Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

If you are wondering where the $2 billion for mental health is going, you may be kept wondering. Wait times for children seeking mental health treatment have increased nationwide. In Wellington they have more than doubled to 68.7 days - while in Rotorua they have rocketed from 42 days to 76 days. The National Party say mental health should be dealt with separately to the Ministry of Health - and if elected they pledge to introduce New Zealand's first Minister of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention. National's Mental Health and Suicide Prevention spokesperson Matt Doocey joined Kerre Woodham Mornings. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now, if you've listened to the show for any amount of time, you will know that I have always banged on about education being a lifeline, especially to kids who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. If you come from a family where there are few choices, a good education, good qualifications, give you an opportunity to aspire to and attain more. This is no longer true. Where previous generations had the opportunity to get a world class education and education that could take them anywhere in the world, New Zealand children today are being badly let down. A 2020 UNICEF report among many, found over a third of our 15-year-olds did not have basic proficiency in literacy and maths. It's one of a series of international and national reports which have shown New Zealand students are falling behind in the core subjects of reading, writing, maths and science. We've known this. We've known this for some time, and nothing has been done. Many educators themselves have no faith in the qualifications being offered, with schools turning away from NCEA. It's not fit for purpose. And yet today, again, the teachers are on strike. They say they deserve more money; better pay to keep skilled and experienced teachers in the profession. They have been offered a lump sum payment of $4500 and three pay rises by December 24, ranging from 11 percent to 15.5 percent. It's not enough, and it doesn't address many of the other issues that teachers say are so vital. The PPTA Acting President said teachers would much rather be in the classroom, but the teacher shortage needs to be urgently addressed. He said we need pay and conditions that will keep our skilled and experienced teachers in the profession, attract people into teaching, and encourage those teachers who have left to return to the job they love.  Secondary teaching, he says, is an awesome career. It's a hugely demanding one. It needs to be valued more highly and the work needs to be more manageable.   Why does it need to be valued more highly when our kids are failing? When our kids are not getting the sort of education that other children are getting in other parts of the world from other teachers. How can you value a profession that is not delivering? Is it the fault of the curriculum? The fact that many parents don't value education and education does start in the home first and foremost. Or is it that our teachers aren't quite as fabulous as they think they are? Whatever it is, our children are the ones that are paying the price. The message that has been sent to our young people over the past few years is that they don't matter. Schools were locked up, kids turned away, to protect the vulnerable. They were told that learning from home over Zoom was just as good as being in the classroom. Well, if that's the case, why do teachers need more money? Schools have been shut for weather events. For gang events and now for teachers to use as a bargaining chip in their pay negotiations. An e-mail to Early Edition this morning from a concerned mum said that her daughter was in the top two percent of achievers but is now needing psychological counselling because she is so stressed about the teacher only days, about the strikes, about the fact that she's not going to be able to give the best she can give because she's being turned away from her classroom. We have lost so many school days. Of course we have a truancy problem when we have shown kids over the past three years that they're turning up to school doesn't matter. It can be sacrificed for just about everything. We've told our kids that learning isn't a priority. A world class education used to be the birth right of a New Zealand child and that is simply not true anymore.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With miles and miles of open sea, 160 kilometres of coastline, 13 clean, fast flowing rivers and 11,200 hectares of native bush, the Ōpōtiki District is the perfect home for a community that appreciates and enjoys outdoor activities and the natural environment. It would also appear to be an ideal habitat for gangs and gang members right now. Ōpōtiki, population 9300, is in effect, closed for business. As the posturing and chest beating between two opposing gangs reaches a crescendo. Hundreds of members of the Mongrel Mob - sub branch Barbarian - have come to town for the tangi of their gang president, who was killed on Friday in an alleged altercation with rival gang members. Gunshots have been heard in the town. There have been three fires in the past three days, all suspected arsons. Apparently, some Black Power families are being evacuated from the town out of concern for retaliation. And the local high school and the local kura have closed of their own volition. The primary school is technically open, but parents are choosing to keep their kids home. Some businesses have closed their doors. The streets of Ōpōtiki are very quiet. And this is the way it will stay until the gang members decide that it's over. Not the townspeople. Not the police. The ball is very much in the court of the gang members and this is just a natural progression from seeing gang members flout lockdown rules for the two years that everyone else was gritting their teeth and doing the right thing. I cannot recall a time when a dispute between gang members shut down an entire town. Kids schooling is being disrupted. Mind you, the teachers are striking anyway so you could share that disruption between the gang members and the teachers union. Businesses are shuttered. Public facilities are closed and the people of Ōpōtiki just have to wait until the gangs work through whatever it is they feel they need to do. The death of a father, the death of a friend is always sad. There are families going through that right now all across New Zealand. But gangs seemed to grieve in a different way to the rest of us. I don't even begin to understand the culture and long may that continue, but the idea that your right to grieve trumps the kids right to go to school, or that your pain justifies the lighting of fires and the firing of shotguns, or that your suffering is such that you hand out your own justice, while the rest of us have to depend on the police and the rule of law sticks in my craw. The gangs have been left to do pretty much as they wish for the past five years. More than that, they have been treated as equals at the table without ever having to earn the right to be there. They make a few airy-fairy promises about, ‘Hey we're just here to get the guys off meth and trying to make them to be better men and this is the only family they've ever known and we're the only ones who can reach them so give us some government money’, and the Government has agreed. ‘Yeah, okay, these are complex cases, you’re complex people, have some money.’ They haven't earned anything and they don't seem to have delivered much either. They have been treated as though they have an equal say and an equal right, without doing anything to earn that and this is the sum result. I am so sick and tired of seeing the brazen macho posturing of all of these gangs who choose to live outside the normal bounds of society and who are really, really proud of it. You see the pride they take in motorbikes. You see how they love hanging together and, as a group, inspiring awe among some kids with very few choices in life and fear with those who think what the hell are those going guys going to do next? Because they know your ordinary citizen knows if whatever they decide to do, there is going to be precious little that the police can or will do about it. They have been sticking two fingers to the rest of us for years and years. This situation of Ōpōtiki is an inevitable result of gangs being allowed to do whatever the hell they want.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealand's state housing agency maintains it has a number of tools for dealing with unruly tenants. Newstalk ZB has revealed only three Kāinga Ora tenants have been evicted for bad behaviour since a crackdown announced February last year. There were 10 ,000 complaints over the same period. New measures included a termination option if three serious incidents were recorded within a 90-day period. Kāinga Ora national services manager Nick Maling told Kerre Woodham the first focus is helping people sustain a tenancy in the community. "Things do go wrong, so when they go wrong we sit together alongside both our tenants and the neighbours of those tenants to resolve situations where we can." He says the vast majority of tenants are living in the community with no problems. Almost 200,000  people live in Kāinga Ora homes and 90 percent of tenancies had no complaints in the past year. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The New Zealand Blood Service is looking for 40,000 new donors to meet the current demand for blood products. They currently have 117,000 donors who help save the lives of 30,000 people every year, but with a growing and ageing population, we need more blood and plasma for patients . If they don't find new donors, they'll be forced to compete on the global blood market for the first time. New Zealand Blood Service National Communications Manager Asuka Burge joined Kerre Woodham to chat about the situation. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The National Party is vowing to end New Zealand's ban on gene editing and genetic modification, if elected into Government. It's new Harnessing Biotech Policy would also streamline approvals for trials and use of non-gene editing biotech, in line with other OECD countries. A regulator to ensure safe and ethical use of the technology would be created, while human embryonic modification wouldn't be allowed. Director of Koi Tu: The Centre for Informed Futures Sir Peter Gluckman supports National’s policy proposal and he joined Kerre Woodham to give his thoughts on the policy and genetic modification. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Paddy Gower's piece on his show Paddy Gower Has Issues last night highlighted the violent bullying that is happening in our schools, focussing on a young Napier girl who was bullied so badly she had to leave school. The 11-year-old was beaten up at her intermediate school in March while a group of students watched, filming the incident rather than stopping the vicious attack. Auckland University senior research fellow in the faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Dr Sam Marsh, has spent over a decade investigating the effects of screens on teenagers. She believes a ban on cell phones in schools would be a gift for kids. Dr Sam Marsh joined Francesca Rudkin. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm disappointed with Health Minister Ayesha Verrall. The Government announced they would take action to reduce the number of young people taking up and becoming addicted to vaping. It was an opportunity to put much-needed regulation in place around vaping, to catch up with more proactive countries such as Australia. While the initiatives announced yesterday will go some way to making it more difficult for youngsters to get their hands on vapes, it does not go far enough to seriously deal with this wide spread issue.   The new moves announced yesterday to curb youth vaping include cracking down on disposable vapes. Now this is the one initiative that I think will make a difference. I think this is a really good move. The Government also announced no new vape shops within 300 metres of schools or a marae. People can walk more than 300 meters is the first thing I'd say. And what about removing the ones that are already close to schools and marae.   Sometimes there are several options already within maybe 500 metres, not adding any more is not going to make any difference. They can still walk 300 meters or 500 metres and they can choose from three vape shops. And the third initiative announced is a change in the names of flavours available to consumers. Once again, pointless and will have no impact whatsoever. They're not idiots, teenagers and children. They're aware that there's a name change. You just ask for the same name. No thought has gone into maybe removing the most popular flavours off the market. So this announcement from the Government is a token gesture. It's politicking before the election to make it look like they are taking action, but there is no action on the level of nicotine in vapes, reducing the number of vaping outlets that we already have, or raising the age, you can buy a vape. There's certainly no talk of making vaping prescription only.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A year ago the Life Education Trust was saying young vapers were consuming as much nicotine as someone smoking a pack-and-a-half of cigarettes a day, and that schools were crying out for help because they are dealing with young people with full-on dependency issues - it had become an epidemic. Fast forward to today, and the Government has done something.   They've announced new rules that include banning new vape stores near schools and marae, disposable vapes, and flavour names that appeal to children. However, many health advocates believe the vaping regulations aren't good enough. Asthma and Respiratory Foundation Chief Executive Letitia Harding joined Francesca Rudkin to discuss the announcement. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There has been much discussion this week about the Government's decarbonisation deal with Bluescope Steel. The Government is contributing $140 million so the Glenbrook Steel Mill can swap half of the coal it currently uses with electricity. Questions have been asked as to whether if we become a nation of electric car drivers, how are we going to generate the energy we need and do we have enough renewable energy? Sarah Sinclair is the Chair of law firm MinterEllisonRuddWatts and an energy specialist and she joined Kerre Woodham. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.