Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Last week, the world saw some optimism in the Covid world.Pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced final results from the late-stage trial of its COVID-19 vaccine.Results showed it was 95 per cent effective, with Pfizer saying the efficacy of the vaccine was consistent across age and ethnicity demographics, and there were no major side effects, a sign that the immunisation could be employed broadly around the world.Another pharmaceutical company, Moderna, also released preliminary data for its vaccine, showing similar effectiveness.Dr Chris Smith, medical consultant of virology at Cambridge University and founder of the Naked Scientist podcast, joined Kerre McIvor to discuss what these latest developments mean, and what we need to keep in mind on the effectiveness of the vaccines. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The old adage when it comes to children is one for mum, one for dad and one for the country, but the fertility rate among New Zealand women had fallen to the lowest level on record 1.63 - not even one for dad. Statistics NZ figures show the fertility rate hovered around 2 for much of this century, even getting above the 2.1 replacement level in several years.  But in the past five years, figures have trended downwards. Lindsay Mitchell spoke to Heather du Plessis-Allan last night about a report on declining birth rates she wrote for Family First and she believes women want to have children; they just don't realise there's a time limit on their fertility.We need to replace our ageing population.  We need people to do the jobs the elderly can't and we need the tax base a younger working population provides.  So we either grow our own people or we import them.  Though it’s probably cheaper to import them.A declining population means declining productivity and a declining economy.  So it concerns all of us.There is some evidence to indicate that women who were well educated and had good jobs were deciding to pursue a career rather than have children, but increasingly, as millennials are becoming adults, they're taking a stance too.And apparently its millennials who have decided that the world is too miserable a place to bring a child into.  Seriously, who can blame them? Prioritising your family isn't valued by society.  We don't have income splitting for tax purposes.  Housing unaffordability is at an all time high.  Children have been told that the planet is imploding and its all the fault of humans. Why on earth would you bring a child into the world if you didn't believe in the future or didn't think the job of raising a family was a valued and important job?When times are good, when people are feeling confident, that's generally when they will have children. If you're fearful for the future, if you're hunkering down, if your battening the hatches, that's when you don't. So what does that say about the world right now?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a Newshub report last night, new figures reveal Australia's crackdown on Kiwi criminals has caused an escalating crime wave in New Zealand.Since 2015, Australia has sent back over 2000 people and more than half have committed offences since being back in New Zealand.In total, they've now committed 9000 offences including home invasions, assaults, and child sex crimes, and more than 2000 instances of "dishonesty", like theft.Filipa Payne is the co-founder of Route 501 - an advocacy group for deportees, and she joined Kerre McIvor on the show this morning.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The media last night and this morning - the television news channels, the newspapers, the radio stations - were all leading with the story that the Reserve Bank has put gasoline onto an already blazing hot housing market with the announcement that LVRs are set to return come March. Theoretically, requiring a bigger deposit, which is what the loan to value restrictions require, will calm down the market which has seen house prices rise five percent since the Covid 19 lockdowns against all predictions. But given that they're not set to be in place til March, that gives rental property investors time to build up their portfolios and outbid first home buyers who don't have the same equity advantage as existing home owners. It remains to be seen whether the LVRs will only apply to investors or whether they will apply to anyone looking to buy a property. So that's what the noise over the Reserve Bank announcement is about - but really, what's new?  We know that Kiwis have a love affair with housing.  We know that our houses are some of the most expensive in the world.  We know that it’s hard to buy your first home - that's been the case for every generation. There really isn't anything new in the headlines.  What might be different is whether you're going to sell your home because you believe you're never going to get a better price than you are right now.  And whether the investor property scramble will really happen given that, anecdotally, investors have told me and you will have heard, that they're getting out of the market because the new rules make it too hard for the mum and dad investor. In which case, surely that's good for the market.  Mum and dad investors sell their investment property, get a great price for it, freeing up a home for a first home buyer or for a professional property investor who knows how to play by the new rules thus providing better quality rentals for tenants.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What to do about National? At the moment, they are struggling to form themselves into a decent opposition far less an alternative government.  It's going to be hard - it's a bit like a poker playing sitting there with a couple of decent cards and a few duds.  You can shuffle them as much as you like but it's still not a winning hand.  Not the full house that Labour has. I feel for Judith Collins - she has just 32 MPs with which to re-energise and re-invigorate her party.  And that regeneration is not helped by the fact that two old dinosaurs within the party have refused to get their noses out of the trough and push off and find real jobs. Voters turfed out Nick Smith and Gerry Brownlee from their respective electorates but the two long serving MPS and former Cabinet ministers managed to get back to Wellington thanks to their places on the list. If ever there was a chance to bring new blood in, this was it.  These two could have and should have resigned and let fresher faces into the caucus because one thing is absolutely certain, if Nick Smith and Gerry Brownlee are the answer, people are asking the wrong questions. The announcement of the allocation of portfolios happens tomorrow and Judith Collins has made it clear that nobody apart from Shane Reti is safe. I think the National Party choosing to disembowel itself and eat its own entrails in public was the main reason why Shane Reti's majority was slashed - it's hardly just on his shoulders. But where does National go from here?  Judith Collins has said she will reward loyalty, talent and hard work.  I really don't think she has the luxury with such a depleted caucus of rewarding loyalty - talent and hard work must be the priorities in that order.  If you have to swallow a rat and appoint a sworn enemy then so be it. There's a whole crop of brand spanking new Act MPs who will be all wide eyed and bushy tailed and getting their bearings within Parliament so we can't really expect them to provide stiff opposition to the government straight out of the blocks.The more seasoned National MPs will have to get to work almost immediately because by crikey, if ever a government needed to have its actions put under scrutiny, its this government. With its extraordinary majority which it may have earned through its Covid response and the personal popularity of the Prime Minister but which it should never have got based on its performance and delivery on policy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday, we finally saw Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take to the stage as President and VP elect of the United States. It was expected and has been anticipated for days now, but without Donald Trump conceding, it made things just a little more fluid, shall we say.  Trump has claimed voter fraud, without any real evidence, and although he has asked for recounts and is still threatening legal action, there's no guarantee that will actually happen. There has to be a threshold for recounts in most states, and the courts will not simply grant him his wishes – again, there has to be a legal threshold reached before the courts will hear an applicant's case. I watched the speeches yesterday - and both Kamala Harris and Joe Biden sounded strong and were on point with their messaging.Harris said “Every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.“And to the children of our country, regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message:“Dream with ambition, lead with conviction, and see yourself in a way that others might not see you, simply because they’ve never seen it before.“And we will applaud you every step of the way.Biden spoke to Trump’s base. And to those who voted for President Trump, I understand your disappointment tonight. I’ve lost a couple of elections myself. But now, let’s give each other a chance. It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric.“To lower the temperature. To see each other again. To listen to each other again. To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy.“We are not enemies. We are Americans.”So yes, unity and girls can do anything - nothing we hadn't heard before and not visionary speeches like Obama and JFK but serviceable nonetheless and appealing to the better nature of the American people and Biden stressing he would be a president for those who didn't vote for him, not just those that did. That bloc of Trump supporters - nearly 71 million of them - will need to be placated.  And that's going to be difficult for Biden. The success or otherwise of his presidency will probably depend on whether the Democrats can win Georgia - the party organisers both Republican and Democrats will barely have time to draw breath before they're on the road again, galvanising voters in the senatorial elections. So surely you would have to say now that it's over - and surely the best thing Donald Trump can do is concede defeat gracefully and start to rebuild his business empire, and leave the business of running the United States to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and that is going to be a thankless task.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sol3 Mio tenor Pene Pati could be on his way home from London next week after being denied an emergency application for a quarantine spot.The performer was in Germany when authorities announced they were going into a new Covid-19 lockdown, and after other performances in Europe were scrapped, Pati was forced to head home.However, Pati was kicked off the tarmac in London because he did not have a voucher for New Zealand's quarantine facilities.Travellers to New Zealand must now have a managed isolation voucher otherwise they will not be allowed to board their flight. The allocation system, which went live on October 5 and applies to any flights arriving from November 3 and has been filling up fast."We definitely didn't account for this type of thing," he told Kerre McIvor."I was already mid-transit and that made it even harder, in my heart I was halfway home."What happens when something randomly happens and you're forced to go home but your home won't take you?"However, there might be light at the end of the tunnel for Pati who is staying with a friend in London.After speaking to media and getting his story out there, a travel agent reached out and has been working with Pati to find him a spot in quarantine.They asked authorities what happens if someone with a booking decides not to fly to New Zealand, and it looks as though a spot is available."It might go through, I think [the idea] has gone through," Pati says."Fingers crossed but I could be flying home next week because someone is not using the room."On Wednesday, it was revealed four people had been turned away from their flights to New Zealand for not having a managed isolation voucher.The online Managed Isolation Allocation System (MIAS) was launched in early October and the need for a voucher to enter New Zealand managed isolation facilities came into force this week.The voucher system was brought in to manage capacity during the lead-up to Christmas because the Government said there were not enough health workers and police to cope with the number of travellers arriving into New Zealand who must complete 14 days of managed isolation to stop the spread of Covid-19.The system is booked out until December 20, locking hundreds if not thousands of New Zealanders out of a Kiwi Christmas with loved ones.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We still don't have a US president and we probably won't have one anytime soon.  At the moment, it looks like Biden will get the 270 electoral votes he needs, but Trump could conceivably get there as well - although a betting man wouldn't put money on it. Speaking of Trump, I could not believe the righteous little tit that was on Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive show last night.  This young woman stormed into a Ponsonby bar with her band of woke warriors demanding that people stop wearing MAGA hats and has since called for the boycott of Hoppers bar.Here's the thing.  I don't like Trump's persona.  I don't like his divisive politics.  I find his attitude towards women appalling.  I doubt that I would vote for him - I don't know because I'm not an American living in America. But there are millions and millions of people that did.  And as I said yesterday they're not all mouth breathing knuckle grazers.  Hispanics voted for him.  Women voted for him.  African Americans voted for him. Are they racist?  How does whatsername account for African Americans voting for him?  How does she account for an African American wearing a MAGA hat at Hoppers?  If you don't like the bar, don't go.  There are thousands of bars in Auckland all catering to different tastes and interests.  Don't like one, go to another.  But don't you dare try and tell others what they should and shouldn't do, what they should and shouldn't think, what they should and shouldn't say. It's like the woman who’s had her books removed from Amazon because of her derogatory comments about Nanaia Mahuta.  Nobody had ever heard of her before her ignorant tweets and deservedly so. The only people who had ever read her self-published books were the people in her own echo chamber - the Lindsay Perigos, the Mark Hubbards.  Giving her oxygen - and that's why I haven't mentioned her before and why I'm not mentioning her name - gave her far more attention than she deserved. However, in this Hoppers case, giving this ridiculous example of cancel culture works in its favour.  I drove past Hoppers and it was packed last night and will probably be packed to the gun'ales over the weekend.  By people who are of different ethnicity, who come from different backgrounds and hold different political views.  Who are able to sit and have a beer together and a discussion without shrieking at each other.  Who are more highly evolved humans than the cancel culture Neanderthals.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Early vote totals on Tuesday night in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin appeared to give President Donald Trump a comfortable edge over former Vice President Joe Biden.But those numbers were never complete, and those tallies were changing overnight and into Wednesday as mail-in ballots from heavily Democratic areas in those states were counted.A big reason for the delay: Laws in each state barred election officials from getting a head start on processing and counting the record number of mail-in ballots voters used amid the Covid-19 pandemic.Take Pennsylvania. The Republican-controlled legislature refused to change state law to allow county election officials to start processing mail-in ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day. That left local election officials with mountains of absentee ballots to process and count on top of the in-person vote cast on Tuesday.Overall, Pennsylvania received nearly 2.6 million mail-in ballots, according to the state's election website. Officials say that's 10 times the number of absentee ballots it receives in a normal election. In the Democratic stronghold of Philadelphia alone, officials received more than 350,000 absentee ballots that they could not start processing until polls opened Tuesday.Further delaying results in the Keystone State: Nine Pennsylvania counties, according to CNN's reporting, opted to not start processing and counting ballots until Wednesday morning.Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar on Wednesday tried to publicly nudge lagging counties to speed up reporting totals after a number of them appeared to have counted 0% of mail-in ballots on the state's website. "We're going to be following up with all those counties to say, 'Hey, make sure you get us the files,' " she told reporters.Biden's campaign encouraged Democrats to vote early -- while in-person votes likely favored Trump -- so it's no surprise that the former vice president's vote tally would grow as officials count more mail-in votes.The shifting count angered the President."They are finding Biden votes all over the place -- in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan," he tweeted Wednesday "So bad for our Country!"But Richard Hasen, an expert on election law at the University of California Law School at Irvine and a CNN analyst, said "there is nothing sinister going on.""In those three states, election officials begged for extra time" to process ballots and largely were thwarted by state legislators, he said."Ballots aren't processed randomly, so you get swings in outcomes" once election officials add absentee ballots to the count, Hasen said.Michigan, which received more than 3.1 million absentee ballots, faced similar restrictions in the run-up to Election Day.A new state law gave cities with at least 25,000 residents a little more time than usual to process, but not count, mail-in ballots -- an extra 10 hours on November 2, the day before the election. (Processing includes removing ballots from their outer envelopes and preparing them for tabulation.)The short window to process mail-in ballots in states such Pennsylvania and Michigan stands in sharp contrast to Florida, where officials began processing ballots weeks before Election Day, allowing them to swiftly report results.That's a part of the reason Trump was quickly projected as the winner in Florida.In Wisconsin, election workers had to wait until 7 a.m. Tuesday to begin most processing on nearly 2 million absentee and early vote ballots.A surge in Wisconsin results overnight that largely favoured Biden raised conservative ire, but it reflected the Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee reporting more than 169,000 absentee votes.A separate battle between the political parties could play out in the weeks ahead over another batch of ballots: Mail-in votes that arrive after Election Day. Trump has railed against a Supreme Court decision that allows...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Calls for a rethink of the school system before it drains curiosity out of our children.A University of Auckland study has found opportunities for kids to explore new ideas in schools are shrinking.Scientist Sir Ray Avery told Kerre McIvor we're dumbing our kids down, and weakening their ability to use applied knowledge.“We need to put creativity on the curriculum.”He says an apple drops to the floor at about 33 feet per second - but you don't need to know that, you just need to know there's an energy source there you can use.Sir Avery says we have to rethink for tomorrow’s world because our children are getting educated with a system that’s totally inadequate.He says arts is a good way to introduce creativity and agrees that the addition of more arts curriculum could help.Sir Arnold says purpose within the community is essential.“Why not teach kids how to be good social citizens… and there’s none of that in the curriculum.”He says a whole change to the system is not needed just a few areas.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.