Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

GDP rose by three percent in the last three months of last year, a lower figure than most economists had forecast but ahead of Reserve Bank expectations. It follows a 3.6 percent fall in the previous three months. The rise has come as Covid-19 restrictions loosened. To discuss, Kerre McIvor was joined by NZ Herald Business Editor at Large, Liam Dann. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fully-vaccinated tourists will be allowed into the country sooner than expected. Our newsroom understands travellers from Australia could be set to arrive - without the need for managed isolation - as early as next month. Visitors from other countries which New Zealand has visa waver arrangements with, like the United Kingdom, will be able to come in the weeks after that, followed by all other countries. So, is it a lifeline for our struggling tourism industry and will it make a difference for the Easter holidays and the ski season? Tourism Industry Aotearoa spokesperson Ann-Marie Johnson joined Kerre McIvor. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Thursday and Friday, there was not a cost of living crisis in New Zealand.  Yesterday, however, the Prime Minister announced that we have a global energy crisis, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Well aware that she was looking out of touch and obdurate, the Prime Minister decided over the weekend she had to respond to calls to help New Zealanders who are struggling to pay the rent, fill the car and put food on the table. And so, yesterday Cabinet decided that they would offer some relief. Reducing fuel, excise duties and road user charges by $0.25 a litre each for the next three months is easy and thus with a stroke of a pen it was done. The petrol tax tweaks will provide some relief, but don't address the wider cost of living crisis. We all know it's way more expensive right now to do anything than it was six months ago. So whether reducing the fuel excise tax is going to help you materially or not what's important in terms of the Government optics is that they have been seen to respond, finally.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has this morning finally acknowledged that there is a cost of living crisis, and she's indicated the Government will announce some kind of relief, presumably at the petrol pump.She was able to choke out the C-word today - crisis; despite refusing to concede there was one just a few days ago. And this was probably so as not to be seen as buying into National's narrative. Christopher Luxon was the one who coined the 'cost of living crisis' phrase and he's been hammering that at the Government in the house. But by refusing to acknowledge it, by refusing to concede that such a thing was even possible under her leadership, despite the fact that many of the contributing factors are beyond to control, it may do look out of touch and obdurate in not conceding just how hard so many families are doing it right now. People are doing it incredibly tough. They are going to be doing it tough for a long time yet. And if the Government can do something to alleviate that, then they must.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A concession from Jacinda Ardern that many New Zealanders are facing a cost of living crisis.The Prime Minister now admits there is a problem — whether it be called a crisis, emergency or shock — and something needs to be done about it.She says Cabinet will be discussing ways to address pressure on households today, and isn't ruling out changes to fuel taxes.In today's New Zealand Herald, the CEO of KidsCan, Julie Chapman, writes a confronting piece.A teacher at one of their partner schools says for many families, paying rent is the number one priority and anything else is a luxury.  Enough food is a luxury, power is a luxury. Julie Chapman joined Kerre McIvor.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Political commentator Matthew Hooton has written a piece in the NZ Herald saying, "Grant Robertson's $60 billion spend-up and Adrian Orr's money printing have made New Zealand asset holders nearly $1 trillion better off, while the poor have fallen further into debt." "Twenty-something Kiwis considering returning home report London property prices are below Auckland's, while salaries are three times as high. They also know that under 30s are doomed to have to pay back most of Robertson's $60b debt."  Matthew Hooton joined Kerre McIvor. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, the polls have been giving signs that a National Party revival was underway, and last night's One News Kantar poll confirmed that National has bounded ahead seven points to 39% to take the lead in the latest poll, the first since January. Labour’s dropped three points to 37%.  It's the first time National has been ahead of Labour since February 2020, which of course was a month before Covid-19 entered the lexicon, entered the world, and New Zealand was plunged into lockdown.  National leader Christopher Luxon told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking this morning, that people wanted strong economic leadership and there's real sense that the government has lost direction.  He speaks a lot of sense. He absolutely does.  There is still a heck of a lot of work to do for Luxon, and as he says, you don't want a party to just oppose the Government, they want to propose a different way and a better way.  A lot of what he says is absolutely bang on.  Hopefully this will send a message to the Government that you cannot run a country on ideology alone.  There have to be foundations and underpinnings that show the ideology works, or at the very, very least, does no harm.  And it also shows that you cannot live off your Covid response forever.  These polls are a sign that perhaps there are more people beginning to chafe and resent the Government control over so many aspects of our lives.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Commerce Commission has concluded competition is "not working well" in the supermarket sector, recommending a mandatory code of conduct for suppliers.  However, the competition watchdog has stopped short of requiring major structural change in the $22 billion sector. Newstalk ZB Chief Political Reporter Jason Walls was at the briefing and he joined Tim Beveridge.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Newsroom headline 'Luxon Spies an Opportunity' kind of sums it up really. National's leader delivered his State of the Nation speech over the weekend, and basically went back to the future with a promise to reverse Labour's tax grab should National be voted in 2023. Labour spends your money. National gives you your money back. It's the traditional trope. Christopher Luxon was right not to dwell on Covid, even though we've had more hospitalisations and infections with the Omicron variant than we've seen during any time of the pandemic. But there is plenty of fertile ground to be had by talking about how taxpayers' money is spent. Nobody minds money being spent on our hospitals. If there's one thing the pandemic is underlined is that governments of whatever hue, simply cannot afford to neglect our health system. But I personally do mind that this government spends so much money on looking good, gussying up its image.The Government spent close to $1 billion on contractors and consultants in the past financial year, Newstalk ZB revealed the numbers just after Christmas. The figure was down from the previous year of 2020. But still, tens of millions of dollars higher than it was in 2017. And this after a promise from Chris Hipkins to reduce the number of consultants.So while some of that might have been necessary for experts on the like, significant sums have been spent on public relations consultants and communications experts. Why do we need public relations consultants being paid tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars, to tell us what a good job the Government is doing? If in fact, the Government is doing a good job, we can see that for ourselves. We don't need to be told. We don't need to be persuaded. It bothers me that $200,000 is being spent on an American company to listen into social media posts relating to the government rules and policies around Covid-19. Why, why bother? If you think you're doing a good job, if you believe you're doing the best job possible, just do it. Why would you worry what people were saying about you on Twitter? Or about your rules. On Facebook, why does it matter? And if you're going to spend our money listening into our conversations, make the reports public, but they will not.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As Omicron bites and more people are being forced to isolate for extended periods of time, the staff shortages in this country across just about every sector have become critical. The aged care sector is an example - a broad coalition of residents, workers and facility operators has written to the Health Minister warning him that staffing shortages in the sector could become catastrophic if more workers go into isolation. And it's not just the aged care sector that's suffering.  In the New Zealand Herald, Jane Phare, a business reporter, has done another story on the staffing shortages in this country. And across every sector. We're all going to have a problem with the worker shortage with or without Omicron isolation.  You might say it doesn't affect you, but it will soon with increased inflation, delays in infrastructure and building, poor service closures and everyday price rises. Fruit is going to stay unpicked. If there are no pickers, it will stay on the trees until it falls to the ground and rots and you will pay more for it.  You won't be able to get to the supermarket after work or when you usually did, because they are reducing the hours that they're open because they don't have the staff. You're not going to be able to get the car fixed because your workshops are closed and so on and so forth.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.