Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

How on earth can the Road to Zero mouthpieces claim that the Road to Zero road deaths is on track, when they've admitted in their annual monitoring report that they're falling short of meeting targets for the strategy? This year, 166 people have died in crashes on our roads. That's higher than pre-Covid levels for the same period, and despite the fact that the price of petrol is through the roof, that generally results in fewer people on the road and accordingly fewer debts, but nope we're on track for a very high toad toll.  At the same time, you've got the Road to Zero mouthpieces saying we're on track. How counter-intuitive how can this be? Having done three openers on the Road to Zero strategy, nothing seems nothing seems to be getting through to them. All of the research and all of the facts say that a Road to Zero deaths, is a road to nowhere. It's a complete and utter waste of time and enormous waste of money.   What about the engineering? Ultimately, we need to be kept apart from one another. More engineering? The AA Rd safety spokesperson, Dylan Thompson agrees. He doesn't speak in Bureau speak.  We've got rubbish roads. Even if everybody is following the rules as the Swedish Scandinavian research indicates, if you've got rubbish roads it is unforgiving of any mistakes.  Sure, you go ahead, more driver education doesn't hurt, defensive driving courses don't hurt. Fine, improve vehicle safety standards, absolutely, but ultimately the best thing the Government can do as a listen to Dylan.  And stop spending millions and millions and millions and millions of taxpayer dollars on dumb advertising programs that will ultimately be ignored by the numbers that don't watch terrestrial television anyway.  Improve the roads. It’s really simple. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In December last year we shared the story of Brittany Kremers, a 25-year-old woman who was denied desperately-needed facial surgery at the eleventh hour by the Christchurch DHB. The reason? No funding available. Brittany has tightened screws on her face to realign her jaw for months in preparation for having a prosthetic jaw fitted.   She had her jaw and skull base removed, along with a life-threatening tumour, in 2006. Seven months on, Kerre Woodham thought to check in with Brittany's mum, Dawn Kremers.  Help Brittany get her surgery here. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An interesting idea came out yesterday from Eric Crampton, who's the Chief Economist at the New Zealand Initiative think tank. This was in response to calls from tertiary students for more help to relieve the financial pressure they're under. Everybody is under financial pressure at the moment and tertiary students are certainly no exception.  There is nothing attractive about being forced to live in mouldy cold flats and living on 2-minute noodles and they are hardly the optimum conditions for excelling and attaining your degree.  Eric Crampton believes interest on student loans should be reinstated so students can borrow more while they're studying, thus being able to pay the cost of living without having to take on a third job.  I couldn't disagree with the Chief Economist more. Get more kids into bigger debt? Dumb idea.  If all Kiwi tertiary students were actually completing their degrees and becoming glittering jewels in the crown that is the knowledge economy, fine.  But they're not. Look at the numbers.  New Zealand has one of the lowest reported higher education qualification completion rates in the OECD, well below the Aussies. Another statistic to add to our education roll call of shame.  According to the Government data from 2018, one in the three university students never completes their degree.  So they've taken on this loan, they've gone in there with their brand new pads and their new lecture notebooks, and they're all excited, and it's going to be very thrilling, and they’re off and away. Except, they're not. One in three crash lands. But they've still got that debt, and they've got nothing to show for it. A complete and utter waste of money for them, and a total waste of taxpayers' money too.   I believe we need a massive change in the way in which we fund universities. Stop having them as bums on seats to get the funding and make them centres for excellence. Not a kind of youth camp while kids work out what they want to do at tremendous cost to themselves and to the taxpayer. The money the taxpayer is investing in tertiary education could be far better spent on funding students with natural academic aptitude, whatever their background. And once they complete their degree, they either stay in the country for a period of time and the debt wiped, or they can leave and they pay back their loan.  What needs to happen is that we stop giving places at university and we stop giving student loans to kids who have absolutely no reason to be at uni, and we stop subsidising 80 percent of courses on horses who are never going to make it to the finish line, they're barely going to make it round to the straight.  Fund to those who deserve to be there, who need to be there for the good of the country and fund them 100 percent.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Calls are growing for a review of the Reserve Bank's slow response to inflation. National is calling for an independent review after Governor Adrian Orr acknowledged his interest rate decisions have contributed to inflation reaching the level it has. Orr's acknowledgment followed criticism from his predecessors, including Graeme Wheeler and Don Brash. To discuss this, former Finance Minister Steven Joyce joined Kerre Woodham. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A couple of weeks ago we were talking about the farming community and the fact that the latest surveys out showed they didn't have a great deal of confidence or optimism about the future of their livelihoods. And you would have to wonder how they're feeling now with reports of foot and mouth getting closer to New Zealand. A new outbreak in Indonesia, a first for that country, has both Australia and New Zealand on edge. Bali is a popular tourist destination for Kiwis and particularly Aussies, and even though there are no direct flights to Bali from New Zealand, biosecurity officials say they'll be on the lookout for anyone who's traveled there recently.  At the PM's post Cabinet press conference yesterday, she said that if foot and mouth reached New Zealand, all rural trade would be stopped and more than 110,000 jobs would disappear. Biosecurity Minister, Damien O'Connor, put it more bluntly, it's the doomsday disease. And he says officials are doing all they can to prevent the disease arriving on these shores.  So we have to do our bit and we have to be vigilant as well. If you're heading to Bali then you'd want to make sure the shoes, and whatever else you wearing on your feet were washed, anything else that came into contact with any kinds of animals.  Mike Hosking expressed doubt this morning on his show, whether this Government could cope with a biosecurity risk as big as this. But I think successive governments, including this one and their associated departments have shown they can.  Remember the great 2015 Grey Lynn fruit fly hunt? And the subsequent 2019 Auckland fruit fly response that saw around $34 million spent on eradicating a handful of fruit flies. I think it was just over $1 million a fruit fly that they found, which might have been considered an overreaction, but I would say it was money well spent. As the fruit fly if it had established itself here, could have decimated an industry worth $6 billion in domestic sales and exports kiwifruit, honey and the like, gone. And remember M. Bovis? In 2017, the Government made a commitment to eradicating Mycoplasma Bovis and that would have been, or is, a world first. And although the relevant departments were unprepared for such a widespread response. Shock me sideways and color me pink they weren't ready! They rallied. And an independent review found that New Zealand is well on track to being able to make the claim that we are M. Bovis free.  But I think the lessons we can take, is that we know how to get rid of biosecurity threats, thus far. The threat was identified, the threat was eradicated in terms of the fruit fly and in terms of M.Bovis. If the lessons have been learned, that can be adapted to foot and mouth and that should give you some confidence, shouldn't it? That we'll be able to keep this latest by a security threat from establishing itself on our shores? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

AG Research principal scientist Axel Heiser joined Kerre Woodham to answer questions on Foot and Mouth disease and whether we can stop it entering the country. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Less than half of students are regularly attending school. The latest truancy data shows regular attendance in term one dropped to just 46 percent. It's down on 72.8 percent in 2019 - pre Covid - and 50.5 percent in 2020. National's Education spokesperson Erica Standford says this is not just a social failure but a future economic crisis. Erica Standford joined Kerre Woodham. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now, if you're listening to me while you're at work this morning, it doesn't matter what you're doing; blue collar, white collar, minimum wage, being paid through the nose for whatever it is you do, working part-time, working full time. I just want you to take a wee moment and just give yourself a virtual hug. A little bit of a hearty handshake, a bit of a hand clap, because you and I my friends, taxpaying New Zealanders, are becoming rare and wonderful beasts. We are like shining unicorns, you and I.   Marvellous creatures we are, the stuff of myth and legend, because, and this stopped me in my tracks yesterday - did you know how many people are receiving benefits in this time of desperate worker shortages? 11 percent of the working age population is receiving a main benefit.   11 percent! What you might ask is a main benefit? Well, I wondered. I thought perhaps it included Working for Families, but no, no, those payments are extra. Emergency accommodation and emergency payments for food that's all on top. The main benefits are Job Seeker, Supported Living, Sole Parent and then a host of others - a bit of rats and mice, like the Youth Payment, Emergency maintenance allowance, student hardship etc. Not many people are on those. By far the majority of working age people are on Job Seeker, Supported Living and Sole parents.  If you had asked me if somebody had said on-air, you know how many people, what proportion of working adults do you think are on the benny? I'd have said I don't know 5 percent, six maybe. The people who can't work because of illness or accident. People who are new parents, brand new parents at a push. People in-between jobs and looking for work. But 11 percent?!  Bloody hell, taxpayers are not only funding the huge sinkhole that is government bureaucracy, they're funding schools, hospitals, roads and they're funding 11 percent of the working age population. They're having a laugh. I really draw a line at that.  And what sort of life is it on a benefit? You exist. You barely get by. How on earth can you not think you're better than that? As I say, sincere sympathies for those who cannot work and that is what the benefit is for, and perhaps if those who were able got off the benefit, those who need it could have a little bit more. You could take the money that is being paid to 11 percent of the population and give more to the 5 percent who desperately need it. I'm appalled. Honestly, I had no idea it was that many people.  So if you, my beautiful Unicorn, with your shining mane and your silver hooves, are grunting away at work today, labouring away doing what you do, thank you. I'll thank you as a fellow taxpayer, because I guarantee that 11 percent won’t. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Andrew Dickens: Does the Govt know their new visa policy hurdles are too high?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Andrew Dickens: Dr Ashley broke me when he announced changes to the way we monitor Covid infectionsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.