Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

What on Earth do we do with young people who were born in New Zealand, who have lived in New Zealand all of their lives, but who aren't New Zealanders? They've never known any other home, but they can't get healthcare, they can't get a driver's licence, they can't get a job, they can't pay taxes.   In 2006, a law change under the Helen Clark Government removed the right to citizenship by birth for children born in New Zealand. The justification was that it stopped people from country shopping by going from country to country, having a baby in the one they liked and therefore being granted citizenship through their child. That's a fight Donald Trump's having right now with the US Supreme Court, the US being one of 33 countries that grants jus soli – the right of the soil, or the right of citizenship to anyone born within a territory.   We did away with jus soli in 2006, and now young people, it's not known how many, because of course they live in the shadows, are leaving the education system and are locked in limbo. The education system will educate anyone here, even if they're here unlawfully, until the age of 18. After that, all services of the state are denied to them, and they are on their own. Stuff has an excellent story highlighting the plight of New Zealand born overstayers this morning. At the moment, it appears there is no pathway for children born to overstayers after 2006. It's even more cruel to think that siblings born to those same overstaying parents before 2006 have New Zealand citizenship but their brothers and sisters born after don't.   At the moment the only option is to go to the Minister of Immigration and plead individual cases, which is time consuming, lengthy, costly, and takes up a lot of bureaucrats' time.   So what do we do with these 18 and 19 year olds? An immigration lawyer quoted in the Stuff story wants a repeal of the 2006 law change, which removed the right the birthright citizenship. Or, he suggests, we do what the Aussies and the Brits do and that is grant citizenship if you're born here and have lived here for 10 years or more. Surely that seems the most humane way of dealing with these young adults. They're here, they've been here all their lives, they likely have siblings who have New Zealand citizenship – those siblings are working or at university. Should the same rights be granted to those kids who, through no fault of their own were born in this country and now find themselves in effect stateless, without a country, without a place to call home, despite the fact that New Zealand is the only home they've known?   I would do what the Aussies and the Brits do. If you have been born here, if you have lived here for 10 years or more, you're a Kiwi.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. You cannot go into an election promising to get tough on crime, win the election and vow to draw a line in the sand, declare war on the crims, and then issue a directive that police won't turn up to minor crime. To paraphrase supermodel Linda Evangelista, who famously said she wouldn't get out of bed for less than $10,000, it appears our coppers won't get out of their Skodas for less than $500.   A memo has surfaced directing police staff not to investigate crimes under a certain value, such as shoplifting goods under $500. As you can imagine, there have been howls of outrage from retailers and dairy owners, and police are now scrambling to explain themselves. Ann-Marie Johnson, Retail NZ manager, was on Early Edition this morning. She says that retailers do have a realistic expectation of police.   “Retailers know that police aren't going to show up to every small, very minor case of shoplifting, but we certainly want to know that they're taking these crimes seriously and that where they can, they will be following up and arresting. Often they're repeat offenders, so we know who they are, and police know who they are, so we want to particularly focus on those people.”  Well, exactly. I remember ages ago I left my window open. I used to live in a villa that was on the street, and I left the window open in summer and some opportunistic heffer managed to heave herself through the window and scoop up what she could see in my bedroom and disappear. And I rang the police, not because I expected them to turn up, but because I needed the case number for my insurance claim, but somebody turned up about 3 or 4 days later and dusted for fingerprints on the windowsill. And because of that, they were able to match it to a nest of Vipers in West Auckland, a group of women who had committed all sorts of petty thefts and burglaries and crimes, and so it was worth holding off on the house cleaning and not doing the window sill so the police could dust for fingerprints.  Of course they can't turn up to every crime. I know that, but it's not a good look. Police Minister Mark Mitchell says he is happy to talk, but he doesn't want to get ahead “of the police executive who are going to clarify their position”. I can only imagine the “please explain” face on the Minister when he made a call to the newish-Commissioner.   It's one thing for us all to know that if our wallet is nicked because we stupidly left it on a bus stop seat, we know the police aren't going to converge on the scene of the crime, all blues and two in their numbers. It is quite another thing to know that a directive has been sent applying nationally standardised threshold values when assessing theft and fraud. Losing $500 worth of groceries and goods can have a huge impact on a small business' weekly turnover, and I sure as hell do not want to see losers walking out of supermarkets with $500 worth of groceries, getting a free pass.   You don't elect a centre right government for that sort of carry on. That was the very thing that galvanised a significant number of voters to vote centre right. You may not be able to get to every petty thief in the country, you know that. I know that the retailers know that, and the crims sure as hell know that, but the messaging from police has to be that they're going to jolly well try. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Police Minister is reassuring retailers officers will still turn up to reports of shoplifting.  RNZ reports staff have been directed to not investigate retail crime below $500 and online fraud below $1000.   Police may not take further action if the reports don't have enough evidence, such as CCTV.  However, Mark Mitchell told Kerre Woodham every crime deserves a response.  He says he wants to be clear that people can’t go out and shoplift anything under the value of $500 – there will be a police response, especially if the offender is able to be identified.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two new ‘non-financial’ sanctions have come into force today for beneficiaries, who, in the words of the MSD, do not meet their obligations or, as other people might put it, who do not get off their arses and go and look for a job. Some people may have half their weekly benefits put onto a payment card for four weeks, that can only be spent on essential items at approved shops. Others may also have to find volunteer work for at least five hours each week, again for four weeks. Remember though, as the Minister for Social Development confirmed, it's only a tiny proportion of job seekers who are having a laugh – 98% are complying with their obligations and are doing what they can to get off the benefit, so it's only really going to apply to 2% of those on the benefit. But as former Welfare Expert Advisory Group member Phil O'Reilly told Ryan Bridge on Early Edition this morning, sanctions can and do work.  Sanctions do work. Exactly how well they work is always open to debate. They work for two reasons. One is they encourage people to get off the benefit. But secondly, very importantly for people like you and me who are paying tax in order to give persons a benefit, they keep our faith in the system too. That if you're not going to play by the rules, there's going to be a bit of a sanction on you, so they do actually work in those two contexts. And I think that's important to remember too, it's not just about those who are on the benefit, it's about those people who are paying, in effect, the benefit. There has to be faith in the system to keep the system going. People won't suffer a financial loss per say, and since they'll be restricted as to what they can spend their benefit on if they are failing to meet their obligations. I'm less enthusiastic about the volunteering requirements. The poor old charity sector is doing it tough enough as it is without some hapless souls turning up reluctantly, looking for things to do because they have to. I don't see why voluntary organisations should be charged with the task of straightening out recalcitrant beneficiaries on top of everything else they do. Compulsory training courses or upskilling by MSD should be the way to go as far as I'm concerned. If there are people who want to volunteer, who have something to offer, fine -  fill your boots. But I imagine they'd be doing that already if they felt they had something to offer. What on Earth are you going to do with a couple of individuals who don't want to go and get a job? We're talking the tiny proportion of beneficiaries there who don't want to go and get a job, who don't know how to go and get a job, who don't believe they have anything to offer anyone - they'll have had the stuffing knocked out of them after being on a benefit for years - turning up at your local Hospice shop or your SPCA or whatever, what on Earth are you supposed to do with them? David Seymour, whose party campaigned on the policies, said sanctions should go further. He said no country can succeed with one in six working age people on a benefit and ACT wants to see money in kind given as a benefit instead of cash. If you want the freedom, he says, to spend cash as your own, then earn it yourself. Which is all very well and good when the jobs are there but it's widely acknowledged that we're seeing unemployment rise. Hopefully it will peak very shortly, but we are at a time of high unemployment relative to the circumstances of this country.  I'm all for getting the sanctions out for the 2% putting restrictions on what they can spend the money on so that taxpayers will have faith in the system, but the volunteering, no.   Also, some of you may have a different view now about being on a benefit. Prior to the Covid years, many people had never experienced the shock of losing a job. During the Covid years, people lost work almost overnight. And they were extraordinary times trying to find something to do in a in an industry that had disappeared for a time or in the recession that followed.  You might have suddenly found yourself surplus to requirements because the company you had worked for years was in really straightened circumstances and had to ditch people overboard to survive, so you might have a different view about what it means to be unemployed and looking for work. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been revealed how outdoor education can help build teenagers up.  The Boyle River Outdoor Education Centre is 20 minutes east of the Lewis Pass.  They're a not-for-profit organisation offering outdoor education programmes to secondary school groups and are in the business of fostering leadership, growth and confidence in young people.  Boyle River Outdoor Education Centre Manager Sharon Nicholas talks to Kerre Woodham about the importance of outdoor education for young people.  LISTEN ABOVE. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Prime Minister's keen to raise the retirement age -- but it's not possible in coalition with New Zealand First. The Government is halving its KiwiSaver contribution rate -- and canning if people earning more than 180-thousand dollars. The default rate of worker and business contributions to KiwiSaver will rise over time. Chris Luxon told Kerre Woodham pushing out the retirement age to 67 makes sense. He says Labour doesn't think it’s a good idea, and New Zealand First does not want to move that forward. Luxon also spoke about the cuts the government made to make funding available elsewhere.  Budget 2025 includes 21 billion dollars of cost-savings - 13 billion of that from the controversial change to pay equity law - raising claim thresholds. Prime Minister Chris Luxon told Kerre Woodham these are difficult choices, but there's no way they could afford that. LISTEN ABOVE OR WATCH HERE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Isn't it cruelly, cruelly ironic that yesterday we were talking about just how tough it is in retail, and we have the news that after 145 years, Smith and Caughey's, the last of the great, grand department stores, famous for the high-end goods, the beautiful Christmas window displays, will close its doors for the final time by July 31st. Ninety-eight jobs will be lost, but it's more losing a bastion of retail, it goes beyond the closure of just the store. It survived two world wars and two severe depressions. It was battling online retail but then a “perfect storm” in 2024 and 2025 meant that it just couldn't carry on. Once it's gone, we won't be seeing the likes of that again.   So ironic that we were talking just yesterday about the man from JLL saying we need more retail space, a quarter of a million more square metres of retail space over the next five years, and we were like really? How about filling the retail space that exists? That led into the conversation about just how tough it is selling stuff in this day and age.  Mike Hosking was talking to Viv Beck of Heart of the City this morning, and they agreed that the changes made to the inner city had proved too difficult to navigate.   “We hoped they'd be able to get through to the opening of the CRL and we have absolutely laid it out, clear as day, to both Auckland Council and Auckland Transport what they needed to do to reduce the barriers to get into the central city. And I think the lack of action is inexcusable. There are fundamental flaws in the way this is being managed, and it has to stop.   “The reality is it's been an obsession with getting cars out. We've already lost 44% of them since 2015, and yet Auckland Transport seems to think fining people in our nighttime district in Queen Street is acceptable. But the reality is we've got so much good stuff and it is a positive future. The City Rail Link will make access easier, but we cannot tolerate this behaviour anymore. It has to stop.”   There's so much that went wrong all at once, that so many businesses have been trying so hard to navigate and it's not just an Auckland. We're talking about Auckland right now, but look at Wellington and Hamilton as well. The inner cities are really struggling because of the ideological brain farts of city planners, because of the ideological bent to get vehicles out of the inner city without actually replacing them with any kind of decent public transport, because of Covid, because inner city hotels and motels were turned into waste stations for transients and waifs and strays making it an unappealing place to visit, because of online retail – there are so many reasons why it has been incredibly difficult. They're trying to hang on trying to hang on until the promise from these urban planners, the promises from the transport departments, the promises from the ideologues, that this is going to be a new and bright and beautiful future. That the streets are going to be teeming with throngs of happy people who are desperate to buy whatever it is you've got to buy. And so these businesses are hanging on by their fingernails. “Better days are coming. Better days are coming.”   Well, some of them cannot hang on any longer, their fingernails are losing the grip in there, slowly scraping their way down the side of the wall. I was on Ponsonby Road yesterday and a fashion designer who's been on Ponsonby Road in the same store for 26 years, she's conceded defeat. She can't do it anymore, she said, she just can't. She's been waiting and waiting and waiting for things to come right and she's run out of money and run out of time. And again, it's the economy, it's Covid, it's the new employment relations rules, it's all of those things. And then just when things start to come right, along comes Trump. There's so much that's happening.   But she also made the same comment that a lovely young woman from the New Zealand fashion powerhouse Zambezi made – Zambezi's not renewing its lease on Ponsonby Road. Both women said that along with all the difficult times they've experienced over the last five years, they said that their customer base had aged out and they weren't being replaced. That they were trying to reinvigorate their customer base, but the younger generation are just not interested in buying the more expensive New Zealand designed, New Zealand made fashion. The younger woman don’t want to pay those prices.   So, the kids may well bunk off school to take part in climate emergency protests, and they may well harangue the older generation for bequeathing them a world on fire, but they're not willing to settle for one outfit a year from a New Zealand designer when they could have 50 dresses from Temu. Rather than actually putting their money where their mouths are and not contributing to the ecological environmental climate change disaster of fast fashion, and rather than support New Zealand designers in New Zealand, machinists in New Zealand, pattern makers in New Zealand, they'll go and do their climate protests at lunchtime and then be home in time to make some clicks on Temu and Shein to get their fast fashion. You can see the mountain of fast fashion waste from space. And the kids could do something about it, but they choose not to. And that means that we're going to see more of these closures and more skills and crafts lost as the younger generation just don't care. So I don't think I'll be harangued by a young one about the state of the world anytime soon and take that lightly. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I don't know where the Head of Research at JLL, the commercial property company, I does his shopping, but it cannot be anywhere that I go. If you've ever wondered what the definition of gaslighting is, you may well have heard it this morning. Chris Dibble —the Head of Research at JLL— was on the wireless claiming that we have a critical under-supply of retail space in this country, and that to keep pace with population and demand we need to come up with a quarter of a million square metres in the next five years. Shopping centres and large format retail are experiencing solid demand, he reckons, and he told Mike Hosking CBD’s strip vacancy rates are the lowest in Australasia.   “The way that we've attacked this research is looked at basically the ratio between how much retail space we currently have and the population at the moment as well. And so when you look at that ratio, which is around about 0.5 square metres per person across the country, then when you look at the population growth that New Zealand's going to go through over the next sort of five years, we can understand that to keep their ratio we just need more space.   “And so we are seeing a bit of development across the country, which is positive. It will help to start, I guess, eat away at some of this growth forecast that was required in retail floor space. But yeah, there will need to be a lot of that around in Auckland. They've got around about a third of all the retail supply across the country so from that perspective, it is a significant amount that will probably happen in Auckland.”  I was listening to this, and I was thinking why don't we use the retail space that's vacant right now before we build anymore? The way he was talking it was that demand is such that you've got queues of retailers hammering on the doors of existing retailers, begging to take over the space, and that is simply not what I am seeing. I would love to know what your main street looks like? I know JLL is a commercial property leasing company, you have to talk up your business, but there's talking up and then there's downright delusional. If you have ventured into your local mall, how many sites are boarded up or being used as displays for the stores that remain or have these poor people sitting there gazing at you as you walk past, willing you to come into their store? They'd be lucky if they have four or five customers in a day. I've never seen it so bad.   It's not just my anecdotal experience either. I thought it might have been, but according to OneRoof, New Zealand's commercial property market in 2024 has been one of the toughest in two decades. High interest rates, remote working online shopping leading to higher vacancy rates and soft rental growth. Bayley's commercial and capital figures show commercial property sales plummeted since 2021 in both volume and value, and we're sitting back where the market was in 2001 and 2002. Westpac said in early December the market had fallen around 10% since its peak in 2021. The value of sales dropped below $6 billion over the 12 months to June 2024, the lowest in more than a decade.   So who's right? How can we possibly need up to a quarter of a million square metres of retail space in the next five years when so many shops are sitting empty? What are you seeing, because I am not seeing what Mr. JLL is seeing. The one thing I would agree with in the report is that along with the fact that we need three or four new 277’s, is that Kiwis still value in-store experiences. And for those stores that remain, by crikey I do, I love a good in-store experience, and I get them. Where you've got people who've been in business for years who know their business, who know that there is online, so they upgrade their websites, they get with the programme. I was in Tauranga on Friday. There's a store called Wendy's there that's been there since 1984, and it's still doing a roaring trade. Great website, it was absolutely packed, knows its customers, and the staff were incredibly helpful. It's seen off recessions, it's seen off online shopping.   If you know your stuff and you will have stores like that up and down the country, you stick with your knitting, you adapt with the times, you know what you're good at, you take on board what you need to grow with your customers, you'll be fine. And you cannot beat a good in-store experience, but bloody hell, it's tough out there. So how on Earth can we fill four or five massive new shopping complexes, which is what Chris Dibble was saying? Would it not be best to start with filling the existing stores that have vacant right now and have been vacant for far too long? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Public transport is brilliant when it works. You cannot beat it for convenience, for timeliness, for moving large numbers of people expeditiously and in an environmentally friendly-ish kind of a way, when it works. When it doesn't, it's a pain. Look at the poor Auckland rail commuters this morning – due to an infrastructure issue at Penrose, there were delays and cancellations. No services running through Newmarket on the Southern line, all Southern Line services were running via the Eastern Line, Onehunga line services cancelled until further notice. Just what you need, and not for the first time.   Auckland's rail network rebuild started in January 2023 and in its final stages, as announced, there would be 96 days of train closures from Christmas 2025 through to January 2026. KiwiRail chief infrastructure officer Andre Lovatt said the work was critical to convert the existing network, which was designed for freight trains, to one that has the capacity to carry faster and more frequent trains, about 16 an hour when the CRL opens. And when they're running, and when it's working, and when there aren't closures, it will be brilliant. It will be a really efficient way of moving people about the city at critical times. A lot of the really long-term problems will have been fixed, he reckons, so that means they'll be able to focus on preventative maintenance, and he's promised the long periods of closure won't be required in the future once the work is done.   The Government, too, appears to have faith in the rail network in our major cities as a means of transporting commuters. They also appear to have faith in its ability to shift freight, with the pre-Budget announcement of a $604 million investment in rail. Chris Bishop, the Minister for Transport, said investment in the Auckland and Wellington Metro network would enable vital and overdue work to be carried out. I thought vital and overdue work was already being carried out, but clearly there's more where that came from. A backlog of overdue renewals had made the services less reliable, with commuters experiencing ongoing disruption in recent years, and indeed this very morning that the announcement was made.   Winston Peters, the Minister for Rail, says rail currently moves 13% of national freight and a quarter of New Zealand's exports, complementing the truckies during the short hauls. He says the rail network investment programme for 2024 -2027 is now funded, meaning maintenance, network operations, asset renewals and modest improvements are funded. We have a legacy for rail freight, says Winston Peters, and this builds on it.   So there has been much investment in varying sorts of rail over the last two to three governments. Yes, we have a legacy of rail but clearly there is a commitment to a future for rail. Both in terms of Metro commuting and in terms of freight. I would love to see rail be a big part of our cities and of linking the provinces for commuters and of shifting freight – it's interoperable with the trucks. But we don't seem to have been terribly well served when it comes to getting value for money for our investment. I'm not even going to talk about light rail because I'll probably have a cardiac infarction and that will be the end of that, if you just think about the money that was wasted on that. We have a legacy of rail, is it a part of our future? I would really like to think so. I would really like to think that Andre Lovatt is right, that when it comes to Auckland in particular, all of the disruption and all of the inconvenience and all of the teeth grinding frustration of commuters will come to an end. The work will be done, they will get ahead of themselves in terms of renewals and remediation, and be able to be proactive in maintenance so that things don't come to a grinding halt. I would like to think that the rail tracks could be upgraded so that transport between our ports isn't just solely dependent on our trucks. That more of the load could be shifted onto rail making it easier for everybody – those using the road, the exporters, those working in the ports.   But we have been so poorly served by the money that we've invested as taxpayers. We've earned the money, we have asked our bureaucrats and our governments to invest it wisely on our behalf. Most of us, I think, support some form of rail but I would really like to see more accountability for how it is spent and for delivery. KiwiRail says yes, you'll get that. We're getting ahead of ourselves by 2026, we’ll be sweet. Do you believe that? Winston Peters says we have a legacy for rail freight. Do we have a future when it comes to rail freight? I'd really like to hear from those who do the heavy lifting for this country, metaphorically and literally. Can we have more than the 13% of national freight and a quarter of New Zealand's exports on rail? And when it comes to commuters do you have faith that this will be a brilliant, convenient, timely, fantastic way to travel in the near future?   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are hopes investment in rail is just the boost Auckland needs.  The Government will tip more than $600 million of Government funding in Budget 2025 to fully fund the Rail Network Investment Programme until 2027.  The freight network will get $461 million, and $143 million will be spent on Auckland and Wellington's metropolitan trains.  Greater Auckland director Matt Lowrie told Kerre Woodham some maintenance hasn't been done for decades.  He says that now that funding is coming through, they’ll be able to get improvements done so they can actually maintain and continue to improve services. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.