Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

The Government is bulldozing barriers for bringing in new building products to New Zealand.  Minister for Building and Construction, Chris Penk, has unveiled changes to the Building Act in a bid to increase the availability of products and cool down costs.  That includes approving products with a reputable overseas certification and recognising product standards from trusted overseas jurisdictions.  Penk told Kerre Woodham that it’s one of those things that has been talked about for years, so they decided to actually get on and do something about it.  With Covid and recent natural disasters he said it’s clear we need to have as many different options as possible for the sake of resilience, as well as the costs and time frames involved.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Education Review Office has found teachers are overwhelmed by the scale of change in teaching the new history curriculum.  Teaching New Zealand’s histories became a requirement for students in years one to ten at the start of last year.  The report found schools are finding it challenging and time consuming, often struggling to understand what's required.  Kay is a former head of Social Science with a specialty in commerce teaching, and although she hasn’t taught social studies since 2000, was shocked at the vagueness of the previous curriculum.  “When I came into being head of Social Science, it was a nine sentence curriculum,” she told Kerre Woodham.   “What it resulted in was such a huge range of knowledge and skills being taught across New Zealand.”   She said that she was glad when Labour said they were going to review it and add specifics for teaching New Zealand history, but what they did was “unbelievably a mess”.  “The new curriculum is so much New Zealand History that it lacks space within any given year for a teacher to teach anything except New Zealand History.”  “There’s so much missing it’s not funny.”  Kay told Kerre that teachers were giving feedback over and over as Labour made their changes, and they weren’t listened to.  “It’s just been an absolute shambles.”  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A couple of weeks ago I took a call. I didn't recognise the number, but I took the call anyway and I very quickly regretted that I had done so.   The caller was a very nicely spoken man who, after pleasantries were exchanged, wanted to know why I had stopped giving to a charity I had previously supported. I agreed that yes, I had supported the charity for a very long time, and yes, I understood the good work it was doing, and yes, I absolutely knew that times were tough - in fact, that was the reason my monthly debit had stopped. My circumstances had changed, and times were tough.   That wasn't good enough for my caller. No. I would have picked up the cue, yes my circumstances have changed and yep, I'm sorry. No, they drilled down. Before I came to my senses and stopped responding to what were quite personal questions, I'd blurted out that the reason my home address was no longer the same was because I'd separated from my husband and we sold the house and I bought a house with the children and we had a big mortgage, blah de blah, and I suddenly found myself pouring out my life story because I was ashamed that I was no longer giving to the charity. And it was a kind of emotional blackmail that this charity worker was engaged in. I just about gave them an access code to my accounts so he could see. “There are still some charities you support, why those?” Honestly, I could have hung up, but all I had to give him was time, so I gave him that, and laying myself bare as a form of apology.   I was listening to Sue Barker this morning talking about the struggles StarJam is facing, and I wonder just how many of you have had these difficult conversations with the charity workers who are putting the acid on those who used to give and who are no longer giving or just cold calling. I love StarJam and the work it does. I've been there along to a number of StarJam gala events, and they are professional, and they are fun, and they are incredibly important for the young people who are performing.   One of the best interviews I've ever seen conducted was a young man who has Down Syndrome, who was impeccably dressed in black tie, who was well prepared, well researched and interviewed the entertainer, Michael Barrymore when it first come out to New Zealand. He was brilliant, asked really tough questions, the sort of questions no other interviewer would dare ask. He was brilliant. I've really enjoyed the nights I've spent at StarJam and the work they do is really, really important. But man, there are a lot of charities, all of whom are doing really worthwhile work but for many of us, circumstances have changed.   And while Sue Barker told Mike Hosking that look, there are 600,000 companies and up to 500,000 trusts, so 28,000 is not a surplus of charities. I disagree. 28,000 charities is a lot of charities and a lot of them are niche charities. So, there's a lot of cancer charities because not all cancer charities cover a particular family's need or a particular individual's need.   So, we have 28 thousand registered charities, up from 22,000 six years ago. Twice the number of Australia and three times the number of the United Kingdom per capita. And there are those within the charity sector who think that there should be a joining up of some of the smaller charities with a with a mutual interest, and that would cut costs and make them more efficient. Merging, or at least collaborating when you have a shared interest.   The charity sector has an annual total income of more than $21 billion, and it's supported by more than 217,000 volunteers and more than 145,000 full-time staff. That is a lot of people. And who is sustaining that? You and me? We're doing that because New Zealanders are not mean. It doesn't matter how small your income; you could be on a pension or a benefit or a lowly paid critical worker and you will give. And that's right up to the to the wealthy philanthropists who give a lot, but most New Zealanders give. Individual giving in 2019 was $2.4 billion.   But again, you know, these are unusual times. Families are cutting back on their own costs, their own families are going without. And charities have to accept that all the haranguing of people, forcing them to explain themselves, all the narration of sob stories, is not going to get blood out of a stone. If the money is not there, it is not there, and charities have to understand that too. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, you know, I'm an old-fashioned girl, let's face it, but I do love a list. They're especially helpful if you have much to do and you feel slightly overwhelmed. Writing things down, and I'm a Luddite and I use pen and paper (if your list is on an app, I'm not going to judge), it's the writing down that counts.   Writing down what you need to do helps you understand that it's manageable. If you can fit everything you need to do done onto a piece of paper, even if you're using both sides, it shows it can be done. There is an end. You can see where your priorities lie when they're all laid out like that. You can see the easy things you can do.   I have been known to put in things I've already done just so I've got the satisfaction of crossing them off. That gives you a positive boost. Some people see that as cheating. So, I'll do two easy things and then I'll do the hard one and then come back and do another easy one, do a hard one, and before you know it what you thought was overwhelming has been achieved. Done efficiently, done well and you can start the next day with nothing carrying over from the day before.    Now this coalition government is fond of a list.   We had the 100 Day Action Plan. To be fair, other governments are fond of lists too, and there's a good reason for that. It makes it very clear what the government's course of action is going to be, what they're prioritising in the first instance, you and I can see what their intentions are, and they can be held accountable if they don't achieve their targets. It's quite bold putting it out there. You know, there's no “Well within 100 days we'd like to see a return to well-being.” Well no, they're not airy-fairy, non-tangible kind of targets, they are specific things. Some of it is easy. Some of the easy stuff has been put on the first list. If you think back to the government's first 100 days, much of that was rolling back the previous government’s programme, like repealing Three Waters, stopping blanket speed limit reductions, repealing the Ute Tax, withdrawing central government from Let's Get Wellington Moving, putting an end to the bottomless pit that is the Auckland light rail. So, some of that was easy, just stopping stuff the other government had done.   You had the banning of cell phones in schools. You had health workers having 200 additional security personnel to reduce violent incidents and hospital emergency departments, and by all accounts that worked. Now it's just a matter of keeping on ensuring that ED's are safe spaces for the staff and for the patients.   So, you know, you could see, how did that go? Even the most overworked or laziest of journo’s, all they have to do after three months is pull up the action plan and go through, give them a pass mark or a fail mark because it's all written out there for you.   So, the next list the government has drawn up is going to have tougher To Do’s. Establishing a $1.2 billion capital infrastructure fund for the regions. And that too will have a list of things that must check off. This is not just money going hither and dither to the regions, being strewn like so much corn before hungry geese with no way of quantifying or qualifying whether it's been a worthwhile investment. Growing housing stock alongside councils and of course, coming up with a budget that can pay for the shifting of the tax brackets, while not reducing front line services across government departments, that will be a tough test.   Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says there will be some tough discussions around the cabinet table about how the government's targets can be achieved when there's little money to spare, but he says that's why it's important to have an action plan.  And I think he's right. RMA is just so vast, so huge. It's like when we climbed Kilimanjaro. They said you don't think about climbing the mountain in the same way that you don't think about eating an elephant in one bite. You start with the tail, you know, and you take it chunk by chunk, and he's right about that, these big, meaty, grunty reforms need to be done bit by bit, but there has to be a clear plan about how you're going to do that, not just sitting around having meetings for the sake of them.  When it comes to the list, when it comes to setting out a clear plan of action, does this give you confidence that this is a government that will be accountable not just for the money it spends, but for the time it spends? Because that is a valuable, valuable commodity and resource in this day and age, you and I know that, especially after a holiday weekend, to be able to spend time is so precious. And the time that has been wasted on hot air fests and meetings where people talk at each other and nothing happens at the end of them, despite the enormous expense, meetings where nothing happens.  After six years where people have been paid by the public purse, still nothing has happened. Things have not improved. In fact, they've gone backwards. You need to be held accountable for that. So, if you're doing it bit by bit, if every hundred days there's another right, this is how far we've come, this is what we've achieved, this is where we need to work harder. That makes me in my little list obsessed fashion, I find it really comforting. And I also find it a hell of a lot easier to decide whether a government is doing a good job or a bad.   I mean, ultimately when I was asking the different government departments over the last six years, well, is it working? They couldn't tell us. Nobody knew. And the only way we found out was that the crime stats and the social disruption stats were all going in the wrong direction. That was an indication that you know what? no, it hasn't worked.   So you need to have a list that will let you know whether you're going in the right direction, and you need to have clear targets, you need to have accountability so that if a plan's not working, you can pull out a whole lot earlier and try something different.   I find it comforting. I think it's an organised way to go about trying to improve all areas of this country. I know there are some intangibles, feeling positive, feeling good about feeling proud of your country and that's fine. But I think you're only going to get that intangible sense of well-being provided it's underpinned by some clear targets and achieving of those targets. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, it's news, but it's not really, is it?   An OECD report has found that New Zealand's students are among the worst behaved kids in the world and that bad behaviour has worsened in the last two years. Shock me. A report released this morning by the Education Review Office has called for classroom behaviour to become a priority, and to nationalise the approach to dealing with bad behaviour.   At the moment, each school must set its own policy, around discipline, about rules, about consequences and they're not getting anywhere near the sort of support and professional help that they need nationwide to deal with bad kids, sad kids, anxious kids, unwell kids, kids with special needs, kids with special neurological needs, as well as the physical. There's a whole plethora of children, and their needs and their learning abilities would be diverse enough if you didn't take into account the bad kids, sad kids, anxious kids, unwell kids. I cannot even imagine what it is like in a modern classroom.    On the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning, Ruth Shinoda, who's the Head of the Education Evaluation Center at the Education Review Office said she'd like to see three things happen.    “The first is we're saying, look, let's have more of a national approach, which isn't still doing the same thing but is making sure that schools can access the same support and are really back to succeed. The second is we do need to support our kids, so let's have greater prevention. Let's make sure we're setting them up to succeed at school. And lastly, let's really help those teachers with the expert support and the skills they need. But yes, we do think things like taking cellphones out of classrooms will help.”    Yeah, and it probably will. We're going to have a chat to a bit later in the day about the states in America that are banning kids from under 14, from having TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram accounts. There is so much, so much, that can be said about the reasons for poor behaviour.   Covid, of course, has been blamed, and countries around the world are seeing distressed kids, sad kids, anxious kids turning up at school. Children who don't know how to interact with one another. Who were terrified at the thought of ‘in real life’ because their teaching has been done online, their social interactions have been done online, and people in the flesh are quite a different thing.   So, it's happening all over the world, but an OECD report has found our students behaviour is the worst. You only have to look at the news reports of the poor behaviour among society in general to understand that the poor behaviour of the children springs directly from the poor behaviour of the parents or caregivers. They haven't come from nowhere. They haven't been born bad or sad or mad. Their home life shapes them, society helped shape them. What on Earth are the teachers supposed to do? By the time a child is five, a lot of the habits have been ingrained anyway.   There is nothing as any parent or caregiver knows like the joy of helping children learn and helping them develop their full potential. Each child is different and to be able to watch them grow is such a privilege. To be a part of that process, it is truly, truly wonderful. If teachers were actually able to teach, to do that, to work alongside parents to bring out the very best in each child, it would be the most wonderful job in the world. If parents were presenting to the school well rested, well fed, well-mannered kids, you would have queues of people lining up to be teachers. For those who have the privilege of being able to teach kids who can learn because they've had a good night's sleep and a warm, dry bed, because they've had dinner, it might not be flash, but it's enough to fill their stomachs, it's enough to allow their brains to calm down, settle down, and grow. To have children who have been supported from the time they are born to understand that learning is something precious. That learning will give them choices later in life. If you had kids like that, teachers who've had children like that in their classrooms know what a joy it is.   When you're spending an hour of your working day trying to impose discipline, there is no fun in that. And the majority of teachers say they leave the profession because they are sick and tired of trying to establish rules, and guidelines, and protocols simply so that they can do the job they were trained to do.   I think it's absolutely imperative that we have a nationwide code of conduct in our schools. At the moment, leaving it to schools to try and sort out an education policy ad hoc is not working. So, the schools need to have a national code and they need to be supported. It is not their job to take feral children and try and civilize them. That is where the health professionals come in. It's not their job to take a child who has incredibly diverse needs in terms of their brains, in terms of their physical needs, that is not their job. Leave that to the professionals and the experts.   In a way, the teachers are sort of like our police have become. Oh, the police will fix it, the police can deal with that, the police can do that. And we say that about our schools. Every single time we talk about budgeting or about our inability to drive on the roads, or people's inability to be able to prepare a simple basic meal cheaply ... aah the schools.   How about parents step up and do the job they're meant to do, so the teachers can do the job they want to do?   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When it comes to second chances for people, do you put caveats on those second chances?   So you're allowed a second chance, but you must refrain from being in the public eye. Or you're allowed a second chance, but you must always present a subdued demeanour and never look as though you're enjoying life ever again.   When you have done something dreadful, absolutely appalling, when you have done something criminal and you have been convicted for that, at what point are you allowed to work again? To participate in the community or society again?   And I ask this for two reasons, a) because the Wellington Repertory Theatre is in the news after casting a convicted rapist in the lead role for its run of the play ‘Murdered to Death’. Now, it's a lead role so Harrison Stuart 's face is on the posters. He's a big part of the social media advertising campaign and given that he was convicted of sexual violation by rape, some of his fellow actors say that they're distressed, and his victim survivor is particularly distressed.  Harrison Stuart was studying drama at the time of his trial so he could perhaps argue that this is his job, this is what he's trained to do. He's come out of prison; he's trying to get work in the field in which he studied. He's done his time; he's entitled to do his job and the Repertory Theatre seems to be standing by that. They say that crew and cast were consulted on a comprehensive risk management plan surrounding the casting of Stuart, including banning him from being alone with anyone and forbidding him drinking alcohol before or during any interaction with the cast and crew. So, they say they have fulfilled their obligations.   Jessica Te Wiata is the victim survivor, she had to endure two trials before a jury before Stuart was found guilty of indecent assault and sexual violation by rape in 2021. He was a former friend; her trust was horribly betrayed. He was sentenced to four years in prison but was out after two due to his good behaviour. She says Stuart has not accepted responsibility for his actions —he didn't then, and he hasn’t now— and she would have liked to have been consulted before he was cast, and his photo was put on the posters.   So, should Stuart be allowed to work in his chosen field? Given that he studied to be an actor, he could argue you know that is what I do. Others might say goodness, out of prison and barely washed the prison grime off you and there you are front and centre on the stage, posters all around town, any thought that this perhaps might cause pain for the victim, the victim 's family? What are the caveats you would put on this young man finding work again? If he doesn't find work, he's going to be a drain on the taxpayer for the rest of his life.   What about Kiri Allan, the former Justice Minister who has a trial upcoming after being taken into the cells by police after crashing a car. Drinking, the police dogs were called, I mean it was just a shambles. I can't think of a Justice Minister who fell from grace so spectacularly, but I interviewed her yesterday around the Civil Defence Report and the deficiencies in the Hawkes Bay Civil Defence response to Cyclone Gabriel, because she was, as well as a former Justice Minister, a former Civil Defence Minister. And she had absolute institutional knowledge of what the response was at the time, and she had a very good oversight and overview of Civil Defence in New Zealand. Should that knowledge be lost? I don't think so.   I had a few texts from people saying this is an outrage, I'm never listening to talk back again and how dare you and how dare you have her on.  I didn't just have her on a whim because I fancied a chat and a catch up. I had her on because she knows her subject, she knows the topic. I felt she added value to the conversation. Is she supposed to go away and never be seen ever again? She has to earn a living and that's what she's doing, she set up a consultancy firm. The trial is still to come but you know no doubt that it'll be relitigated when it comes up, but I would still use her because of the knowledge she has in her specific fields.   So, it's tricky.   I guess it's trickier if you feel justice has not been done. To me, four years seems very light in the first instance for rape. Secondly, two years seems even lighter, so if you feel justice has not been done it's hard to move on and I can understand that.   If you have served your time,  you've learnt your lesson,  you've made a terrible, terrible mistake or you've behaved in an appalling fashion and you have had a complete seismic shift in terms of how you view the world and how you see yourself in it which will prevent you from behaving like that again, how do you prove you're worthy of a second chance? And if second chances have continual caveats on them, are they really second chances?   So, it's a tricky one.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The independent review of Hawke’s Bay’s Civil Defence response to Cyclone Gabriel has been completed and it is damning. Former Police Commissioner Mike Bush conducted the investigation and released the findings yesterday.    MB: You know, there's a lot of experts out there, a lot of people who do know how this should be done, and I think all those people stand ready to provide advice and support. One of the things we said in the report was the current national model and the way it works in with regional/local does set good people up to fail. So, we've, we've got to look after those people, but the resources and the capability and experiences out there, what we've got to do is have a model that actually leverages all that, coordinates that, and gets it in as soon as possible.    So, there are good people and they are set up to fail. Basically, the review found the region was not well prepared for a natural disaster of this scale. Would anyone have been prepared for that? Unlikely, but basically the review said you have to plan for the worst-case scenario. It was unlikely it would have been on that scale. It did occur on that scale, and thus the worst-case scenario should have been planned for.   It found the severity, speed and scale of the disaster overwhelmed the officials involved in the response. They thought that they knew how to do Civil Defence because they'd been through Covid-19. This natural disaster was nothing like Covid-19. They had no idea what to do.   It's not just Hawke’s Bay though. Mike Bush found the National Emergency Management system is not currently fit for purpose, so we should all be concerned. He said a complete overhaul of the system is needed. That's something that's been recommended for years. And Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence said they absolutely accepted the findings and were ready to do a complete overhaul of the system. Although having heard the train wreck of an interview on Heather's show last night with Hinewai Ormsby, who's the chair of Hawkes Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management’s joint committee, I do wonder how effective that overhaul is going to be.    HO: So, the recommendations from today, we agreed, and we added them. That we’d get an independent implementation team and leadership team, to be able to take these recommendations.  HDPA: I’m asking you this question because I’m slightly alarmed that you don’t know the details.  HO: Well, no, we’re fully committed to the recommendations and implementing change.    I mean Hinewai Ormsby may well be a very effective human, but when it comes to communicating, she had a bad attack of the Costers, and I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about in the bureaucratic speak. None. And surely in a crisis, clear communication is absolutely vital. If you've got a bad attack of bureaucratese, it's going to be very tricky to get information out and get information out quickly and expeditiously.  Nonetheless, they have said that they will implement the findings, but when you're being let down by the national civil defence structure, which is not fit for purpose, how effective are you going to be? The National Emergency Management Agency has not yet released its review into the weather events of last year - that is due out in December, and that will probably make for more grim reading.   The review of Hawke’s Bay’s response also pointed to a number of precautionary measures that may have mitigated some of the damage. The dredging to remove excess shingle, the managing of forestry slash, the flood protection maintenance, all of which a number of you callers and texters said needed to be done. Yet you'd said it before Cyclone Gabrielle, and you certainly said it afterwards. These were things that you had pointed to, and when you look at Auckland's floods, a number of people pointed to the fact the drains hadn't been maintained and cleared that they quickly became blocked, causing tiny rivulets to become rivers.   So, there is much that can be done in terms of prevention, in terms of maintenance, and then in terms of the response to the emergency. But when it comes to civil defence emergencies, how prepared are you? Because I think it also shows that ultimately, we are on our own. And when I say ‘we’, I talk about as small communities, as neighbourhoods, helping each other out. It may be very, very difficult for other people to get to you, and we learnt that from Christchurch, and we've learnt that from a number of natural disasters. That the advice is always to be prepared for two to three days of managing on your own. And to be perfectly honest, having heard just how fundamentally unsound, the national system is.   To hear the word soup from the chair of the civil defence response unit in Hawke’s Bay, are we better off coming up with a neighbourhood plan and relying on each other? Yes, Civil Defence is there. Yes, there are very good people there who are being let down by the management of the system. But ultimately, I think surely the lessons we've learned from numerous emergencies that the country has experienced is that for the first 24 hours to 48 hours, we are on our own.   So how prepared do you think you are? Were you all Gung Ho after Christchurch, as I was, with the first aid kit, with the water, with the tin cans, with the disinfectants, with the water purification? And now that's all out of date and needs to be biffed out. Other people relying on other people in a natural disaster, other people are busy digging themselves out too, and their families.   So how prepared are you? How much should be on a national emergency disaster response team? And how much should we be looking after ourselves? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The independent review into the response to Cyclone Gabrielle has found that Civil Defence was unprepared for the disaster, the system not fit for purpose.  Former Minister for Emergency Management Kiri Allan thinks the report hits the nail on the head.  She told Kerre Woodham that this is not a new recognition.  Following the Christchurch Earthquake in 2011, Gerry Brownlee said that the system was absolutely unfit for purpose and instigated a series of actions seeking to address it.  Despite this, Allan said, the system still doesn’t have the agility and the ability to be responsive when major events occur.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Interestingly, Marie has sent in a text immediately on the very thing I wanted to talk about. “Kerre what a third world, Banana Republic New Zealand has become. I was at the SailGP yesterday, the final thank God, not Saturday. It was simply amazing. New Zealand in the last six years has slipped into a pathetic nation of nothingness. Useless do-gooders stripping any opportunity to move forward in what could be one of the most incredible events on the water next to the Americas Cup. Yesterday was simply fantastic. Shame on us for being so short-sighted", says Marie. Now, normally, Marie, I would agree with you and I'd have some sympathy with Sir Russell Coates, who’s apoplectic in his monosyllabic kind of way, but he's still extremely cross about the fact that racing was brought to a halt on Saturday. And I do normally have sympathy with people who find themselves suddenly hog-tied by red tape. But when it comes to the SailGP, don't get me wrong, it's a brilliant concept. It is clever, it is fun to watch whether you watch it on the telly or in real life. It is brilliant for the sailors and the spectators alike, as Maria attests in her text. What's not to love when you've got a sailing Grand Prix, that's what it's been described at, and that's what it looks like. Fanging it round a beautiful course, the very best in their field from around the world. Ten international teams travelling the world to the most beautiful places in the world taking each other on in  high-speed yacht racing. It's really cool. Totally get that. But Sir Russell's now warning that the New Zealand League of SailGP is in doubt after proceedings were brought to a halt in Lyttleton Harbour on Saturday after a dolphin was sighted on the course. So dolphin ahoy, in line with SailGP protocol, racing is delayed to allow marine life to pass through safely. In this case, the dolphin hadn't read the protocol and didn't understand that they were supposed to move through expeditiously and get through to the other side to allow racing to proceed. The dolphin thought well this is cool, or whatever dolphins do without wishing to be anthropomorphic about it. The dolphin thought look at all these people, fantastic, I might hang around and see what's happening.  Not realising that while it hung around inside the racecourse arena it meant racing couldn't take place. So everyone's waiting for the dolphin to shove off. The dolphin hadn't read the protocol, so it's still in its little dolphin sanctuary doing what dolphins do. And now, Sir Russell is apoplectic in his quiet,  monosyllabic way.  Coutts says the league has never had an aquatic incident involving an aquatic animal in 35 events around the world. And in his chat with Jason Pine on weekend Sport on ZB over the weekend, he blamed environmentalists, academics, red tape, the Harbour Master and iwi for the hold up and racing.  AUDIO  So they're very clever. We've all seen the Dolphins surfing the wake and dolphin watching is fantastic and it's brilliant. But you signed the protocol. You know that that's what has to happen. That that's why you haven't had an event involving an aquatic mammal, because there is the protocol to allow them to proceed. If you're gonna blame anyone, blame the dolphin for not moving on. I understand that you want to find a place where there's great viewing for spectators on land. You know that's part of the thrill of seeing the crowds there. It's great for tourism. I'd hate to see it lost. But is there nowhere else in New Zealand where you could find a suitable venue? And I'm genuinely asking. I don't know a lot about yachting. I've only got back into the Americas Cup since they did the foiling, and since it became really exciting and just a brilliant spectacle to watch. But has been nowhere else in the whole of New Zealand, in this island nation that you could hold the SailGP? Why hold the race where the dolphins are? You know there's Auckland - you know they've had the Americas Cup there without there being any issues whatsoever. And I know they go faster in the SailGP. As I understand it, Russell Coots wanted it at a specific course in Auckland where bystanders and spectators could see the racing from a point on Wynyard Quarter but it hadn't been cleaned up enough to allow spectators to gather there safely or some such. What... you're telling me there's nowhere else in Auckland that you couldn't hold the race safely? There's nowhere else in New Zealand you couldn't hold it? I don't know. I'm genuinely asking because I would love to know. It sounds like he's incredibly frustrated with the process from when he began negotiations to try and get SailGP into Lyttelton Harbour. So it sounds like he's revisiting, relitigating the negotiations he had, because none of this is new. You've gone through it all. You've signed the protocols. And a dolphin didn't move out of the way. It's the dolphin who didn't understand. Blame the dolphin! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Having SailGP in Lyttleton Harbour is being likened to planning a motorcross event in Kiwi habitats.  SailGP CEO Russell Coutts slammed the cancellation of Saturday’s racing after a dolphin was spotted on the course. He claims the species isn’t endangered and are smart enough to be aware of the boats around them.   Chair of Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders Christine Rose tells Kerre Woodham they were concerns for dolphin safety before the event went ahead. Rose says at this time of year, the Hectors dolphins are particularly vulnerable due to calves being slower swimmers and more shallow divers.   There has been an increase in probable boat strike deaths of dolphins in the harbour and noise and other disturbances can also impact their ability to socialise and feed.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.