/on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/rss ¾ÅÒ»ÐÇ¿ÕÎÞÏÞ Thu, 16 Oct 2025 19:19:25 Z en /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-ryan-bridge-just-because-the-brits-are-lowering-their-voting-age-it-doesnt-mean-we-will/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-ryan-bridge-just-because-the-brits-are-lowering-their-voting-age-it-doesnt-mean-we-will/ Just because the Brits are lowering their voting age, it doesn't mean we will.  Unless we end up with a Labour government.  I asked Erica Stanford and Carmel Sepuloni about Starmer's move in the UK this morning.  Erica was a hard no. Didn't like it.  Sepuloni loved the change. She said it’s progressive and it's where we should be heading. However, she didn't say if Labour would campaign on it - because they're currently a party with no policy.  The whole thing's a non-starter anyway... because this country has much bigger problems than whether 16-year-olds can vote.  And even if we did go there you would surely have to take another look at the drinking age and the justice system.  As one of our viewers pointed out this morning: 16 and 17 year olds are currently dealt with by the youth justice system, unless the crime is really serious, like murder.  So how can you have a 16-year-old electing adults to make laws when the consequences for breaking them don't apply equally to them.  It's been a wonderful academic exercise today chatting about lowering the voting age, but the reality is it won’t happen anytime soon.   LISTEN ABOVE  Fri, 18 Jul 2025 07:30:30 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-heather-du-plessis-allan-todd-mcclay-pulls-off-trade-deal/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-heather-du-plessis-allan-todd-mcclay-pulls-off-trade-deal/ Hands up who’s impressed with Todd McClay today? That was a surprise this morning, wasn’t it? He's managed to finally sing a free trade deal with the Gulf States, that we have as a country been working on for nearly 20 years and got nowhere with. And it’s not that we didn't’ try - Boy did we try! Do you remember the Saudi sheep deal Where we flew 900 pregnant ewes in the hold of a plane to Saudi Arabia. And where we spent millions of dollars setting up a farm for a sheik in the middle of the desert... about ten years ago? We did that to try to get this deal done. That was an epic amount of sucking up from us and it went nowhere. And yet... Todd McClay has managed to pull it off. Apparently, according to media reports, he basically met his counterpart from the GCC a few months ago and said to the guy - We either do this deal or end negotiations. And so, we did the deal. It’s lucrative. These guys love quality and luxury. They've got money to spend. And we already have a strong foothold in that market, even without an FTA this is our 7th biggest export market. Honesty... I wasn’t expecting Todd McClay to knock things out of the park like he has in the year he’s been the trade minster. He's done this, he put together the UAE free trade deal in the fastest time we’ve ever put together a free trade deal - 4 months, and he’s grinding it out with India tyring to get that to work too. This is impressive. If I'm counting right, he’s now signed as many free trade deals in a year as the last Labour government did in six years in power. WATCH ABOVE Fri, 01 Nov 2024 05:22:36 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-im-not-getting-excited-about-the-money-spent-on-that-dance-competition/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-im-not-getting-excited-about-the-money-spent-on-that-dance-competition/ Look, I hate wasteful spending as much as you do, but yeah, I'm just not getting that excited about the money that's been spent on that dance competition. I just don't think that the comparisons between the money that was put into that and the nonsense that councils get up to are fair. I mean, that is certainly what the Taxpayers Union is trying to say. They're making the comparison. They're pretty hot under the collar about it and they've suggested the government can hardly tell councils one day to rein in their spending and then the very next day have one of their ministers, Melissa Lee, go and spend $750,000 worth of taxpayer money on bringing a global dance competition to Auckland but it's just not the same thing by any stretch. I mean, what the Councils are doing is they're chucking money into stuff that does nothing. It returns nothing. An expensive bike rack that no one uses that's just sunk money. You're not going to get money out of that. It's just sunk money. It's just sitting there now. A garden on the roof of a bus hub that's just money gone. That's not going to make you any more money. A cycle way even is just wasted money if no one uses it. But putting money into a dance competition actually returns money because it brings people from around the world to Auckland, where they then spend money. So that's $750,000 spend by central government is estimated to bring New Zealand, not counting Auckland, just New Zealand around Auckland, $3,000,000 now it's not a lot $3,000,000, but then neither, frankly is $750,000 on the event, right? Just put a little bit. In you get a little bit back. And frankly, the Taxpayers Union knows this. They know that this is how events work around the world. People only come here if you pay for them. The FIFA will World Cup, last year, we paid for that to come. Barcelona paid to take wherever it went. In the end, the Americas Cup office, right wherever it goes, that place is taking it because they're spending for it. You basically have to subsidies them in order for them to come. This is just how events work. That's why we have a thing called a major events fund. That is the fund that Melissa Lee was using. That's what it's for. Now I'm happy to have a debate about whether Auckland Council should have stumped up what it put in, because it's only put it's putting in $750,000, which is the same amount of central government. But it's only getting an estimated $1 million back in return. Now that's a little bit on the line as to whether they're actually gonna get their money back, but the government's contribution is not throwing money away, it's an investment. And that's very different to what councils are doing. Fri, 23 Aug 2024 04:47:23 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-steven-joyce-is-right-tax-cuts-are-the-way-to-go/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-steven-joyce-is-right-tax-cuts-are-the-way-to-go/ I'm gonna back up Steven Joyce on something that he’s said today.   He's written a piece for the Herald arguing for why we need tax cuts - which is an argument at the moment.  Because you have commentators and economists lining up saying Nicola Willis is doing the wrong thing by giving us tax relief. Because she can’t afford it, because she’s got a deficit and therefore she's basically borrowing for tax cuts.   Steven Joyce's basic argument is that Kiwi workers deserve it because of the cost-of-living pressure on household budgets. And it’ll drive economic growth by increasing the reward for every hour of work you do.   Bang on. I couldn’t agree more.   Because I was thinking about how we stop this brain drain at the moment to Australia. I went back and looked at the 2025 taskforce recommendations   Remember that?  that was the Don Brash led taskforce John Key commissioned to close the wage gap between us and Australia.   And one of the key recommendations was to cut taxes.  Because it immediately closes the wage gap. And it fires the economy   We are well overdue a tax cut. The last meaningful tax cut was from Steven Joyce himself... in 2017 in the Bill English government   But we never got it,  because Labour reversed it when they won the election.   I tell you what: we need Kiwis to feel like they are earning a just reward for the work they’re doing.   One easy way to do that... is cut taxes   Steven Joyce is right... Nicola Willis is right... tax cuts are right.  LISTEN ABOVE.    Fri, 17 May 2024 04:32:11 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-aukus-sounds-like-a-done-deal/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-aukus-sounds-like-a-done-deal/ Well, if there’s one thing we gleaned from Winston Peters’ trip to Washington overnight, it's that it feels awfully like a foregone conclusion that we’re singing up to AUKUS.   The new military pact between Australia... the UK and US... you know, the one with the nuclear subs.   Winston Peters put out a joint press statement with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying they both “see powerful reasons for New Zealand engaging practically” with AUKUS.    So, it sounds like we’re in.  Now, this business of us joining AUKUS is going to be controversial. I mean the Labour Party are really not keen on this, saying they don’t want to be wedged into a conflict between China and the US - which is ironic... because that is not what they were saying 6 months ago when they were in power and getting very close to signing us up to it. Also, there are some prominent people including Helen Clark and Don Brash who really want to stop NZ doing this. Those two in particular are absolutely entitled to their opinions because they are more than qualified to give them. But, they are not always correct.  Just three days ago, Helen Clark described this as a lurch towards the US - that's not true. This move towards the US that is going on right now was going on when Jacinda Ardern was prime minister because who was her foreign minister? The same one we’ve got now - Winston.  And in the editorial Don and Helen co-wrote arguing against AUKUS, they framed this up like its driven by US aggression. Completely ignoring the fact, in that editorial, that China is actively establishing military bases all over the South China sea and buying off the Pacific.  That's relevant - I'm not arguing the US is cool, but I'm also not pretending China is completely innocent.   Anyway, for what it’s worth, I don't know if arguing about it is going to change it anyway. Based on that statement from Washington... it sounds a bit like a done deal.  LISTEN ABOVE  Fri, 12 Apr 2024 04:42:28 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-would-you-tell-your-colleagues-what-you-earn/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-would-you-tell-your-colleagues-what-you-earn/ Here’s a question for you... would you tell your colleagues what you get paid?  The reason I ask is because Labour MP Camilla Belich’s member’s bill has just been pulled from the biscuit tin in Parliament; and if she manages to get this thing passed, it will make it unlawful for bosses to stop you from talking about your pay.   At the moment, some contracts don’t let you.   You’re actually not allowed to tell anyone what you get paid. And the effect of that, of course, is that if you don’t know what Jimmy next to you gets paid and Jimmy doesn’t know what you get paid, then neither of you will realise if one is being paid significantly more than the other for doing exactly the same job.   It basically means employees are flying a bit blind when they negotiate, and it definitely helps bosses to keep the wage bill down.   I actually love the idea of this bill. I hope it passes.   I think that what you get paid is your personal information, not your employer’s information, and so you should get to decide if you can share it or not.   But... as much as I love it, I don’t think it’ll do that much good, because as I asked you... would you tell your colleagues what you get paid? The answer is probably not.  Because ego right? Pay is an ego thing.   There was a survey done into this last year... only 13% of employees say they’d be willing to share their pay details. So, even though it’s a great idea, and even though all employees would be better off (because knowledge is power), it’ll ultimately fail because most of us don’t want to talk about what we get paid.  We all want to know what our colleagues get paid... but we don’t want to have to tell our colleagues what we get paid.   LISTEN ABOVE Fri, 22 Mar 2024 03:38:19 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-the-tenancy-tribunal-overrides-contracts-in-favour-of-tenants/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-the-tenancy-tribunal-overrides-contracts-in-favour-of-tenants/ You want a perfect example of the kind of rules that people think are good for tenants, but actually end up backfiring on them? The two rulings that allowed tenants to keep pets despite explicit agreements that they wouldn’t, in both cases. In the first case, a woman moved in to a property in Palmerston North. Landlord says the tenancy agreement “specifically excluded pets”. She moved her guinea pigs in, the landlord tired to force her to remove her pets, but the tenancy tribunal let her keep them. Why? Because even though there was a written contract, the law doesn't ban them. In the second case, tenants in an overcrowded flat got a dog. The landlord tried to kick them for the overcrowding, and because they’d signed an agreement barring animals. The Tenancy Tribunal said no. Why? The dog wasn’t a big enough problem to the landlord to justify the tenants’ distress at losing their dog. Now I'm sure at least some of these tenants and their advocates think this is great, but this will probably backfire. If you listened to talkback today, you’ll know this is freaking landlords out. They want to know that if there is an agreement that is reasonable it will be upheld, and saying no to pets is reasonable because there are other properties that will take pets.  Houses are expensive. That is a lot of money tied up in that investment, and fixing the damage of a pet costs a lot. We had a dog in a house of ours back when we weren’t living in Auckland, and we didn’t know it was there until we saw the paint scratched off the back of the front door. And now, we can probably blame it for the fleas. That's the lighter end of the kind of damage a pet can do. Not every landlord is going to freak out about this, heaps of landlords have bought houses specifically for renting and will be fine with a good tenant having a pet. But I reckon there will be plenty of people who thought about turning the holiday home over for a short term rental or putting their own house up for rent while they take a job up somewhere else —like we did— who will just not do it. Because they don’t want pets in their home, and they now can’t be sure that any agreement will hold. Because the signal this is sending is that anyone who takes the house can bring in a pet, even if they promise not to. And when we have a rental shortage, every house pulled off the market makes it worse. So for any good this is doing on an individual level, it’s doing much more harm. Fri, 12 May 2023 04:42:58 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-raise-pay-for-teachers/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-raise-pay-for-teachers/ I don’t think teachers should accept the Prime Minister fobbing off their pay request like he did today. When he was asked about next week’s mega strike, he washed his hands: "Ultimately that's a matter for the Ministry of Education and the teachers to work through."  Technically? Yes. Really though? No.  The buck stops with him and cabinet. The Ministry of Education can do what it can do with the money it has, and he and Cabinet decides how much money it has. So, he calls the shots. And he better bump up teachers’ pay in a big way. Do you know how much a school teacher earns when they start out? $51K.  Do you know how much someone who stacks shelves full time on the minimum wage earns? $47K.  And yet —and no disrespect to the teenager stacking shelves— they don’t need a student loan to land that job. They don’t have to go home and prepare for tomorrow’s class, or prepare for the school outing, or learn the new curriculum. When they leave work they leave work.  And yet a teacher has all of that extra mental load and only gets another $1.90 an hour for it.  The Labour Government has made a real point of showing how much they value low skilled work by hiking the minimum wage by 44% in 6 years.  They haven’t hiked teachers’ pay by that.  Which can only lead you to think they don’t value teachers as much, because if they did, they would raise that pay. Imagine if they’d hiked primary teachers’ pay by 44%?  I'd like to see the same enthusiasm from this government in raising teachers’ pay as they’ve demonstrated in raising the minimum wage. And teachers should accept nothing less than a massive pay increase.  Fri, 10 Mar 2023 03:54:27 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-banking-investigation-incoming-but-dont-get-your-hopes-up/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-banking-investigation-incoming-but-dont-get-your-hopes-up/ It’s probably a safe bet now to say that there is going to be an investigation into banking profits  I mean, Labour can hardly stop one now. Not now that virtually everyone else is lining up for one. You've got National, The Greens, ACT, The Reserve Bank, Tex Edwards’ Monopoly Watch, Consumer NZ, and regular bank basher Sam Stubbs all calling for a probe. So realistically, Labour has to say yes to one. The party of the working man is hardly going to be the one to protect the banks. And good, because as we said last week, we might as well have one. We moan about bank profits so often, it would actually be helpful to once and for all settle the question over whether they’re ripping us off. But I'm warning you, don’t get excited and expect anything to change. Because it probably won’t. Outside chance it does change, but probably not. Because to change anything would take a huge market intervention. You'd have to do something radical, like break up some of the banks. And how badly would that freak out investors?  Or slap on a massive windfall tax- and do you really believe the banks won’t just pass that on to you, the consumer?  Or put huge amounts of money into KiwiBank so it really can compete, but Grant Robertson’s been pretty lukewarm on that. Again, outside chance, but probably not. It didn’t happen with supermarkets, it didn’t happen with petrol retailers, and it didn’t happen with the big construction supply guys. So it’s probably not going to happen with banks. Still, it’s worthwhile to look under the hood, find out if the banks really are ripping us off or not. But just don’t get your hopes up for much more than that. LISTEN ABOVE Thu, 09 Mar 2023 04:33:59 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-small-minded-to-scrap-free-lunches-for-councillors/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-small-minded-to-scrap-free-lunches-for-councillors/ Well I don’t know what’s wrong with Chinese food. Because personally, I would take that over a ham and egg sandwich or a mince and cheese pie every day of the week. But to what this is actually about: it is so small minded and silly to scrap free lunches for councillors during meetings. The money it would save would be negligible in the scheme of things. There are no figures available for how much Auckland Council is saving by scrapping the free lunches, but it doesn’t sound extravagant.   Previously councillors have enjoyed light lunches on meeting days, including sandwiches, muffins, fruit with tea and coffee at the rear of the council chamber.  Parliament just had this same debate. They’re thinking about scrapping the tea trolley during select committees. This from a place that spent $572K on an architecturally designed playground.  I mean, get your priorities in order. The cost of a few sandwiches is not going to plug the $295m hole in the council’s budget is it? That's real money. Now this is not to say that I'm cavalier about small spends, because like anyone who runs a household budget I know, you know, lots of small amounts eventually end up as a big amount. And I do expect the council to be frugal and careful with even the small sums. But I also think it’s only decent that if you are expected to be in a meeting over lunch time that your lunch is provided. I'm told the meeting yesterday where this was discussed ran from 10am until well after 5pm. It's not the same as you and I turning up to work where we can wander away from our desk and around the office. The comparison is when you are called into a meeting for work, and you are there for the whole day. You should also expect to be fed. In the end, I'm not going to lament the loss of sandwiches. I just lament that this is part of what we think is the solution. It’s lunch, for people in a meeting all day. Arguing over sammies is just petty isn’t it?  Fri, 03 Mar 2023 03:17:54 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-chris-hipkins-is-doing-an-excellent-job/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-chris-hipkins-is-doing-an-excellent-job/ Chris Hipkins is impressive. Come on, admit it, he’s doing an excellent job. Hipkins has not put a foot wrong, he’s where he’s supposed to be and doing what he’s supposed to be doing. He was in Auckland when it was thought that Auckland was going to bear the brunt of the cyclone, by contrast, Chris Luxon was in Wellington. As soon as it was clear that Auckland only copped a bit of it and other regions were harder hit, he was back in Wellington in the Beehive Bunker to oversee the national response. And now he’s flown in to the region around Gisborne, he’s giving money to damaged areas, he’s pledging support to those affected, he’s talking about moving roads, and he’s promising to sort out the slash issue. It’s very tempting to think it’s not that hard to manage a crisis like this. But actually, a lot of leaders stuff it up. ScoMo went on holiday while parts of country burned in bushfires, then justified it by saying “I don’t hold a hose, mate”. That will be some of what people remember about him. George Bush never recovered from his decision to only fly over New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, rather than touch down and just be with the affected people. Back to Hipkins, you could almost forget he’s only been in the job 3 weeks, and yet he’s already dealt with the worst weather event the country’s ever faced, and separately, the worst weather event Auckland’s ever faced. I’m sorry to do this, because it almost seems inappropriate- But, Jacinda who?  I mean, this is the stuff Jacinda was good at, responding to crises. Yet Hipkins is doing a perfectly good job of it too. Not only is he good at the stuff Jacinda was good at, but he’s good at the stuff Jacinda wasn’t good at too, like brutally nuking unpopular policies, winning the middle voter over and resurrecting Labour’s polls. Early days absolutely, but Prime Minister Hipkins is making it very easy to forget Prime Minister Ardern. And making very easy to forget he’s only 22 days into the job.  LISTEN ABOVE Thu, 16 Feb 2023 06:49:23 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-the-whingers-have-won-police-ten-7-is-over/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-the-whingers-have-won-police-ten-7-is-over/ The whingers have won. Police Ten 7 is over.  TVNZ has just announced today that they’re canning the show after 20 years.  They reckon that not enough people are watching anymore. It doesn’t “sustain the viewership needed across both broadcast and digital as more of our audience migrates online.”  So you tell me how Police Ten 7 has gone from being described as a ‘ratings success’ in 2021, to a show that can’t pull enough of an audience in 2023.  If you take TVNZ at their word then it’s very tempting to come to the conclusion that this has happened because TVNZ started mucking around with the formula.  They bowed to pressure from critics who called the show racist and called for it to be cancelled, and they started taking the punch out of it. Gone was the goodies and baddies language that graham bell used to use  It was no longer okay to call the bad guys ‘vicious morons,’ ‘gutless goons,’ and ‘lunatic scumbag[s].’  They were now ‘offenders.’  The show wasn’t Police Ten 7 anymore; it was renamed Ten 7 Aotearoa.  And so in the end, if you watch some of the more recent clips available online, it became boring.   It’s actually a pity. Because this wasn’t just entertainment, this show solved crime. It led to 963 arrests, including solving serious assaults and homicides,  It is ironic that at the very time that crime is on the rise and we could do with all the help possible to help solve it, at the very time that public media is apparently in such a bad way that taxpayers are going to have to pump millions into more into propping up local content… TVNZ cancels a crime solving show that used to presumably make it money. Fri, 10 Feb 2023 03:35:03 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/andrew-dickens-youd-best-prepare-to-turn-up-to-middlemores-ed-in-a-tent-in-the-carpark/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/andrew-dickens-youd-best-prepare-to-turn-up-to-middlemores-ed-in-a-tent-in-the-carpark/ So we have more proof today that our country is spluttering along driving on fumes after 20 years of rampant growth and immigration and insufficient spending on infrastructure. Yesterday, an independent report found Middlemore Hospital's Emergency Department was unsafe and, dysfunctional and that stems from the hospital being overcrowded. Put simply, it’s not big enough for the population it serves. Meanwhile there are pay inequities and shortages of doctors and nurses, all because of a lack of long term planning on the staffing needed for a bigger population. So the facts are that our population grew by 1.4 percent a year in the 16 years to 1019. That’s an extra 1 million people to cope with. But our infrastructure spending was minimised to keep our taxes low. And before you start hollering that they’re not low. They have been. Especially when you factor in no long term capital gains tax. So the Infrastructure Commission believes we currently have a $100 billion dollar hole of infrastructure. Stuff missing or broken. Water, hospitals, housing and transport. And they also believe that we would need to spend another $100 billion dollars in infrastructure over the next 25 years. That’s predicated on a net migration figure of $25,000 a year for the next 25 years. That’s $200 billion dollars we need to budget for to be fit for purpose. All the political parties know this. They’ve known this for 20 years. They get briefing papers every year from staff pointing out how the emperor has no clothes on. Yet still they do nothing other than rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic. They do nothing because to fix the problem would take higher taxes and borrowings and no one gets into the Beehive on that platform. Labour tried to have an immigration reset after the pandemic but that’s quickly been shouted down. They’ve removed their self imposed migration cap and so the tap of people is slowly being turned back on. But the problem is that everything we’ve currently got is at breaking point. The Middlemore report says that it’s only the extreme hard work and dedication of the staff is preventing further tragedies and they say it’s not sustainable. There’s a bill of neglect to pay. You can harangue a Health Minister for as long as you like but it’s the entire country and our actions for decades that has caused this and I see no-one with the balls to get us out of it. You’d best prepare yourself for turning up to an Emergency Department in a tent in the carpark. LISTEN ABOVE Tue, 18 Oct 2022 04:34:00 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/andrew-dickens-bad-cycleways-are-outweighing-the-good-and-destroying-the-whole-idea-of-them/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/andrew-dickens-bad-cycleways-are-outweighing-the-good-and-destroying-the-whole-idea-of-them/ Cycleways. A topic designed to get you hot under the collar. Today we hear about a report out of Christchurch reviewing the success of their cycleway programme to find no growth in cyclist numbers over the past two to three years. That's not what the Council wants to hear because the scheme to build 13 cycleways has a budget of $300 million and it's looking like $300 million that is improving little. Now there are people who believe that all cycleways are a waste of time and there are others that believe all cycleways are awesome. That's not reality. There are good cycleways and there are bad cycleways. Good cycleways are like the former railway line from Nelson City through to Richmond and Stoke. Fast, safe, flat and lined with camellias. If I lived in Stoke I'd use it every fine day rather than battling the Coast Road. Then there are bad cycleways like Island Bay. Cycleways that make a road more dangerous and weren't needed by cyclists in the first place but dreamt up by some planner because on paper it looked like a good idea. Almost all downhill cycleways are bad. Cyclists hate them. They're more dangerous than the road. But the bad cycleways are outnumbering the good cycleways and destroying the whole idea in some people's minds. This past weekend Andrew Barnes of Perpetual Guardian and 4-day week fame wrote a magnificent piece about cycleways in the Herald. He did a LGOIMA. That's an official information request for Local Government and he asked some questions of AT, the Auckland Transport authority. Got some juicy stuff.  Turns out the agency charged with increasing cycling and public transport has 150 fleet cars and has no clue how many of their own staff use Public Transport or bike. Staff have access to 3 e-bikes and 6 pedal bikes. Looks like the cycling revolution hasn't hit AT staff. But the worst admission was on the cost-benefit analysis where he found that half the returns on the planned $1.9 billion expenditure to be spent on cycleways comes from so-called health benefits. Which have been estimated. It's $900 million worth of guesses. And if you had the choice wouldn't you rather spend $900 million on actual doctors rather than cycleways? His analysis says AT planning starts with a conclusion and then works backwards and that's not good practice. Christchurch and Auckland Council seem to think all cycleways are awesome. They're not and it's only people who use them who can really tell you what they need. Councils need to consult. They need to ask cyclists what they want. Engineers who are cyclists need to design them. At the moment we're building too many that are destined to be white elephants. This article has been updated to revise a statement indicating that had been no growth in the number of cyclists using Christchurch cycleways in the past six years. Mon, 11 Jul 2022 04:23:07 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-vandalising-other-peoples-cars-is-not-going-to-win-anyone-over-to-the-cause/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-vandalising-other-peoples-cars-is-not-going-to-win-anyone-over-to-the-cause/ If you’re not a fan of the kinds of climate activists that glue their hands to walls, then brace yourself because I have got next level douchebaggery to tell you about.  There is a group in the UK called Tyre Extinguishers who go around deliberately deflating the tyres of SUVs and utes because these vehicles are considered the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide on the road.  They have just set up a branch in Auckland of someone – because it’s probably just one lonely, bored hand wringer at this stage – who went around deflating tyres in Sandringham last week.  They then popped a flyer on the windscreen of the vandalised cars that said:  “ATTENTION – your gas guzzler kills. We did this because driving around urban areas in your massive vehicle has huge consequences for others”  This is not going to win anyone over, is it?  Is anyone targeted by these people going to get on board with the climate message and realise maybe they should ditch that SUV and catch the bus instead?  I doubt it.  And get a load of this: The flyer then tells people they’ll be fine because “you will have no difficulty getting around without your gas guzzler, with walking, cycling or public transport”  Oh yeah. Try telling that to the parent of child who needs to get to the emergency room in the middle of the night and finds their tyre deflated. Or tell that to a plumber who now can’t use their ute to get to an emergency call out.  Vandalising other peoples’ cars is not going to win anyone over to the cause and make them rethink their emissions.  It’s just going to turn people off listening to the message and make some even more determined to give a middle finger to climate initiatives.  Isn’t this just a perfect example of one of the core problems with much of the climate message?  It’s way too extreme.  We’re constantly being told the world is going to end in twelve years if we don’t address climate change. Or an entire Wellington suburb could be swallowed up by water in 80 years. Or your ‘gas guzzler kills’ and it’s so urgent that someone had to deflate your tyres. And you have to forgo all modern comforts, sew your own clothing, plant potatoes in the backyard and take the bus to your plumbing jobs.  Come on.  Taking one SUV off Sandringham's roads won’t do anything when China just gave the green light to 3 massive coal mines three months ago.  If climate activists want people to react with sympathy rather than anger, they might want to ditch this tactic immediately.  Mon, 09 May 2022 07:07:02 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-simon-henry-would-be-wise-to-apologise-for-what-he-said-about-nadia-lim/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-simon-henry-would-be-wise-to-apologise-for-what-he-said-about-nadia-lim/ You know by now I’m not one to join aboard the cancel culture train when someone says something deemed out of line, but I think that businessman Simon Henry would be wise to apologise for what he said about Nadia Lim. I’m saying this not because I’ve taken offence at it, but because he’s wrong and because he risks wearing personal and business damage unless here he kills this off as a media story as soon as possible. Just in case you haven’t heard this, what he said during an interview with NBR was this: “I can tell you, and you can quote me, when you've got Nadia Lim, when you've got a little bit of Eurasian fluff in the middle of your prospectus with a blouse unbuttoned showing some cleavage, and that's what it takes to sell your scrip, then you know you're in trouble.” If you read the context of the article, he was trying to compare his business’ recent IPO with My Food Bag’s recent IPO. His IPO did really well. Shares that were worth AUD $1 at float are now worth near AUD $3.80. My Food Bag’s IPO did not do as well. Shares that were worth $1.85 at float fell immediately, never recovered, and are now worth less than half of that at 89 cents. Simon Henry accuses My Food Bag of attracting investors by selling on Nadia Lim’s appeal. If he is trying to suggest that there are naïve mum and dad investors out there who invest in shares because they recognise the brand and they like the brand and they like the person associated with the brand rather than because they actually understand the fundamentals of the business, than he’s right. That does happen. That happens a lot lately, especially in the Sharesies age. But he’s wrong to suggest that it’s got anything to do with Nadia’s cleavage and ethnicity and sensuality. There’s not even that any cleavage in the photo that he’s talking about and there’s certainly nothing in that top to unbutton. Now there’s every chance that Simon Henry could weather this storm. He’s obviously great at the core part of his job. One equity analyst told media that Henry’s one of the best CEO’s he’s met. DGL’s share value is pretty much largely unchanged since the story printed. But already a KiwiSaver fund has added his business to the list of businesses it will not invest in anymore. Commentators are universally outraged by what he said and My Food Bag co-founder Cecilia Robinson is pressuring his board to take action and pressuring investors to reconsider whether this lines up with their principles. Now he can decide whether he wants this to carry on or not. If I was him, I would just rip the bandage off, stem any possible damage by simply getting it over and done with and saying that he’s sorry. Thu, 05 May 2022 06:32:18 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-ive-got-to-agree-with-winston-peters-i-think-trevor-mallard-has-lost-the-plot/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-ive-got-to-agree-with-winston-peters-i-think-trevor-mallard-has-lost-the-plot/ Look I've got to agree with Winston Peters, I think Trevor Mallard has lost the plot.   I cannot actually believe that he believes that it's ok to trespass Winston Peters from parliament for two years.   It's not because it's Winston Peters – it's not because I have a soft spot for Winston Peters – and it's not even really about what we think about Winston Peters.   It's about the fact that he's a former Deputy Prime Minister of this country for god's sake, and he's not allowed to go to Parliament for two years because Trevor decided.   What did Winston do wrong?   He turned up to the protest. He went to the protest as a politician, talked to the protesters for maybe an hour. He didn't pitch a tent, he didn't dig up cobblestones to throw at police, he didn't set tents on fire, so what are the reasons for trespassing him?   And by the way, I feel much the same about the fact that a similar trespass notice might be coming for former ACT Party MP Stephen Franks. Who was told by Trevor Mallard to expect one when he ran into him at a restaurant.   Again – his crime seems to have been popping in to have a geez at the protest.   I can understand the logic behind trespassing some people, it seems to me logical to trespass someone from your property if you have reason to believe that they're going to continue causing trouble there.   But does anyone actually believe that Winston Peters and Stephen Franks are going to continue causing trouble at the parliament grounds?   Even if you believe they caused trouble in the first place – which they didn't – I think most of us can understand that that protest was probably one of a kind.   It was a reflection of a really difficult set of circumstances and heightened anger during a once in a lifetime pandemic.   I don't think many of us expect we'll see a protest like that ever again or at least in the near future. So, why the need to trespass the pair of them, what's the risk that they pose?   Trevor needs to accept that people are allowed to protest even if it upsets his feelings – that's how democracy works.   Now, of course, there were people in the crowd that should have been trespassed, and those are the people who were lighting the fires and throwing the bricks at the cops and whatnot. But they were not the people who were simply there to have a conversation or to show support in a peaceful way.   Now question is, of course, what is Trevor going to do now? He's picked out the people he recognises. Is he going to scour all the CCTV to see if there is someone else's face he recognises?   He is currently trying to spin this story that he's not actually responsible for these trespass notices, that it was parliamentary services who issued the notices. But even his mate Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister, says he can't delegate those powers to parliamentary security.   There's good reason to doubt his story because as Stephen Franks says he got a warning in a restaurant by Mallard himself – that suggests to me that Trevor Mallard knows very well what was going on and was more involved than he says he was.   These trespass notices are outrageous and they need to be withdrawn immediately.  Tue, 03 May 2022 08:41:48 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/andrew-dickens-if-evs-are-the-answer-theyd-stand-on-their-own-feet-without-taxpayer-funding/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/andrew-dickens-if-evs-are-the-answer-theyd-stand-on-their-own-feet-without-taxpayer-funding/ She's all on for the world now.  The Russian-Ukraine conflict has now paused the importation of Russian oil.  Brent crude oil was sitting at 130 bucks a barrel this afternoon, 91% higher than a year ago. Putin is threatening that it could get to $300 a barrel.  The world is scrambling to figure out to survive on an oil crash diet.  Europe has hastened plans to reduce their carbon fuel dependency as Russia turns off the gas and oil taps and shuts off the coal.  Russia provides Europe with 40% of its gas. Now the EU has announced plans to slash their gas usage by 2 thirds and to achieve energy independence well before 2030. It's the same with oil and coal.  They're going to ramp up renewables, boost production of biomethane and hydrogen and upgrade buildings to prevent waste.  It's a perverse twist that this conflict may be the biggest thing yet to spur on efforts to combat climate change and stimulate the growth of alternative energy.  That's a good thing, unless, of course, we all blow each other up in an almighty nuclear conflagration.  On a related climate note, New Zealand is in an orgy of buying internal combustion engine-powered vehicles.  February's sales were a record and March is tracking to be even bigger as we steam towards the onset of the Government's penalties on gas guzzlers.  The ute tax comes into effect from April the First ... and meanwhile if you buy a new EV the government gives you $8625.    I hate this subsidy. If EVs are the answer they'd stand on their own feet without taxpayer funding.  It's also predicated on the idea that it will substantially reduce carbon usage. Completely disregarding the carbon used to make the steel, rubber and plastic used in construction. Plus, the shipping to market. Add in the raping and pillaging of the land for the rare earth and minerals in every battery, and all the electrical components and the asphalt for the roads they need, then EVs are only slightly less dirty than ICEs.  And then there's congestion. We could replace all the cars with EVs but we'd still have exactly the same issues with congestion. A single person in a 1-tonne 2-metre-long hunk of steel is unsustainable.  So, I have a mad idea.  If the government is so keen to give our money away to save the planet why not offer everyone who wants one, an e-bike.  Or an 8 grand subsidy to travel on public transport.  Both ideas would get cars off the road and reduce emissions.  You may think that's crazy but it makes more sense than spending money on EVs.  Wed, 09 Mar 2022 03:38:31 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-do-these-protesters-have-a-point/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-do-these-protesters-have-a-point/ Do these protestors have a point?  I need to say upfront, I’m not a fan of the protest. I don’t like them parking their cars across Molesworth Street, disrupting businesses and hassling punters.  Also, I’m double jabbed, and I think giving up your livelihood over the jab is ridiculous.  But do they have a point?   Yes, they actually do.  They insist this is an anti-mandate protest and reporters on the ground there say that does seem to be the case.  Don’t confuse anti-mandate with anti-vax.  For example: I’m pro vax. I’m double jabbed, but I’m anti-mandate. I think kicking people out of their jobs because they don’t have the jab is disproportionate.  Ask yourself this: what is the rationale now for people losing their jobs because they won’t get the jab?   You could argue that they must be punished because they will put a strain on our health system.  That was true when we had low jab rates, but we’re now 94% double-jabbed across the country.  In Auckland the rates are unreal, 98% of metro Aucklanders are double jabbed.  In Wellington it’s the same, 98%.  Canterbury, the same, 98%   Do we really think a tiny 2% of people is main centres is going to overwhelm the heatlh system?  Recent research also tells you that while vaccination reduces the risk of delta infection and accelerates viral clearance, a double-vaxxed person is almost as likely to give you covid an unvaxxed person.   If a double-jabbed person has covid, they have just as much viral load as the unjabbed person at the height of their illness.   And they infect their household members almost just as much.  This isn’t some whacko research I’m referring to. This was published in The Lancet in October last year.  Furthermore, we’re not dealing with the OG covid anymore. We’re dealing with omicron.   It’s so much milder, that a press gallery reporter apparently didn't even know they had it until doing a practice rapid test today.  So, considering the science here, if you’re jabbed, and the jab may not stop covid spreading or even reduce it spreading much, and there are so few unjabbed among us now: is it really worth kicking cops out of the police force if they don’t want the jab? Is it really worth losing some of the few midwives we have? Is it really worth banning kids from dance classes if their parents don’t want to jab them?   I think it’s reasonable to ask the government how long they intend to keep these mandates because punishing people for not getting the jab, doesn’t make sense anymore.  This article has been updated to note that The Lancet study referred to also found that vaccination reduces the risk of delta infection and accelerates viral clearance. Mon, 14 Feb 2022 06:04:51 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-has-our-government-set-a-target-for-the-worst-vaccine-rollout-in-the-world/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-has-our-government-set-a-target-for-the-worst-vaccine-rollout-in-the-world/ We’ve got to set the record straight on the vaccine roll out, because I have heard too many people now defending this vaccine roll out as a huge success - and basically just regurgitating the government’s PR lines on this. So let’s clear this up.  If you believe that the vaccine roll out is meeting expectations, like the government keeps telling you, then you must believe that the government has set a target of being the slowest roll out in the entire developed world. Because that is where we sit. We are the worst performer in terms of jabs in arms. And we’re not splitting hairs here, we’re not talking one or two percent. We’ve done 18.5 percent. The Czech Republic for example, is at 63 percent. Slovakia 57 percent. Mexico 30 percent. The fact that we’re being beaten by countries riven by corruptions and drug trafficking is nothing to be proud of.  Clearly, the DHBs and the Ministry of Health – fools – have set the targets extremely low so they can beat those targets, rather being embarrassed. In fact, Taranaki DHB has pretty much admitted doing that. The guy in charge of the vaccine roll out there said last week they set the bar low because they didn’t want to over-promise .   If you think the reason we’re going slow is because we’ve committed to the Pfizer jab only unlike other countries and supply issues blah blah, look at Australia. They had to switch their plan from almost entirely AstraZeneca to Pfizer in April. They doubled their order for Pfizer to 40 million shots - and they still are managing to beat us, supply issues and everything. The OECD says New Zealand needs to hurry up. Our Auditor-general says he doesn’t think the deadline of the year’s end will be met. I’m not particularly exercised by this like you, because there is no immediate threat to me. But I tell you what, if Australia gets all jabbed and ready to open before we are ready, and we have to either close our borders to Australia while they open to the world, or just take a punt, I’ll care then. But we’ll talk about it then. Mon, 21 Jun 2021 11:00:36 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-id-happily-relive-the-summer-of-unruly-tourists-on-stage/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-id-happily-relive-the-summer-of-unruly-tourists-on-stage/ Who would have guessed that it was possible that the rowdy tourists who came here two summers ago are still upsetting all over again? This time it’s the board of NZ Opera who are upset. A third of them have resigned over the company’s plans to stage an opera about the rowdy tourists.  Dunno about you…but I loved the idea. That was a whirlwind of a summer and I’d happily relive it on stage. Now the looks of things it’s an accumulation of frustrations that has led the board members to resign… and some of it seems to be because of the crazy things the company’s general director is prepared to try in order ‘save’ opera.  According to legendary opera tenor Simon O’Neill, poking fun at the rowdy tourists is “middle class snobbery”. Is it?  I don’t’ think we took the mickey out of them because of their class… I don’t even think class really matters in New Zealand. I think we took the micky out of them because of their bad behaviour  They were up and down this country causing trouble like mad cats. They left litter on Takapuna Beach… shoplifted… didn’t pay for meals… verbally abused people… ended up in court… and let their kid who looked all of about four years old get away with pulling the fingers at cameras. That’s got nothing to do with class. It’s got everything to with bad behaviour  The reason I’m raising this is because this isn’t the first time recently that people calling out bad behaviour have ended up accused of being classist.  National MP Nicola Willis copped it two months ago when she pointed out a whole lot of bad behaviour in Wellington City Central was the result of the people who’d been moved into emergency accommodation hotels there. Marama Davidson accused of her “racist and classist” undertones - gimme a break.  If you think that bad behaviour is connected to a particular class of people then YOU need to check your own prejudice  We’re not poking fun at them because were’ middle class snobs…we’re poking fun at them because they were completely out of hand. Fri, 28 May 2021 07:23:13 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-new-zealand-needs-migrant-workers-more-than-we-think/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-new-zealand-needs-migrant-workers-more-than-we-think/ I don’t’ blame you if your first reaction is to like the sound of the government’s plan to cut right back on migrant workers.  For a while there has been frustration at our high levels of migration, and the pressure migrant workers have put on our resources; roads, schools, houses and so on. So we have just done an experiment of what it’s like without that.  We’ve now had more than a year without migration.   So what’s your assessment?  Is it an improvement?  I figure there are two ways of looking at this. The first is to think it went well.  The government subscribes to this point of view.  They point to the kiwifruit industry and they say look how well the kiwifruit guys adapted: they moved from a mostly overseas based workers to mostly domestic work.   They’ve made their shifts more flexible, they hunted out students to come work, they lifted their wages, and it was brilliant. If only all the other industries could do that.  Then there’s the second way of looking at it.  Even though they adapted, the kiwifruit guys couldn’t pick all their fruit, some of it ended up rotting because they still didn’t’ have enough workers. Apple growers pulled out trees because they can’t make it work anymore, their fruit has rotted.  Courgettes have rotted on the ground.   Matt McLaughlin, who owns Panhead bar in Wellington, says he’s considering shutting his bar a couple of days a week because he can’t find staff to run the place.    There are 800 vacancies for chefs advertised on Trade Me Jobs apparently.  We’re not going to train 800 chefs in time for all those restaurants and bars, so presumably some are going to have to close.   And yet, the expected windfall of losing all those pesky migrants hasn’t arrived.  Roads are still congested, house prices have shot up at record rates, even when it’s just us Kiwis competing for them, and has your child’s class size decreased?  And look at the place that complained the most about the overcrowding; Queenstown, always too congested.  What would they give now to get those people back?  I don’t know about you, but for me, a year of this experiment hasn’t convinced me we’re better off without these migrant workers.  Tue, 18 May 2021 06:01:11 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-chris-hipkins-comment-exposes-labours-devil-may-care-approach-to-our-money/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-chris-hipkins-comment-exposes-labours-devil-may-care-approach-to-our-money/ Something that’s really been bugging me in the last few days was a comment that Chris Hipkins made.  You know this business about the huge number of schools lunches that are wasted?  David Seymour quite rightly called it irresponsible that no one is counting the number of lunches that go uneaten. And to that, Chris Hipkins got smart and said ‘“If David Seymour wants to be the lunch monitor in every primary and secondary school he's welcome to do that.”  Well, actually, I would like someone to know how much is being wasted. We are putting $221 million taxpayer into this. That’s a lot of money.  Don’t you think Hipkins’ comment betrays an attitude?  A kind of devil-may-care approach to spending hundreds of million dollars of our money.  This is exactly why Labour struggles with the holistic perception that they just fritter away taxpayer dollars. It’s because of attitudes like this. They’re so desperate to convince us that they are good with money, that’s why they froze the pay of all nurses and teachers and police and so on. But that is not going to convince us of anything, when we constantly see examples of completely careless spending.  And we’ve seen a lot of it in the last nearly four years. $3 billion thrown carelessly at the provincial growth fund to buy Winston’s affection, with a negligible number of jobs created. Is it $14 billion into the wage subsidy scheme, which is a good scheme, but no real chasing and auditing to make sure people who shouldn’t’ have taken the money didn’t. Even the Auditor General called them out for that sloppiness this week. And $100 million for marae upgrades that were supposed to create 3000 jobs but only created 158.  This is the attitude I really object to. And I’m sorry, but as long as Labour ministers like Chris Hipkins just don’t care whether our money is wasted in uneaten school lunches, as long as that happens, Labour will be perceived to be the party that just throws cash away. Pay freeze the nurses all you like, that perception will stick, because it’s warranted.  Fri, 14 May 2021 22:05:41 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-buying-into-nzr-is-not-smart/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-buying-into-nzr-is-not-smart/ This counter-proposal to allow Kiwi mum and dad investors to buy into NZ Rugby is crazy.  This has been mooted today by the Rugby Players Association, which is desperate to kill off the plan for Silverlake to buy 12.5% of the game.  So instead, they want you and me to buy collectively 5%, through a public float, raising $191m.  Which mum and dad investors are going to be silly enough to put their money into the game of rugby in NZ at the moment?  You might like the idea of owning a slice of the black jersey, but you’d be throwing your cash away.  The game isn’t growing.  It’s doing the opposite.  Mums are worried about concussion. Boys are off to the basketball court instead. The audience is dwindling.    Let me remind you how NZR’s books look: $34 million loss last year  $7.4 million loss 2019  $1.9m loss 2018  $33.4m profit 2017 (because that was a Lions tour year)  But, 2016, $7.5 m loss  2015, nearly half a million dollar loss   And so it goes.    Putting more money into a failing thing is not going to stop it failing, it’ll just buy time before the money really runs out.  So like I say, we’d be wasting our cash.  Silver Lake’s investment, though, is a different story. Now, I have reservations about the Silver Lake deal, especially after watching the way the renegade football league completely forget about core fans.   Same thing could happen here.  But on the upside, from what I understand, Silver Lake’s appeal is that they bring more than money. They bring the understanding of how to take All Blacks rugby beyond the local and existing fan base. Because there are untapped fans out there in the globe, NZR just doesn’t know how to reach them and reap their money. But Silver Lake, because of its history investing in clubs internationally, apparently does. So Silver Lake will be also be throwing money into a loss-making enterprise. But they might have the ability to whip that enterprise into shape.  We don’t, you and I don’t.  Luring mum and dad investors into wasting money on buying into NZR is not a smart game plan.  Fri, 14 May 2021 04:45:56 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-super-league-shows-you-cant-put-money-over-fans/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-super-league-shows-you-cant-put-money-over-fans/ Have you ever seen an idea fall apart as quickly and as dramatically as the idea of establishing a European Super league for football? The thing is dead in the water, in just two days. Mooted on Monday, criticised by the UK Prime Minister, criticised by Prince William as president of the UK Football Association, criticised by the fans, criticised by the players. And by today, two days later, all six English clubs had pulled out. Two European clubs are apparently doing the same, leaving only four of the 12 original signatories.  I think it’s pretty obvious what’s gone wrong here. The football clubs involved were putting dollars ahead of fans.  Fans hated this idea, they’re tribal. And they will talk about a good victory over a club they hate for years. So they were never going to be into the idea of a league that had no rivalry, which guaranteed a spot to each of the 12 most famous clubs, there’s no jeopardy in that.  So they literally protested in the streets.  The clubs must’ve known it was going to go down like a cup of cold sick, but this is how badly they wanted the money. They basically banked on the fact that you or me, fly-by-night fans on the other side of the world, would tune in to this league because it had the famous clubs. And they were probably right. Investors certainly thought so, Juventus’ share price steadily climbed 19% over a day.  Manchester United’s share price shot up by nearly 9%. And now that they’re out? Manchester’s share price is back down to pretty much where it started. But the mistake here was chasing the money from a big group of fickle fans who only watch every now and again, at the expense of a smaller group of diehard fans who turn up to every game. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that would’ve worked for a while, but it wouldn’t have lasted, because a fickle fan can’t be trusted. So the lesson in this, and there is one, is that sporting bosses cannot ever ignore fans in their pursuit of money.    Wed, 21 Apr 2021 07:43:19 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-foreign-ministers-speech-suggests-a-move-away-from-china/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-foreign-ministers-speech-suggests-a-move-away-from-china/ If you are a business exporting to China, you’ve just been given a warning: You need to start diversifying away from China.  That’s the message came through loud and clear from foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta in her speech to the New Zealand China Council today. She said: “In thinking about long-term economic resilience, we also understand that there is value in diversity. "It is prudent not to put all eggs into a single basket".  Now as far as I can see she wasn’t explicit about what her concerns are, but I think we can hazard a guess. The most obvious one is the one she hinted at, which is that we cop it if we have to criticise them. She’s signalled we might have to publicly admonish china over human rights abuses saying “We will not ignore the severity and impact of any particular country’s actions”. And we know that can end up: Australia is copping it in a big way with tariffs. There is a feeling that we are going to have to join in the condemnation of our traditional allies because we are more and more obviously out of step with them. The second concern is further down the track but could be what happens if China makes a move on Taiwan or looks like it’s preparing to make a move on Taiwan. There is a real and growing fear that China is eyeing up invasion of the island that it believes is its territory. A top US admiral has warned China might invade Taiwan in the next year. Others predict china will invade by 2049, which is the 100 year anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. If that happens, we are in a right pickle: we can’t possibly stay neutral. The fact is we have for a long time managed to quite successfully sit on the fence, carve out a middle path. By the looks of things, the foreign minister is preparing us for the possibility that we can’t hold that line forever. So as I say, if you are in a business dependent on export to China, you need to start thinking about Plan B. Mon, 19 Apr 2021 04:42:36 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-people-unlikely-to-oppose-push-to-turn-away-violent-kids-at-school/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-people-unlikely-to-oppose-push-to-turn-away-violent-kids-at-school/ I reckon there’d be widespread support for principals refusing to enrol violent kids in their schools. This is the suggestion from the Principals’ Federation which has written to schools telling them to refuse to take these kids even if the Education Ministry directs them to.  This stoush between principals and the Education Ministry has been brewing for a while because what is happening is that schools, as we know, are legally obligated to enrol a child that wants to be enrolled if that child lives in the school zone. But some of the time, these kids have already been kicked out of other schools. And in some cases, for being violent to fellow pupils or even teachers. Obviously, why would any school want violent kids? Teachers and principals already know exactly who that’s going to play out. The kid’s going to be a problem that the new school just like they were at the last school, which means that child is going to take up all the teacher’s time with their bad behaviour, which means the other kids class time suffers and the teacher gets worn out dealing with nonsense. Of course you’d say no. And schools have been adopting increasingly creative ways of turning the naughty kids away, including saying the class full, insisting on permanent addresses if they think the families are transient, then resisting. And then being overridden by the ministry, who last year said that over just a couple of years, they had used its legal power to compel more than 370 schools to take kids. Now the Principals’ Federation is advising the schools just to say no. Unless the ministry can commit extra support to the school to deal with the problem child, that seems fair and reasonable from the schools. Tue, 02 Mar 2021 18:00:44 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-jacinda-ardern-should-be-bumped-up-the-vaccine-queue/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-jacinda-ardern-should-be-bumped-up-the-vaccine-queue/ Should the Prime Minister be among the very first Kiwis to get vaccinated?  The question has come up because Scott Morrison over in Australia was among the first to get the jab yesterday. Of course there were some who predictably questioned whether he’s jumping the queue, which is silly, but it presumably is the very reason that Jacinda Ardern hasn’t done exactly the same thing.  She has been asked about it and says she’s “torn”. She realises that getting a jab could help to send a message that the vaccine is safe, but she also says she wants the border workers to get the jab first. And you can read between the lines: she’s worried it’s not a good look. This is a no brainer and Ardern should be bumped right up to the front of the queue. She won’t’ be displacing anyone on the frontline. We have enough Pfizer vaccine for 30,000 people, and given that we have 12000 border workers, there’s more than enough left over to spare one for the PM. And it’s not as if she is taking one from someone who might otherwise die of Covid.  That risk seems very low given we have a negligible level of Covid in the country. The value of the prime minster getting the jab is massive. we’ve had a couple of surveys now showing there are quite high levels of vaccine hesitancy, with about 25 percent of us strongly opposed to taking the vaccine, and maybe as many as 22 percent not sure.  I’m sure many of those people will have their concerns assuaged by seeing Jacinda Ardern take the jab, simply because of the levels of trust people have in her and the leadership power she has right now.  Arguably no one in the country has as much sway as she does currently.  This is exactly what happened with the polio jab back in 1956. There weren’t enough uptakes, polio was running rampant, and so health authorities in the states got Elvis on national TV taking a jab.  That single event is credited with helping to lift jab rates from 0.6 to 80 percent in about six months.  We know that we need kiwis to get the jab in order to get to herd immunity in order to eventually open back up to the world. At the current levels of hesitancy, we are at risk of not getting the required 70 percent uptake for herd immunity.  Anyone who objects to the idea of the PM getting an early jab would be petty. We have more to gain from the PM getting the jab early than we lose.  Mon, 22 Feb 2021 03:53:59 Z