Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

The other big announcement is that one of the country's biggest greenhouse gas emitter is moving away from a coal-fired furnace to an electric arc furnace, which is kind of back to the future because numerous former workers at the Glenbrook steel mill have said we used to have one of those back in the 60s. And they did away with it - there was no guaranteed supply of scrap metal to fuel the furnace, and I imagine an arc furnace built in 1963 is quite different to the sort of technology available in 2023. New Zealand Steel —based in Glenbrook and owned by multinational Blue Scope— says it will be able to cut its emissions by more than 45%, and will produce 100% of its annual steel production as lower carbon steel.  It's been trumpeted by the Greens, by the Government as the largest decarbonisation project ever in New Zealand and will have benefits, they claim, for New Zealand in the long term by reducing the amount of money the New Zealand Government needs to spend offsetting emissions.   Mind you, there will need to be some benefits. New Zealand Steel is not doing this out of the goodness of its little green heart. The Government —that is, you and me— is subsidising the transition from coal furnaces to electric to the tune of $140 million. Seems incongruous that we'd need to give a multinational company $140 mil when it made more than $2 billion globally in profits last year. Multinationals don't make billions of dollars by spending money before they have to, as New Zealand Steel Chief Executive Robin Davies told Mike Hosking this morning, they wouldn't have made this leap without the Government investment.  Looking at it, is it a good deal? I mean quite frankly after enduring another wet, miserable, windy, rainy weekend, if reducing emissions by 5% is going to get us back to some decent weather, I’m all for it. But seriously, as an investment, spending $140 million now in new and improved technology, recycling metal that would otherwise be sent offshore, or sent to landfill?  Looks like a good deal to me.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Prime Minister called it the 'Bread and Butter Budget'. Pundits have called it bland, basic brand, bare bones, bread crumbs and the baked beans budget. Most have agreed it was a glamour less affair and restrained. Highlights include the removal of the $5 prescription fee, expanding free early childhood education, and free public transport for children. Dentons Kensington Swan Partner and tax expert, Bruce Bernacchi, joined Kerre Woodham Mornings to discuss the finer points. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealand Herald Political Editor Claire Trevett says Thursday's Budget is not an election winner, but it's not an election loser either. Claire Trevett joined Kerre Woodham Mornings to discuss the Budget from a political point of view. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In light of ongoing discussions about New Zealand's educational standards and the falling educational standards, and in light of the conversation about school lunches and the provision of school lunches for those schools that have families that are most impacted by the cost of living, I was reading a review of a memoir from Trinity College lecturer Dr. Katrina O'Sullivan.   She is a lecturer at Trinity in psychology and addiction.  She has just written her memoir, and it's called ‘Poor.’  It's not your usual misery memoir. According to The Guardian book reviewer, it is one of the best books she has ever read about the complexity of poverty and drug addiction. For Katrina O'Sullivan, who was born to heroin addicted, alcoholic parents with a number of children, to get out of poverty she needed all the elements in place, like the combinations on a lock being turned to free her, says the reviewer. Teachers who had time to help her. Youth workers who had money to support troubled teenagers, education grants, an access programme that encouraged her (that was how she got into university) and state funded child care and counselling.   All of these things, she says, either no longer exist in Britain or are not sufficiently funded. The reviewer says she puts her motivation way down the list. Yes, she was motivated. She did not want to live the life of her parents. When she herself became a mother at 15 and started to get on the drugs as a way of escaping the misery of her existence, she thought I'm going the same way as my parents, the very thing I did not want to be - my child deserves more. So yes, there was motivation to get out of there. She was naturally bright as well, something the teachers saw. But she says it's a myth that if you just work hard enough, you can achieve anything. Because, she says, unless the system is in place to support you, it will work against you. The reviewer said I think she underestimates her awesome resilience and will. The individual, says Dr Katrina O'Sullivan, is small in the decisions of their life, and we don't like that because it suggests we're powerless. Choice, though, is a myth perpetuated by the middle classes. Only a few people really can choose. I think most of us can see that choice is a luxury, and that's what we work towards. If we're able to. Having choice to either work or have free time. The choice of employment, not having to take whatever we can get. And one of the things that I come back to from that review is teachers who had time to help her. That is so important.   There's always been argy bargy about the best way to teach children, but from what I understand, the best teachers just incorporate what works for the child. And this is something that Auckland University Professor Rebecca Jesson, a trustee of the Marie Clay Literacy Trust, says the best teaching is noticing what is going on for the child, rather than fitting the child into a package. And that comes back to the story of Katrina O'Sullivan. Instead of being an addicted teen mum, she lectures in psychology and addiction at Trinity College. She matters, she means something, she’s contributing, she's inspiring others. And that's where our future lies. We have to invest in our teachers. We have to invest in our education system and we absolutely have to invest in all of our children. And that's what I hope we see from the budget.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It has become apparent to me over the last few years that I make a lot of assumptions. In my own defence, I think it's because I grew up in an era where you could make assumptions. That people would do their jobs properly and to the best of their ability, that people took pride in what they did, and they had the good of the community at the heart of whatever they did. Didn't matter what job you did, be it heart surgeon or school caretaker, everybody took a pride in what they did.   A story this morning caught my eye. Waka Kotahi has not been factoring climate change and the need for resilience into many of its transport projects. A 38 Page report produced in 2020 by Tonkin and Taylor was damning. Some of the extreme risks to the national roading network are not thought to be fixable, with any new engineering work pointless in the face of climate change; resilience for the agency is not a priority. While the likelihood of hazards occurring unknown, like landslides, they're often deprioritised in favour of more immediate issues. As a result of the failure to account for increasing hazards through climate change, the cost of emergency work is skyrocketing.   In 2014, emergency work spending by Waka Kotahi was $30 million. By 2018, those costs were $72 million. I just assumed that roading engineers would take into account climate change. There have been so many reports produced that are all taken terribly seriously by government agencies and departments, except, it seems, by Waka Kotahi. That's not on any particular government, clearly, that’s successive government failures to make resilience in our roading network a priority. So silly me. That was an assumption.   Now I find in the wake of the terrible fire at the Lodge in Wellington that has left at least six people dead, that multi-story residential buildings aren't required to have sprinklers installed. I just assumed that that would be standard. I have never thought to ask when I've checked into a lodge or a hotel, whether sprinklers are installed in the building. I just assumed that there would be sprinklers. If you have a number of people inside a building that is too high to jump out of, you can see the fire escapes, fine. You can see the stairs. I just assumed that there would be sprinklers. I suppose I should have raised my head and looked and checked or asked. It is good to see that MP's from across the house are supporting an inquiry into the fire at Loafers Lodge. What precisely the form the inquiry will take is yet to be defined. But isn't it a relatively easy fix? At the moment, New Zealand's building code doesn't mandate sprinklers in multi-storey residential buildings like Loafers Lodge, especially older lodges. If I have a multi-story building that I decide to buy for myself and I choose not to put sprinklers on there, well more fool me. But when you are taking money from people to accommodate them and it is a multi-storey building, put the sprinklers in. In a fire, especially in an older building, it obviously means the difference between life and death. I mean more fool me. I made those assumptions, but I think I realise now that assumptions are a luxury of the past.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With less than five months to go ‘til the election, the leaders of all parties are ramping up the rhetoric. Christopher Luxon, leader of National, spoke to Auckland's Chamber of Commerce yesterday, outlining a trio of new policies aimed at transparency and government finances. Now you would have thought after six years of the most open, honest and transparent Government in history, there would be no need for such a call. Everything would be written large for us all to read, but apparently, there is. They want to include annual reports by Treasury on the performance and results of major programs in health, education and social development and the like. That would require the collection of data to monitor programs and more importantly, monitor the efficacy of the programs. The taxpayer receipts I'm a little less enthusiastic about. I tend to agree with critics that it's a bit gimmicky. If we want to see what the government spends its money on those figures are readily available to the public. What's more opaque is just how efficient that money being spent is, how hard is that money working for you and me? And National also wants to see performance pay for public sector bosses. Chief executives and their deputies in the public sector would have their pay linked to achievements of targets. This was a policy that National had, but that was scrapped by Labour in 2018. Christopher Luxon says everyone responsible for spending a taxpayer dollar needs to be accountable for that spend. And I totally, totally get that. Regular listeners will know that this lack of accountability is what riles me up most about this Government. They can spend. Boy, can they spend? They have good ideas, lovely ideas, well-meaning ideas, but do they work? Hey, let's leave badly behaved tenants in their Kāinga Ora homes, despite the fact that the wait for a public house is longer than it has ever been. Let's just leave the worst behaved ones there and deal with the outfall of their appalling behaviour because. We have a theory that if they see goodness in action, they themselves can be good. Does it work? Who knows? We've tried to find out and nobody knows. Nobody even knows what the target is.   I don't think that's unreasonable to have a co-analysis of any Government programme. It is absolutely fine to try new initiatives. If something hasn't been working, then cool, try something new. But there must be accountability. And if something is not working, do not go throwing good money after bad.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ll start this morning with the Government’s inquiry into slash, and the damning recommendations that found that production forestry should be banned in extreme erosion zones around Wairoa and Gisborne. Limits should be introduced around how much of a forest can be felled in a single year. And when it's spelled out like that, why would you need an inquiry to tell you? It just makes common sense, doesn't it? Production forestry should be banned in extreme erosion zones. Well, yeah. And limits should be introduced around how much of a forest can be felled in a single year. Again, even those of us without any experience in forestry would say, well, yeah, that makes common sense. The Government, of course, commissioned the inquiry into land use and forestry slash after Cyclone Gabriel, concentrating on the Wairoa and Tairāwhiti Gisborne regions.  As you'll remember —and those shocking, shocking photos showed— severe slips and erosion during the cyclone resulted in the woody debris and silt washing onto land and down waterways into those regions, causing significant damage. But it wasn't the first rodeo for many of the people who own farms and land in the areas around the forest. They have been battered, quite literally, by slash for years and have been asking for something to be done about forestry in those areas for years. There is nothing new in this. A second pre budget announcement yesterday as well saw 10.5 million earmarked for the clean-up of forestry slash and other woody debris in Tairāwhiti and Hawkes Bay. There's 70,000 tons of the stuff and rivers and catchment areas on the East Coast. Forestry Minister Peeni Henare says the clean-up effort needs to start straight away. Well, really it needed to start three months ago. Hello Red Cross, anybody there? Anybody? That would have made a small dint in getting it cleaned up, but no? Nobody? Still going to hold on to that money? So I would love to hear from people of the region, those involved in forestry as well, because so many areas around the country have been planted out in pine and as we can see, there is the possibility that where it's planted in the wrong place, it's going to cause huge problems. Interestingly, this was supposed to be the solution to a problem. Because when Cyclone Bola swept through Gisborne causing so much damage, or swept through New Zealand but impacted the Tairāwhiti Gisborne area greatly. The erosion there caused huge amounts of problems where the land had been clear felled of Native forest for farming. And so the answer to that was, hey, let's put Pine Forest in there and that'll hold the hills together, and that'll keep the soil together and it will also provide employment for so many people in the area who would otherwise have to leave to look for work. So this was supposed to be a solution to an obvious problem. It's turned out to be a bigger problem than ever. Where does it leave the future of forestry in this country? Is there still a place for it?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government's announced a cash injection towards the Cyclone Gabrielle clean-up. Ten million dollars of Budget 2023 funding will go to the Hawke's Bay and Gisborne to remove up to 70-thousand tonnes of woody debris from rivers. It'll also fund measures to prevent debris going into waterways in the future. Minister of Forestry Peeni Henare joined Kerre Woodham to discuss the situation. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I can't even begin to imagine how frustrating and soul destroying it would be to go into to work every day, wanting to do your best, able to do your best because of years of training and a desire to deliver. And yet, you find yourself working within a framework you don't believe in, and worse, you believe is harming the very people your life's work is to help. I've picked up a bit of this from police officers right now, medical professionals and teachers. But none of them has stated it as clearly as the St. Cuthbert's principal, Justine Mahon. She has so little confidence in the new NCEA Level 1 curriculum the school is ditching the qualification and creating one of its own, a bespoke diploma. Mahon said several of the school's senior academic staff had been on government advisory panels for NZQA's proposed changes to NCEA and had become increasingly concerned about what would be taught in 2024 as she outlined this morning to Mike Hosking. It confirms everything you and I have been saying for so long about education. Our education system is the lowest common denominator. It doesn't challenge the brightest students, yet miraculously manages to leave behind those who need extra support to get where they need to be. It's wishy-washy. It's trying to be all things to all people.  I wonder how many principals would love to do what Justine Mahon has just done and rip up the exam paper and say no, it's not good enough. It's not good enough for what our teachers can teach, and it's not good enough for what our students can learn. We will produce one that will test and challenge the young New Zealanders who are lucky enough to be in our school, and equip them with the tools they need for the future. But where the hell does it leave all those other young New Zealanders? Everybody should be getting a quality high calibre education. They're not. And that is because of the Ministry of Education, not because of our teachers. Surely with one of the top educators in the country looking at NCEA and going, that is not good enough, this must be a pivotal moment in our educational crisis.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Recent discussions around New Zealand's Defence Force have prompted many calls and texts about the recruitment process and the difficulty some where having getting into the Forces. To answer some of those questions, Director of Defence Force Recruiting, Wing Commander George Magdalinos joined Kerre Woodham. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.