Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Costs and delivery of Ka Ora, Ka Ako, the healthy school lunches programme, have been much discussed in recent weeks. Kate McNamara wrote a piece New Zealand Herald about the value for money of the school lunches programme. The cost of free school lunches is up to $325 million a year and best estimates are that we’re feeding fewer than half the hungry school children in New Zealand. Co-Chair of Health Coalition Aotearoa Professor Boyd Swinburn wanted a chance to put his assessment of the programme to us and joined Kerre Woodham. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government has formally replaced the old Resource Management Act, with the passing of the Natural and Built Environment Bill and Spatial Planning Bill. It's hoped costs will be lowered and approval times reduced - with the new rules phased in region by region. Also, the amendments to the Government's Three Waters bill passed its third reading in House last night. National has promised to repeal Labour’s RMA replacement bills by Christmas 2023 if elected, and both ACT and National have promised to repeal Three Waters. National’s RMA Reform and Urban Development spokesperson Chris Bishop joined Kerre Woodham to discuss the developments. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The cost of school lunches is $325 million a year. Is it value for money?  Anecdotally, some schools say yes, absolutely.  They have seen levels of concentration improve, they have seen children able to settle into their class, that they are happier, that they are healthier. That's anecdotally.  Treasury, who have crunched the numbers, says no, $325 million a year is not value for money. A report into the lunches in schools scheme, which launched four years ago, shows there's been no impact on school attendance - that's what I was really hoping for. For Māori learners there has not been better levels of concentration in class. Anecdotally, we might have heard that some teachers have seen improvements, but we've also heard anecdotally of teachers taking lunches home so they don't go to waste. We’ve heard of lunches being donated to food banks and at least one pig farmer in the Waikato, building up a glossy, plump drift of pigs thanks to the drums of discarded school lunches that would otherwise have gone to the tip. I am all for feeding hungry children. Every single time the six-year-old in my house says I'm hungry and I can feed him, I do not take it for granted, nor do his parents.   They need food for their brains and their muscles to grow and if they're not getting it at home, all for them getting it at school. But when we’re spending $325 million a year just so some kids don't feel whakamā or shame, so that a farmer's pigs can grow healthy, and we get the best bacon ever - there's got to be a better way of doing this. There really does.  Jan Tinetti is quite wrong when she says any money spent on children is money well spent. Quite clearly, quod erat demonstrandum, it is not.  NOTE: This article has been updated to revise a statement suggesting the cost for the school lunch program was half of Pharmac’s budget.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So the announcement that all Covid-19 requirements have finally been removed by the Government brought me no particular joy.   For me, the beginning of the end was when the lockdown in Auckland was finally lifted after months. Following increasingly absurd and farcical and unenforceable rules, in what seemed to be a Government bid to force the refuseniks to get vaccinated to reach an arbitrary target, set from memory, by the New Zealand Herald. I knew people who were never, ever, ever going to be vaccinated. They and their children had never had any contact with the public health system, with welfare officers, with any government agency. They took no dull or sickness benefit, they lived off the grid and they didn't ask for anything from the Government other than to be left alone. We could still be in lockdown and they wouldn't be vaccinated. Then there were others of the school of Novak Djokovic. The sort of people who calibrate in the most forensic detail what goes into their body. The questions they had about the vaccine weren't being answered by authorities. Then there were the absolute tits who were quite happy to pump in the Botox, the fillers, and the class A drugs. But yeah, nah, it's not really for me. You just don't know it's unproven. And then you get right into the Woo Woo territory where people think the vaccine introduces a chip or a bar code into the person being vaccinated and becomes a foot soldier for the army. So that was then. This is now. No more seven day mandatory isolation. No wearing of face masks for visitors to health facilities, although what I have taken from that mad and ridiculous time was ‘If you have a cold. If you have the flu, if you are unwell, stay away. If you must go out and get supplies wear a face mask.’See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All feels a bit ground hoggy day, doesn't it? Nicola Willis, the deputy leader of the National Party, broke the news that Labour would be removing GST off fruit and veg weeks ago and we discussed it then. Anyone who knows anything about tax, and that includes our very own Minister of Finance, has thought it's a silly idea. And that if the aim is to make life a bit easier for those families who are struggling, there are way better and more effective ways of doing that. But that was before Labour started dropping in the polls, sinking like a stone. And Chris Hipkins wants to win this election. Doesn't matter if he has to join forces with the Greens, Te Pati Maori and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. Doesn't matter if a policy has been discussed and then dismissed because it's not workable, and it's an effective. Let's bring it back. Even if only a couple of months ago the Finance Minister was ruling out removing GST on fruit and veg.   That was Grant Robinson only a few months ago and he said this morning on the Mike Hosking Breakfast that three factors have since changed his mind. Happy to be supporting the policy, my big toe. He's swallowing rats and that's exactly what's happening because they want to win the election and you know, that's their job. You're a politician. You want to be in power. And you want to be the one creating policy because you think you've got all the ideas. Do we want to remove GST from fruit and veg? Hell yes. But it's exactly the sort of policies that Labour's been producing over the past six years. Feel good, sound good stuff, when they can't actually deliver anything, and it hasn't made a blind bit of difference and bettering the lives of New Zealanders.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You might have heard Mike Hosking this morning relaying the conversation we had during the news break in the office. I told him that as soon as I heard Winston Peters this morning on the drive into work, being his typical curmudgeonly self; I switched over to Coast and had the great good fortune to land on Wham! and Wake Me Up Before You Go, Go,and - I sang along merrily till the end of the song. I turned back to Mike at the end to hear him give a time check, perfect timing. Brilliant Wham! song- no Winston to ruin my day and I could enjoy the rest of the Mike Hosking Breakfast.   The latest Taxpayers Union Curia poll shows Labour crashing to below 30 percent. National and Act with enough support to form a government.  But here he is, here he comes, Winston Peters above the 5 percent threshold and returning to Parliament. As I have said many times, I reached peak Winston years ago.   But as Mike says, don't blame Winston, blame the system. He says we voted for MPP. I didn't. I voted for STV in 1993 and then again in the 2011 referendum. For those who don't like to see the tail wagging the dog, we had a chance to change the electoral system in 2011. You can accept that there was this big campaign in 1993 that promoted MMP. There were people against specifically MMP, so that was all we heard about was MMP. So people voted for it. But then we had a chance again in 2011. And yet again, people voted to keep MMP. We live in a democracy where everyone's vote is given equal value. And thus, you know, we have to accept the result. But seriously, when you think of some of the callers who don't care about politics here,  who have voted the same way, will always vote the same way, who are basically tribal, and that's on both sides of the spectrum. People who simply refused to countenance another party, it is always going to be frustrating for people who do care and who vote based on performance or what might be best for the country.  As long as we have MMP, we will have Winston Peters or Winston Peters pretenders. We are getting exactly what we voted for. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, the stats speak for themselves, really don't they? Since October 2017, there has been an 83 percent increase in sexual offenders serving an electronically monitored sentence and a 133 percent increase in gang members sentenced for violence offences serving an electronically monitored sentence. As at the 30th of June 2023, there are 917 people serving an electronically monitored sentence in the community for violent offending.  You'll remember the teen Mongrel Mob member who broke into the home of a pregnant woman and sexually assaulted her - he was sentenced to 12 months home detention - and on his way out, put up his hand and  yelled ‘yeah, cracked it.’  He wasn't seeing this as an opportunity to rehabilitate. He wasn't seeing this as an opportunity to put a life of crime behind him. He wasn't seeing this as an opportunity to turn his life around. He knew it got off lightly.   2035 breaches of home detention in the year to June and those are only the ones they've caught. There are plenty they haven't.  Don't get me wrong. There are many people who do use the opportunity of a non-custodial sentence to continue to work, to rehabilitate themselves, to not let a moment of madness destroy their lives, their families forever. I get that. But others are just having a laugh. The damage they do, however, is not very funny as we've seen with recent events. Criminal lawyer Steve Cullen was on the Mike Hosking breakfast this morning, and he says home detention should continue to be an option. But the answer is a separate entity to monitor those on electronic bail. A 133 percent increase in gang members being given home detention, doesn't that tell you something? This is how they make their living. They commit crime. It's time to get tough. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Christopher Luxon joined Newstalk ZB Kerre Woodham Mornings live in studio to take your calls. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are hopes from our Conservation Minister past successes in protecting the ocean can be replicated. The Government has proposed expanding marine protections to the Goat Island and Cathedral Cove Marine Reserves. The proposed legislation would also create 19 new marine protection areas. It will also eliminate bottom trawling in large parts of the Hauraki Gulf. Conservation Minister Willow-Jean Prime told Kerre Woodham marine protection areas ban recreational and commercial fishing, but allow for Māori customary practices - and says they hope to follow up on good work that's already been done. Prime says says customary practices are developed to match biosecurity goals. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We have three ongoing investigations into three separate shooting incidents resulting in death. You have to say that Deputy Police Commissioner Mike Clements’ comments haven't aged all that well, have they? Back in 2019, just four years ago, he said during the first weekend of the gun buyback scheme, if we take tens of thousands of firearms off the streets during the next six months, then absolutely New Zealand has to be a safer place. Jump forward four years; the stats don't really say that, do they? The Deputy Police commissioner was wrong and those who said gun buybacks wouldn't have any real impact on public health and safety are right. ACT leader David Seymour was one of them at the time. He said it wasn't going to make a blind bit of difference. Researchers from Australia, where there had been a similar gun buyback scheme, said much the same. And the stats have proved it. When the Government clamped down on firearms and seized high-powered semi-automatic weapons, they wanted to see a reduction in violent gun crime. They wanted to make New Zealand a safer place. I have absolutely no doubt about that. But facts are facts, and there has been no impact on the rise in gun crime and violence in New Zealand as a result of the gun buyback.   Jacinda Ardern and her party believed absolutely in the rightness of the gun buyback. They truly believed they would be making New Zealand a safer place, and I'm sure many other New Zealanders believed it too. Is New Zealand a safer place? It's not. It's worse than it's ever been for many, many reasons. I do believe that kindness and goodness can work but only when those who exploit that, only when people who deliberately choose to stick two fingers to society, to the community, continue to put others at risk, only when they understand that exploiting goodness will have consequences.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.