Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

This morning there was the, some might say disturbing, or at the very least, unsurprising revelation that the Ministry of Transport Waka Kotahi has concluded a six-month safety trial.  They've been using hidden cameras at three secret spots around Auckland and it's caught around 1000 drivers a day illegally using their cell phones while driving.  1000 people a day illegally using their phones.  I don't mind saying, I think that the biggest threat to me and my family when it comes to the roads is that distracted and bad drivers. Forget the speed. It's people who use their cell phone and think it's okay to make a quick call.  I think that distracted driving is one of the greatest threats to people's safety on the roads.  The question is, what do we do about this when it comes to enforcement action? At the moment, a fine for using your phone while driving is 150 bucks and 20 demerit points. For me at the moment, the cameras for this sort of behaviour are the answer. For the time being at least, it's a reminder to put that bloody phone down and maybe take the time to ask whether your phone call or text really is worth risking someone else’s life and ruining yours. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If we thought the issue of bullying was going to die down with an investigation being launched into the behaviour of Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell and everybody being told to cool jets and wait for the report. Well, along comes an obscure Labour backbencher with an unsolicited op-ed in the New Zealand Herald that fired an absolute broadside at the Government parliamentary services and just about everyone who works there. Hamilton West MP Dr Gaurav Sharma talks of gaslighting, stone walling and member-to-member bullying and while some have said he's just not used to the rough and tumble of politics, I'm sure there's an element of truth to what he's saying.   About 300,000 people, accounting for 11 percent of the workforce, said that they had experienced discrimination, harassment or bullying in the previous 12 months. Women were more likely to have experienced discrimination, harassment or bullying. Workers in the 45 to 54 age group reported the highest rate of bullying at 14 percent, which sort of puts paid to the whole notion of young snowflakes coming into the workforce and complaining about bullying when all it is is robust language. Asian/Maori ethnic groups account for 13 percent,  the rate for Pacifica and European ethnic groups was about 11 percent. While it's pretty clear that an unprovoked attack on a younger pupil and a boarding house constitutes bullying, I'd argue it's a lot harder to define bullying in the modern workplace.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Leo Molloy has quit the race to become Auckland's next mayor. The Herald can reveal he is expected to announce his withdrawal today - on the same day a new poll had him dropping to third. Nominations for the election close at midday today. Leo Molloy joined Kerre Woodham. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watercare's $1.2 billion Central Interceptor project is now more than 2Km underground and heading towards the Manukau Harbour. The 14.7 kilometre Central Interceptor wastewater tunnel — the longest, biggest and most expensive pipeline in the country — is creeping its way underground, to create a wastewater tunnel that will run between Western Springs and the Māngere Wastewater Treatment Plant.   Shayne Cunis is the Executive Programme Director for the Cental Interceptor and he joined Kerre Woodham. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday, Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti announced changes to NCEA and university entrance (UE) for 2022, saying the Government recognises the disruptions COVID-19 has caused high school students. The big issue, according to principals from across the country who contacted the Government asking for assistance, is the significant absences of students and teachers, as a result of COVID-19 and it’s required isolation period, and the impact that has had on teaching, learning and assessment in the first two terms. So the changes are; students will be able to receive Learning Recognition Credits, with one Learning Recognition Credit awarded for every five credits earned through assessment. Students working towards NCEA Level 1 will be able to receive up to 10 additional credits, while those at Levels 2 or 3 will be eligible for up to 8 additional credits. To receive a Certificate Endorsement, students will need to earn 46 credits at Merit or Excellence level, instead of the usual 50. The University Entrance requirement to achieve at least 14 credits in each of 3 approved subjects has also been adjusted, to 14 credits in each of 2 approved subjects and 12 credits in a third approved subject. My son is in his first year of NCEA, and Covid has been a bit of a pain to be honest. He got Covid at the end of the first term when a lot of internal assessments and tests were being done. The disruption of not being able to sit tests when he was pumped and ready for them, and complete assignments when unwell, did have an impact on his performance and results, and we felt for him. Not that his results were terrible. But our attitude is; that’s life. You have to deal with the ups and downs and, and whatever is thrown at you, and just do your best. He’s lucky that there’s still time and opportunities to lift his grades. At no point did we consider he should be compensated for being sick, and I am sure a lot of parents feel that way. However, if you talk to those in schools, to teachers, principals, counsellors and psychologists, you might get another picture on the impact Covid has had. According to staff and students I have spoken to, student attendance has been worse this year for some schools compared to the last two years. Sickness and isolation rules has kept teens and teachers out of schools for long periods of time. When schools offered online learning, this wasn’t such an issue, but many schools don’t have the capacity anymore to teach both online and in person anymore. And then there is the mental health aspect of all this. Knowing learning recognition credits are available might help those who are anxious Covid complications might impact their work towards getting into University. Not all teenagers will need to use learning recognition credits. Those who are driven to do well will continue to strive to do well regardless of what the credit and university requirement is. This is a policy designed to encourage those who are struggling to keep at it during challenging times. We want as many teenagers as possible to have options when it comes to education, so if this is what it takes to keep them in the system, then maybe it’s worth it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a bloody mess. Hopefully, with Peter Goodfellow gone, National can get their house in order once and for all. This ridiculous hoo-ha over a new electorate MP should never have come to pass and would never have come to pass if National’s systems and processes were better when it comes to selection. Party leader Christopher Luxon sounded as exasperated as he probably gets when he was talking to Mike Hosking this morning. It beggars belief that Luxon and his deputy Nicola Willis would be left playing catch up after revelations Uffindell had been expelled from school for beating up a younger student. And then once those revelations were made, of course, it became a pile-on. The allegations Luxon was referring to in the interview are from a woman who flatted with Uffindell, who said he was an aggressive bully who once pounded on her bedroom door, screaming obscenities until she fled through the window. She said that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Her father came to Dunedin to help her move out of the flat the next day and gave the flatmates a piece of his mind. I would prefer to see any allegations of bad behaviour handed over to the police and let them decide whether a threshold has been crossed. We are all imperfect people. Parliament is made up of people just like us; imperfect. There is not a pool of perfect, blameless souls from whom we can select to make up our Parliament or our police or whatever it might be, and in a way I'm glad there's not. I would prefer people to have lived a bit of life, made mistakes and known what it's like to be humbled. I'd rather people like them were running the country and creating policy. Would I seek out the company of a man like Sam Uffindell? No, I wouldn’t. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On a day when National should be soaring, and scoring all sorts of points with the latest political poll giving National and ACT enough votes to form a Government and Labour at its lowest since 2017. When Andrew Little has had to concede that just nine nurses have applied to come to New Zealand when he said look, there's thousands. We don't need to change anything around immediate residency because we've got thousands of nurses who want to come here - so far, just nine.   And when the office of the Auditor-General has delivered what the opposition calls a scathing indictment of the Three Water’s proposal. A damning analysis of the overlap of proposed governance structures, lack of access to information by the public to scrutinise the proposed water entities, a lack of performance measures and a lack of integration with other reforms and local planning. So pretty damning. But instead of being able to capitalise on the polls and the fact that New Zealand is not a land of milk and honey for overseas trained nurses, and instead of being able to point to the Auditor General, having real concerns about the accountability and transparency of Three Waters. What do we find National doing? Defending the selection of a candidate who was a schoolboy bully. Sam Uffindell told the selectors when he stood for Nationals Tauranga electorate, that had been expelled from prestigious Kings College 20 years ago for being part of a group that committed an unprovoked assault on a younger boy. So he disclosed that, he said you need to know. He did not tell his Tauranga electorate, or indeed the rest of the public. So now this dormant grenade of information has exploded and it's leaving National in damage control. And really you can interpret this how you wish. If you want to see this as yet another example of National selecting a privileged private school, born to rule bully boy, you will. If you want to see this as a poor decision made by a 16-year-old for which he was punished, he was expelled from Kings and had to finishes schooling elsewhere. And besides, Trevor Mallard's done worse. That's how you'll see it. I don't think people should be damned for their past if they've shown they've changed. I mean, surely none of us would want to be 16 forever. I’d have been a pimply virgin in perpetuity. But seriously, what was National’s selection panel thinking and keeping this info to themselves?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There was, I thought, some positivity coming out of the National Party conference, especially in terms of their policy around youth unemployment. But of course, the usual voices and the usual critics have come out against it - beating up on vulnerable young people, beneficiary bashing, all the usual shrieks from people who see young, unemployed beneficiaries as victims. But how can you not care that somebody young, somebody fit and somebody able is languishing on a benefit? How can you not care that young people who are without jobs and without purpose, face a lifetime of being on the scrap heap? There’s study after study, the most recent one is from Europe, which follows up on previous research on young people who are not in employment, education or training, and it firmly establishes that a lack of education and work experience are the two main driving factors in increasing the likelihood of a young person becoming long-term unemployed. No surprises there. It also highlights that long term unemployment dramatically affects several dimensions of young people’s well-being in particular; it decreases overall life satisfaction and increases the risk of social exclusion while decreasing optimism about the future. So sit on your chuff long enough and you're going to feel that life is not worth living. You'll probably end up graduating from a job seeker benefit to a sickness benefit if your mental health suffers that much. So we know that being young, fit and unemployed is a recipe for disaster. I suppose we differ as what to do about it. The Government would have you believe that just giving more money is the answer. National says there needs to be a measure of the carrot and the stick. Christopher Luxon says we need to help young people get the skills they need to find work, encourage them to stick at a job and reward them if they managed to do so. The number of young people who have been receiving the job seeker benefit for more than a year has almost doubled since 2017, at a time when so many businesses are screaming for workers, somebody has to care about young people. Giving them a benefit in consigning them to the scrap heap is not caring.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

National has unveiled a new youth unemployment plan that would see under-25s given financial incentives for finding jobs and staying employed, and handed penalties if they don't take part. In 2009, the Government announced spending of $152 million to create work, education and training opportunities for unemployed youth. There were extra training places in the defence forces, money for more students in polytechs, and military-style training programmes. Paula Bennett was the Social Development and Employment Minister at that time and joined Kerre Woodham. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The thing about this job is that often at the end of the day, well a very truncated working day to be fair, at midday I can walk out of the studio and feel like I've achieved nothing.  It's not like I've painted a wall, or I've collected rubbish and what were full bins are now empty or cleaned the house, what was dirty and disorganized is now pristine and gorgeous, there is actually nothing tangible to show I've been here. I can stand on my hind legs and rail against dumb government policies or youth crime or declining education standards, and bemoan the fact that New Zealand is going in the wrong direction, but ultimately all that does is let me have a rant and let you have a rant and nothing changes.   And that is why I was delighted to see the story in the Herald this morning on Rotorua emergency housing motels. Twelve of them are applying for resource consent to continue as emergency housing providers. At the moment, motels operating under ministry contracts are unlawful, as the district plan only allows motels to have short term visitors. So they're looking to rectify that. To retrospectively make them lawful but also to allow the 12 motels to continue as emergency housing providers for the next five years. Five years! This was meant to be a short-term stopgap solution, and now they're looking to continue that for five years.  The good thing about this is that the Rotorua Lakes Council has received more than 3600 submissions on the applications, 80 percent of which are opposed to the motels continuing as emergency housing.  So, you've seen people galvanized If all twelve motels in Rotorua get consent granted they'll be approved to have 1008 occupants in 301 units. Just in Rotorua. 1008 people with complex needs in a city that you have to deal with, not the Government. As a retailer, as a neighbour, as somebody who lives in that beautiful city who just wants to go about their business.  Right around the country this is happening, so we need to get up on our hind legs, we need to protest and say this is unlawful and there's a reason why it's unlawful and you cannot ride roughshod over a district plan which was created to protect the community.  If, and I imagine that this most open and transparent Government may well do that, if they ride roughshod over councils and district plans and communities, at least we'll see the whites of their eyes and we’ll know what they're doing.  At the moment they've slipped it in and to our discredit, we've let it happen. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.