing with a family under stress, under pressure. They, and usually other agencies, they call in deal with that. The time it takes is immense. So the police have suggested that over time they'll withdraw from these call outs, they'll allow their roles to be filled by other agencies and they'll get on with policing. You know who reports a burglary these days- unless it's an aggravated robbery? If you've just had stuff nicked, do you even bother? You only do it for the case number to give to the insurance company. They say they will go back to policing, to doing what they were trained to do. However, organisations that advocate for victims, women's refuge and the like, are really concerned and really alarmed. Women's Refuge chief executive Ang Jury said she simply can't see an... 2024-02-12T00:34:23.000Z Police Looking To Re-focus On Core Business https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/police-looking-to-re-focus-on-core-business/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/police-looking-to-re-focus-on-core-business/ Police are looking to re-focus on what it calls core business, by pulling back from family harm and mental health call-outs. A briefing to new Police Minister Mark Mitchell, the organisation says it's planning a "managed withdrawal" from certain Policing operations whilst also calling mental health a crisis. Police said it had been forced to step in when it came to family harm, mental health, and child protection calls due to a lack of other social services. It's a proposal that has caused concern amongst victim advocates such as Women's Refuge. Chris Cahill Joined Kerry Woodham to discuss the new strategy    LISTEN ABOVE 2024-02-11T21:39:48.000Z Kerre Woodham: Who should pay for roads? https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-who-should-pay-for-roads/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-who-should-pay-for-roads/ Now, last year, National promised that, should it become the government, it would among other things scrap the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax, and yesterday they did just that.    Since the 1st of July 2018, Aucklanders have paid an additional 11.5 cents per litre tax on fuel, over and above what the rest of the country pays. Of course, the rest of the country may well feel the effects of that when it comes to the cost of petrol that will be passed on by freight carriers and the like.   Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown didn't like it when National made the promise then, and he certainly doesn't like it now. Simeon Brown though says Labour said that Auckland needed the fuel tax to deliver light rail. That was back in 2017. They haven't delivered on their major infrastructure projects, while Aucklanders continue to pay more at the pump. That's according to Simon Simeon Brown, the Transport Minister.    Mayor Brown says, well, hang on a minute. Yes light rail is a complete and utter fiasco (he didn't say that - I did), but the revenue from the Regional Fuel Tax, half of which is sitting in the bank, is committed to a $1.4 billion Auckland Infrastructure project, the Eastern Busway, which will carry 30,000 people a day between Auckland's South East and Panmure station. So that money is going to be used even though it's sitting in the bank. It is earmarked for a project. There are going to be buses and cycleways and without that money those projects look to be in doubt.   Northern Infrastructure Forum coordinator Barney Irvine told the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning, the Auckland regional fuel tax may be gone, but there are other ways to fund roading projects.    IRVINE: “Transport projects often generate a whole lot of increase in property value and the and the surrounding areas.”  HOSKING: “You want to go down that track, do you?  See I don't know about that. Because I live near a bus stop, you’re going to tax me?”   IRVINE: “Oh, look, there's more to it than that, but the issue is that, yeah, there is a lot of value to be generated there, that gets generated there, whether it's the process of moving from farmland to suddenly land that that's designated for higher use, massive increase in property value and we’re just not tapping into it.”    So, a novel way of introducing a tax.   So all of those people who are now living around the Northern motorway extension —recently opened to great fanfare, and everybody enjoys driving on it; I love driving on it when I'm heading north— all of those people who live around there should suddenly pay more in rates because they've got a better roadway right next to them.   All the people on the poor, benighted Meola Road project who are suffering now, all those people living in Point Chev who are suffering now, should pay more in rates because all of a sudden a busways opened up, and cycle ways have opened up, and it becomes a more attractive and desirable area to live, because there are many accessible ways to transport yourself from point A to point B.   That was just one of the options mentioned by Barney, but interestingly, an Infrastructure Commission survey conducted recently looked at different ways of funding infrastructure and asked the respondents what they thought was fair. No means of paying for roads was considered fair by the majority of respondents. So, they thought it was fair enough that user pays when it comes to electricity, user pays when it comes to water, but the majority said there was no fair way to pay for roads. I always thought user pays was about the fairest way you could get. When you've got somebody who was living in a house who doesn't have a vehicle, who very seldom (and this is probably those who are retired), very seldom makes long trips, doesn't need it for business, doesn't have a car, why should they pay for roading infrastructure?   Those who do use the roads often, those who do need the roads to conduct their business, shouldn't they pay? What is fair?... 2024-02-09T00:33:08.000Z Kerre Woodham: The trouble with cultural reports https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-the-trouble-with-cultural-reports/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-the-trouble-with-cultural-reports/ As promised, the coalition government has followed through on its promise to scrap Labour's target of reducing the prison population by 30%, although it looks like Chris Hipkins got in before the government could in the lead up to last year's election.   Then Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, in a desperate scramble for votes, said the prison population reduction target is already gone. Gone. It was part of the big dump pile that Chris Hipkins created when he became Prime Minister, anything he deemed to be unpopular with the public got scrapped in a bid for re-election.   So, the prison population reduction target of 30%, he said, was gone. The coalition government has confirmed that. No prison reduction target.   They've also scrapped government funding for cultural reports, or S27 reports. Now these reports have been around since 2002. Initially, they were funded by the Justice Ministry and there were roughly 250 odd reports written between 2002 and 2017. Again, initially they were seen as a way of members of an offender's whanau or family to stand up and address the court and give the judge insight into why this person was appearing before them.   They weren't terribly successful because the judges weren't that jazzed on having somebody appear and address them when they might not be able to understand the intent of what was behind it or what the meaning was behind the address, and a lot of people didn't feel comfortable about standing up in court and addressing a judge. And another reason was that a lot of offenders appeared in court because they didn't have any whanau or family behind them. That was part of the reason why they'd gone rogue.    Anyone can or could ask for a cultural report, but they are predominantly written for Māori who are appearing before a judge. Somebody cottoned on to the fact that this is a jolly good thing.   Defence lawyers, especially those appearing under legal aid, simply don't have the time to do a thorough investigation into an offender's background. They say there aren't the billable hours to do that, so you farm that out to somebody who will. And figures show the number of invoices for written reports approved by the Ministry of Justice rose from 74 in 2018 to two 2333 in 2021. Costs have increased from around 865,000 in 2019 to more than $6 million in 2021, so everybody cottoned on that this was a great idea.   And when you look at the number of businesses that have been set up to write these reports and you look at the testimonials from anonymous offenders and anonymous defence lawyers who say, oh, amazing, got home detention when I wasn't expecting it. Incredible, got 30% off what I was expecting to get. You can see why offenders and would think, ‘Well, bloody hell, I'm going to get that?’, especially when you don't have to pay for it.  You can still get a cultural report if you choose to pay for it. What has happened is that this government has said the taxpayer is not going to fund it anymore. Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says cultural reports have moved away from being a way for Whanau and family to support an infant, into a cottage industry costing the taxpayer millions.    “It's important to remember that the cultural reports are important, and they can give very good information and put good information in front of the judge. However, the intent of it was always to be a family member or whanau member that actually knows the person and could get up and present either an oral submission or a written submission. It has turned into this to perverse sort of twisted cottage industry where people that didn't even know the person going in front of the court were writing cultural reports, in a way to try and, quite simply, reduce their sentence. And so of course we ended up with an over 200% increase in people out on it to electronic bail, and all it did was transfer the risk back into the community.”    Absolutely.   So again, there are a number of problems with continuing with t... 2024-02-08T00:35:19.000Z Michael Webster: The Privacy Commissioner has concerns about the viability of facial recognition technology in supermarkets https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/michael-webster-the-privacy-commissioner-has-concerns-about-the-viability-of-facial-recognition-technology-in-supermarkets/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/michael-webster-the-privacy-commissioner-has-concerns-about-the-viability-of-facial-recognition-technology-in-supermarkets/ Foodstuff's introduction of facial recognition technology —with the hope of reducing repeat criminal offenders— has the Privacy Commissioner concerned.  The grocery chain is trialling facial scanning in its North Island stores across the next six months.  Commissioner Michael Webster told Kerre Woodham that facial recognition isn't a proven tool to reduce harmful behaviour in supermarkets.  He says it could be even riskier, as the technology could provide people with a false sense of security.  LISTEN ABOVE  2024-02-07T22:45:20.000Z Kerre Woodham: How glorious was Waitangi Day? https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-how-glorious-was-waitangi-day/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-how-glorious-was-waitangi-day/ Have there ever been school holidays that have gone on quite so long?   I mean, I know that when I was a school kid back in the antediluvian times, school holidays did seem to go on forever and ever and ever. Did they ever go on this long? I hope that you had a fabulous time with your family and that you're looking forward to them being settled into some sort of routine.   How glorious was Waitangi Day? Utterly, utterly. Splendid. Thank you to all of you who were working so those parents who were getting ready to finally start the school year could do the last-minute bits and pieces. And thank you too, to the lifesavers and the other first responders and all those who were out and about looking out for all of us who were flocking to the beaches, and the parks, and the festivals, and making the most of a day off in the sun.    Such a perfect day. I went looking for a beach to lie on in a sea to swim in and I didn't have to go very far, which is another glory of this country. So many families of every ethnicity, so many young peoples out in big groups, so many kiwis having just a joyous time celebrating all that is good about living in this country.   The tents were set up, and the barbecues were out, and the kids were in the playgrounds or in the water, and there were generations of families. It's just lovely, really. Absolutely lovely.   Waitangi itself seemed to be a success according to those who were there from all sides. And the debate, and the pageantry, and the history that speaks to our future is another thing that is wonderful about this country as the Prime Minister said this morning on the Mike Hosking Breakfast: “I mean, I came away last night reflecting on it going well actually. Which other country on Earth do you get everyone coming along with their strongly held views and differences of opinion, actually showing up in one place on one day, having an aeration of it all and because they're actually all committed to advancing New Zealand. We disagree strongly about actually how to go about delivering those outcomes, but man, that wouldn't happen in any other country. So, look, I think by and large it was pretty respectful and I think Ngāpuhi did a pretty good job managing it all.”  Yeah, absolutely, and that's what everybody else has said as well. It's a shame that good news doesn't make the news. A piece of social media was picked up by news outlets, as is their want these days, and turned into real news. ‘PM repeats himself’. Well, he kind of needs to because it's obvious the message is not getting through.   ACT, a coalition partner in the government, wants a debate on the principles of the Treaty. They don't want to rip up the Treaty. They don't want to change the Treaty’s wording, they don't want to deem the Treaty null and void. They want a debate on the principles on what that means going forward.   National says the Treaty Principles Bill isn't terribly helpful. It’s divisive and unhelpful, precisely for these reasons, that people will seize on an argument and create one if they need to. They will be fearful.   There are some within Māori who see it as a direct attack on the Treaty, despite the fact that National has said there is no intention or commitment to support the bill beyond the first reading. It was part of the coalition agreement that it would get a first reading. After that, National has said there is no intentional commitment to support the first reading.   You need three readings. It's not going to pass if National are true to their word. Christopher Luxon has said, I don't know how we can be any clearer than that - no intention or commitment to support beyond the first reading.  Seymour's already said they're not going to throw out the Treaty anyway, and there are a lot at Waitangi who believed that was the intent. It is not.   Again, how much clearer can you be? They've said it time and time again.   So clearly, there has to be more clarity. You have to repeat yourself because there... 2024-02-07T00:08:16.000Z Liam Dann: NZ Herald Business Editor on the increase in the unemployment rate https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/liam-dann-nz-herald-business-editor-on-the-increase-in-the-unemployment-rate/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/liam-dann-nz-herald-business-editor-on-the-increase-in-the-unemployment-rate/ Stats NZ figures out today show unemployment has crept to its highest level since June 2021.   The unemployment rate in the three months to December was 4%.  Herald Business Editor at Large, Liam Dann, says it's still lower than many economists were picking.   He says there will be winners and losers out of this.  Dann says people hoping for an OCR cut may have to wait longer, but more people will have kept their jobs.  LISTEN ABOVE  2024-02-06T23:02:58.000Z Kerre Woodham: Our Low School Attendance Is A Disgrace https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-our-low-school-attendance-is-a-disgrace/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-our-low-school-attendance-is-a-disgrace/ Showing up. Turning up when you're supposed to. That leads me neatly to the Prime Minister's comments yesterday when he visited Browns Bay School.  He said parents need to wake up and be a part of solving the problem of low school attendance. He said wake up, talk to your kids and get them to school. And I'm not going to argue that parents need to take a whole lot more responsibility when it comes to doing the right thing by their children.  Feed them for one, decent food. Read to them. Books are free from the library,buses are cheap to get to your local library. Love them. Give them boundaries. And ensure they understand that there are expectations upon them. And one of those is going to school, especially if you come from a family that's doing it tough. There is all sorts of help, all sorts of assistance for those parents who are doing it tough. I understand it makes it even more difficult if you're not in one permanent home. If you are constantly moving, having to shift because you've got no place to call your own, that makes it even more difficult, but it also makes it even more imperative that you give your children the skills they need to get out of that.  You don't want them to live like this. You don't want them to have itinerant lifestyles. You want them to have choices and one way of them having choices is getting them educated. I'm absolutely passionate about that. Our low school attendance is a disgrace. Taxpayer funded lunches in schools haven't helped. So after Labour dipped into the Covid emergency fund, now National has committed to it and is going to have to find $330 million per year out of taxes as we don't have the slush fund anymore. All well and good.  You know, they seem to help in some schools and others they don't. I'd like to see the problem of the wastage fixed up so that those who need the food are getting it, so that it's not going to happy pigs. That it's not being redistributed to all and sundry and that it's going to hungry kids. That's what it's there for. Certainly hasn't helped with the school attendance, which I thought would happen and which was one of the reasons why free school lunches were promoted, that it would improve school attendance – it hasn't. Free sanitary products hasn't got the girls skipping through the gates either. I agree with the Prime Minister that parents need to wake up, talk to their children and get them to school. But what do you do when your kids won't go?  We had a caller last year who had a teenage son who was twice her height and he wouldn't go to school. He did the work at home and then he gamed and then he caught up with friends who also weren't going to school. And she remonstrated with him and said, you need to go to school. He said no, I don't.  I've been told for the last two years that I don't need to go to school, that I can do my learning from home, and in fact it's more efficient for me to do it at home. I can get the work done in a third of the time and then the rest of the time is my own. So he was still actually doing the work, but he wasn't going to school. And she couldn't make him. She couldn't drag him out of bed. She couldn't pick him up and carry him into school. So that was one clever kid who was doing the work but on his terms and as he saw it, perfectly entitled to work from home because they had been bashed into him for two years over Covid.  It's exactly what so many educators and people who are passionate about learning feared when schools were closed for Covid and for rain and then more rain. The children couldn't help but see that going to school is not a priority, not a priority to the authorities. I think it's only Auckland Grammar that sees it as a priority and they get absolutely excoriated in the social media. The MoE in its briefing paper to incoming Minister Erika Stanford, said post Covid there are high levels of disassociation from school and early learning, challenging behavior and a marked increase in anxiety, as wel... 2024-02-02T01:10:08.000Z Kerre Woodham: More education on recycling would be useful https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-more-education-on-recycling-would-be-useful/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-more-education-on-recycling-would-be-useful/ We're talking a whole lot of rubbish this morning. I know some people who are passionate recyclers. They know their shinizzle. If Mastermind was still being broadcast, recycling - the what's the how's and the where’s - would be their specialty subject. There are others who simply don't care. Can't be bothered. Load of nonsense. It's not going to save the planet anyway. it's too hard, a load of bollocks. Biff, everything goes in the rubbish bin. Banana skins, glass bottles and all. I suppose I'm somewhere in the middle - veering towards virtuous. I rinse out the recyclables, take the lids off. I don't know how I knew I was supposed to do that, but I did. I use the food scraps bin, but I'm not at the stage of posting my soft plastics to be recycled, which you can do. Could do better. What complicates recycling in this country is that most consuls operate different methods of recycling. Some places it all goes in one bin, others you have to sort out your tins from your paper. But as of now, the whole country will have new standardised recycling guidelines to follow. It's interesting that in some areas like Auckland, we are losing the ability to recycle some products. In effect, the national guidelines have been made for the lowest common denominator. Shouldn't we have aimed for a gold standard? Brought other regions recycling efforts up to the most efficient? Well, David Howie, Waste Management New Zealand Executive General Manager of Circular Services (quite the title), answered that this morning on the Mike Hosking Breakfast. He says it's all about reducing contamination. The biggest challenge is not so much the type of plastic but contamination generally, and the broader the range of materials that are accepted the greater the risk that we get increased levels of contamination with materials that can't be recovered and often that means that they'll impact materials around them, or potentially even a whole bin of recycling, and that reduces the rate dramatically. So I think that the move to make it clear and to help people understand the standard system, with support and education clearly to help that, is a great way to make sure we do get that maximum recovery rate. So understood, I understand that. I also think it helps if you know where your recycling ends up. Just putting it in the bin and hoping for the best, you think you've done your bit but I think it really does help to know where it goes. For example, the food compost bins. And eventually it's going to be user pays when it comes to your organic waste so it's a way of getting people used to removing the food scraps out of the general rubbish and putting them into a specific bin designed for being taken away and recycled. Some people were scoffing about that -where is it going to go? We had a caller to the show last year who's told us exactly where it's going. He said a lot of trucks come up to Auckland with rubbish. They go back empty, so you fill them up with your organic food scraps, you take them to a central processing plant where it's turned into methane, and there are big glass houses right next door to this recycling plant that use them to grow vegetables and fruit in the glass houses. Now, he was a talkback caller. He certainly sounded like he knew what he was talking about and that sounded absolutely spot on to me. If it's not true, I don't want to know. It's a bit like I was told the Plane trees in Franklin Road, those beautiful big trees. Each one was planted for a boy whose life was lost in the First World War. I don't want to know that's not true. So don't bother telling me. And it's a bit like that with the recycling of my of my banana skins and my vegetable peelings and the scraps from the kids school lunches. I want to know that that is going back in a truck that would otherwise have been going back empty, that it's being turned into a productive gas that can help grow food. That suits my narrative. I like that. I want to know what's happening t... 2024-02-01T01:17:44.000Z Rob Langford: Packaging Forum CEO on the new recycling rule changes that came into place today https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/rob-langford-packaging-forum-ceo-on-the-new-recycling-rule-changes-that-came-into-place-today/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/rob-langford-packaging-forum-ceo-on-the-new-recycling-rule-changes-that-came-into-place-today/ Recycling will become more efficient across the country, as new rules come into place today. Standardised recycling requires almost everyone to place paper, glass and plastic types 1, 2 and 5 in their bins. Lids and aerosol cans are no longer accepted, while items like empty pizza boxes are. Packaging Forum CEO Rob Langford says these changes have been in development for over a year now. LISTEN ABOVE 2024-02-01T01:09:53.000Z Kerre Woodham: Our infrastructure cant keep up with migration https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-our-infrastructure-cant-keep-up-with-migration/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-our-infrastructure-cant-keep-up-with-migration/ I was reading Robert Mcculloch's most excellent “Down to Earth Kiwi” blog.   His latest piece is an article on mass immigration and making the premise that high net immigration will ultimately dilute the influence of indigenous people on the future of a country. That the more people we have coming in with different cultures, different priorities, the less importance the views of indigenous people have on the future of the country, and we can get back to that, and the Treaty, and the debate over whether we should be having a debate on the Treaty closer to Waitangi Day.    But what I was more interested in today, given the other stories that are in the news cycle, is a discussion on immigration. Net immigration is running between 2-3% of the population per annum. That's around about 120,000 people annually that we have to accommodate, literally and metaphorically. Immigration is back to higher levels than it was even during the John Key years.   Now Labour tried and failed to deliver an economy and a skilled workforce that did not rely on imported labour. They said that we would be able to train enough Kiwis to fill the vacancies that were available and that became patently obvious almost immediately that that wasn't going to happen. We simply couldn't do it. Whether it was we couldn't do it quickly enough or we couldn't do it at all. My guess is we couldn't do it at all.   It became very apparent that there simply weren't enough Kiwi’s able and willing to do the jobs we needed to keep New Zealand Inc. running, and they were jobs right across the board. Remember when we had pensioners who were packing up their cars in their caravans and heading off to Hawkes Bay in Central Otago to pick fruit? We had waiting lists blowing out with a completely stretched and overworked health force staff screaming for reinforcements. So, it was right across the board.   In the news today, we hear that rents are high and they're rising. In Wellington, the water infrastructure is completely and utterly poked. In Auckland our beaches were closed for days over the Christmas break because of sewage overflows into the water, which is an absolute disgrace.   Spending on improving our housing supply, our infrastructure, our health, our education, has not kept pace with the inflow of new New Zealanders. We wouldn't even be able to look after the needs of existing New Zealanders.   We've allowed infrastructure, particularly that under the ground, to get run down to a point that it's going to be astronomically expensive to fix. We haven't freed up the space and the regulatory environment to allow more homes to be built, maybe because we're rightly concerned given past experience of the quality of the homes that will be built and we're concerned about where they're being built. Auckland Anniversary floods, anybody? House prices are predicted to rise again as demand outstrips supply.   So, what to do, what to do?   If we put a hold on immigration, as Labour did, and indeed, as most governments did during the Covid years, all the same problems we saw, above and beyond managing Covid, will happen again. The waiting lists will blow out, the people needed to build the necessary infrastructure can't be found here. We simply can't put 30 migrant workers into a three-bedroom home. No, we don't do that here, thank you.   So, what to do? The myth that New Zealand can look after its own needs has been well and truly busted after two years with closed borders, but what do we do? We bring in the people we need to do the jobs and where do we put them? What do we do with what they produce that we need to get rid of?  How do we fix what's under the ground without bringing in more people to do it?   It's a conundrum, and if you have the answer, I'll buy you a Lotto ticket.  2024-01-30T23:44:20.000Z Michelle McCormick: Infrastructure NZ Policy Director on the opportunity net migration figures provide to fix New Zealand's infrastructure https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/michelle-mccormick-infrastructure-nz-policy-director-on-the-opportunity-net-migration-figures-provide-to-fix-new-zealands-infrastructure/ https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/audio/michelle-mccormick-infrastructure-nz-policy-director-on-the-opportunity-net-migration-figures-provide-to-fix-new-zealands-infrastructure/ New Zealand’s infrastructure is unable to keep up with our increasing population.  Net migration figures are sitting at approximately 2-3% of the population per annum, a total of 120 thousand people entering the country every year.  However, the spending allocated to improving housing supply, infrastructure, health, and education has not kept pace with the increasing number of migrants.  Michelle McCormick, Infrastructure New Zealand’s Policy Director, told Kerre Woodham that there is an opportunity to combine these two factors.  She said that the incoming workforce can be used to address our infrastructure deficit, which would in turn keep these skilled workers in New Zealand as opposed to leaving once a project is complete.  LISTEN ABOVE  2024-01-30T23:16:25.000Z