Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

In a surprise move, Justice Minister Kris Faafoi says he's introducing a 'fair proportion' clause into commercial rent agreements.From today, a landlord and their tenant can agree to paying a fair amount of rent if Covid-19 has stopped a tenant being able to fully conduct their business.Faafoi said the two parties could also agree the clause does not apply.Colliers Head of Research Chris Dibble joined Kerre McIvor.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

ACT Leader David Seymour says he's thrilled at the response to a petition on Three Waters.Over 17,000 people have signed up to ACT's petition over a couple of days, despite National's petition reaching almost 25,000 signatures.Seymour says that Three Waters still have to get the councils to agree, of which they are failing at, but we aren't getting upset over nothing.David Seymour joined Kerre McIvor.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sir John Key has come out over the weekend, slamming the government's slow response and lack of initiative from ministers over the slow rate of vaccination, MIQ and the use of fear to control the population.  Both Sunday papers carried his opinion piece and this morning he spoke to the MHB.The PM has responded that the government is already working on some of the suggestions from the former PM - but seriously, how and why are we working on these measures?  It's such an utterly reactive response when we've had the benefit of seeing what has happened overseas and what has worked.  The saliva tests for instance - you may have read Vererena Frederika Hasel's piece in the Herald.  A German psychologist who lives in New Zealand, she went to Germany to visit family and friends in May of this year.  And far from being a place ravaged and devastated by Covid, life was pretty much back to normal.  Like everyone else, we were entitled to a free rapid virus test every day. So we started our days with a visit to a testing centre in our neighbourhood, joining people who turned up in their gym clothes because they were just about to go on their morning run. Thirteen thousand testing centres had opened up all over the country, all of them fully funded by the government. We received the test results within 15 minutes on our mobiles.  New Zealand on the other hand feels frozen in time ever since I returned.Eighteen months into the pandemic, the government has not introduced the tools that have proved effective in stopping the spread of Covid-19 in other parts of the world.  The government still owes the public an explanation for why the vaccine rollout has been so maddeningly slow. It has never explained this nor has it apologised for it. They even claimed everything was going according to plan. The reality is: If people had been vaccinated sooner, this long Auckland lockdown would have been averted.Experts who act as advisors to the government have been a bit smug. Sir David Skegg accused other countries of having let New Zealand down.They could have gone down the elimination path but they chose not to, he said. But it is not as easy as that. Not every country is an island or is able or willing to close its borders. I am actually having a very hard time accepting the border closure here.  So add this voice of reason to that of Sir John Key's, to Sir Ian Taylor's, to Rob Fyfe's - these are not people who are mad granny killers, who want to throw New Zealanders to the wolf of Covid.  They just see a government who does not seem to be able to pivot the way it has asked businesses to do, a government that is bereft of ideas, that is anything but transparent and that only knows one simplistic way to manage a crisis.  And that's to shut everything down.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government is investing $45 million in a new frontline programme, instead of arming police. It includes $15 million for a Tactical Response Model and expansion of the frontline skills course. More than 200 additional police officers will be qualified to armed offenders squad standard. Police Association President Chris Cahill joined Kerre McIvor.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Evergrande, one of China's largest real estate developers and one of the biggest businesses in the world, is causing a major crunch for the global economy. The massive business has massive debts, about $300 billion worth, and was due to pay off the interest on some of its bank loans yesterday. As the company remains in danger of defaulting, the US stock market and other global markets took a tumble.  Forsyth Barr Head of Wealth Management Matt Henry joined Kerre McIvor to discuss.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An important day not just for Auckland businesses, but businesses around the country. Auckland is now in Alert Level Three, meaning more businesses can begin operating in some capacity. Heart of the City Chief Executive Viv Beck joined Kerre McIvor.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just when it was looking promising for Auckland to move down a fraction of a level, giving us the welcome morale booster of click and collect shopping - why in heaven's name can't we buy books in Level 4 - along comes the news that Waikato has three positive cases of Covid, including two children one of whom was symptomatic while at school.  If the PM faffs around and holds everyone in suspense while taking ten minutes to praise a group of essential workers, to thank Auckland and to update the vaccination rates, I will probably have a cardiac infarction.  Just give us the news - good or bad and let us deal with it.  I cannot believe that people haven't been able to cross the Auckland Waikato border to attend funerals - and yet an Auckland prisoner is remanded out of the region.  Explain that one.  So now we've got all the experts piping up telling us this exposure complicates things and makes it a very difficult decision for the government and so on and so forth.  And I'm absolutely sure it does.  We have an under resourced public health system that will struggle to deal with a significant outbreak and given that not enough people have been vaccinated to let the virus rip, we are going to have to be cautious. But people who have been doing it tough, been doing the hard yards - I'm not too sure how long they can hang on.  We have a public health system that cannot deal with a pandemic and that's the fault of successive governments; we have a woefully inadequate MIQ system - unless you're a top tier sportsman; we have a failure of our immigration department where criminals are given residency and GPs return to their home countries because they can't get certainty about their future - businesses are doing their bit but they are being let down by an inefficient government.  How else can you explain our MIQ system and the fact that businesses and our DHBs are screaming for experienced staff and immigration won't let them in?  So many people are white knuckling it through  this lockdown while bureaucrats and government officials make knuckle headed decisions that render their sacrifice meaningless.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Despite Te Wiki o te Reo Māori drawing to a close, it doesn't have to be the end of your te reo journey. Te Reo Māori is one of the many languages listed as endangered by UNESCO, in the year 2000, there were just 70,000 speakers. More and more, te reo is becoming part of our daily lexicon, from news readers to musicians. Te Rau-o-te Rangi Winterbern is the Head of Kaupapa Māori at Education Perfect, New Zealand's largest edtech company, and he joined Kerre McIvor. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here at Newstalk ZB we’ve got a lot of messages concerned about the government controlling the media in the last week. These concerns have often accompanied by a video of Newshub’s Tova O’Brian talking about a document dump. Kerre McIvor spoke to Tova to confirm that the government did not pay TV3 to shelve the story.  She says it was a story from May last year, and that the Prime Minister’s office was not happy about the story being leaked to Newshub at the time.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

National Party leader Judith Collins joined Kerre McIvor Mornings to discuss the nuclear agreement between Australia, United Kingdom and United States as well as the latest round of polls.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.