Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

The Justice and Police Minister says the Government's surpassed its own violent crime reduction target.  It set a goal in March last year of having 20 thousand fewer victims of serious violent crime, with an initial 2029 deadline.  It claims it’s already beat the deadline, but admits the data is volatile and subject to change.  Chief Victims Advisor Ruth Money told John MacDonald that although she’s delighted by the figures, she’s cautious in her celebrations since it’s only quarterly data.  But she says we do also need to acknowledge that there are a lot of crimes that aren’t disclosed willingly, so these numbers, although encouraging, are volatile.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’m liking the sound of Education Minister Erica Stanford’s approach to sex education. But it won’t be plain sailing, and she knows that.   But there’s a glaring gap in this new framework she’s put out for consultation, with ideas of what kids might be taught and when from year 1 to year 13.    I’ll come back to the glaring gap. But Erica Stanford is going into this with her eyes wide open, knowing how fraught this can be – with some parents thinking that it’s not a school’s job to teacher their kids about sex and relationships.   I’m the complete opposite. I think there is a role for parents in sex education, but it’s in the area of values. Because a curriculum can't teach values – that’s the sort of stuff kids learn from parents and caregivers.    So let the kids get a consistent sex education at school and let the parents discuss how what they’re being taught fits with their personal and family values.   I’ve had a read-through of the draft guidelines which are all about making sure kids up and down the country —from the time they start school at age 5 to whenever they finish school— are taught the same stuff at the same time about sex and relationships.   The Education Minister has been at pains to say that NZ First hasn’t had its hands on the drafting of the framework, but it may as well have.   Because I've read through the document and, from what I can see, the word “gender” is mentioned only once. And it’s not used in a way that means kids being confused about their gender identity.   There’s pretty much nothing in there about gender identity, but there should be. Because, whether we like it or not, there are kids crying out for this.    But that is something NZ First has been big on. With its demand —as part of its coalition deal with National— that the Government remove and replace the previous gender, sexuality, and relationship-based education guidelines. And as a result of that, we have these new guidelines which are out for consultation.   But nothing in there about gender identity, which I think is a major shortcoming. Because, surely, our sex and relationship education needs to reflect the real-world, not one particular view of the world.   And, surely, kids who are struggling with this can only benefit from what they’re experiencing being acknowledged in the education they and their mates get.   I’m not expecting you to get that if you haven’t necessarily been through the experience of having a child with gender issues. I haven’t, but I know people who have. And I reckon that, unless we’ve been through that experience, we have no real idea about the need for this to be included in the curriculum.   I'm talking about the need for our sex education programme to be honest and realistic and to include some of the things that some of us would rather ignore.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The driver licensing system may be in for a government overhaul. Under proposals released yesterday, the practical driving test for a full licence will go, and fewer eyesight tests will be needed. A clean record would be needed for restricted drivers to gain to their full licence, the demerit threshold for learner and restricted drivers would fall to 50, and there'd be zero alcohol limits for learner and restricted drivers of any age. Road Safety Campaigner Greg Murphy joins the show to discuss the changes.  LISTEN ABOVE. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Air New Zealand’s new uniform has been unvieled.   It was designed by world-renowned Kiwi designer Emilia Wickstead and comes 14 years after the airline’s last uniform update.  An onboard wearer trial is beginning in May, and the new uniform will be rolled out in full from 2026.  Henry, a pilot for Air New Zealand, told Kerre Woodham it’s definitely a change, but airlines all around the world are bringing back double-breasted jackets as part of their uniforms.  Flight attendant Lani says it’s exciting to have such a meaningful uniform – with beautiful hand drawn designs from Te Rangitu Netana and iconic New Zealand symbolism.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Industry celebrations over a directive to use Kiwi wool in Government buildings.   New builds worth more than $9 million and refurbishments costing over $100 thousand must use wool where possible from July, meeting a Coalition deal.  The directive orders state agencies to follow the directive where practical.  Campaign for Wool Chairperson Ryan Cosgrove told Kerre Woodham they’re stoked to see this formalised into policy.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The phrase “may you live in interesting times” is bestowed not as a blessing, but as a curse. And living in these most interesting of times, you can see why that might be. That's not even taking into account the previous five years – if we just take 2025 as our year of living in interesting times, you can see why it might be a curse.    Donald Trump raised tariffs on goods from China to 125%. Tariffs against seventy-five other countries are paused for 90 days with a 10% tariff because they were getting “yippy”. US share markets, which had been in freefall, have now rocketed higher. The Dow closed up 7.9%, the S&P500 closed up 9.5%, and the tech heavy NASDAQ was up 12.5% – this was all happening overnight. The normally phlegmatic Eric Crampton of the New Zealand Institute was about as ruffled as I've ever heard him this morning, talking to Mike Hosking on the Mike Hosking Breakfast.   “Well, I was expecting more chaos and we're still getting it. So I had a bit of insomnia – wake up at 4am, okay tariffs are still on. Wake up at 6:30am, okay tariffs look like they're gonna be off. It is really hard for any business to plan in this kind of environment – the chaos is just going to continue. The guy who's responsible for administering the tariffs was talking for two hours about how great the tariffs are and how they're going to keep implementing them, and was told during his speech that Trump had put a 90 day pause on the tariffs. He presumably hadn't known before Trump did it. I don't think that there's any plan here at all.”  Yeah. As for New Zealand exporters, well, I don't know. Founder of Egmont Honey, James Annabell told Ryan Bridge last night they're scrambling.  “We've got five or six containers on the water which I believe are exempt actually, which is great, but I know that for a fact that we've got about 10 containers due to leave sort of end of April/May, which will all be subject to 10% tariffs. So we were obviously scrambling when we got the news last week. I believe anything that left before Saturday last week, we're exempt. I could be wrong there – an expert will probably ring in and say I'm wrong, but we understand that what's on the water now is okay, but the containers to come are all going to be subject to that 10%.”  So how do you operate in an environment like this? For those of us not directly affected by the goings on in the United States —we're all ultimately affected, but not directly for many of us— it's a case of grab the popcorn and watch it play out. Take the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's approach: shrug and say boys will be boys, pass the popcorn. But for many Kiwis, they are having to try to make sense of all this to survive.     The PM's just delivered a speech to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, where he said, among other things, that the events of the recent days are the most significant challenge to the rules-based trading system since the general Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was formed in 1947. He told attendees that the direct impact on the New Zealand economy from the US tariffs announced last week is likely to be around $900 million, or roughly 0.2% of GDP. But the second order consequences of a region and a world retreating from trade and increasingly uncertain about its economic future will be more significant, despite the welcome news of de-escalation this morning, he said.   I know for many businesses keeping an eye offshore and for those New Zealander’s watching their KiwiSaver accounts, that could be confronting. He said, the exporters I've spoken to in recent days remain buoyant, rightly confident in the quality of their product and their ability to navigate choppy waters. But for countries whose prosperity is underpinned by global trade, the months ahead will be challenging for their economic interests, and many commentators will see these events as the next step in a longer-term trend towards economic security and national resilience, as countries ensure themselves against emerging geopolitical threats. He said he's not ready to throw in the towel and declare an end to the era of free market and free trade. He said, Kiwis have worked too hard and for too long to give up on the values and institutions which have seen our country and the region we live in thrive.    If you lived in the 70s and remembered the 70s, we were one of the most closed economies outside of Eastern Europe, outside of the Communist nations. Anybody who bought anything overseas cut off the label and hoped they weren't picked up by customs, otherwise a tariff was applied when you brought it back into the country. Because we made our own bras, and we made our own T-shirts, and we made our own Swanndris and rugby jerseys – everything was produced in New Zealand. And people had wages, and they lived in small towns, and they there were factories everywhere, and then it exploded. The old New Zealand was gone and a new world order came in, for better and worse. I'm not entirely sure we can go back to those days, nor indeed would we want to. And perhaps it will all calm itself down over the next, but who knows? Like I say, grab the popcorn. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now the police have been in the spotlight in the past few weeks. It should have been criticism, with Wellington Central MP Tamatha Paul's comments and the criticism of police pulling back from attending mental health call outs, but in fact, the attention has highlighted just how much our men and women in blue are valued.   I'm pretty sure that wasn't the original intention of Tamatha Paul when she made her much publicised comments that people in Wellington didn't want to see police officers everywhere: “for a lot of people, it makes them feel less safe”. She said it's that constant visual presence that tells you that you might not be safe there if there's heaps of cops. She also accused police of waiting for homeless people to leave their spot, packing up their stuff and throwing it in the bin. She doubled down on her comments later and said it was no wonder some people didn't trust police because they were quick to use force against people with mental distress.   To give her comments some context, she was speaking at a panel with the University of Canterbury Greens and Peace Action Ōtautahi, where alternative forms of policing were being discussed. So you can imagine it wasn't a police love-in. These were people who were anti-establishment outside of what they would conceive of as a patriarchal, oppressive society, and they have their views their own experiences. And that's what it was. She might well have had anecdotal experience of people having unsatisfactory dealings with police, but plenty of us had our own anecdotes of more than satisfactory dealings with police, and that's what came out. It wasn't a police pile on, in fact, people came very quickly from all corners to defend the police.   When we were discussing mental health last week, for example, and whether people were now more able to access the care they needed, we had about four or five texts and callers tell us they didn't receive much help from mental health professionals. Where they got the most help and support, tangible help and support, was from the police. Far from being quick to use force against people with mental distress as Tamatha Paul would have it, the police officers they encountered were kind, compassionate, patient, and able to offer practical solutions for friends and family members.   So there were criticism of police responding to mental health events, and now they're getting in the neck for withdrawing their response to mental health events. I do not blame them for not wanting to be the first port of call – that is not what they signed up for, and that is not what they were trained for. But because every other agency and organisation abrogated the responsibilities, the police were last men and women standing. And police have announced they will be delaying the changes and will stagger the withdrawal of services across districts to give the appropriate agencies more time to prepare, as Police Association President Chris Cahill explained to Mike Hosking this morning.   “Police have agreed to just slow down and do it by district. I mean the best thing Mike, is finally Health at the national level are recognising they've got to step up and take responsibility for what is a health problem, not a police problem. Originally people in the health area just didn't want to take responsibility and that's what we learnt from overseas, unless police draw a line in the sand and say, nope, you're going to do it, the people suffering mental distress won't get the right care, from the right people, at the right time. And that is not police officers sitting in in hospitals for six hours. That's not good for anyone. So we had to push it. We pushed it, so now we're engaging, and I understand – we want to slow down and just make sure we get it right. We don't want anyone falling through the cracks. But remember, police will still go to anyone who's at risk of harming themselves or the public.”  Exactly. I was really interested to see, given the pile-on and given the fact that there was a change in the way police were being asked to police under the last Police Commissioner —that's now come back to more of a perhaps orthodox understanding of how police operate— whether policing was still an attractive option for young New Zealanders? And what it is that draws men and women to the job? And I was staggered to see applications for Police College – 1371 for the 80 to 100 places. That's in a month. I thought that was a year when I first looked at the figures. That's in a month – in July of 2024, there were 1371 applications to join the police, the highest since data was gathered in 2014. In August of 2024, it was the second highest – 1037 in the month of August of 24. So on average they're receiving last year about 526 applications per month. Obviously, they'd go down January, December, so that's where you get the figures levelling out. That's up a couple of 100 per month, more than in 2023.   That's a hell of a lot of people who see policing as a really important career, that they feel they can offer something to, that they feel they can get something out of. And I would love to know, given how much attention has been put on police, what the role should be of police in our communities? Whether they are an oppressive tool of the patriarchy, or in fact that they are, as I see them, compassionate, tolerant, amazing men and women who are incredibly efficient at what they do and are doing their level best. They're not heavy-handed. I mean, I'm old enough to remember what it was like in the 80s when it was a bit young cowboys going in their truncheons ahoy. These days, it's a whole lot more nuanced and complex, and that's the way.   In a day and age where we are so self-obsessed, we're so insular, we're all about the self, the ego, being a police officer is a really community minded calling. How is it that there are so many people who feel it’s a calling for them?  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pak’nSave shoppers seem to be getting the best deal.  A recent study by Foodstuffs North Island has found that New Zealand stores offer the lowest grocery prices when compared to leading retailers in Australia and the UK.  The study compared 20 everyday necessities, and after adjusting for sales tax and exchange rates, Pak’nSave came out on top – cheaper than Woolworths NZ, Woolworths Australia, Tesco UK, and Aldi Australia.  Foodstuff North Island CEO Chris Quin told Kerre Woodham that when they look at that data, there’s a really competitive, innovative story being told.   He says they don't have price match guarantees because there's just too many products to cover.   Quin says supermarkets may hold up to 18 thousand different products so it would be too tricky to match them all.  He told Woodham they have more holistic aims.   Quin says for Pak N Save stores it's about getting the cheapest basket possible, and with New World it's about providing a good shopping experience.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kiwis are being urged to stay calm and stay the course as stock markets tumble.  There’s global uncertainty off the back of Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, and investment funds like KiwiSaver have been taking a hit.  Mortgage brokers have been facing concerns from first-home buyers, wondering what to do about the slump in their balance as they look to purchase.   Personal Finance Journalist Mary Holm told Kerre Woodham that people should always keep money they plan to spend soon out of high-risk funds.   She says that if you plan on spending a significant chunk of money within the next two to three years, you should request your KiwiSaver moved to the lowest risk fund.   For those who cut it close, Holm says to sit tight.  She told Woodham that share markets often overreact to economic events like the tariffs, and they’ll recover eventually.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, we were a little in advance of the day yesterday, weren't we? If you were with me yesterday, I was looking at the armed forces lowering their standards to try to attract more people into the services. They're leaving in droves, finding it very hard to recruit new people, men and women, to join the services. And instead of lowering standards, I said, why not make the Defence Force more attractive as a career? Address the poor pay, the substandard housing and the lack of opportunities for career advancement for servicemen and women to stop them leaving in their legions. And what do you know? Twelve hours later they have.   A huge investment into our services, $12 billion over the next four years for a modern combat capable New Zealand Defence Force, $9 billion of that 12 is new money. Where is it going to come from? Who knows? All will be revealed. It's an unprecedented investment into services and it will certainly bring them into the 21st century. Morale must have gone through the roof. So to the grandad that texted in yesterday and said we've just encouraged our grandson onto a Pathways Programme into the Navy, have we done the right thing? This time yesterday morning, no. Today? Abso-bloody-lutely!    The Defence Capability plan released yesterday afternoon will see all sorts of things. It will see the ailing Boeing 757s replaced – that'll cost between $600 million to $1 billion. Other smaller vehicles, including light armoured vehicles, will get around the same – $6 million to $1 billion in funding. The maritime helicopters will be replaced, that'll cost $2 billion plus. There'll be uncrewed autonomous vessels. There'll be javelin anti-tank missile upgrades, enhanced strike capabilities, long range remotely piloted aircraft, space capabilities. You name it, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. The Governments chosen not to replace the two Anzac frigates, Te Mana and Te Kaha, certainly not in the first part of the plan. Instead, they're going to spend around $600 million to keep them going.  Former Defence Minister Ron Mark says he sees NZ First’s hand in the defence commitment. He said there would have been a lot of nudging, a lot of feeing on, a lot of encouragement from NZ First, and he told Mike Hosking this morning that this significant commitment to our defence will only enhance our standing with our long term allies.   “This will play well with our strategic partners globally. I mean I'm thinking right now ASEAN, FPDA, and the Indo Pacific. I'm thinking of security comfort that the South Pacific Defence Ministers will get. Five Eyes also, and NATO, can't forget NATO. But it's also going to enhance the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs ability to secure our economic future. You can't have prosperity without security and right now we're living in possibly the most insecure times that we've seen since the Second World War.”  Amen to that. He also told Mike that he wanted to get the contract signed as soon as possible so that in the event of a Labour/Greens coalition there wouldn't be a U-turn on this defence commitment. But Labour leader Chris Hipkins said he broadly agreed with the plan as it stood on Monday. He was interested in seeing how it would be paid for, as indeed are we all, but what would he care about that? Didn't bother him in the past where the money came from. He basically sees an increase in defence spending as an extension of Labour's 2019 plan, and they did put in a considerable sum of money, again, probably as part of the coalition commitments.   I guess when you see Chris Hipkins saying he broadly agrees with it, political leaders with an ounce of experience and pragmatism, who are not blinded by ideology, understand that the world is indeed a precarious place. We have to be willing and prepared to play our part in helping ourselves and helping our friends, and with that commitment yesterday we're certainly showing that we're willing to do so.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.