Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Remember the Christchurch business owner and the tradies who performed a citizens arrest back in June? They tackled a thief to the ground. I'm going to remove all the 'allegeds' and the 'supposedlys' and the 'before the courts.' They tackled a thief. He had motorbike parts in his pocket that he hadn't paid for. That's a thief. They tackled a thief to the ground after he stole motorcycle parts.   When they rang the police the police asked if the thief had any weapons and when they said no, the police said look, you're going have to let him go. Understandably, they were disappointed in the response but the police said later that they simply had no spare personnel to attend the robbery at that particular time.   Now we have another man who tackled his supermarket thief to the ground, a drunk, aggressive, foul mouthed, oik abusing supermarket staff and stealing boxes of booze. Todd Scott took matters into his own hands, literally, by tackling the thief and holding him on the ground while the supermarket store owner or the manager called the police. Next minute the store manager was telling him that the police had advised that he should let the thief go.   The officers couldn't come to the store and he couldn't make a citizen's arrest. Understandably, he's disappointed. It's happening all the time. Is there anyone who has not been to a supermarket and seen somebody steal whatever it is they wish? And unfortunately, most of the reports I have read, I have heard, and I have witnessed, have not been of desperate families stealing sausages and cheese. It's the booze that they're going for. It's happening every day. And when brave people try and do something about it there aren't the police there to back them up.    In our editorial meeting this morning, which is a rather grand name for when we sit in and chew the fat about the stories of the day, one of our group was remonstrating that at the same time as thieves are taking what they will from where they wish, we have police going into schools around the country on charm offensives.   Our team members argument was that police should be out and about arresting buggars, and if they want to do community policing, do it in the community. Principals should be controlling their schools. They shouldn't need the police.   I don't know about that, Helen and I thought it was a good thing crime prevention is part of policing. And the police simply cannot be everywhere all at once, all the time, whenever they're needed. Mental health and domestic violence callouts, which take up so much of police time, are so time-consuming and yet it's really important.   Crime prevention surely is just as important as picking up shoplifters. Stopping young people from committing crime because they've built up a relationship with police is surely worth doing, isn't it? I mean the police cannot be everywhere despite the Minister of Police crowing that there's 300 extra police and you know there's never been more police, the streets are heaving with the weight of bobbies marching up and down the streets preventing crime. It's just simply not true.   There are more people taking advantage of a complete lapse. Crime is not your fault if you happen to pick up a box of booze, it's because you've been oppressed, that kind of BS that's pervaded the community over the last six years. Crime has been excused. Forgiven. It's been explained away. The courts aren't giving any kind of decent sentences when it comes to people who actually do appear before judges. Of course, people are going to take what they want, where they want, and the police can't fix the community on their own.   I think crime prevention is as important as picking up these abusive, foul mouthed thieves. It would be lovely if the police could be everywhere all at once, all the time, but they can't. There's going to have to be a little bit of self responsibility coming into this community, into this country. And an understanding that just because you might not have as much as the next person, it doesn't mean you have a right to steal. That you should be ashamed of yourself if you're a thief. And we've tried to expunge shame from the community, saying it's a harmful thing. A little bit of shame doesn't hurt anybody. To be branded as a thief in public, I would find that incredibly shameful. I wish more people felt the same way.   So what should the police principal role be in your mind? Should crime prevention be part of it when crime is so pervasive in our community? Should they be responding to every citizen's arrest as a sign that they are backing up a community who's had a gutsfull of people taking what is not theirs and what do the police themselves want? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now the National Party announced some weeks ago that should it become Government, a new medical school will be established at Waikato University. They've also said they'd add another 50 placements in Otago and Auckland from 2025.   Now Labour, in the midst of an unprecedented senior specialist strike, has woken up to the fact that we're short of doctors. Who knew? And has announced an extra 95 doctors will be accepted for training at Otago and Auckland in 2025 should they become Government.  Cool, say the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, any boost to student numbers is great, but it would be 10 to 15 years before any of them qualified as consultants. They say they need 1700 specialist doctors and dentists right now.   So why over the past six years was this government faffing around with bike bridges to the North Shore, lowering speed limits around the city, renaming Government departments, trying to get RNZ and TVNZ merged —all the frilly stuff— without addressing a very real concern, a very real need, something that impacts on all of us to augment our health services? Why have they waited till their second election campaign, (really third), to say hey, you know what? We don't have enough doctors.    At any time during our lockdown when the borders were closed, when the Government was banging on about the need to train up our own professionals and tradies, about the fact that New Zealanders needed to do the jobs, we couldn't afford to rely on importing the people we needed to do essential jobs, at any time they could have ticked the box and said train more doctors.   And they didn't. And they haven't, until yesterday.   Chris Hipkins said an extra 335 more doctors per year by 2027 would cost $1 billion over 10 years. The Labour Government has thrown away $29.2 billion on light rail in Auckland. How many doctors would $29.2 billion give us? Doctors, dentists and nurses? It incenses me.  Along comes a pre-election whiz bang press release announcing an extra 95 doctors will be accepted for training from 2025. Speaking at Otago University yesterday, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said New Zealand really needs to ramp up its efforts if we're going to train the workforce we need here in New Zealand.   Well, yes, yes, it does! And with a stroke of a pen you could have done that. And we needed to do that five years ago, not right now. We needed to do that when you closed the borders, not right now when you're desperate to win an election. We could have had the first tranche of new doctors coming out now if you'd decided the healthcare sector was worth investing in.   So a new med school and increased placements under National or keep just the two training universities and up the placements. What would be best for the country as far as you're concerned? The acting Dean of Otago, Tim Wilkinson, says there is no shortage of people who would make excellent doctors, they just haven't had enough places for all of them. So now there are will you reapply? What do you do if you don't make it into Med school? It's a very niche area of study. You're obviously a high performance machine. What do you do next? Many wannabe doctors go to Australia and they are very, very hard to get back. It would be great to keep more of our own people here.   How the hell has Labour just woken up to the fact that we need to train more doctors. Would they not have looked at that when the borders were closed? No, just when their polls are plummeting. Unbelievable. The money that has been spent on nonsense when it could have been spent on New Zealanders working within the New Zealand health system. Staggering. Every day, every day, I'm freshly staggered. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Polls are coming in thick and fast as we head towards October 14th.  The latest is the New Zealand Herald's Poll of Polls, which combines results from a range of pollsters, specifically Curia, Kantar Public, Talbot Mills, and Reid Research.  According to the Poll of Polls, National and ACT’s chances continue to soar.  They have a 95.1% chance of forming a government if the election were held this weekend, and an 87% chance of forming a government for the actual election date.  Research Association's Polling spokesperson Murray Campbell told Kerre Woodham that the accuracy of polls, when measured against the election results, is still in pretty good stead.  He said that discrepancies in the last election can be attributed to polling companies not factoring in early voting.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Treasury's Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Update forecasts no recession but shows the Government will be in deficit longer than predicted in May and take on billions more debt.  It’s predicted that the government won’t return to surplus until 2027, a year later than previously forecast.   Robert MacCulloch, Auckland University Professor of Macroeconomics, told Kerre Woodham that in his opinion, how Grant Robertson described the update didn’t add up.  He said that Robertson argued that the GDP was growing, and wages were going up faster than inflation and as a result kiwis should be feeling cost of living pressures less, which doesn’t feel right.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, good news last night for National.   Labour must be left wondering how many more election bribes they'll have to offer before voters begin to nibble. The latest Newshub Reid Research Poll that came out last night has seen National shoot up 4.3 points to 40.9%, and Labour suffered a 5.5% fall from the last Newshub poll, they're on just 26.8%.   But before gleeful right and centre right voters pull the cork on the St Emilion premier cru that you have cellared for the day those bloody socialists are booted out of office, just remember it is only a poll. And as Jim Bolger once famously said, buggar the polls.   As we've seen around the world, the pollsters were way off when it came to predicting the results of Brexit, the Trump Clinton presidential campaign, and the 2019 Australian election. And as an article in The Conversation shows, in this country in 2020, the polls immediately prior to the election overestimated the National vote and underestimated Labour’s.   They took the average of the results of all six polls published during the month before Election Day in 2020. National came out on 30.9%, Labour on 47.2%. But predictions based on the opinion polls were wrong. Labour's election result was 50%, National was not 30.9% they were only 25.6%. So the polls in the final fortnight were overestimating National by an average of 5.8 percentage points and underestimating Labour by 3.7. Lots of numbers, but basically, beware the polls.    Apparently we, as in Kiwis, used to be relatively forthright when it came to answering questions delivered by pollsters. We'd happily pin our colours to the mast and let complete strangers know our political preference. Not anymore.   Social media has fragmented opinion and challenged what truth is like nothing else, according to Murray Campbell, the New Zealand Research Associations Polling Spokesman. People are also careful about protecting their privacy. They're less willing to share their political viewpoints when contacted by total.   Add to that the difficulties of reaching people when landlines have all but disappeared. And door knocking isn't really an option because of the growing number of people living in apartment buildings or when homes are heavily protected by security.   So do the polls count for anything?   Well, they must do, and they must re-energize the party faithful if you're National or dampen and quash the spirits of those who are working for Labour. Certainly, in my electorate in Northcote, the party faithful for National have been out in full force. All blue jacketed, waving their signs, waving gleefully at the Onewa turnoff onto the motorway, happy as clams. Haven't seen a single person in a red shirt.   So it certainly gives a fillip to exhausted campaigners when you see a boost in the polls. But does it mean that Christopher Luxon will be thinking well, that's that then. Time to ease back, jobs done? He will not. The show is not over until the votes are counted. Election Day is the only poll that matters. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've also got an election coming up in five weeks, haven't we? So it was another weekend and another presentation of party policies coming thick and fast, wasn't it?   Health targets from National, the scrapping of building consents from ACT, our ocean policy from the Greens, disagreements between National and ACT and Labour when it comes to the impending shake-up of our scientific research sector, and the proposal to introduce road user charges on all cars from National.  Let's start with the road user charges. National will make electric vehicles subject to road user charges after March and funding for roads will eventually be obtained through pay per kilometre charges.   At present, light EVs are exempt from road user charges until the 31st of March 2024, although there are murmurings from this Government that they may extend that exemption again. No hard and fast rules.   Under National, there would be no extension to the exemption, and EVs would have to pay similarly to diesel vehicles, which have to purchase road user charges based on the number of kilometres they travel.   As things stand, this would see owners begin to be charged $76 per 1000 kilometres, to add to the $2 billion in road user charges raised from other motorists, mostly truckers and diesel car owners.   The suggestion to that all vehicles will eventually roll out to road user charges and will get rid of the fuel excise tax.    However, recent stories in the media say officials have been investigating what to do next as they struggled to modernise the regulatory system and how they deal with problems like compliance. A May 2023 Waka Kotahi document said ‘I see trouble’.    What are we going to do when people just say I'm not going to pay? They said there'll be an increase of non-compliance and debt for customers entering the road user charge system.   Current resources they say are set up to manage the existing RUC system. There will not be enough resources to cope with the increase in education, engagement and enforcement needed. Basically, it's enforcement.   Surely every idiot knows that when they say right you have to buy kilometres to drive your car, that's what you have to do. It's not rocket science.   They're not asking you to explain how an electric engine works. They're simply saying if you want to drive on the road, you have to buy kilometres. So it's the enforcement really that will be the issue.  Another document said a work program to look at the entire RUC system had been set up to bring together strategy and improvements.   Key strategic choices about road user charges are inherently linked to long-term revenue challenges including non-compliance and debt management. Basically what they're saying is that they're worried that the road user charges won't bring in as much dosh as the fuel tax does. Change would have to involve the Ministry of Transport, Treasury and police, it said.  So those are their concerns. We move to road user charges, people won't buy them. They'll stick two fingers up. They'll say okay, you find me?   You find me and charge me. The Nat’s say moving away from fuel excise and road user charges is a fairer way to charge for road use.   As New Zealand has more and more electric vehicles and hybrids on the road, there's less of a contribution being made through the form of excise, despite those cars using the very same roads. So, what is fair and what is not?   I know we get a lot of people who are grumpy, that EVs are not paying their way. They're heavy. Wear and tear on the roads is caused just as much by electric vehicles as it is by your normal combustion engine.   More and more of them are on the roads, which means less fuel tax going into the coffers to help pay for the roads.   Are the Nat’s right? Should we all be moving to road user charges? Is that the fairest way to ensure that those who use, pay? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

National's road user charges expansion won't be accomplished right away.   It's proposing adding them to every vehicle including electric ones.   Transport spokesperson Simeon Brown says they want it as a switch away from fuel excise taxes, so people don't have to pay both at once.   He told Kerre Woodham it will take a bit of time to get it exactly right.  “There’s obviously a lot of work that will need to be done around the details to ensure that can be done in an efficient manner.”  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Labour's self aggrandising press release on police came through late in the show yesterday, so we didn't really get a chance to get our teeth into it.   The press release came from Chris Hipkins, well his office. A Labour Government will deliver a further increase of 300 additional frontline police officers, new ways to crack down on gangs, and strengthen legal protections against stalking and harassment, we will also continue to crack down on gangs.   Recently, we've seen communities disrupted and intimidated by dangerous gang convoys. “This is intolerable,” said the press release. Labour will introduce laws to punish this behaviour and develop new ways to target gang leaders and break their international links.   Seriously?   How can their speech writers deliver this stuff? How? Given the attitude that this administration has shown towards the gang since they first arrived, thanks to Winston Peters on the scene. How can Chris Hipkins, in all honesty, face New Zealanders and say, “Labour's been tough on gangs”?   This government's attitude towards gangs, towards working with gangs, towards giving gangs a seat at the table without them earning one, has resulted in the gang members and the gang leaders thinking they can have it both ways. That many of their members can grow fat off criminal activity and they get to be treated with respect, as respected members of the community.   Remember Paul? You might remember Paul from the show, hard working Paul, who rang me as he was heading off for a day's work on the farm in Opotiki. He rang because the topic was home detention and he said he himself had a bracelet, he was articulate, he was clearly hard working. Halfway through the conversation, he reveals he's a mobster for life and he had an extraordinary attitude about where gangs sit in the pantheon of New Zealanders.  So here you've got somebody who is who is articulate, hardworkin,  mobster for life and truly believes that because prime ministers have roads closed for them, a long standing member of the mob in Opotiki should have the same respect accorded to him.   Where did that sense of entitlement come from? Do you and I expect roads to close, towns to shut down, and people to be inconvenienced because one of our family members died? It's happened all over the country. It’s not just Opotiki. The gangs do, They truly think that when one of their members, who they respect and they think is the man, when one of their members dies, everybody has to down tools. Everybody has to be inconvenienced. Everybody has to wait while they do what they need to do to show their respect.   Where has that attitude come from? It has come from Government contracts being awarded to gangs and gang sympathisers. From police, turning a blind eye to gang convoys. All the way through Covid we saw the gangsters hanging out of cars, gathering in far more numbers than rules allowed. I mean the rules were stupid, they were dumb, but the only way we were going to get through it is if we obeyed them.   To gangs, appointing PR personnel to argue their case on mainstream media. Good morning Louise Hutchinson. To orthodox members of the community turning up to Waikato Kingdom Mob hui, giving the event the sheen of respectability. While members of that same gang, senior members, the 2IC for God's sake, were still dealing drugs on an industrial level. Don Brash, Madama Davidson, respected academics all turning up saying, “oh yes, let's help give mob members a steer on alternative ways of being.”   I'm all for that, you know, giving people another chance. If people truly want to commit to being productive, hardworking members of the community and not make their living out of crime, afford them every possibility. But how can you stand there and say, oh, you know we're anti-drugs while your 2IC’s being sent away for 10 years for dealing meth and GHB.   Seriously, you've got management issue problems if your 2IC thinks it's okay to be dealing drugs on that level. Enough, enough, enough. If gangs want to keep what they're doing, raking in millions while peddling misery. Can we at least make it hard for them? I mean, at the moment we're closing roads to allow them to do what they do. Can we make it clear that most of us would rather work honestly than live the BS, chrome- flashy, “I've got my bitches at home working for me” kind of thing that these gangsters just seem to be so proud of. They do not deserve a seat at the table until they have earned it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now this is more like it team!    Leaders of Labour, National, and the Green Party all pledged last night to build at least another 1000 state houses a year in Auckland, if they win the election, in whatever configuration. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, National’s deputy leader Nicola Willis, the Greens Co-leader Marama Davidson were guests at the launch in Māngere of Te Ohu Whakawhanaunga Tāmaki Makaurau, an umbrella group for this social housing sector which combines 45 groups all within the social housing sector - community housing providers, churches, unions and community networks.  It wasn't all peace, love, and Kumbaya, though. I mean, there is an election campaign underway, after all.   So, during the speeches and the pledging Chris Hipkins pumped up Labour. Labour has already exceeded the 1000 commitment. We've built 12,000 social house units since 2017. Seven thousand of them have been in Tamaki Makaurau but there is more work to be done.  National’s Nicola Willis told the audience there were 261 people on the state house waiting list in Auckland when Labour took office in 2017, now there are 8175. So both parties made their points while making the pledge, but be that as it may, I think this is a really good first step.    Remember the other day when we were talking about the doctor's strike? And during a conversation I said, why don't the main parties agree to a minimum level of staffing in all hospitals, so that whoever's in Government says that this is the commitment we've made?  This is what we need to do. This is how many people we need to have on the floor at any given time and commit to it. Make it happen.   There should be some absolute fundamentals when it comes to infrastructure and a best practice curriculum within the education system, you know the basic stuff that keeps the country running. Then the politicians can play politics around the edges. If they're just left to tinker around the edges, that will minimise the damage that comes with ideologically driven politics. We need best practice, common sense politics.    So I think this is a good start, but boy, imagine being on the waiting list for a home.   This was where the election was, to a certain extent, won and lost for National in 2017. Ultimately, Winston Peters decided who won that election, and there must be a special place reserved in Hades for people like that. But housing was our big issue for National with people sleeping in their cars, families sleeping in their cars, with marae opening their doors and housing people through the cold winters.   And housing has been big news again because of Labour's empty hollow promises. Because Labour has also done some work, belatedly, on trying to get more state houses. But on the fact that there is so much need and again you can argue that's Labours poor policy. The unintended consequences of which they have been so often guilty, when it comes to the bright line test and the landlords.   Sure, it might make people get out of the private landlord market, but it has swollen the emergency housing list and the state housing list.   So 1000 a year in Auckland alone, sure. That's a very good start. It'll take more than eight years to even meet the need right now. Where are those houses going to come from and where are people living? If they can't afford to rent, they can't afford to pay their mortgage. Where do you live? How do you get your kids going to a school regularly when you've got no security about where you wake up?   In other political news, Nationals committed to building 10,000 new electric vehicle chargers because Chris Luxon says kiwis aren't switching to EVs because they have range anxiety. That would be a no.   I'm not switching to an EV because at the moment I have other things to spend $60,000 on. You know, even with the Government subsidy for EV's, that’s a lot of money to spend on a car. Also, because I'm going to need a hard car in the Hokianga. All well and good pootling along in my little electric vehicle but if I'm stuck in the floods in the Hokianga, I'm going to need something with a bit of tit to get me out.  And my Nissan Leaf isn't going to be it, is it? No. So range anxiety is the least of my anxieties at the moment, Christopher Luxon. But thank you very much anyway.    Labour has announced a five point plan to grow the economy. I think my 6-year-old grandson could probably have come up with the same five points. He reads a bit. We have big discussions. He knows a bit about New Zealand. Export stuff. Yes, very good, excellent. Make our agriculture sector excellent - it is already, in spite of your Government, Chris Hipkins. Be a global leader in renewable energy. Well, that's a relatively new one. OK, I'll give you that one. Harness New Zealand's digital creativity and expertise. Have they met the team behind Weta? Have they heard of Sir Ian Taylor? These people have been developing New Zealand's digital creativity and being experts at it for years, all by themselves, without any Government handouts whatsoever. In fact, you've been an impediment to these people doing business.   Oh, and the last one. Get tourists to come here. Good one. Genius Chris! God. That's what we're doing or are trying to do, but you keep getting in the way. All of these things New Zealanders have been doing for more than 150 years. I'd even go so far as to say the digital stuff. You know, we've been innovating constantly because we've had brilliant scientists and we've had great minds. We've been doing this and all you have done for the past six years is get in the way. And impeded people from doing what they do best. Your five point power plan for the economy. Seriously, that is the best you can do? Cannibalize and ride on the coattails of what's already being done. Cool. Cool policy, Chris. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government yesterday announced the launch of a new youth intervention programme, designed to deal with the small group of recidivist young offenders who are responsible for so much damage being done by ram-raiding.   The little oiks and their families will be assigned an intensive support social worker to develop a plan for the young person and to provide ongoing support to the wider family. Services could include mentoring, alcohol and drug treatment, surely a game the whole family could play, access to housing and education, mental health support and cultural support.   This is very, very like the social investment policy Bill English and Dame Tariana Turia put together all those years ago. Identifying complex cases in their families and putting resources into them so that the problems aren't exacerbated and the problems don't become intergenerational. Other countries do it. And in fact, New Zealand has been doing it in a in a minor form within the last year or so. Ten to 13-year-olds are being given wrap around support within 24 hours of being caught offending. Within 48 hours, the different agencies and community organisations come together to create a plan with the family, to give them the help and support that they need, and apparently it's working.    Since its launch, 230 children have been involved. Of those 230, 78% have not reoffended. And given that they were basically on a merry go round of offending - they're being caught, picked up, put back on the streets, out again offending -  you would have to say that that sounds like a success.   And if it's working, let's keep doing it.   I think I saw a piece with John Campbell going out to visit the wider group that had been formed after a young person had been caught ram raiding. And it was police, and it was Oranga Tamariki, and it was social welfare workers, sitting around a table working out a plan tailored to that person and their family, but obviously, there were broad brushstrokes that they can apply to each family that they are involved with.  Now, for those who are still offending, the Governments announced the launch of an even more intensive program. I have never and I have no problem with spending money on these sorts of programs because if we don't spend the money now, it's only going to cost us a mountain more down the track. As Chris Cahill from the Police Association said on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning, the program might be expensive, but it is worth it in the long run.   We've heard on this show from parents who are doing their best. We've had a couple of parents ring in and say I don't know, I don't know how this happened. The other kids are absolutely fine but this one has decided that he wants to go looking for trouble. You know, the other kids are doing OK. We don't know what it is in terms of our parenting.   Then of course, we know that there are parents who shouldn't even have the classroom guinea pigs in their care for the weekend. You wouldn't let them pat a stray cat for fear of what might happen. These woeful parents, though, have come from somewhere.   Think of all the dead babies and you'll have your favourites that you remember in your heart. All of those babies that we were forced to meet over the past 30 years when their killers went on trial. All of those dead children had siblings. Some of them may have escaped the horror of their reality. The vast majority would have been trapped within the same toxic environment where they would have seen a small child brutally beaten to death.   So what skills would the ones who escaped have once they started their own families? If intensive supervision helps turn around lives, and so far it appears it does. If intensive supervision can take an adrenaline-addicted young person who sees only for the moment, only that they've managed to get more than 300 likes on TikTok or whatever, if you can help see a kid, get beyond that it is a worthwhile investment.  It's not every kid that needs it. It's not every family that needs it. If it's the money, we'll be saving ourselves a fortune in the long run. If it's the realization of human potential, I truly believe we're going to be that much richer if we give it a go. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.