Episódios

  • 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 have the government we have. People were not a ‘hundy’ on National and ACT’s promises and policies. They were certain, though, that they didn't want the previous administration to continue.

    So, do we concede that there is no way we can afford the tax cuts? We've got to get the hospitals sorted, the police have to be paid properly, there's a million claims on that money. The promise of tax cuts was surely just a Trojan horse to get National back into power. But didn't we know this?

    You know you can't run a campaign saying hey, vote for us, we're not Labour. You have to come up with something. So did you vote for the current administration because you wanted, you expected, a tax cut? A tax cut was promised to you, you've voted accordingly and you want that bloody tax cut? You want them to keep their promise? Or do you accept that the price of an extra $100 a fortnight, the price of an extra $26 per fortnight is simply too high to pay with the country in the state it's in?

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  • 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.

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  • 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 gang patch ban. Fanciful, at best.

    The last thing on the list is healthcare targets, which Health Minister Shane Reti is announcing today.

    But, like I say, you can’t accuse the Government of sitting around and overthinking things.

    So, what is it, do you think, is this one thing I mentioned earlier where the Government has exceeded my expectations? And because of that, I’m giving its first 100 days a pass mark?

    It’s the fact that the coalition hasn’t fallen apart. When Christopher Luxon, David Seymour and Winston Peters signed the dotted line after all that to-ing and fro-ing after the election, I didn't expect it to last.

    It may still fall apart. Because, despite them being in coalition, I wouldn’t say Luxon, Seymour and Peters are singing from the same song sheet all the time.

    But it hasn’t fallen apart so far. Lord knows what it’s like behind the scenes. But we still have a government and, for me, that’s enough to give its first 100 days a pass mark. Not a merit. Not an excellence. But it’s better than I expected.

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  • 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 your own in Auckland. He ended up living in his car while still working. His boss let him use the showers and the bathrooms in the morning to get ready for work. We lost touch, we lost contact. I hope he's well. I hope he managed to keep going in the new direction, he was trying to forge for himself. But boy, it's tough. And that's with a grown man who's made that decision. Imagine the young ones coming out.

    The wraparound support is going to be absolutely critical because boot camps, as you well know, have been tried before and they have failed. Only two of the 17 youth offenders sent to the camps across the first two years of the scheme in the late 2000s had not reoffended by 2011. In 2017, sociologist and crime expert Jared Gilbert said the effect of boot camps was quite minimal and would basically just make young crooks a bit stronger and a bit fitter.

    During the election campaign, Christopher Luxon and Mark Mitchell, the Police Spokesperson then, Police Minister now, were really strong on youth crime as well they might have been given the amount of ram raids that were taking place across the country. They said the boot camp policy is going to act as a circuit breaker for young offenders, taking them off the streets and after 12 months, sending them back into the world work ready.

    Well, I'm not entirely sure that we can expect them to be work ready. Just not ram-raiding Michael Hill would be a start. Not beating up each other would be a start. But proponents for the camp say the difference this time is the rehabilitative aspect, the counselling aspect. The recognition that these kids aren't necessarily bad. A lot of them are sad. So, working together on keeping them off the streets so they don't continue to victimize. Working on them so that they understand where the behaviours come from, trying to. Try to heal whatever mental trauma they have endured in the past. It's the length of time of the camp and the wrap around support back in the real world, which will be absolutely vital.

    So I'd love to get your thoughts on this one. There is a youth development program in the military that if you heard the interview with Brendan Crompton this morning, you have heard him talk about that. A youth development program in the military, which is phenomenally successful, he said. It's world renowned, but that's when you've got young people who are choosing to be there. It's military by consent, if you will. So, in this case you've got young people and probably it is the last thing they want.

    So, will it work this time? I hope so because there are significant differences. It is a small group of kids who will go on to offend as adults and they will end up having miserable lives for the most part. And making other people's lives misery.

    So, it's worth a try, isn't it?

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  • 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 couple of our younger colleagues at work who bought their first homes because there was good public transport access. A developer built a series of little townhouses in one of the outer suburbs of Auckland, and a couple of younger colleagues bought them, their first home with Kiwi Saver and they chose specifically because there was good public transport links into the city. So, it was attractive to them to have public transport. Is it fair enough, then, that those who sell the land that is going to be used for the housing, have to pay a bit extra? Tolls. Nobody minds paying tolls surely, do they? Because whenever you put in a toll road, there must be an alternative. Cutting the red tape for consenting, I think everybody would agree to that, wouldn't they?

    So, the roads have to be paid for, there is no Covid Fund to dip into. Without a productive economy, we can't afford anything.

    So, what comes first in your mind? Have the Government got their priorities right?

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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 the funding came for school lunches. There was no long-term funding applied. As the excellent Kate McNamara writes, she wrote about it in the Herald some time ago. Grant Robertson was told by Treasury that the more than $527 million in operating funds he planned to charge to the Covid-19 emergency fund for the lunches, didn't really qualify as Covid resurgence costs. Funding through the ordinary budget process would be more suitable. That advice fell on deaf ears because he knew he couldn't find a place in his budget for it. So now it's been kicked down the road and National either has to become the New Zealand equivalent of Thatcher - Thatcher milk snatcher and take the lunches away - or find the money to pay for it that Labour didn't have. They just used the Covid fund, National doesn't have that to pay for those lunches.

    Also, I was one who supported it because I thought it would get more kids into school. It's a safe place to be. If you come from a precarious home, school is a safe place to be and you'll be fed. But again, there's no real evidence that that is why children are coming to school. So, 12.5% of children, according to the New Zealand Health Survey, live in households where food runs out sometimes or often. That's fewer than 100,000 of our 815,000 school kids. Probably considerably fewer, Kate points out, since the health survey includes preschoolers. So, you could feed lunch to every single one of those kids who are deprived twice over for the money that we're currently spraying in an untargeted way to kids who don't want it or need it. So the kids, according to a Ministry of Education evaluation in 2021, said the children ate more vegetables and fewer processed foods at lunch and they felt modestly more full after lunch when compared to kids not in the programme. They didn't ask about attendance. That was one of the reasons I supported. It didn't bother asking about that. A more recent evaluation, October 22, looked at secondary school students and found that the programme had no statistically meaningful effect on attendance. Neither evaluation made any attempt to measure the program against academic achievement, school enrolment or completions. So, I'd like to see a bit of that before I commit half a billion dollars to more funding. I want to feed kids who through no fault of their own, are missing out on food. I want them to see school as a safe place to be, a place where somebody does care about them and does want them to succeed in life. Where they can see other people succeeding, where they can see that people care about them. But this hasn't worked. Just doing it in an unregulated, hoots wahey, let's feed them all, let's not have stigma, doesn't work. Other organisations can feed children relatively cost effectively, and they can get to the children who need the food. There's no stigma around them. Farm it out. Farm out a third of the money to those organisations and they will deliver a better result. And let's just see if we do see an improvement in school attendance. If it does actually work, if it doesn't, then let's put the money into another program that gets better results.

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  • 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.

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  • 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 hospital. So where do we need to make changes so nurses aren't disappointed and hospitals are getting the staff they need?

    How functional is Immigration New Zealand at the moment? If it's taking a week to do a job that it used to take a day to do, so we need more staff in there? Do we need to put a cap on the number of applications that can be taken in any given month?

    You've got international tourists wanting to come here waiting for visitors visas, a huge backlog of those. 36,000 last year were waiting for visitor visas to come here. When it comes to trying to get family over, if you've tried to do that yourself, you know the absolute administrative nightmare it is trying to get that to happen. And then the hurry up and wait.

    The new technology was supposed to speed things up, and that's not fully operational yet. Are you confident that once the IT is doing what it should the job will be made easier for those within the department, and life will be easier for those who have to use it?

    You know it's great that people want to come here. Our forebears all wanted to come here. We all came from somewhere to come to New Zealand. And there's undoubtedly a shortage, across the board in so many, many areas, but are we falling back into the bad old habits of just taking all comers who are undercutting New Zealand workers because they can, because they're willing to live 16 to a three bedroom house?

    Are we offering false hope to qualified people like the nurse, like teachers saying, you're very welcome and then ultimately pulling the welcome mat out from under them?

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  • 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, there is no in-house capability. They tend to contract out for all the major curriculum development services.

    According to Professor Lewis, about ten small education consultancy firms relied largely, if not entirely, on ministry contracts for their income.

    So they're consulting up for buildings, they're consulting out for what you would imagine a ministry exists for, which is creating and developing a curriculum for schools. And the other thing that really grinds my gears is when you look at that, so they're contracting out for curriculum, which is what you'd imagine the ministry would do, so there'd be fewer staff at the Ministry of Education wouldn't there? Because if they're not doing what you would imagine they exist to do, there wouldn't be many staff. The number of teachers employed by state schools rose by just over 5 per cent from 2017 to 2022. By the same period, the number of full-time staff employed at the Ministry of Education ballooned by 55 per cent.

    So not only are they contracting out everything, they're employing more staff. Like loads more stuff. 1700 more staff than was employed in 2016. What are they doing? Coming up with new ways to spend money, new inventive ways to spend money. How on earth can you justify farming out your curriculum? While taking on 55% more staff?

    So when you get a he said/she said, as we have with the previous government and this government, with Christopher Luxon and Erica Stanford saying they were out of control with the spending, it was complete and utter cavalier disregard for budgets and for costings and for writing up contracts that meant people had to deliver on the price that was offered.

    So they say that Labour was irresponsible with money. Jan Tinetti says no, we're not. No, I stand by our fiscal record. And then you see just one ministry has a consulting bill that is surged by 450%. And you have a ministry that farms out the very work it exists to do while at the same time taking on more than 50% more staff, who do you believe?

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  • 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 and claims that they had every right to have their views and wishes heard, which they thought they did because they were being treated by the previous administration as though they had a right to exist and conduct their business as they wished.

    Unfortunately, a lot of their business is illegal. I would have no problem with gangs and patches whatsoever if they were engaged in legitimate business. Many associates of gang members are, but ultimately the business of gangs is to muscle each other for turf and then sell drugs. That's where you get your big bucks. You don't get it by selling organically grown apples and kumara by the roadside. You know that's where you get your big bucks.

    Law abiding citizens were starting to get a little bit sick of the posturing and jockeying for position conducted by various gangs and full view of the public so National promised to crack down. And it’s started. Six gold plated Harleys, once owned by the Comancheros were crushed on the weekend. And new legislation will be introduced, going one further than the Wanganui District Council, banning gang patches in public and giving police extra powers to stop gang members congregating.

    Again, this is posturing, this time on the part of the government. Will it immediately stop into gang warfare? No. Will it end the production and sale of meth? No.

    But what it's saying is sending a very strong message that we are sick of seeing you wearing your advertising for your brand on your back. We're sick of you behaving exactly as you wish, stating your intentions loud and clear with your patches on your back saying this is who we are, this is what we do, tremble in fear.

    If you want to wear your little blazers and your jackets in your little club rooms, you fill your steel cap boots. Yeah, that's what club rooms are for.

    Dressing up and talking nonsense and bigging yourself up. You do that. It's what lots of people do in club rooms. But I don't want to see, right up in my grills, your pride and your lawlessness.

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  • 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?

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  • 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

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  • 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

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  • 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 breaks loose.

    I remember when women on benefits were offered free long-term contraception by the then National government way back when, must have been about 2012. Paula Bennett was accused of Nazi type policies from an uncaring National government, it was offered. It was free. It was reversible. And then when National says it's going to can free contraception for women, then everybody criticises them again for not understanding women and their needs.

    So, if you try something, if you put your head above the parapet, it's very quickly knocked down. This is appalling. It's been appalling. It has stayed appalling. Children keep dying. The ones who survive, God only knows what happens to them when they have their families, because the very children I'm talking about their siblings are now in their 20s, 30s and 40s, having their own families, how the hell do they parent? Not all of them are going to turn out bad at all. Many people can take a dysfunctional childhood and turn it into a very successful adulthood by not repeating the mistakes, by not repeating the abuse that was dished out to them.

    But why the hell do we have a government organisation that has been rebranded, renamed, had its chief executives replaced over and over and over again, and all those children want is someone to save them. And you can't do it from a government organisation. Even if you throw a billion dollars at it. Wouldn't that money be better spent perhaps putting welfare workers with every at-risk child? There aren't that many of them. There aren't that many of them that are struggling. And yet they're the biggest, biggest problem.

    The deaths of so many New Zealand children, it’s just a damning indictment on this country. There's a stain on this beautiful country. Serenity Jay, Hail-Sage McClutchie, Mikara, Baby Ru, James Whakaruru, Saliel and Olympia, you know, you can see their faces and you know that they're going to have to make room on the wall of shame because more babies are coming after them.

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  • 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 know. I remember when I wrote a book about marathon running and I'd get these lovely, mainly women, writing to me saying I really need to get back into exercise. I loved it. And then I had the kids, and I've got three kids and I'm working, and I'd love to run a marathon. How did you do it?

    Well, I did it because I didn't have any children to look after. Kate was often away to university. I had absolutely nothing to do and yawning vistas of time. Don't put any pressure on yourself. Just survive was my advice to them. And then when you've got yawning vistas of time, then think about a marathon. I agree we need to move more. And those people who prioritise it make it a focus, even though they've got busy jobs, even though they've got the kids, you know, I admire you, and I'd love to know how you do it. But there is an enormous amount of pressure just existing. Especially right now.

    It shows the value of having somebody at home who can manage the household, who can get the healthy meals ready, who can have them in the freezer ready for those big nights. Having somebody there so that you're not crashing through the door at 7pm exhausted? How on earth do you find it in you to say right, now that we've had our healthy meal that I did on Sunday when I spent all Sunday in the kitchen prepping meals for the week, let's go for a walk around the block as a family.

    If you do more power to you. I'm so impressed. But for many people, it's just putting one foot in front of the other. Is it any wonder that right now it's tough for people to eat well and to fit in daily exercise. I would love to know how Richard Beddie the CEO of Exercise NZ does it. The boss said “well just get off a bus stop one stop earlier.” I know I'm making excuses. I know that. That's what endomorphs do, we find excuses while ectomorphs just forge ahead in their lean, muscular way. We little round endomorphs sit here muttering excuses.

    But it is a lot tougher for some people than others. That's all I'm saying. Not me, I have no excuse. But I do have sympathy for those who are just trying to get by.

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  • 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 ... It's supposed to be a fill in where people survive while they take the steps to a better life. If they're on there for a very long period of time, there's no way they could survive. So, what else are some people doing to manage to be on there that long?”

    That is Christine Rankin talking to Mike Hosking this morning. 40,000 people under the age of 25 on a job seeker benefit, an increase of 66% compared to six years ago - that tells me that Labour's policies have not worked when it comes to getting young people into meaningful work. That tells them that it's okay to rely on the state for the rest of your life. Where you will have few choices, limited options. It will always be grinding poverty.

    How is that kind? And I would really love to know. I didn't hear that question being asked of Marama Davidson yesterday. I don't see that it's kind to keep people on benefits, and yet what do you do? I know of a business that's had to closed down in a very small town in the Far North. They were desperately trying to get young people in the district where unemployment is high because there are few opportunities. They would take the van. They would knock on the doors, they would give them the soap, the shampoo, the clothes they needed to turn up for work. The longest one of the kids lasted was three days and then they just could not get up in the morning. They'd stayed up all night. They tried, I think, about 11 or 12 young people, young men and women, and the kids had the best of intentions initially.

    But because they've come from three years where they haven't had to show up for anything. During Covid that wasn't even an option because the schools were closed. They don't know how to get out of bed in the morning and how is letting them keep doing that good for them. For any young person? You see, that to me is the cruelty. We're just running on different train tracks. The Greens and Carmel, who I think is fantastic and does great work with the people, but the stats don't lie. The number of kids under 25 on job seeker has increased by 66% since Labour became part of a government and then sole charge.

    What the hell is the future of those kids?

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  • 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

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  • 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 and square pointing the digit at the previous administration and saying look at this mess you've left us, it's a time honoured tradition

    New administrations do it every single time they come in, and in this case it's a far bigger mess. It's going to be a tough few years.

    There is no doubt about that. We're all going to have to lift our game and tighten our belts. I mean, basically. You know when Christopher Luxon was talking about the nation, he's talking about my bank account.

    He's looking at the macro and I'm looking at the micro and it's the same kind of thing. It's going to be a belt tightening couple of years and some of the nice to haves that I'd like to have I won't have. And it's the same for the nation.

    But National will bear the brunt of public dissatisfaction if people forget or choose not to know that they are cleaning up a far bigger mess than the previous government has had to.

    Still, on a note of positivity, those of us with long memories know that we have been through tough times before, that other governments have had to come in and pick up an unholy mess and make the most of it, and with the help of the people of New Zealand get the country back on track and they've come out the other side.

    We have done it before and we can do it again.

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