Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

We're going to open the show today with a chat on ACC, given that it's managed to go from a $911 million surplus to a $7.2 billion deficit in the year to June. That’s got to hurt. ACC said, in it's just released annual report, that lower than expected rehabilitation performance contributed towards the deficit, and noted the cost of providing services and compensation to injured people increased by 16% over the year. That makes sense. The price of everything has gone up. The price of taxis has gone up to get people to their appointments, the price of scans, everything that you can apply to ACC for will have risen in price. You can understand that the deficit could be a whole lot worse. If you are one of those people who have been on ACC and that is, as Mike pointed out this morning, 100% of the Kerre Woodham Mornings team, all two of us. We covered a lot of the costs ourselves. We didn't apply for everything that you're entitled to under ACC. I didn’t get a taxi or house cleaning, and we got extra treatment to aid our rehabilitation and recovery to make it that much faster, and we did that at our own expense and time. We made an investment in our own recovery. And that's partly because we can, there are some people who simply do not have that option, but partly because Helen and I saw it as a team effort – thank you very much, ACC, but we will do our very best to do what we can to get back to work. And I bet many of you are the same. How much have you actually claimed what you could have claimed? I bet the figure could be a whole lot worse, so put that down to the Kiwi attitude of fair play. You've done your bit, thanks very much and we'll do ours. I did notice too that in the reporting on the story —perhaps they mentioned it in the report, and I haven't read the entire ACC report, I've only gone off the news coverage— when they said lower than expected rehabilitation performance contributed towards the deficit, they didn't make any mention of their failed $74 million restructure that removed personal case managers for nearly 12,500 clients, and then oh that's not working, reinstated them. Maybe they did, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. I didn't have time to read the whole report this morning, but surely the “lower than expected” rehab performance could in part be attributed to the fact that they tried a $74 million restructure of case managers that failed dismally, and now personal case managers have been reinstated. A lawyer specialising in ACC law said the reversal was not a surprise because the agency had been warned the new system would fail. When it comes to the blowout, okay, “lower than expected” rehab performance – that's staff shortages in the health sector, that's holdups in the health sector that means you're delayed in getting treatment, you're delayed in getting to see somebody, and that can attribute towards the “lower than expected” rehab performance. Also, the reason why people are taking longer to get back to work. The average claimant who received weekly compensation for less than a year took 69.7 days to return to work at the beginning of the fiscal year. By the end of the year, that number had risen to 72.8 days. So the delays in the health sector could attribute to that. And then the other issue that ACC faces is that two court judgements have increased the scope of what ACC covers and the breadth of who's entitled to this coverage. Think of the smashed babies that survive but are so badly damaged that they will never be able to work – ACC has to make an allowance for those babies for life. They will live and they will live well into their middle years, but they'll never work. There is no hope of recovery or rehabilitation for these poor children. They're also having to take into account victims of unreported childhood sexual offending who are unable to work as adults. So they have to make allowance for those people too. So the breadth of what it covers, the scope of what it covers, it could be a whole lot worse. It's still claimed that this is the best system, that this form of social insurance is still the best system. Do you agree? Do you believe that ACC is still fit for purpose? I do. I think for all of those well publicised cases of those who rort it, remember the famous Auckland businessman who was found playing tennis on his very own tennis court, under flood lights, and he had been off work for ages and ages and was exposed on the cover of the Herald on Sunday or something. He had been rorting in the system for ages. For all of those that rort, there are very many who contribute towards their own recovery and towards their own costs. It could be a whole lot worse. It means we don't have lawyers suing and countersuing, which I think is a very, very good thing. And it does mean that we can be damaged, be fixed and go back to work. On the whole, I think it's still working. And there are ebbs and flows in terms of making a profit, investing, putting money aside, getting a better return some years more than others. As far as I'm concerned there are problems with ACC – yes, the $74 million restructure that was a U-turn that led to nowhere, unfortunate, but there we go. We have to live with that, reconcile that into the books, learn from it, reinstate the case managers help people get back into work. As far as I'm concerned, I’m still happy to pay my levies, still happy to see ACC continue to provide the services and the treatments it does. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I remember about 25 years ago there was an absolute hoo-ha at the Grey Lynn Countdown, because staff there were speaking to one another in their own tongue in the common staff room. And there was a complaint from somebody who spoke English —that was the language they spoke, and they didn't speak any other languages— and they took great offence to people speaking in their mother tongue in the staff room. They said it made them feel uneasy, they didn't know what they were talking about, and you can imagine the brouhaha resulted - who was right? Who was wrong?   Now, so many years later, a memo has been sent around Waikato Hospital asking nurses to speak English only when they're on the wards. Concerns have been raised about other languages being used by nurses and the exclusive use of English in all clinical settings is safer for treating people, according to the memo. And I quote, “each nurse is required by Nursing Council New Zealand to achieve competency both in the written and spoken language of English. Consistent use of one language reduces the possibility of missed care, misunderstanding of clinical requirements and enhances safe teamwork.”   And I totally get that. I totally understand that where there are issues of clinical safety clear communication is utterly vital. There must be an unequivocal understanding between medical staff and patients around the treatment of patients. But when you're chatting to one another or to patients who might share your background and share your language, I really don't see where the problem is.   It's a real lesson in humility, as many of you will know, to go to a country where English is not the lingua franca. Especially when words are your thing, where your way of expressing yourself, where your way of participating in the world is through language. All of a sudden you go to a place where there's another language spoken, you don't speak it, and you are reduced to a basic, basic level of conversation. Despite your very best efforts to learn a few words before you go, quite different when you get there, and you are reduced to absolutely fundamental basic communication. You can't explain yourself; you can't expound on your ideas; you can’t express nuance. It's incredibly frustrating and very, very good for your humility. And gives you, I think a deeper understanding of what it must be like to come to New Zealand, to set up your home here, to set up your life here, to work here and to have English as a second language.   More credit to the people who do pass their English proficiency when they've come from somewhere else. Blimmin’ sure I wouldn't be able to pass my Mandarin proficiency or my Hindi. You know so much more than what you're communicating, and yet all the person hears on the other end is a basic one-dimensional other. So any chance you get to be you, to be all of the you rather than the basic you, I can understand why people would take that. Again, at no point should clinical safety be compromised. At no point should a patient's treatment be in any way misinterpreted because there is a lack of understanding, but if you have the time to talk to somebody in their own language, in their first language, wouldn't you take it?   I mean, anybody who's lived overseas must know what that is like and the relief when you when you start to build upon the basic structural foundation of the language you're learning, to be able to offer more of yourself through words is immense. So to people have chosen to make their life in this country who have learned English at school, quite different to using it in day-to-day life, more credit to you. Where clinical safety is paramount, English must be spoken, but if you've got a bit of downtime, can you possibly blame somebody for wanting to be all that they can be through the expression of their own language? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Inflation is continuing to fall and interest rates are likely to follow suit.  The inflation rate has dropped to 2.2 percent.  It's the first time in more than three years it's returned to the Reserve Bank's 1-3% target range.  The Herald's Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham the markets are now pricing in a 100% chance the Reserve Bank will cut the OCR at least 50 basis points next month.  He says there's now serious talk about a 75 basis point cut, which normally only happens during major economic downturns like the Global Financial Crisis.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What’s the Government’s obsession with speeding things up?   Today, it’s the queues at airport security that it wants to go faster - with Transport Minister Simeon Brown looking at bringing-in private operators to run airport security instead of the Civil Aviation Authority.    As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t get through security on time and miss your flight, it’s your own fault. And I do not like the idea of private security outfits taking over.   Instead, I think the Government should be focused on getting the Civil Aviation Authority to lift its game.   Now this is done in some airports around the world. I’ve been reading about a scheme in the States. It’s also done in Australia, where private operators pretty much run all aviation security services. And Simeon Brown wants to find out if we should do the same thing here.   But I don’t think the US and Australia are the best countries for us to mimic on this one because both countries have different standards on a lot of things because they are divided into states. With each state having their own rules and regs.   We don't, which is why I think we need to stick with a standard operation right through the country, run by a single government agency.   I went through San Francisco on my way to the UK back in May this year, and I see security services there are run by an outfit called Covenant Aviation Security.   But I didn’t have any choice, and it doesn’t mean I have to like it.   My main concerns about private operators taking over here is the risk of inconsistency in training, inconsistency in approach, and the variable quality control.   I don’t like the fact that private operators don’t have the same access to the type of intel that gets shared between government agencies and not with private organisations and businesses.   Nor should they, in my view.   I like knowing that airport security is all part of the big government machine that kicks into gear when things hit the fan. For example - in times of emergency. I know that private businesses and organisations are critical and also do great things in times of strife, but it’s not the same as a public agency, like the Civil Aviation Authority. One of the unions that represents aviation security workers doesn’t like what the Government is proposing, either. And, before you get too excited, yes I can see through some of what it’s saying. Especially, its concern that what the Government is proposing could mean job losses for the people involved. So, of course, a union is going to oppose anything where that’s possible. But I’m with the National Union of Public Employees (or NUPE) when it says that privatising aviation security would be risky because the pay and conditions offered by private security firms would likely be inferior to what the Civil Aviation provides its workers. And so, you’d get less experienced people running security at the airports and there’d probably be higher staff turnover. And I’m with the union when it says that allowing the airports to hire their own private aviation providers would lead to inconsistency across the country. Because it would allow airports to cut costs and set their own standards. At the moment, the same rules and standards apply everywhere because the same outfit does it, and that’s how I think it should stay. I’m at odds, though, with someone who knows a lot more about this than me. But I’m basing my position on my gut instinct. Captain David Morgan is Air New Zealand’s chief pilot and operational integrity and safety officer - and he’s backing what the Government is looking at doing.   He’s saying today: “We are not necessarily interested in delivering aviation security, but we are interested in the enablement of alternative providers for aviation security in New Zealand." He says third-party aviation security providers are quite common everywhere else. But even though Air New Zealand’s top pilot is telling me that I’ve got nothing to worry about if the Government does go-ahead with this, I still don’t like it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How’s that miserly $20-a-week tax cut looking now that we know the country’s budget deficit is $1.8 billion worse than expected?   You might be one of the few people who are actually better-off by more than 20 bucks a week, but you’re in the minority.   And there’s no doubt that there is egg all over the Government’s face on this one. But I told you so. And it wasn’t just me who told you so, but I’ll get to that.   There will, no doubt, be people hitting back on this one —pointing out that ‘they’re not tax cuts, it’s tax “relief”— and that all the Government has done is shift the tax brackets.   But yeah yeah. Either way, same diff, most of us have an extra $20 in the pocket and the country has a $12.9 billion deficit —$1.8 billion worse than expected— the largest annual deficit since the pandemic in 2020.   Not quite as bad though as the deficits after the Global Financial Crisis in 2007 and 2008 and the Canterbury earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. The deficit blew-out to $18.4 after the quakes.   Not that that’s saying much because we’ve still got a $12.9 billion deficit and, yet the big brains in Wellington are still defending their tax cuts to the hilt.   Now, to be fair, the Government’s books show that while the deficit’s gone pear-shaped, the amount of money the government got in through the door was actually higher-than-expected in the past year.   But that doesn’t alter the fact that the deficit’s got worse and the Government has thrown caution to the wind and has voluntarily reduced its income.   Which I find weird for a government that says it’s bringing some business nous to the Beehive. Because in business —aside from containing costs— the number one thing when you’re in business is to try and increase revenue.       As soon as National started talking about tax cuts —or tax relief— before last year’s election, I could see then it was something the country couldn’t afford. And there was no shortage of experts lining up, saying the same.   There was the farcical idea of taxing foreign home buyers. But, even then, as soon as that idea was put to bed, National and its subsequent coalition partners still signed-up to the dream.   If I was being generous, I’d say that it was just politics. You know, it’s just the way it’s always been. Politicians promising to put more money in people's pockets. And, as people always have, they blindly swallow all the cheap talk without asking how it’s going to be paid for.   But I’m not feeling generous, and, anyway, that wasn’t the case. When all this tax cut talk started there was no shortage of people lining up to shoot it down. Even after the government was formed, the experts were still shooting it down.   Let me take you back to April this year when Gareth Kiernan from Infometrics wrote about it in the firm’s regular newsletter. Gareth is Informetrics’ chief forecaster, and he wrote back in April: "The Government’s plans to fully deliver its promised tax cuts must be in doubt, as the economy falters and the fiscal position continues to get squeezed."   He went on to say: “Forgoing another couple of billion dollars in revenue and increasing the deficit further might seem irresponsible. That conclusion becomes even more valid when one considers that National’s broader pre-election fiscal programme has led to change through the coalition negotiation process, with some estimates suggesting an additional shortfall in net revenue of about $1.5 billion.”   He was right then, and his view is even more spot-on now – now that we know that the deficit is $1.8 billion worse than expected.   The tax cuts were unaffordable and shouldn’t have happened, and the state of the Government’s books proves it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How many reviews and reports do we need before we accept that we are nowhere near as good at emergency and disaster management as we think we are here in New Zealand?   I reckon we’ll never admit it. But we should.   In fact, we shouldn’t just admit that we’re not as good as we think - we should also be looking at some major structural change. Not just more of the tinkering around the edges that the Government is talking about today.   We need to accept we’re pretty average; we need to accept that we’re a tiny country; we need to accept that, when it comes down to it, the military is the best outfit to be running our disaster response and we should be merging our civil defence and military defence functions.   The Government has announced a big overhaul of emergency and disaster management after recent reports showed just how woeful things are in this department. Particularly after what happened during and after Cyclone Gabrielle last year.   You might remember back in March this year when Mike Bush —who used to be the Police Commissioner— released his report on his review of the Civil Defence response to the cyclone.   I remember being astounded when he came out and said that Civil Defence wasn’t prepared; it hadn’t planned for worst case scenarios; and that the national emergency management system was setting people up to fail.   It was setting people up to fail.   I was astounded because it seemed the country had learned nothing from the experiences during the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in Canterbury. It was no better prepared in 2023 than it was 12 years earlier.   So the Government’s taken all that on board and is talking about changing things.   As you’d expect, what the Government’s talking about is all high-level, strategic stuff. It’s saying things like: “We want to build an emergency management system that can continuously improve and become stronger over time”.   Which is all great stuff, but the Government’s also warning that it might have the money to do it.   So here’s what I reckon we should be doing:  You know how after a disaster the army either turns up to help or people call for the army to be sent in? I think the army or our defence force (even though it’s way under-resourced in a lot of areas itself) should be doing the planning and the leading during times of disaster.   I heard Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell on Newstalk ZB listing all the people involved in emergency management in this country. Which tells me there are just too many cooks in the kitchen.   And that’s the nub of why we seem to be getting no better at disaster planning, disaster response, and disaster management.   From my experience, there are a lot of moustaches involved. A lot of testosterone, and a lot of egos.   You don’t get that in the military. There are hierarchies that people operate under in the defence force. In normal times and during times of disaster. The military has communication functions and capabilities that no local council is ever going to have.   It does plan for worst case scenarios. It does all the things our disaster and emergency management people haven’t been doing and have been called-out for not doing it. Not just in Mike Bush’s report, but others as well.   And that’s why I’m more convinced than ever that, instead of pouring more time and money into a standalone civil defence system —one the Government itself is saying today needs to improve, but is also saying that there might not be the money to do it— that’s why I think we should be merging our civil defence and military defence functions.   Or, to put it another way: I think we should be bringing the army in well before disaster strikes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Penalties could be on the cards for careless builders as the Government looks to strengthen professional requirements.  It's eyeing key changes to the registration and licensing regimes, with a focus on lifting competence and accountability requirements; as well as improving Building Act consumer protections. Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk confirms it's also looking into a new offence for deliberately hiding non-compliant building work in remote inspections.  That would mean a $50,000 fine for individuals or $150,000 for businesses, should it become law.  Kerre Woodham is joined by Master Builders Chief Executive Ankit Sharma to discuss further.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's been a lot of good news on the home building front, you know, just for your average homeowner.   The Government's plans to reform the building consent system to make it more affordable to build a new home – or a home. Jolly good news. The review of the building code to bring in a streamlined, risk-based consenting regime, as well as increasing the availability of construction materials, all good.   There is no doubt we're paying through the nose to build homes here. The cost of building work consented per square metre for a standalone home in New Zealand in 2022 was $2591. In Australia it was $1743. So expensive. The total number of homes consented was in decline too. In the year to December 2023, 37,239 dwellings were consented, down from 49,538 the previous year. The government's proposed law changes, which will remove the need for building consents on homes under 60 square metres in certain areas —your granny flats— those changes have been welcomed by housing providers and also the opposition, so this is all good news, very good news.   The Coalition government pitched the changes as a way to make it easier to build granny flats, tiny homes, and increase the supply of affordable housing. All well and good. My only concern when I heard the news was where are the checks and balances in terms of the quality of build? As Chris Penk put it, reforms around consenting homes and removing barriers to overseas building products will only succeed if we have qualified tradespeople doing the work, standing by it and being accountable if things go wrong. We've needed that for many, many years.   When you look at the buck-passing around the leaky homes debacle that devastated the lives of so many New Zealanders, nobody was willing to take the blame, and I'm not saying the builders were at fault, but nobody was.  Nobody was held accountable. Ratepayers ended up having to fork out huge sums of money to try and remediate the worst disaster that they could possibly have. Sinking every cent they had and future funds that they were going to generate into a home that was unliveable. How do we ensure that the work done is done right, especially when you hear tales of undercutting and people coming in and doing a job for next to nothing because they've got friends and family and relatives, and they're all living together in one big house?   This is the complaint made by your professional builders who pay the going rate, don't undercut, know what a job is worth, and charge accordingly. How do you protect consumers from that? In the first instance, I'd say buyer beware. Don't just go for the cheapest price. If something sounds too good to be true, then it is. But most of us know very little about structures and engineering and building. When you go into a home, you expect that it has been built to last, as many homes have. And in more recent times, many homes have not. How on earth do you check that a building has been done properly, that in an addition, an add-on has been done properly? The unconsented tat that I had to pick my way through when I was trying to find a house at the height of the market, was just horrific. Even though I don't know anything about building, you know that when something's dangling off the edge of a Cliff held together with a piece of four by two, chances are it hasn't been consented. Some of the building inspections showed that it hadn't been consented. Things had popped up on the floor plan out of the blue. And it all went so far back that there was no ability to be held accountable. You just had to buy it aware that you could be buying into a whole load of problems, and these were houses that were going for millions in Auckland.   The Government says that it's going to crack down on dodgy builders. That, as Chris Penk says, all of these improvements will only work, will only benefit consumers ultimately if the building is of a professional quality. So the crackdown looks to lift the competence and accountability requirements for building professionals, improving consumer protection measures in the Building Act and ensuring regulators have the right powers to hold people to account. It really counts for nothing. All very well and good to have a potential fine of $50,000 for an individual builder and $150,000 for businesses to deter bad behaviour, but since when has it?  Some of these shonky builders that people employ, they haven't got $50K. You can whistle for your $50K. $150,000 for businesses to deter bad behaviour. Can I show you the Du Val group who have lost hundreds of millions and are now applying for legal aid? You're not going to get $150K out of them.   So all well and good to lift the accountability requirements and the competency of building professionals but ultimately, we are all still going to be left just hoping and trusting that we've employed the right guys or girls. I've been very, very lucky with the renos I've done, amazing builders, but then they weren't the cheapest. They had integrity. They were jolly good at what they did. I presume they still are. The work lasted. They had absolute confidence, I had absolute confidence in them. That's what we need.   Is that the norm? Or are there too many cowboys getting away with it? I'd really love to hear from the industry on this because only you will know a) if these reforms are going to improve things, and b) if these fines, this move to improve accountability and professionalism is going to actually work. I cannot see fines working in any way shape or form. The only way I can see this working is by having a barrier to entry into the profession. You know, having people who know what they're doing, who are proud of what they do, who stand by what they do. There are plenty of those in the building profession, we just need more of them. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is a common trope that if prisons worked, we wouldn't need them. And that if prison was a deterrent, people wouldn't commit crime. If prison was about rehabilitation then people would serve their term and then they would not reoffend.   There's something incredibly depressing about prisons and the waste of human potential they represent – even brand-spanking new prisons. I did a fundraiser for Shine charity at the Mt Eden Remand Prison before it was opened for prisoners – before it was open for business, if you will. Brand spanking new, nobody had been in there and it was still one of the most depressing places I have ever been in.   I've always thought that investing in young people and families to try and prevent them going to prison in the first place would be far preferable to spending hundreds of thousands per person keeping them locked up. But prisons aren't just about rehab, and they're not just about deterrence. They're also there to keep people away from other people. To keep people from committing violent assaults and rapes and manslaughters. They're there to stop people taking what doesn't belong to them. If you’re locked up, you can't go out ram-raiding. They're there to act as a punishment for those who have committed a grievous offence against society and against individuals. If you take a life, you have to pay for that, and that means the deprivation of your liberty and being locked away from society as a punishment.   Law and order is always an election issue, and it's always a hot topic. Former Justice Minister Andrew Little, former Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis, wanted to reduce the prison population by 30% when they formed a coalition government with NZ First. NZ First who, of course, are big law and order campaigners, stymied them in part during the first three years when they were coalition partners, but by 2023, the prison population under Labour had reduced by 24%. Under Labour, incarceration rates plummeted from 213 people per 100,000 in 2018, which was nearly the highest in the OECD (which is nothing to be proud of), to 149 per 100,000.   Now, that would be great if there was a commensurate fall in crime, but there wasn't. Victims of crime increased by 12% as the prison population reduced, victims of crime went up. Labour's reforms were part of an overall goal on their part to reduce the prison population by 30% by 2033, but it achieved that ten years earlier, and perhaps that's where it went wrong. When there aren't the rehabilitation services there, when there isn't the support there, when there isn't the intensive kind of help needed to either habilitate people into society or rehabilitate them, depending on how long term their offending has been, then what are these people going to do? We all know how incredibly hard it is to break bad habits. We know what we should do. Do we do it? No. So imagine having been born into a life like that and then being told at the age of 24 to change your ways. Incredibly difficult to do it, especially without that kind of support. So typical of Labour, good ideas, good intentions - just no ability to deliver. The support wasn't there, the help wasn't there, the intensive support needed to help people turn their lives around wasn't there.   So sensing which way the wind was blowing in the lead up to the ‘23 election, Chris Hipkins dumped the prison reduction targets. But it was all far too little, far too late with the dumpster fire. National, ACT, NZ First took advantage of the fact that victims of crime had gone up, that people's perceptions of crime were that we were living in a state of lawlessness and capitalised on that in their get tough on crime messages throughout the ‘23 election.   Now we have the release of the fast-track projects and that's shown the Department of Corrections wants the ability to expand high security Auckland prison. They don't want to do it right now; they don't even want to do it next week or next year. They just say that should they need to increase capacity, they want to be able to get cracking and do so, so that they don't have to go through the whole resource consent process. Opponents are up in arms. The Government’s being accused of establishing a dangerous mega prison for staff and inmates. Wrong. It's not establishing anything, it just wants the capacity to do so, which makes sense.   What also makes sense is the investment in the Social Investment Agency, and that isn't getting nearly the same headlines as the Department of Corrections wanting the capacity. What is happening is the Social Investment Agency being re-established. Bill English set it up, Labour took it over and made it a wellbeing agency, and now it's being taken back more under the vision that Bill English had, which is to use data, analytics, and evidence to work out how to intervene in the lives of the most vulnerable in society, those who are the root of all problems, and working with the providers of social services to get the best result for these people so it's not wasted human potential yet again, but also reduce the burden on the taxpayer. That's the way Bill English was able to sell it to his cabinet colleagues. He's a good old dry conservative when he needs to be, it'll save us money in the long run. And it will.   If you invest in the most complex, prevent them going into prison in the first place, it is going to save us a heck of a lot of money. So I have absolutely no problem with Department of Corrections saying can we just keep this in our back pocket if we need it? Can we have the capacity to increase the prison population if we have to? Nicola Willis believes passionately in the social investment agency - she worked with Bill English, she's an acolyte, she's a disciple. She knows the cause and she believes in it.   So while you have money going into the social investment agency to try and prevent people from getting into the system, why don't we focus the headlines on that? Why don't we look at the good news instead of having screaming headlines generated by activists who are furious about something that hasn't happened, doesn't look like it’s happening in the near future, and may never happen. How about that? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ve got roads, we’ve got mines, we’ve got housing developments, we’ve got 22 renewable energy projects, we’ve got aquaculture farms, we’ve got a roof for Eden Park, you name it, it’s there and it's happening in a town near you, because projects are spread right across the country. And these are the first 149 projects selected by the government to be included in its Fast-track Approvals legislation. When we say fast-track, a group advised the ministers in charge of the process, who deemed these 149 to have the most significant benefits out of the nearly 400 that applied. Now they've been selected, they'll be listed in the legislation when it's reported back from the Environment Select Committee this month, then, once the legislation passes as it's expected to, the project developers can apply through the Environmental Protection Agency to have an expert panel assess their projects and apply any relevant conditions. So fast-track in a bureaucratic kind of governmental kind of away. They've also got to find the money to fund the projects somewhere along the line as well — just because they've been listed doesn't mean a magic pot of money has appeared to fund these projects. Many of them are from private contractors. Some of them are in Crown private partnerships, so they will have to find the money somewhere along the line. So when we say Fast-tracking, they're not going to happen tomorrow. Typically, there have been naysayers, Forest and Bird say it's a dark day for democracy. The Greens go further - the Government's fast track list is another example of its reckless approach to the environment and disregard for due process, and the government is set to unleash environmental destruction across Aotearoa. Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop on the Mike Hosking Breakfast, said if we want progress, we need to make it easier to build things:  “Look, there are Luddites out there who don't want progress, but I think most reasonable New Zealanders accept that if we want a standard of living that is better than what we have now, if we want material comforts that other countries have that we don't have, if we want better healthcare, better education services, if we want a better standard of living and we want a more prosperous economy, we have to build things. You know, quarries are an important part of a modern-day economy, public transport and roads connect us to where we need to go, renewable energy is something - we've got an energy shortage right now, you know, we need more power in this country and we have a housing crisis so we need thousands more houses, and we have an infrastructure deficit that I think everyone knows about. So the only way to address those things is to get on and build stuff that addresses all of those deficits. And that requires fundamental planning reform. It's just too difficult to do things in this country. And I think most reasonable people actually know that. And that's why we have Fast-track and that's why we're cracking on with it.”  Like. Yes, what he said. Chris Bishop was kind of "how do people think things are going to happen"? We want a lifestyle we simply cannot afford. Every snail is sacred in this country and needs investment and protection, but you can't do that unless we are fundamentally viable as a country. We need to make things happen, he's quite right. It's that ‘holier than thou’ kind of approach that you know no centimetre of land must be mined in this country, but other people can do it. Bugger the orangutan, let's save our snails. Forget about the little kids going down the mines in other countries, let's protect our own people and our own land. It's got to come from somewhere, and if we can be self-sufficient, why would we not be? If we can do it economically, if we can do it viably, if we can do it in a way that ensures that we have continuity of supply. He says we've got a housing crisis, so let's build houses, in a fundamental way, not pie in the sky let's build 100,000, where are they going to come from? Oh, I don't know. There is a plan. We have an energy supply crisis so let's build more. Yep, there's a thought and let's do it now rather than have a 10/15/20 year consenting process. You could hear the incredulity in his voice. Like, where do these people think it's going to come from unless we get cracking? I'm kind of with him. How on earth do we think we are going to survive and thrive as a country without building stuff? And it's not all mines. It's not well, as the Greens say it's just a Trojan horse, isn't it? They're putting in a few renewables (that would be 22), so they can get the mining underway. Well somebody has to mine. If we don't do it, we buy it from somewhere else, is that so much better? I hate that aspect of the Greens holier-than-thou stance. We don't do it. Yeah, but we buy it from somewhere else. Let's get cracking. I mean, when we say fast-track too, as I outlined, it’s not going to be at the speed of light, let's face it. There is still a process to go through. There will still be curbs put on what developers can do, they still have to find the money. But at least it's a start, isn't it? And at least there's a fundamental understanding on the part of government that things have to be done in this country, not pie-in-the-sky projects, not dream-time projects but actual real stuff. There's a plan. There's a process. Let's get on with it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.