Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

The Commerce Commission's draft report on grocery store competition has found New Zealanders are getting a raw deal at the checkout.Chair Anna Rawlings says New Zealand groceries are the sixth most expensive in the OECD, but would be cheaper if supermarkets competed more.She says there needs to be an increase in the number of retailers who can compete effectively.Food & Grocery Council chief executive Katherine Rich told Kerre McIvor prices will come down if there is healthy competition in the market, but they also want to make sure suppliers are better protected"We do believe that prices for consumers should come down, if there was growing competition, but equally we've been focusing on better treatment for suppliers."LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

National's criticising the Government for buying more state houses than it builds.Figures released through parliamentary questions, reveal that of the nearly 8000 public homes added by the Government, only 3716 were new. The rest are mainly existing homes, bought or leased on the private market.Yesterday, a real estate agent called into the show to say that her company had been approached by Kāinga Ora to say they have been told that if an auction falls through Kāinga Ora is willing to pay “$200,000 over the asking price.” The real estate agent also said “their top offer is $1.5 million.”Kerre McIvor asked Minister of Housing Megan Woods if Kaiga Ora is subverting the market?LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An interesting opinion piece has arisen on Newsroom by the Sustainability Council of New Zealand Executive Director, Simon Terry.In the piece, he points out that if our international oil imports were cut,  New Zealand would be at risk of a breakdown of essential services and it would cost us hundreds of millions dollars a day.Terry believes if we paid just one cent a litre, it would keep our own refineries open and thus not be reliant on overseas oil.Simon Terry told Kerre McIvor keeping our refineries open is critical in making sure our essential services remain operational.“We’ve actually got, they expect, between only ten and 20 days of fuel reserves at any one time.”LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The ACT party is set to release its economic policy later this morning but David Seymour has already revealed one of its platforms - allowing privately run MIQ facilities for vaccinated travellers - something he says would ease the squeeze on MIQ and that would also throw a bone to hotels struggling as border closures continue. The idea's been doing the rounds since we first started requiring returning New Zealanders to quarantine and gained impetus once we started charging - surely if you're being pinged  you should get to choose between backpacker, midrange or luxury quarantining. The government rejected the idea because of the health and security measures needed but eighteen months on, David Seymour says it’s time to revisit the idea.He says it would bring back international students and much needed skilled labour and it would be limited to vaccinated people, both staff and contractors, and saliva tests would be needed every couple of days. Hotels wishing to take part would have to be licenced and could lose their licence if they breached conditions. Unlike the government run model, it would be based on full cost recovery as well as a profit margin. So it wouldn't be cheap. But it would be an option. And surely that's what we need to start looking at - options. There was an interesting piece on Newshub over the weekend, with Professor Des Gorman calling for an expert group to take over the Covid-19 response from politicians. He said, and he's right, one of the problems with the politicisation of any health response is that it’s hard enough to manage the health risk and the economic risk, but when you have electoral risk as well, it becomes very difficult. He says that we need to start shifting the way we govern and manage the pandemic - he points to ACC and the Super Fund and says these are kept at arm’s length from politics - there's an expert governance group in control. And that he says is what needs to be done with Covid, the government should get out of the way of people who are actually experts. Amen. The government needs to stop using Covid as an excuse and as its get out of jail free card. It's got some ambitious schemes on the table - three waters, reformation of RMA, restructuring of the public health system and you would think, now that we have accepted there is a way of managing Covid and now that our imperfect vaccination roll out is underway, that they can hand over the Covid response to a panel of suitably cautious experts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The ACT Party have revealed their ideas for private MIQ, which would allow mothballed hotels to privately offer their services for vaccinated travellers.Leader David Seymour says the facilities would be run under strict testing and vaccine protocols - and help re-open the gates for international students, workers, and split migrant families.ACT is also calling for more certainty in the immigration system.The party has proposed dumping Labour's immigration reset, unfreezing the expression of interest queue, and resuming pre-Covid immigration settings.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thousands of insurance customers could be in for refunds.A Financial Markets Authority and Reserve Bank review's found many insurers hadn't been doing enough to ensure products are suitable, and are overcharging some customers.In some cases, they double-charged customers, hadn't given multi-policy discounts, or significantly overcharged premiums, because of poor IT systems.Financial Markets Authority director of banking and insurance Clare Bolingford told Kerre McIvor those insurers could be issuing refunds.“They've reviewed their products and realised that some mistakes have been made and some errors have been made. They are going through all their systems and making sure their customers get recompensed where they've been overcharged or where discounts haven't been applied.”The Insurance Council says companies have been working proactively to address areas of concern.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We are one of just 19 nations out of 197 that does not have an armed police force. Most are island nations like the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Samoa, Fiji, Tuvalu and the like.But Norway, the UK, with the exception of Northern Island, Iceland and New Zealand are the outliers in more developed nations who have decided that they will police by consent and not force. However, times change, communities change and attitudes change.   For a long time, the police themselves did not want to be armed. The most recent survey of police showed 69 per cent wanted to have guns on them at all times, not just in the boot of their cars. This is up considerably from 2008, when just 48 per cent of officers wanted to carry firearms. I don't blame police one little bit for wanting the added assurance of having a firearm. A significant number of the crims they're dealing with have guns, and more importantly they're not afraid to use them - against each other, against members of the public and against police. A survey in 2017 found a 38 per cent increase in the number of staff who'd been threatened with a firearm compared to two years previously.Of frontline staff, 21 per cent had been threatened with a gun, 40 per cent of those more than once.Of course, that number will be up considerably given the shootings over the past four years. However, Police Minister Poto Williams, who was on with Mike Yardley this morning, says the people she represents are dead against routinely arming police.We did ask for clarification from the Minister as to who exactly her people are.She is a New Zealander of Cook Island descent, the MP for Christchurch East and the Police Minister.However, in the interview, the people she says she represents appear to be exclusively Māori and Pacific Islanders from south Auckland.Not Christchurch, not New Zealanders as a whole, and not the police. So, a rather small sample size to make a decision that the police should not be routinely armed in the face of the dangers they are exposed to on a daily basis.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We were going to talk about the rise in violence on Friday given the incident in Auckland that saw some oik hold a gun to the head of two members of the public after stealing a car from a local car dealership - before we were overwhelmed with stories from farmers and their supporters heading to rallies around the country - and the sad thing is I knew it would only be a matter of time before the topic was in the news again.Another weekend. Another weekend of aggravated assaults, and attacks on police, and liquor stores being robbed, and the rates of gun crime last year being the highest in nearly ten years.And this from a Government that is trying desperately to nurture people and raise them up and from a police commissioner who wants to take a collaborative approach to offending, and who says we can't arrest our way out of the gang problem. And he may well be right.There has to be a two-pronged approach to gangs - I've always said that if kids choose to join a gang, it says more about how ghastly the place they came from is than how attractive the gang is. But according to the same police commissioner, violent criminal behaviour directed at police is ramping up like never before.Andrew Coster's comments came in the wake of the latest assault on police which left an officer with minor injuries. He said policing has always been a dangerous job but there has been an escalation in offenders' willingness to use violence towards police. He said he was unable to put his finger on the reason but he said generally, offenders who attack police are not making the sort of sound decisions that a sober person would.A caller to the show last week wondered if the huge drug bust New Zealand police were involved in, Operation Trojan Shield, could have seen drugs dry up on the street and that might be the reason for rising anger and violence on our streets but really - is mano a mano violence begets violence doesn't work and kindness and compassion doesn't work, what do we have left?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Act Party, as part of their Law and Order Policy, want gang members to receive their benefits on a card, which would restrict spending on alcohol, gambling and tobacco.However, it doesn't address why young people are still being drawn into gang life.Patched member of the Mongrel Mob Aotearoa Wairoa chapter and youth worker Bronson Tither, is trying to redefine what it means to be in a gang.Bronson Tither told Kerre McIvor he knows many gang members who don't use drugs, alcohol or gamble and singling them out isn't the solution."The solution needs to be more focused around doing the type of mahi with the gang members to change their mindset, so that they want to not be on the unemployment benefit and they can be supported into another pathway, another way of thinking."LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you were listening here on Friday, you'll have heard how riled up farmers around the country are.It wasn't just farmers, they also had support from urban dwellers - aka townies, as well.In an opinion piece on Stuff, Daniel Eb, founder of Open Farms praised the protest and the farmers for finding their voice but says the real test now, is where to from here?How do Farmers channel Friday's energy and influence towards progress?Eb said he thinks Kiwis understand where the farmers are coming from, as reflected by the turnout."When farmers say quite openly and honestly that we have a problem, and that we're struggling and that we feel this pressure, Kiwis hear that and acknowledge that and say this is an issue we need to take seriously."LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.