/on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/rss 九一星空无限 Wed, 03 Dec 2025 01:02:42 Z en /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-what-more-can-be-done-to-sort-the-supermarkets/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-what-more-can-be-done-to-sort-the-supermarkets/ Well, Mike Hosking did a Kim Kardashian this morning and broke the Internet with his interview with Nicola Willis. Well, not actually the internet, but they're back and forward on the need to increase competition in the supermarket sector – 10 minutes and 17 seconds that interview went on for. Unheard of on breakfast radio! Put Mike Hosking in a print frock and sensible shoes and call him Kathryn Ryan. 10:17 on something that might or might not happen, and might or might not be needed. I really don't understand the passion, and the fervour, and the ‘I will die on this hill’ attitude that our Finance Minister is taking towards getting another competitor into the country. Nicola Willis seems to think her reforms are the answer to the prayers of beleaguered New Zealanders, and she will not rest until she's provided competition in every main centre in New Zealand.   MH: When is this reform going to materially change my supermarket shop?   NW: When you've got nationwide a competitor in all of the major urban centres, that is making the big guys change their behaviour. Now this is a problem that built up over 20 to 30 years and I have never promised they'll be an overnight solution. But the alternative point of view is to say, well, because it will take a while, just don't bother. And I think that is a reprehensible way to approach government.   Right. And then she went on and she wasn't going to rest, and if it took 25 years, and she didn't care about votes, and on and on it went. But competitors have looked at the New Zealand market – the big internationals have taken one look at us and dismissed us as total minnows. We're not worth getting out of bed for, far less crossing an ocean and setting up shop for. When you look at our ALDI, who's often mentioned, ALDI has 20 million shoppers in the UK and that's 10% of the market. They have four New Zealand's worth of shoppers and that's 10% of the UK market. They've looked at us, other supermarkets and huge international brands have looked at us and thought you've got to be joking.   And when it comes to the unfair practises within New Zealand, the Commerce Commission looked at unfair practises within the sector under the last government and they recommended things that could be changed, and changes were made. If you look at the land banking that used to go on of valuable sites to shut out competitors, that wasn't fair and that wasn't right, so that's been changed. They also looked at the complex pricing strategies, promotions, and customer loyalty programmes and said, well, makes it very complex, makes it difficult for consumers. They looked at the imbalance of power in the retail supplier relationships. Many suppliers like your lettuce suppliers, your tomato suppliers, your peanut butter suppliers are reliant on both Foodstuffs and Woolworths, the two big players, so the two retailers can transfer certain costs and risk and uncertainty onto suppliers and if they complain, they face the risk of their products being taken off store shelves. I think there's still room for improvement on that. I don't know because the suppliers won't talk because they again run the risk of having their products taken off the shelves.   So, yes, some improvements have been made. A Grocery Commission has been appointed, and in the main centres, we do have some form of competition. I heard Chris Quin this morning talking to Mike, saying that in Auckland, 30% of grocery retailers are independents. They are “other”. You’ve got Foodstuffs and Woolworths, but 30% is other. And you know, we've heard around the country that other little suppliers set up and they're never going to take on the big two head on, but they're making inroads. I just don't understand and clearly, it's me, I'm the problem, it's me, as that great poet Taylor Swift once said. I'm the problem, it's me, because successive governments have decided this is so important that they've set up review, after review, after review to look at the practises of the big two. And sure, the Commerce Commission under the last government did find things, but do people really care that much that Nicola Willis mounted an impassioned, fervent, incredibly eloquent attack on supermarkets in defence of the consumer? We haven't got enough people to entice competitors here. If we did, then they'd come. I mean, short of subsidising a bloody competitor, I don't know what more can be done. What am I missing? Please tell me.  Thu, 28 Aug 2025 01:11:28 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-banks-need-to-stick-to-their-knitting/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-banks-need-to-stick-to-their-knitting/ NZ First’s Shane Jones has joined the global fight against “woke” banks, taking aim at several banks' attempts to reduce lending and services to fossil fuel businesses. Jones told The Australian newspaper that Australian banks, whose New Zealand subsidiaries dominate the New Zealand market, must stop “being driven by unelected, UN-orientated climate apostles”.   Now this hoohah about the banks demanding that you prove your climate change worthiness is something I was told about last year. A number of your businesses were asked to outline what exactly you were doing in the fight against global warming. How you were going to achieve your bit towards the fight against climate change. Before you could get any kind of access to bank loans, you had to show your bank, your climate change amelioration credentials - not just your ability to service the loan, but that you understood the impending disaster of climate change, and you are committed to doing all you could to fight it.   This applied across the board to all business, but now Shane Jones is lending his support to Aussie opposition MPs who want to force banks back to offering services to everyone depending on their ability to pay the loans, not just to pick and choose their clients according to their moral values.   Banks. Moral values. Whoever would have thought? Where the hell would Australia's economy be without its extractive industries? Would the Nordic states be without their extractive industries?   This morning on the Mike Hosking Breakfast, Shane Jones put the banks on notice:   “The banks themselves are writing letters threatening to debank God-fearing regional businesses. They have no options in terms of transactional banking. They are not breaking any commercial, they are not breaking any financial, they are not breaking any statutory laws. What they are doing is offending the luxury beliefs of these directors and executives and their chemtrail ways of wandering around the world spouting about climate change, whilst driving regional New Zealand to penury.   “I’ve got every right to take them on. I'm astounded that even Kiwibank seems to have swallowed the greenaid here. I mean, if NZ First had have known that Kiwibank was going to be involved in this type of falsehood, it’s highly unlikely we would have agreed for them to recapitalise. I’m hoping that Kiwibank reconsiders their position.  “Look, every bank in New Zealand has to operate within a license. Why on Earth should a licence be extended to an Aussie owned bank so they can come here, impose their own warped moral priorities, impose their luxury beliefs on garden variety Kiwis eeking out an existence selling minerals from regional New Zealand? What citizen mandated these corporate undertakers to impose this system of belief upon us?”  Yes. So that's Shane Jones in full flight as only Shane Jones can do. The Herald understands that NZ First is looking at a members' bill that would attempt to achieve something similar to what the Aussie opposition MPs are looking at. From what I understand, from what you told me last year, you can get the money, you just have to pay it at a much higher rate because you're a dirty, filthy polluter and you haven't shown any kind of remorse or attempt to ameliorate the climate change effects of your business.   The way our system works, the way capitalism works, is we need banks. We need a bank. Most people can't get paid in cash, you have to get paid through a bank. If you want a house, you have to take out a loan. If you want to set up a business, you have to take out a loan. Once the banks start putting riders and caveats on any of their lines based on moral values, not based on your ability to service loans, where does it end?   Going to be interesting though, the world's biggest financiers and asset managers are increasingly rethinking their approach to climate change initiatives, and the diversity, equity and inclusion policies as Donald Trump is reinstalled in the White House and not letting any grass grow under his feet as he signs executive order after executive order.   And therein lies the problem with putting moral values on money. Previously, under the other administration, to get money you had to prove your worthiness as a citizen of the 21st century, you had to prove that you were following the commandments of the current generation. It wasn't about your ability to service a loan. It was that you accepted the dogma and you were going to do something practical about it. If you need to fulfil certain values-based criteria to borrow money, then the values will change depending on who is in office, as has happened. If every time an administration with a different ideology comes into power, do the banks then have to change their criteria too? They need to stick to their knitting.   If it's a sound financial proposition, if a borrower can pay back the loan, then show them the money. Put up, and for the love of all that is holy, shut up.  Thu, 30 Jan 2025 00:09:48 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/john-macdonald-our-hungry-kids-are-the-canaries-in-the-mine/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/john-macdonald-our-hungry-kids-are-the-canaries-in-the-mine/ If you’ve ever been worried about the level of crime in New Zealand but you don’t think you need to worry about new research out today showing the scale of food poverty in New Zealand - then you need to think again. We’re talking food poverty among kids which has health researchers at Auckland University and the Eastern Institute of Technology saying that, instead of cutting costs, the Government should be doubling the school lunch programme. And, if that’s what the experts think is needed, then I’m with them. Because I’ll tell you now - some of the hungry kids of today are the criminals of tomorrow. They are the canary in the mine. And we better be listening. You’ll know as well as I do that, whenever we talk about crime, generally people want something done about it right now. But you do get the odd person saying that the solution isn’t in the here-and-now. The solution is nipping things in the bud as early as possible to try and prevent kids turning into criminals. And making sure kids are fed properly is one way to nip things in the bud.  I know it’s the responsibility of parents or caregivers to make sure that happens. But we can bang-on about that as much as we want and it won't change anything for these kids.   These findings out today paint a very sad picture of the scale of food poverty in New Zealand. And, instead of getting all excited about the cost and taxpayer money and lunches being thrown in the bin at the end of the day, we need to see the opportunity we have. Sohere’s what the researchers are saying. And here’s why we need to make this connection between hungry kids and crime. Academic performance. Essentially, that’s what this is all about. Which I know the Government seems to be all about too. But there’s more to it than new curriculums and and hour of maths and an hour of english and no cellphones.  Generally, it’s understood that if a child isn’t being fed properly, that has some impact on how they do at school. But these New Zealand researchers have been blown away by what they’ve found.  They have found that a child who goes hungry has a learning gap of two to four years - compared to the rest of their classmates. They didn’t expect it to be quite so bad. But that’s the reality. And there are quite a few kids in this camp. OECD data says 14 percent of New Zealand kids miss out on meals because there isn’t enough money at home to buy all the food they need. That’s 14 percent in New Zealand compared to the OECD average of 8 percent. So you take a child who is four years behind everyone else - how are things going to go for them? You can take your choice out of pretty badly, pretty badly or pretty badly. If you’re four years behind everyone else - or even two years - your chances of catching up are pretty slim. Even slimmer if you don't have enough food in your belly. Soyou’re behind everyone. You’ve got no energy. Your sense of self-worth goes out the door. Disaster waiting to happen. And, for some, the disaster does happen. And, with not much to offer the world, the only option they see for themselves is to link up with other people just like them. People left behind by the education system. People who grew up in families where food wasn’t a priority or it was just too expensive. People who have pretty much lost all hope by the time they finally get to escape from school. And who think the only way they’re going to get ahead in life is selling drugs or doing ram raids. And, when they do, anyone who doesn’t give a damn about this research out today, won’t have a leg to stand on when it’s their place that’s done over five or ten years from now. And that’s why, if these health experts are saying today that there is clear evidence that more money needs to go into school lunches, we should do it. Mon, 27 Jan 2025 00:18:51 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-not-a-great-start-for-the-governments-boot-camps/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-not-a-great-start-for-the-governments-boot-camps/ The Governments’ boot camps - the controversial boot camps, have got off to the worst possible start. One young man, a graduate of the camps, is dead. Another is on the run after attending the funeral of the young man. Oh, and one of them had already reoffended last month, after graduating from the boot camp. There's only 10 young men in the camps at a time, so you can't get much worse than that. The military style academy scheme is intended for serious youth offenders. The 10 taking part at any one time are aged 15 to 17 at the time of the offending. This iteration of a boot camp -there have been many, many previous iterations of boot camps - includes a period of three months in a youth justice residence, followed by 9 months transitioning the participants back into the community. National costed the academies at $15 million a year for 60 places and said the big difference between its boot camps and others that had been failures, was that they would provide wrap-around support services to the graduates. When they entered the community, that's a tough time for anybody, whether you're doing rehab or prison or youth justice, when you go back into the community, you haven't got the controls around you, you haven't got the security around you, that's the tough time. The camps themselves are based off the Limited Service Volunteer Programme, which is a six week motivational training course run by New Zealand Defence. At the moment, if you're a young person who's not studying or working, you can actually apply to go on the LSV course if you think that's going to do you some good. When Mark Mitchell was campaigning in 2023, he said National’s boot camps, based on the LSV, would be focused on numeracy and literacy skills, life skills, teamwork - allowing young people, he said, to have a good fighting chance to come and re-join society. This would move them into either meaningful employment or training and keep them out of the adult justice system, which sounded great. And I was all for them. Despite the fact that other boot camps had failed, and by failed I mean the recidivism rate for young offenders who graduated was up around the late 80’s and 90%, which is far higher than the general prison population. But then young people haven't got responsibilities or children to help them turn their lives around. So previous boot camps had seen recidivism up around the late 80s and 90s. I thought that the difference would be the wrap around support out in the community and you would have to say that if the boot camps do, if they keep going with them, prove successful, it would have been cheap at twice the price. To keep 60 young people out of the adult prison system would be a phenomenal success. Even keeping 30 out would be amazing. But one dead, another on the run, one who's already offended. That's not a great start and I really don't know how they can be justified continuing. Thu, 05 Dec 2024 23:31:01 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-lets-give-youth-council-members-a-go/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-lets-give-youth-council-members-a-go/ The Hastings District Council has decided to give unelected youth reps voting rights on Council committees, and they will also pay them. The Council voted 7 – 7 on the proposal,  the casting vote went to Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst and she supported the move.   Decision-making powers are generally reserved for elected councillors, however, there are cases where unelected Council officials or iwi representatives can hold membership and vote on certain committees where they have the relevant knowledge or expertise. So kind of like a consultant coming on board and giving the benefit of their knowledge and experience. The Hastings Youth Council is made up of 17 youth, aged between 15 and 21. They are appointed following an application process and the vast majority of them are high school students.   Following yesterday's decision, their involvement will be substantially upgraded and will include payment, and their expanded role will be in place until at least the next council election, which is in October 2025. Councillors who voted against the move say it's undemocratic and it's a backdoor method for getting on the Council rather than going through the actual hard work of putting up your hand, standing, campaigning and being voted in. However, Youth Council Chair Chris Proctor, who spoke to Heather du Plessis-Allan last night, says young people's voices need to be heard:    “We want to bring a voice to the council table, and we want to make sure that in areas like Flaxmere and Hastings there is almost 50% of population under the age of 25. And we feel that it's important, we have really, really low voter turnout in the under 25 category and that's the issue that we set out to solve. And if we can get someone on the council committee and a young person sees them on there and they see they have input and altogether this is going to have a such a small impact.”  So that was Chris Proctor, who is actually a student at Lindisfarne College as well as the Hastings Youth Council Chair. Sandra Hazlehurst said she'd been inspired by the Youth Council's intelligence, vision, and positivity, and the change will make a huge contribution.  I've sat through council meetings. In my time as a reporter around the country I was sent along to different City Council meetings —Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua— they are mind numbingly dull. At the time, and it was some time ago but I don't think much has changed, there were brilliant councillors who read the notes, consulted widely with ratepayers, thought deeply about the issues upon which they were voting, and others simply turned up for the sarnies and the cups of tea. Had no real clue what was going on. Didn't care particularly, it was just something you did when you had a bit of a name for yourself in the region.   I don't think that just because you're 15 to 21 years old, you are going to be a bad councillor and if Sandra Hazelhurst has seen what these young people can do, has seen that they take it all terribly seriously, that they read the notes, that they read the briefings for the meetings, that they debate thoughtfully, then I can understand why she felt, I suppose, like promoting them from just talking theoretically to being able to have actual voting rights.   And Chris Proctors' reasons for wanting to apply to be on the councils are genuine. They want to help solve a long-standing issue of disengagement and low voter turnout. Well, good luck getting anybody to turn out to vote in any by elections and elections. It's an appallingly low turnout and I would venture to suggest that a lot of people who are very much against this move to appoint youth councillors to voting rights, haven't voted themselves.   I think that young people do need to have their voices heard. Ultimately, they will be the ones who will carry the can for any decisions that are made by people much older. The same is true on a nationwide level as well. A lot of the decisions being made by MPs are decisions that the young children of today will feel. It'll be the kids today who will be having to carry the burden of decisions made now. So great that young people have their voices heard. A lot of young people are disengaged because they think, well, what does it matter? Nobody listens to us anyway.  I think the idea of attending youth Council meetings, participating in your region, showing that you care about your region, showing that you understand the responsibility of being on a Council, which these young people have done, means that those who work alongside them think they deserve to have their voices heard. Certainly being on a youth council is more meaningful than taking a day off school and standing in the streets in your Temu clothing and your fast fashion clothing, which is doing more to damage to the climate than anything else. How many of those kids protest and could make a real intangible difference by not buying all that crap that's being made in some cases by forced labour? That would have more meaningful impact than standing in the streets and taking a day off.   Let's see how they go. It's for a year - October 2025. Let's see if they can get young people turning out to vote. Let's see if they can get young people engaged in the process. Let's see if it means young people will stand for council and go in the front door rather than the back door. Let's give it a go.  Fri, 27 Sept 2024 01:27:03 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-our-infrastructure-problems-werent-going-to-magically-stop-with-a-change-of-government/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-our-infrastructure-problems-werent-going-to-magically-stop-with-a-change-of-government/ The ferry running aground.  I suppose given the myriad issues that were going on with the Cook Strait ferries over the past few years, they were not going to go away.   They weren't going to magically stop with a change of government.   Stuff helpfully put together, it was in the Sunday Star Times, a brief history of the recent issues besetting the Cook Strait ferries. 1998, the Aratere was built in Spain. It cost $106 million at the time, which would have been a bargain if it had worked. But within a year of its delivery, the crew dubbed it El Lemon.   Power failures bring the Aratere to a standstill in 1999, in February and in May. In September, smoke in the engine room sent 250 passengers and 40 crew to the emergency stations. 2000: a life raft falls off while docked in Wellington, December, it blows a piston. 2004: the passengers on the Aratere have a nightmare 8-hour journey from Picton to Wellington because the ship broke down in mountainous seas. 2006: the Aratere rammed a trawler in high winds in July, while berthing in Wellington Harbour.   In February, the Arahura loses power while in Wellington Harbour with 200 passengers on board. In 2011, the Aratere sails for Singapore for a $54 million refit. Returns behind schedule with rats on board. Really, rats on board are the least of your problems.  On November 7, 2011, all three Interislander ferries were out of action at once. 2013: Aratere loses one of its propellers in the Cook Strait, putting it out of action for the busy summer season. 2023: the Kaitaki lost power and drifted towards rocks in Wellington in January. Two harbour tugs raced to the rescue but would have been almost powerless to help as the Capital had got rid of tugs with open water salvage capability, and thus it goes.  We need new ferries. And we need new ferries that work, do the job, are fit-for-purpose, and fit for our seas. The previous government had agreed to new ferries. In fact, the Hyundai Mipo Dockyard was already sort of getting rivets and things under way, whatever you do to build a ferry, but the coalition government declined to fund them, or more specifically, the harbourside infrastructure that needed upgrading.   And they decided not to fund that because costs were blowing out, and blowing out and blowing out. The cost of the project had quadrupled since 2018 to approximately $3 billion and only 21% of those costs were associated with the core project of replacing the ferries.   Finance Minister Nicola Willis famously said that KiwiRail was effectively paying for a Ferrari and now we're going to go off and see whether there are any good, reliable Toyota Corolla’s available to cut costs.   Turns out there aren't that many good, reliable Toyota Corolla’s that are fit for purpose. It appears the government effectively called KiwiRail's bluff. KiwiRail, said, well, we need the money because otherwise the new ferries that we've got under order won't be able to dock. And the government said no, you can't have any more. The costs have blown out and we just don't trust that they're going to stay.   KiwiRail was also given, effectively, a dressing down by Transport Minister Simeon Brown last week, who must be wondering, surely there were other things I could have done when I got out of university rather than go into politics. What with the pylon and the transport and now the ferries.   But Simeon Brown said he was highly unimpressed with how KiwiRail was maintaining its fleet. They have in recent months been improving their maintenance protocols significantly than they have in the last few years. Because they understand the importance of having well-maintained Cook Strait ferries, which has not been the case in the last few years.   In June of last year, two ferries were down as one had a gearbox issue and another was being maintained. So, he's put it right back on to KiwiRail. In fact, the coalition government’s put it all on KiwiRail and said, “No, your costs were ridiculous, as is the infrastructure for the Wellington and Picton ports and you weren't looking after them properly – your fault.”   All well and good, but what do we do now? We really do need safe, reliable transport across Cook Strait. Lives are being imperilled. Surely it is only a matter of time before lives are lost.   We've got tourists and we've got trade and we've got exports that need to get to market. But what I really want to know too, is how do you get cost projections so wrong? Is it really just Covid? I mean, we heard about the supply chain delays and we heard about the cost increases. Can a project really quadruple in cost in the space of four years, because of Covid?    Or is it that the billions of dollars spent on consultants over the past six years has been money really poorly spent? How do you how do you in the private sector allow for cost overruns? Is that just the way business works? I would really love to know.   And I'd really love to know, for those of you who use the ferries, what do you think needs to be done? Do we need brand new, flash, fit-for-purpose ferries that understand the Cook Strait, or can we just keep cobbling on with these ones?   It would appear not, and it looks like the Aratere was a lemon from the time it arrived.    What do we need to keep State Highway 1, the length and breadth of the country running?   LISTEN ABOVE.  Mon, 24 Jun 2024 01:12:53 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-could-long-term-rentals-help-solve-our-housing-crisis/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-could-long-term-rentals-help-solve-our-housing-crisis/ A new paper from the OECD has shown New Zealand has one of the highest rates of homelessness in the developed world, with more than two percent of New Zealanders recorded as being homeless. And that's the highest population percentage recorded of any country in the developed block being measured.   Although New Zealand's broad definition of homelessness kind of snookered us, and helped us gain another unwanted top spot, our figures include refugees and asylum seekers looking for temporary accommodation, as well as victims of domestic violence. It also included children and people living in uninhabitable housing. Housing that's not up to scratch. And most of the other countries do not include these groups.   But we know the problem of homelessness is bad. It was an election issue under John Key’s National government - part of what got them bundled out. And then it got much, much worse under Labour. In September of 2023, Labour had spent $1.4 billion paying for people to live in motels. They also spend longer in emergency housing. They're now spending half the year there, up from 3 and a half weeks in December of 2017. People are staying in emergency housing longer. The government is spending more - and for what?   There is no resolution. Certainly, when questioned, Megan Woods points to Labour's record of delivering on public houses. 13,000 houses in the last two terms. Kind of gets overshadowed by Kiwibuild, but they were delivering on public houses. Some of them had been planned for, consented and started under National, but none the nonetheless 13,000 houses in the last two terms, which is unfortunately, just the tip of the iceberg. As well as thousands of families living in motels 480 apparently live in cars, the social housing wait list has quadrupled to more than 24,000 families, and rents are up phenomenally, so it doesn't look like we're going to get out of the bottom of the class and anywhere near the top anytime soon.   What is the answer? Because we know that the social issues that go hand in hand with being homeless are expensive. They're grievous for the children who are living in these transitional houses. A State House was one of the foundations of the welfare state. You know everybody’s whose grandparents had a picture of Michael Joseph Savage on the wall, understood the importance of a State House. It was a place to anchor yourself, a place to be, a place where families could grow up. A place where you could have a veggie garden because there were backyard lots. Those days are gone. The old state houses are being torn down and replaced with 7, 8,9, 10 apartment buildings.   So, when we talk about people on low incomes being able to have their own veggie patches, I think those days are pretty much over. Nonetheless a warm, dry, safe house - even if it's a two-bedroom apartment - is a hell of a lot better than living out of a car or living in emergency hotels. So: more of them, and quickly.   But a lot of the who people are homeless have a lot more going on than lack of a roof over their head. And that was something that was recognised by Auckland City Mission when they built their homes for people in the middle of Auckland City. They've got addiction specialists on site, they've got budgeters, they've got people who can help with much more than homelessness.   So simply just throwing up more houses and saying there you go, off you go, probably isn't going to fix the the issues surrounding homelessness long term. We do not want to go back to the patriarchal ‘government knows best’ kind of approach. But at the same time a number of people who are in emergency housing need that kind of intervention in their lives, otherwise they'll just be on a merry-go-round.   And at the moment, it seems that you've either got a choice between the ‘hands-off free market approach’ (which is on the right) and on the left, you've got the ‘let's into their homes and spoon feed them and keep them there and just keep throwing good money after bad’. Is there a happy medium?   And when it comes to young people, Generation Z - is owning a home at the top of your wants and desire list? The build to rent market is growing. It's small, but it's growing. And the flexibility offered by built to rent overseas is something that those behind the building developments are hoping will take off here. Pets are are welcome, you're allowed to decorate your rental in your own style and your own fashion. There's on site gyms. There's a concierge, a BBQ area. It's a really flash apartment complex, basically. And you don't own the apartment, but you do have long-term tenure.   So, if you're young, is home ownership on your radar? Built to rent is also being marketed at those nearing retirement age, not ready for a retirement village, perhaps can't afford to get into a retirement village. But you have the perks of retirement village living, in a build to rent property. For years, owning your own home was the Kiwi mantra. But when it becomes simply unaffordable, do we need to change our thinking? And look at long-term rental as part of the solution. Not all of it, but part of it.  LISTEN ABOVE.    Mon, 20 May 2024 01:42:05 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-just-once-id-like-to-hear-a-minster-say-we-stuffed-up/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-just-once-id-like-to-hear-a-minster-say-we-stuffed-up/ Gosh, this Government’s ministers can be weasels at times, can’t they?   Remember that mammal David Clark? The middle-aged man in lycra who was also a Minister of Health, who threw Dr Ashley Bloomfield under the bus before David Clark himself was busted for biking during the lockdown? Remember Ashley’s face? The face that launched 1000 memes?   So Minister Clark clearly has never heard of ministerial responsibility, and I was reminded of that this morning when I heard another David, Minister Parker, defending the cost-of-living payment. Excuse me? In defence of Inland Revenue? They never wanted this cost-of-living payment introduced the way it was. This is because the Auditor-General sent out a scathing report saying the cost-of-living payment was handled really, really poorly. And what does Minister Parker do? Defends Inland Revenue. They wouldn’t need defending if they had followed their own advice. When it was first announced in the May budget, Treasury and Inland Revenue both advised Ministers against the idea. They said there were significant risks associated with designing this proposal at speed. They said it would take considerable resources for Inland Revenue to administer the scheme. Treasury said there were other Government priorities the money could be used for, for example, initiatives that directly impact on interim child poverty targets. They did not recommend progressing a broad-based cost of living payment. To actually target people who needed it. They said, look, we've got a Winter Energy payment that already exists. We know who needs that, we could extend that to more people. The Commissioner of Inland Revenue was against the idea because it was estimated to require around 1000 staff at its peak for around two months. And that was if everything went smoothly.   Just once, just once, I'd like to hear one of the Minister’s say we really stuffed up on that. Sorry about that. We've learned from that, this honest and transparent Government. We've learned from that and we’ll do better.   Tue, 30 Aug 2022 00:43:18 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-when-it-comes-to-crime-numbers-do-not-lie/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-when-it-comes-to-crime-numbers-do-not-lie/ This article has been updated to revise a statement suggesting that there has been an increase in youth offending. We are back, I'm sorry, to talking about crime and we will keep on talking about it because the numbers do not lie.  The rate of serious crime is up, with a spike in ram raids which have increased more than 500 percent in five years. Pick a stat, any stat. I remember talking about crime, one of the many times we have, and a texter said ‘where are the stats to back this up?’  The stats are there - from the police, from Statistics New Zealand, they're not made-up, they're not invented by a political party, they are real. And of course, National leader Christopher Luxon knows a vote winner when he sees one. It fits well with National’s, we’re the party for law and order trope, but it's real, it's not manufactured.  As he says you've got to look at the outcomes.  Labour decided to keep people out of prisons, they've done a lot of social experimentation. You know, you look at the housing and you look at the people who are being kept in Kainga Ora houses, whatever they do as a way of trying to get them back on track. To become civilized humans, basically to be able to live in a house that's provided by the taxpayer amongst other people, and so whatever they do, they can stay there. And that doesn't seem to be working.  Labour says, well, we need more time. You've got Labour deciding to keep people out of prison. And great if that works, but you've got to look at the outcomes. If keeping people out of prison was working, then surely you would see a reduction in crime, no matter how small, we haven't.  Mon, 29 Aug 2022 01:26:15 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/andrew-dickens-does-the-govt-know-their-new-visa-policy-hurdles-are-too-high/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/andrew-dickens-does-the-govt-know-their-new-visa-policy-hurdles-are-too-high/ I want to start off with immigration because this is the issue of the day, is it not. This is the issue of the age. We have discovered after the pandemic that we are very dependent on those people who live overseas and come to live here in New Zealand. The Government say they want to attract a higher quality immigrant. So to that measure, yesterday Stuart Nash announced that the Government is making some significant changes around migrant investor visas, creating a whole new category called Active Investor Plus, which is going to replace the current investor one and two categories. The Economic and Regional Development Minister Stuart Nash said the current system results in passive investment in shares and bonds, which is nice, but not nearly good enough. He wants people to directly invest into Kiwi companies, into start-ups, into companies that are in high growth phase. Now let's remember the previous policy did attract $12 billion worth of investment, so it's nothing to be sneezed at. But he reckons, we can invest that $12 billion or however much comes in, in better businesses and in better ways. So they've changed the rules of it. They've increased the minimum investment threshold to $15 million, or the weighted equivalent, which means you can come in if you're going to make a direct investment of $5 million.   You have to be in New Zealand a bit longer these days though. In the old days you just had to spend 88 days in New Zealand over four years, under the new rules 117 days.   Three experts on 九一星空无限talk ZB over the course of this morning, they all say this thing is a dog.   Does the Government know it’s a dog? Does the Government know that the hurdles are too high for people to come in?   Thu, 21 Jul 2022 00:15:58 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-pre-budget-police-funding-a-spooky-coincidence-amid-being-polled-soft-on-crime/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-woodham-pre-budget-police-funding-a-spooky-coincidence-amid-being-polled-soft-on-crime/ Well, you can't say all those millions spent on PR consultants and market researchers and communications advisors and spin doctors, you cannot say all those millions of dollars have been wasted, can you? Because look at this, the public registered a vote of no confidence in Police Minister Poto Williams with the 九一星空无限hub Reid Research poll out last week, we talked about that nearly 2/3 of those polled thought the Minister and by default, the Government, was soft on crime.  A spooky coincidence, in a pre-Budget announcement that the Government has pledged more than $550 million to fund more frontline police, establish a new firearms unit, and they've promised businesses they'll help protect them from RAM raids.  Poto Williams, the Police Minister, talked to Mike Hosking on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning, explaining there'd be something for businesses, once they talked to businesses about what businesses might need. And the fact that it wasn't just police who could pick up RAM raiders, it was families who could learn how to parent.  It's not really going to help in the short term is that there was a promise though to tackle gangs and organized crime. There's a new firearms unit to ensure guns don't fall into the wrong hands. The sound of the stable door closing as the hoofbeats of the galloping horse disappear into the distance spring to mind.  Mon, 09 May 2022 00:26:05 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-mcivor-fixing-our-shambolic-education-system-should-be-doable/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-mcivor-fixing-our-shambolic-education-system-should-be-doable/ It is still a big regret of mine that I lost my way with maths.  I was really enjoying maths for years and years and then I hit fifth form and either it was the change of teacher or I'd just reached my natural limit but one minute I had it, and the next minute it was gone.  One minute I was enjoying the glorious purity of solving equations, the next the numerals and symbols were just incomprehensible ciphers.  I managed to scrape through School C maths, then collapsed into a sixth form economics class and that was the end of maths for me.  And I've had on my bucket list for years the desire to go back to school and learn the language of maths properly.  It's a beautiful language and one I got to do the equivalent of saying Hello, how are you? and Thank you very much in - just your basic essentials but that was it.  And it appears I'm not alone.  For years and years, Kiwi kids have been on a slippery slope - if I knew maths I'd be able to put a maths pun in there about angles - sliding down the international league tables since global testing started in the 1990s.  To be fair, we're also flunking in reading and science.  But the latest results of the Trends in International Maths and Science Study released last year were so bad that everybody's decided that somebody has to do something . And look at that, somebody has. The Ministry of Education has called in a Royal Society expert panel to adapt the national curriculum to achieve this.  There are four main surveys that measure how well our education system is doing.  All show that we're in trouble.  And we've known this for years.  There are so many, many things wrong with our education system, it's hard to know where to start.  Perhaps when our national curriculum advisory service was abolished with the establishement of Tomorrow's Schools.  Schools became self governing and in recent years, schools have been left to buy their own advice from approved profit driven facilitators.  Schools bid for professional development funding from a limited pool.  Teachers need more support.  Only 14 per cent of NZ Year 5 primary teachers specialised in maths in their training compared with a global average of 43 per cent.  Kids are also missing out because teachers stream students into ability based groups far more than their global counterparts do.  It's a shambles but it can and should be fixable.   Tue, 02 Feb 2021 01:37:28 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-mcivor-blind-faith-no-excuse-for-ignoring-lockdown-restrictions/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-mcivor-blind-faith-no-excuse-for-ignoring-lockdown-restrictions/ This Mt Roskill Evangelical Church needs to be taken metaphorically speaking by the scruff of the neck and have its nose rubbed into the mess it’s made.  The church, which has now been linked with 43 Covid 19 cases, including all six reported yesterday, has been unhelpful, resistant and downright defiant in the face of edicts from the Director General of Health.  While people are in hospital, while businesses are going under, while febrile souls are living in fear that the Covid will get them, while we're all wearing masks and giving up our liberties for the common good, these hysterical happy clappers are marching to the beat of their own drum and doing exactly what they want when they want irrespective of community sacrifices. Auckland councillor Efeso Collins attempted to explain the rationale behind the Church's most uncivil disobedience on Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive yesterday. He cited that issues like abortion and gay marriage have created a “great chasm of relationship” between the church and state. "As a result of that, the Pacific people are well known for the way they are compliant with any instruction they are given. So if your Pastor or church leader is up front saying we should decline to listen to the Government, then the church is going to follow suit."  I don't agree with some of the decisions either.  I never have.  And yet I have stuck rigidly to the rules, because while I'm allowed a reckon, I'm not allowed to make up by own rules about a community response.  That's why talkback radio exists - if the Mt Roskill Church for the Bewildered, otherwise known as the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship, doesn't agree with what the government has decreed, 0800 801080 is the number to call. Have a yarn. Vent. Disagree. We all knew – well, everyone but the Church for the Bewildered did - that going against the public health orders, deciding we would go our own way and do our own thing - would simply result in lockdown lasting longer.  And that's precisely what will happen.  As a result of their selfish stupid blind faith - never has it been used more appropriately - Aucklanders and the rest of the country are having to live with restrictions for longer than is necessary.  The swollen coffers of that church should be raided and redistributed to the people who have lost their livelihoods as a result of the lockdown.     Wed, 09 Sept 2020 23:31:06 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-mcivor-student-loans-defaulters-are-thieves/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-mcivor-student-loans-defaulters-are-thieves/ More than 5500 overseas based student loan borrowers have returned to NZ since April - nau mai, haere mai.  Welcome home.  But now you're here, if - and this won't apply to all of you - but if you're one of the bludgers who have refused to pay back your student loan, time to cough up, kids.  The arrogance of particularly overseas based student loan defaulters is legendary.   I've been banging on about this for years.  In 2010, overdue repayments from overseas students rose 111 per cent last year and despite being just more than 14 per cent of student borrowers, they make up 20 per cent of the total amount owing. Government's been trying to get the money out of this particular group for years - in 2007, Michael Cullen and Peter Dunne announced a series of measures, including a three-year holiday on repayments and an amnesty for overseas students. By making it easier for them to repay their student loans, we removed a disincentive for them to return to New Zealand when they were ready, said Dr Cullen, which was benevolent but ultimately futile. A couple of years earlier, Trevor Mallard and Helen Clark announced an amnesty on penalties on overdue payments for any returning students who entered into repayment schedules - and that didn't work either. Now Peter Dunne is back, quoting from the same script, promising to reduce penalties for overseas student loan borrowers. But by using carrots rather than sticks, the incentive to stay in New Zealand and pay back the money owed to the taxpayer isn't terribly strong either. Loan defaulters should be stopped at the border and made to pay back their loan or enter into a repayment schedule before they can leave. Oh, and before I finish with the students, I do wish they'd stop their whining that people who enjoyed free tertiary education are depriving them of the same opportunity. Yes, tertiary education used to be free. But there were nowhere near as many institutions as there are now, nowhere near as many spurious diplomas and degrees and nowhere near as many people accepted into university. In 1980, 2224 graduated from the University of Auckland. By 2000 that had risen to 6000 people. So there's thousands more studying and they still get subsidies. I can't understand why the IRD isn't taking a tougher approach. They know who these returning students are, but they say that they are just going to hold off now. We're going to wait four months. We need the money. We needed it during the GFC, we need it now. This was a contract entered into by these so called bright people, and if they did not understand when they were putting their signatures to the papers that this was money they were borrowing they had to pay back to the taxpayer, they shouldn't have been in tertiary education at all.  Most people do the right thing, they aren't the ones I'm talking to. I'm talking to these arrogant, snotty little toads who have consistently refused to honour an agreement they freely entered into.  The vast majority of their education is subsidised by the taxpayer. They only have to pay a portion of it. They promised to pay it back, they've reneged on that promise, and I'm sick and tired of playing nice with them. They're thieves, pure and simple.  Wed, 09 Sept 2020 03:35:23 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-mcivor-moving-people-into-stable-housing-necessary-to-break-poverty-cycle/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-mcivor-moving-people-into-stable-housing-necessary-to-break-poverty-cycle/ We were talking on Friday about the shocking UNICEF report that showed how poorly our children are doing on so many many markers.  I'm sure you'll have seen the results by now - we were failing on just about every measure except air quality and water pollution.  And then as if to prove the point, a 10 month old baby dies in Starship Hospital over the weekend from injuries inflicted in the home.  A child is killed every five weeks in this country and there are 14,000 substantiated cases of child abuse every year.  Most of us have a child whose death touched us particularly.  Mine is Delcelia Whitaker and she was born the same time as my daughter.  Every landmark stage of my daughter's life - the first time she could read a book herself, her first day of school, her school ball, graduation from university, marriage and children, I thought of Delcelia.  Those of us who can't contemplate harming the babies in our care can't even begin to imagine what would drive an adult to hurt a child.  And what you don't understand you can't fix.  But as we were discussing this on Friday, a caller Tony rang in and said he thought the key to improving outcomes for New Zealand kids was a roof over their heads they could call home.   And the stats back him up.   The Housing Foundation said the research showed actively supporting affordable home ownership for low and middle-income families was beneficial for all. They say that “moving people along the housing continuum reduces the long-term liability to the Crown, improves household outcomes, builds communities and is morally and fiscally the right course to take”. It found home-ownership was linked to better health, crime and educational outcomes - even once a person's socio-economic status was taken into account - benefits it said could carry on into future generations. And I was thinking about this over the weekend, because as part of that discussion on Friday, we had a young woman ring in and say poverty is the reason why so many of our young people are failing, but that's not the sole issue.  I pointed out plenty of our parents grew up in households where they could have been classified as living in poverty with one or two parents who were less than ideal - but the children grew up to be capable, functioning members of society, able to contribute and raise their own families - in effect, correcting the ills of the past, not perpetuating them.  Why were they able to break the cycle, when this generation can't?  And one of the main reasons seems to be that our parents grew up in well-built state houses.  They were warm and dry with veggie gardens that parents used to supplement the family meals.  They could go to the same school, all through primary and the same college until they graduated - albeit in hand-me-down clothes. A safe home is a haven.  Imagine trying to create a safe space in a motel.  Or try to get a good night’s sleep when you're jammed in one room with four other kids.  It's absolutely fundamental to people's wellbeing to feel safe and secure and surely nothing represents security more than your own home. Mon, 07 Sept 2020 04:02:40 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-mcivor-conference-travel-advice-another-sign-of-government-inconsistency/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-mcivor-conference-travel-advice-another-sign-of-government-inconsistency/ Yet more inconsistency and fluffiness from the government around rules for Aucklanders.  Aucklanders are being encouraged to travel to prop up the terminally ill travel industry, and yet at the same time, they're being told that they shouldn't be attending conferences out of the city.  What on earth is the difference between eating in a Queenstown restaurant and sitting in a Queenstown conference room, both in a socially distanced, safe kind of way?  Apparently, according to the government, the alert level restrictions in Auckland meant people should not be attending gatherings of more than 10 people in the city so if Aucklanders are travelling to other parts of the country the same rules should apply.  And yet you can travel on a plane or a bus, you can go to a restaurant - all places where there are numbers of people in one space - why can't you attend a conference if all the social distancing rules are in place?  It seems counter intuitive.  It seems clear that the rest of the country wants - needs - Aucklanders credit cards; but they don't want Aucklanders Covid Cooties.  Auckland has by far the biggest economy - in fact if you added the next three biggest regional economies together - Wellington, Canterbury and Waikato - gives combined annual GDP of $93.3 billion, still $8.1 billion, or 8%, smaller than Auckland's GDP. So let's ask you - are you comfortable with people from Auckland travelling to your region?  Or would you rather Aucklanders stayed in their bubble for the foreseeable future?  The conference industry is huge,  or rather, was.  I had about ten conferences booked for the year in February - all of them have been cancelled.  The events industry, like the tourism industry, has been decimated and they're calling for clarification from the government about what can and cannot be done.  The government takes its advice from the people of New Zealand - what do you want?  For Aucklanders to pick up their wallets and travel around the country?  Or for Aucklanders to stay in their lanes. Thu, 03 Sept 2020 04:51:54 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-mcivor-post-covid-slush-fund-a-worrying-sign-for-the-future/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-mcivor-post-covid-slush-fund-a-worrying-sign-for-the-future/ Normally when somebody apologises, that's it, it's over.  If you do it properly, there's an admission of guilt, acknowledgement of suffering, a promise to never do it again, and an explanation of the lessons learned.  However, the apology from embattled Greens co leader James Shaw has done nothing to quell the outrage over his decision to hand over nearly $12 million dollars to an alternative learning campus in Taranaki.  He is reported to have held up the allocation of $3 billion dollars worth of shovel ready projects unless The Green School was given an 11.7 million dollar grant.  九一星空无限hub has obtained an email that went to Government ministers and the Treasury from Shaw's office and it included a stark ultimatum.   In his midday mea culpa yesterday, Shaw said the best outcome might be for the school to treat the grant as a loan between the crown and the school's private owners but that will be entirely up to the school's owners if they choose to do that.  There is a grave risk this could spell the end of the Greens, given the backlash from Green Party members who are incredulous that Shaw would grant such an enormous sum of money to a private school when the party's own education policy is against the funding of private schools.  Chloe Swarbrick needs to win Auckland Central or the party needs to poll above five per cent for the Greens to get back into Parliament.  As 九一星空无限room's Sam Sachdeva puts it, the whole sorry saga confirms the stereotyping of Greens as chardonnay socialists whose talk about supporting the poor isn't backed up by action and as Morris dancing, science hating kooks.  James Shaw has said he doesn't think this is a resignation level event. What do you think?  Is this a resignation level event?  Do you  have any confidence in the due diligence being done on the Covid-19 recovery shovel ready projects?  Should the decision making be taken out of the hands of government ministers and given to an independent body capable of assessing the viability and appropriateness of the projects?  Is this just the way of the political future - huge slush funds of money being made available to ministers who can then use it to further their political interests - looking at you Shane Jones - or to be doled out to pet projects?  If so, I don't like this vision of the future.  There doesn't seem to be any accountability around taxpayer money. Wed, 02 Sept 2020 08:46:38 Z /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-mcivor-new-zealand-destined-to-be-gloriavale-of-the-south-pacific/ /on-air/kerre-woodham-mornings/opinion/kerre-mcivor-new-zealand-destined-to-be-gloriavale-of-the-south-pacific/ In the past, I have been all for easing border restrictions, letting in foreign students, opening up travel corridors with safe countries.  That's because I assumed that what was happening WAS actually happening.  That border staff were being tested, that new arrivals were being kept apart from those who'd been quarantined longer and that they were being tested for Covid before being allowed back into the community, that Ministry of Health officials were on top of contact tracing, and that there was a plan to actually manage this virus.  But as has become abundantly clear over the past few weeks, none of what was said was true.  Border staff were not being regularly tested.  Those in managed quarantine facilities were allowed to mingle.  There is no gold standard tracing and there doesn't appear to be a plan other than lockdown immediately.  And even that was a shambles when you look at the way the Auckland borders are being managed.  So when Mike Hosking calls for foreign students to be allowed in as Australia is now doing, I now understand why the government is reluctant.  It’s because they know they haven't got a clue.  They are not on top of this virus at all.  The systems and processes aren't in place to allow them to do that.  The reasons why we haven't seen this thing sweep through the country is because of the goodwill of the population, many of whom sacrificed a great deal for their fellow Kiwis, the fact that we are sparsely populated and spread out and the fact that we are an island.  Any country that has been able to report a good result is an island.  So saying look at what is happening in America and the UK is pointless.  I actually feel sorry for the government - they have had expectations of the Ministry of Health that simply have not been delivered.  And they should have been.  If there wasn't time and there weren't the resources, then the government should have been told that by officials.  Not left to offer utterly meaningless assurances to the government.  I'm stunned that people think that this good enough. If this level of haplessness is considered good enough by the majority of people we are destined to be a mediocre island nation at the bottom of the world in perpetuity.  Or, as I am wont to say, the Gloriavale of the South Pacific.  And that's not a future I want to see for this country. Wed, 19 Aug 2020 03:01:59 Z