Episodes
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At the end of each week, Mike Hosking takes you through the big-ticket items and lets you know what he makes of it all.
Trump: 7/10
All in all, 5% defence spending at NATO, a ceasefire that holds, and talks with Iran next week. It's not bad.
Rob Penney: 8/10
From last year to this. That's one of sports great stories, and I assume involves tremendous amounts of well-deserved satisfaction.
Whanau Ora and Tama Iti and Moana Pasifika: 2/10
Central Government yet again missing the politically triggering stuff they promised to address.
David Seymour: 7/10
As Acting Prime Minister in the house and in media, he is a very solid, considered set of hands with good wit to go with it.
Golden visas: 8/10
That is practical thinking, making tangible difference. 189 applications and $800million worth of business - let's go NZ!
Wealth and the pension: 2/10
Bum note of the week. Targeting those who actually worked hard to save to help in retirement should never be used as a punishment. And the Retirement Commissioner might like to ask herself whether she understands her job.
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We've got more ageism, this time in education.
Unions are "concerned" as more teachers work past retirement age.
This in part is the trouble with unions.
1) They aren't keen on work to start with,
2) They are bogged down in old fashioned rules and views of the world.
What is retirement and how do you know you are past it?
They refer of course to Super and this tired, old business of thinking that when Super kicks in you must check out.
Obviously, the world has changed and is changing, just not that quickly in union land.
At 64-years-old if you're loving teaching, somehow chronologically at 65-years-old that desire and love of pursuit needs to be shelved, as you wander off collecting your retirement income and presumably filling your days with bowls and walks.
8000 people teaching are 65-years-old or over. That’s double what it used to be 10 years ago.
But then a lot is different to what it was 10 years ago.
Beyond the numbers, does anyone ask any questions?
Like, are they doing it because they have to, as opposed to want to? Bit of a difference I would have thought.
Most importantly for teaching, given the unions insist on the mad-cap business of time in the classroom being the measure for income, are these oldies any good?
Could they be better given their experience and institutional knowledge than the 21-year-old just into the classroom and looking for all the world out of her depth?
In sex education in 6th form at Linwood High in the late 1980's, we were 16 and 17-years-old and the teacher might have been 20-years-old. She looked like she wanted to die as the diagrams of the you-know-what's came out.
As you can tell the memory is seared in my mind 40 years later.
New isn't always best. Young doesn’t always trump older and passion and skill above all else is what should drive presence in the workplace or classroom.
Are you good? Do you like what you do? Are you making a difference?
If the answer is yes, then at what point would you be remotely interested in age, far less be concerned?
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Missing episodes?
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The week has come to an end and so Kate Hawkesby and Tim Wilson are joining Mike Hosking to Wrap the Week once more.
Tim is injured again, winding up on ACC after taking a tumble off the footpath, plus, Mike's made a new musical discovery.
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The Treaty Negotiations Minister admits people are losing patience on a Ngāpuhi settlement, but says they want it to last.
New Zealand First is launching a Bill, proposing a one-and-done treaty settlement for the largest iwi, rather than multiple hapu settlements.
Paul Goldsmith says that although he sympathises with the desire for a faster resolution, if you want an enduring settlement, you need people to be prepared to settle.
He told Mike Hosking that the settlement has to have the support of around 200,000 to 300,000 people, which has been the challenge in the past.
Goldsmith says that they have a good plan now, and they’re making good progress on the work that’s currently underway.
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The Education Minister is hitting back against claims she’s trying to entrench co-governance into education.
Hobson’s Pledge is claiming that the Education and Training Amendment Bill No.2 includes a section, put there by Stanford, that will force every school board to reflect “local tikanga Māori, mātauranga Māori, and te ao Māori” in their policies, plans, and classroom teaching.
Erica Stanford refutes these claims, saying that 127 was an already existing Treaty clause.
She told Mike Hosking that section is not the only clause in the Education Act to reference the Treaty, which is why there needs to be a proper review into whether or not they need to be there.
Standford says there are legitimate questions to be answered, which is why they’re looking into the act, but she did not add them in herself.
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On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Friday 27th of June, it's accountability Friday! Paul Goldsmith, Tama Potaka, and Erica Stanford have questions to answer about scandals, non-scandals, and accusations.
After the unfortunate passing of Takutai Tarsh Kemp, what is the process going forward in filling her seat?
Tim and Katie talk Tim's latest injury and Mike's best musical discovery of the week as they Wrap the Week.
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A vast change to what's been promised for Auckland City Rail Link's opening capacity.
In 2022, it was reported 27 thousand peak passengers would be using the rail line from opening day next year.
That's now gone down to 19 thousand passengers an hour at peak times.
AT Public Transport Director Stacey van der Putten told Mike Hosking the 27 thousand figure merged a few different elements including design capacity, timetabling, and patronage.
She points out that 19,000 is still a significant increase on current numbers, as it’s still a 50% increase in patronage.
Van der Putten told Hosking it will take some effort to rebuild confidence in the rail network after the prolonged disruption, but there’s plenty of enthusiasm for the new line.
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A lot of interest is expected in the by-election to fill the seat left empty by the death of Takutai Tarsh Kemp.
The 50-year-old Te Pāti Māori MP died yesterday.
Otago University law expert Andrew Geddis told Mike Hosking the Tamaki Makaurau seat was won by just 42 votes in 2023 and will be very tightly contested again.
The complicating factor this time is likely to be sympathy, he says, suspecting that Te Pāti Māori will likely run strongly on a kind of legacy argument.
The by-election could clash with local body elections.
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Concerns are being raised around the use of taxpayer money to fund Moana Pasifika.
Our newsroom's revealed the Super Rugby franchise received some $8 million in taxpayer loans, grants, and funding.
The Pasifika Medical Association —which took over ownership of the team last year— has received funding from Whānau Ora contracts.
Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka told Mike Hosking there's some uncertainty about how that Whānau Ora money was spent.
He wants to know it's being used for proper purpose and has asked for an explanation ASAP.
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From the "we can't get out of our own way" file comes the question, as posed this week by the Retirement Commissioner, as to whether people who have money in the bank should get the pension.
The first part that is wrong with that is I thought we had decided many a decade ago, rightly or wrongly, that Super is an entitlement.
Its trigger, rightly or wrongly, is age, therefore the other criteria you might like to add to the equation like height, weight, job, brain power or savings, are null and void because age is what does it.
So are we changing that, are we? Because that is the inference in the question.
The inference is also this sneering socialist bend some people have around success.
"Don’t be too successful" is the message, and that’s what savings generally are. You had a plan, you worked hard, and you put a few dollars aside.
Interestingly the numbers are depressing. This is where the question came from.
There are 33,000 over the age of 65 who earn between $100-200k a year. There are 9,000 who earn more than $200k.
That’s not a lot of people. It shows you how poorly paid we are, how bad at saving we are and how expensive life is to stop you saving. A whole bunch of stuff leads us to not being a very well-off sort of country.
I have said this many times – I'm not fussed. I didn’t join KiwiSaver and I'm not relying on a pension.
Why? Because when I started work in 1982 it was very well established that the pension may or may not be around at all, so why take the risk? And in 1982, on the minimum wage as I was, I had 45 years to get my act together and do something about it.
The problem with keeping on asking these questions is it messes with people and their intentions.
Governments have been bad enough already with their constant changing of the rules and their contributions, the last thing we need is thought bubbles on what should be a long term, leave it alone, get out of the way, understanding among us all that the pension is our society's recognition of a life's work.
Change the age if you want. But penalising success is the opposite of what we want to promote.
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New Zealand has taken home the Gold at the Oscars for wines.
Craggy Range’s Martinborough Pinot Noir took home Best in Show at this year’s Decanter World Wine Awards.
This makes it in the 0.3% of all wines in the world.
Chief Winemaker at Craggy Range Ben Tombs told Mike Hosking they knew there was something pretty special coming out of the 2024 vintage.
He says it shows the kind of provenance unique to Martinborough, and winning the award is an incredibly achievement.
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When you hear the name ‘James May’, it’s likely you think of cars, Top Gear, and The Grand Tour, but much like his co-stars, May has plenty of other projects.
He owns his own pub and gin line, and has done countless shows visiting other countries, rebuilding toys and machines, and exploring life’s questions.
May’s now onto his next journey – a live theatre performance that brings the stories of explorers to the stage.
It’s called ‘Explorers: The Age of Discovery’, and May’s bringing it to Kiwi audiences in August.
It’s been quite a busy year for May – something he told Mike Hosking was quite unintentional.
“This year was going to be my, what I called a ‘dry run at retirement’, to see how much I liked it,” he revealed.
“But I’ve ended up doing a live tour, a couple of TV shows, various other odds and ends – it's actually the busiest year I’ve had for probably a decade, in terms of demands on my time.”
“But maybe that’s a good thing,” he said. “Maybe if I was left to my own devices, I’d sit in the garden and rot.”
Despite his vast experience in the entertainment industry, May isn’t terribly experienced with live performances.
“We used to do Top Gear Live and then Clarkson, Hammond & May Live, but there were three of us doing it, plus our stunt driving team and various other circus performers,” he explained.
“This one is quite intimidating because it just me."
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On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Thursday 26th of June, Nicola Willis is still unhappy with the supermarkets, sending them another letter – when is it time for action?
Moana Pasifika is in serious financial strife, but it was revealed that Whanau Ora, using taxpayer money, gave them $8 million in funding. How does a company, whose job it is to improve wellbeing in poorer communities, spend millions on a rugby team?
Former Top Gear and Grand Tour host James May is coming to NZ with his new stage show about the world's best explorers, joining out of the UK for a chat.
Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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The Government's instructed Auckland Council to allow apartments at least 15 storeys high near key City Rail Link train stations.
Density requirements around the Mt Albert and Baldwin Ave stations require at least 10 storey apartments, and requirements around the Maungawhau, Kingsland, and Morningside rail terminals have been increased from six storeys to 15.
Simeon Brown and Chris Bishop say it will ensure Auckland takes economic advantage of the transformational investment in the city.
AUT Future Environments Professor John Tookey told Mike Hosking that even the proposition of consenting a 15 storey building in the middle of a city isn’t a five minute undertaking.
His suspicion is it will take at least a decade to see any kind of measurable mass urban densification around the stations.
He also told Hosking that the Government’s interference in running Auckland is likely to cause significant political issues.
Tookey says NIMBY-type arguments will likely crop up: why here, who’s going to fund it, and how will it impact everyone else in the area?
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The Infrastructure Minister agrees we're getting bad value for money and need trans-government systems to improve.
The Infrastructure Commission's released a 30-year draft plan revealing its first look at how New Zealand needs to invest in our future.
Chris Bishop told Mike Hosking half of all capital-intensive government agencies don't have asset registers, so don't know what they own or how to maintain it.
He says what all parties need to agree on is focusing on asset maintenance, because we don't look after what we've already built.
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A law expert says it's important for the Māori Development Minister to look at contracts - to figure out where Whānau Ora's money is coming from.
Tama Potaka is seeking a review of a recent Whānau Ora ad campaign encouraging Māori to sign up to the Māori electoral roll.
He says it would be inappropriate for public funding to be used for electioneering.
Law expert Graeme Edgeler told Mike Hosking the law isn't complicated about this, so long as the money is coming from the right place.
He says this is Whānau Ora's commissioning agency which is private, and can spend money how they like, as long as it is their money.
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The Government's issued a fresh warning to the major supermarket chains.
Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis has written a letter to Woolworths, and Foodstuffs' North Island and South Island arms, outlining her expectations.
She says she's hearing of supermarkets charging more than the advertised price, and having specials and multi-buy deals that don't actually offer savings.
Willis told Mike Hosking that's not good enough.
She says supermarkets have publicly said again and again that they do everything they can to be good providers of service, but this doesn’t look like that.
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Is Shane Jones showing the Minister for Treaty Negotiations Paul Goldsmith how to run his own portfolio?
In response to Jones and his Member's bill on the never ending Ngāpuhi drama, Goldsmith says the process can't go on forever.
Which is the same as saying nothing, because clearly it is, and Goldsmith clearly has no plan.
The Jones bill is clever because my sense of it is there is so much infighting in the north of the country, they will, out of bloody mindedness, never strike a deal.
All the logic we heard yesterday about tribes that have cut deals and invested billions and seen the endless benefits will have missed their mark in Northland, given a lot of Ngāpuhi aren't interested in a deal. They thrive on dissent and division and permanent anger and grievance.
Jim Bolger, who I note in the past few weeks as he celebrated his 90th is still prone to the odd piece of public commentary, might like to have pondered his own role in this many, many years ago when they started to put up a few road markers around timeframes.
The idea was they would set a date to file your claim, remembering even in Bolger's day the Waitangi Tribunal had been going since the 70's, and once you filed, they would impose another deadline to get it all wrapped up.
Good idea, but it went nowhere because Bolger and Co. got sucked into the idea that this was unfair, it was rushed, and it was history. What wasn’t said out loud was this was a gravy train that could go literally forever, and people were going to make a living off it.
As Jones revealed yesterday, we've spent $20 million for Ngāpuhi alone, just for lunch and chats and airfares.
You have to remember 1975 was a goodwill gesture. The tribunal and the settlement of grievances was entered into not because anyone had to, but because it was the right thing to do. It was driven by goodwill.
I would have thought it was fairly obvious in the vast array of deals to be done and apologies to be made, like life, that some would embrace it and run with it and some would be unable to get out of their own way.
What was needed but was missing, and still is (Jones aside), was leadership. We needed boundaries set and an explanation of the rules and expectations.
And because that was missing, so is $20 million on lunch, and still no deal.
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Concern over an increasing number of children bringing weapons to school.
Figures released under the Official Information Act show 526 students were stood down, suspended, or excluded for using or having a weapon at school last year.
It's an 80% rise on 2018.
Secondary Principals' Association President Louise Anaru told Mike Hosking that in a vast majority of cases, children have no intent to use the weapon - but regardless, the matter needs to be treated seriously.
She says it’s important to get the message out that they can cause harm, and to take a real strong stance on it.
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Today on Politics Wednesday, Mark Mitchell and Ginny Andersen joined Mike Hosking to delve into some of the biggest stories of the week so far.
The cost of living crisis is still weighing heavily on Kiwis’ wallets despite all of the Government’s efforts – can Mark Mitchell explain why we’re not feeling the recovery?
And Ginny Andersen had quite a few points to make on the topic as well.
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