Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

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.

Emergency housing motels in Rotorua are applying for resource consent to continue as emergency housing providers. Currently, motels operating under Ministry contracts are unlawful as the district plan only consents them to having short term visitors. If all 12 motels in Rotorua get consent granted, they would be approved to have 1008 occupants in 301 units.   Lobby group Restore Rotorua chairman Trevor Newbrook said the number of submissions was "massive" and it tells him the people of Rotorua have had enough. Trevor Newbrook joined Kerre Woodham. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I do not remember the weather making so much news when I was growing up. Of course, back then we didn't have a voracious 24-hour news cycle. The media wasn't a beast that needed fodder thrown down its gaping maw every minute on the minute, every hour of the day.  But extremes in weather are nothing new. They've been reported by communities as far back as soon as people could put quill to parchment, they were writing about the extremes of weather. And of course, they feature prominently in the mythology of ancient civilizations, so weather extremes are nothing new.  What is new is that over the past decade, probably 20 years, is that extreme weather events have become politicised and monetised. And so you might believe that the science around climate change is all bunkum, you might believe it's all part of a UN agenda, you might believe that climate change is a crisis, that it is this generation’s nuclear free moment in the words of the Prime Minister. Or you might believe that climate extremes have always occurred on the planet - it's just that the length of time between these extremes is shortening, making it hard for flora and fauna to adapt.  So whatever you believe, it actually doesn't really matter, because what matters is that governments have subscribed to it, and accordingly, we're already paying for climate change, as Governments introduce policies around it and businesses respond to the legislation.  Some communities have already had to pack up and leave. The community of Matata was devastated by flooding in 2005. By 2019, all but one resident had left the township, in what the Government then called a managed retreat. There was much controversy around the Matata retreat, and so the climate change adaptation plan was released as a blueprint for how to deal with climate change, how to evacuate coastal towns. But yet again, this is a report short on detail and the vital questions of how much it will cost and who will pay has been left unanswered.  Many coastal communities are going to have to face up to whether they stay or go, and for some it will be dependent on whether they can live without insurance. If you can afford to live in a coastal property without insurance, you should be fine. If you can't then you'll be stuffed. At least 10,000 houses across NZ, four major coastal cities are at risk of becoming uninsurable within the next 30 years, so not long. And yet, they're selling at stonkingly high prices. New Zealanders still want to buy coastal. And it doesn't matter about the risk. So who should bear the cost if within the next 30 years someone has to abandon their home due to rising sea levels? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's fortuitous, isn't it, that you can find an expert to justify any position or stance you might want to take, no matter what it is. Anybody who was pro-something can generally find a study, a survey, or an expert to back up their argument, anyone who's against can find the same. Whatever that position might be, there's a survey or an expert ready to back you up; lies, damn lies and statistics. But I do back the economic modeler hired by local body councils, who have banded together against the Three Waters reforms, because they seem to be looking purely at pragmatics.  They look to be purely looking at economics of the matter, they're not driven by ideology. According to a consultancy that does economic modeling on behalf of Communities 4 Local Democracy, which counts 31 of New Zealand 67 councils as members, the economic case for the Government reforms, particularly the Government wanting to strip control of assets from councils, that economic model simply doesn't stack up.   The submission proposes setting strong regulations for water quality, but allowing councils significant freedom to meet the standards without forcing councils to lose control of their infrastructure. Auckland, for example, would keep Watercare, the smaller councils would see it as more sensible to amalgamate their water services.  We don't have a problem with the regulation and the stronger regulation.  Where we do have a problem is when ratepayers have invested in upgrading their assets, their infrastructure, they've bitten the bullet, and they’ve paid the higher rates.  Now not only are they not going to be compensated for that, they're going to see the control of the assets and the infrastructure taken out of their hands. And that's what they don't like.  So if it's done purely on the economics of it, Communities 4 Local Democracy have a plan for you. If the Government says, okay, we accept that it's not about economics, it's about ideology, then at least they're being honest about their intentions. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Reports of retail crime, from shoplifting to vandalism and ram raids have almost doubled in five years. Police statistics provided to the National Party last week show the monthly average of retail crime reported increased from just over four thousand in 2017 to just under eight thousand in the first half of this year. On One News last night, a Hamilton businessman under siege from young offenders has a plea for the Government to take them off the streets for longer. And in the New Zealand Herald, the owner of Te Puke & Rotorua Jewellers says in 15 years of business, he's had about 30 burglaries or attempted break-ins, and more than $80,000 worth of jewellery and watches stolen. Aimee Hines is the Public Affairs Manager for Retail New Zealand and joined Kerre Woodham to discuss what retailers can do. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Finally some impetus to get more healthcare workers into the country, back into the job and provide some relief to our nurses and doctors who've been carrying a heavy load during this pandemic. The Government’s announced a raft of policies, they've stopped short of including nurses and tier one of the immigration green list, which would give them automatic and immediate residency. Nurses are at Tier 2, so they must work here for two years before getting residency. Just out of interest, healthcare workers included in tier one who get that residency immediately, or pretty much any surgeons or psychiatrists and vets.   Oh and GPs as well. Finally.   Too late for the GPs have left the country because it was just too difficult to get residency, but better late than never. Health Minister Andrew Little says we don't need to put nurses into the tier one category because New Zealand is an attractive place to live and work. And the number of expressions of interest from health care workers. Overseas means no extra inducements to come here are required So, better late than never. Everybody has been screaming for policy changes to allow to make it easier for people who want to come and work here and bring their skills to come here. And that's what the government has done. Overnight there was an immediate response. So fabulous. Help is on its way for our beleaguered workforce.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Crikey, even when the Government does something right, they seem to get it wrong. Times are tough and a $350.00 cost of living payment will be a Godsend right now for people with little to come and go on. The payment was a surprise addition to the main budget. Eligible Kiwis will have just over $116.00 land in their bank accounts shortly, then another $116.00 in September with a final payment in October, all up amounting to $350.00.  To be eligible, you must earn no more than $70,000, not receive the winter energy payment, be 18 years or older, a New Zealand tax resident and not be in prison. Seems reasonable. However, a number of Kiwis who are resident overseas, including one who hasn't lived here for more than 20 years, have reported receiving emails from IRD informing them to gird their loins and brace themselves, because the windfall’s about to land into their bank accounts. That doesn't seem right.  Apparently, it's because the process is automated. David Parker, the Revenue Minister, was on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning. He said it would be far too costly an exercise to have people apply for the cost of living payment, and then have other people process the application and decide who was eligible for it, and who was not. So it's going to be automated. The IRD at the time said we don't want a bar of this; this is going to be very messy. The Government said don't you worry your pretty heads, you just send out that money.   So, an extra $116.00 a month will certainly help when it comes to filling up the car, paying the power bill, buying a block of cheese , maybe two blocks of cheese for $116.00. If some people get it that don't need it, is that really that big of an issue?  David Parker is quite right. If you hired people to process applications, you know the cost of that would just be astronomical. If you get it and you don't need it through some accounting error or computer error, perhaps you could donate it to charity, do some good that way.  If you're given the payment and you need it, I’m glad.  But my real concern is the old chummy who wanted everything locked down forever is just going to say when times get tough all you have to do is just print the money and give it out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.