Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

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.

Well, with senior doctors and dentists within our public health system set to strike for a couple of hours this afternoon, you might be thinking this would be a very bad time indeed to have the need to whip up to A&E.   In actual fact, staffing should probably be better than it normally is on a wet weekend in winter, given how stringent the conditions are before public health staff can actually strike. There are all sorts of protections for the public around staffing levels and as I say, it may not be as bad as trying to get up there on a Friday night.   It's very, very hard for public health sectors to strike at all, and very difficult for nurses and doctors. It just goes to show how fed up they are doesn't it?    This is the very first time senior doctors and dentists have chosen to take strike action, Nurses have gone on strike before, but not specialists. Te Whatu Ora says it's frustrated and extremely disappointed that the doctors have rejected what they offered. That was a salary increase of between 7 and 12.9%, but the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists says all very well and good, but that's over 17 months and it's not in line with inflation, we're simply asking, asking them to meet what we claimed, which is reasonable.   As one of the doctors too said, the system is failing and unless we make a stand, who will? It’s important, it's dramatic. It's not a decision that these specialists have taken lightly. It's not happened before.   The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists say Te Whatu Ora and the Government are the target of these strikes, not the patients. They say doctors care about their patients, but they've decided the failure to protect the value of their work will only result in more doctors leaving New Zealand or declining to apply for jobs here. Te Whatu Ora already acknowledges we are 1700 senior doctors short across the country. And the Association thinks that's an extremely conservative estimate, they say it's much, much worse. Already, hospitals are critically short staffed, with senior doctors increasingly trying to run services with insufficient senior and junior doctors, nurses and allied health staff. And they say overseas doctors have largely stopped applying for jobs due to pay and the working condition issues. Anyone who spent any time at all in the public health service recently knows just how tough it is for these professionals to do their jobs. Mike made reference this morning on the Mike Hosking Breakfast to the number of code greys that hospital staff are dealing with, where security has to be called because the patients lost the plot.   Nurses and doctors are not just dealing with the lack of staff and a shortage of resources, they're dealing with increasingly physically and mentally ill people, who are packed together in a small space for hours while staff do their very, very best.   Now you might think that doctors earn quite enough. Well, quite frankly, when I'm lying unconscious on an operating table while skilled surgeons have spent 15 to 20 years honing their skills to do their best to improve my quality of life, or even save my life, they can earn what they like.   Cabinet ministers get more than our senior surgeons and I know who gives a better return on my taxpayer dollar.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

ASB is hiking mortgage rates again.  The bank is lifting its one-year and 18-month rates by 20 basis points, increasing them to 7.45%  and 7.15% respectively.  It's also raising its two and three-year rates by 16 points, becoming 7.05% and 6.85%.  This comes at a time when many kiwis are struggling with the cost of living, and banks are reporting high profits.  In August ASB reported a net profit after tax of $1,550 million for the year ending on the 30th of June 2023, an increase of $132 million from the previous year.  Infometrics CEO and Principal Economist Brad Olsen told Kerre Woodham that international funding rates such as the 10 Year Bond Rate have been increasing, impacting rates in New Zealand.    LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So Labour and National kicked off their respective campaigns over the weekend to Labour's big wizz-bang attention-getter was the promise of free dental care for under 30s, but not until 2026.   National, having already announced 37 different policies, decided to stick to a pledge card detailing the party's eight main commitments, if and when elected. Both took potshots at one another over the weekend, Hipkins said that National's tax plan was sneaky.   He questioned the costings and he said National are people who want to win the election, whatever it takes and bugger the cost. Talk about pot calling the kettle black there.   Luxon fired back at Hipkins saying power doesn't concede easily and Labour's campaign was one of fear and disinformation.   Certainly, the CTU's gone all out with the attack ads. If you see the cover of this morning's Herald newspaper, it's pretty much a rich prick assault on the leader of the National Party with the ad they've taken out.   Still, that's democracy.   And if Citizens and Ratepayers decided to put something out about Hipkins' inability to be an effective Prime Minister, then I'm quite sure the Herald would take the money and wrap the ad around the newspaper.   You've got to survive in the media, you gotta take the ads. I did think Hipkins' whatever the cost comment was a bit rich, given that Labour's committed to free dental health care for under 30s, a policy Labour’s considered before, but did the numbers and said it was too expensive and unworkable.   And while the Labour Party luvvies got terribly excited about the announcement, it won't be rolled out until the next election. Health Minister Ayesha Verrall was on with Mike Hosking this morning and says the free dental rollout will take until the next election because of staffing.  So much to unpack from that. For a start, we've got the mental health system that's seen a million people. Has it? Has it really, Ayesha?   And this would be the same mental health system where mental health workers at Capital Coast and Hutt Valley say that they're at their wit's end, the system is in crisis, we're overwhelmed. It's an increasingly unsafe mental health public system. We have a desperate shortage of skilled and experienced clinicians.   That would be that mental health service would it Ayesha?  That one. Because it doesn't sound like it's coping terribly well.   It sounds like the staff themselves are about to have mental breakdowns because of the pressure that they're under. The unworkable conditions that they're having to work under. So there's that.   And then we've got the dental service, the free dental care to under 30s that has been dismissed by Labour before as expensive and unworkable.   There was a story about a dentist in the Weekend Herald whose kids can't get into dentistry school despite their A+ pluses, and he's packed a stroppy, rich guy sad and said my children want to be dentists and I want to give my dentist clinic to them and they can’t get into Otago.    And so Ayesha Verrall was asked why there are only 60 places offered at the University of Otago, when you get more than 500 applying every year. And she said it's very expensive, it's specialised and high cost to deliver dentistry training. And then she said there is a relatively small labour market in New Zealand for graduates.   So she's basically saying we only need 60, so this vision of universal free healthcare for under 30s must have been a relatively recent vision. Because how in the name of all that is holy are 60 new dentists going to be able to deal with the expected influx of people wanting their fangs checked?    You've also got Labour and Chris Hipkins telling the Newsroom media website last month, so not even 30 days ago, he said the health system doesn't have the capacity to deliver free dental care for all, and there would likely be a significant investment required just in order to build capacity, to meet the need for additional dental care.   So last month we didn't have the capacity in the health system to deliver universal dental care. So less than 30 days later, all of a sudden, we finesse it by saying, okay, it's gonna be for the end of 30s and it’s not going to start until 2026.   Newsroom went back to him and said, how can you do this? And he said, well, every election you have a different set of priorities.   And he said it won't be too little too late, even though it takes 6 years to train a dentist and the first tranche, won't be funded till May of next year. I mean, they're basically saying whatever it takes to get votes and we shouldn't be surprised because it's an election campaign. But can they just be even a little bit clever about it?   Last month we didn't have the capacity for universal dental care. This month we do. Because the polls say it would be a good thing. I still think the most egregious turnaround and absolute disposal of any morals and principles was when Hipkins and Kelvin Davis announced they'd build two youth prisons when they realised how badly they'd lost the room when it came to law and order.   And this despite the fact it goes against everything they believe in. But they announced they'll build 2 youth prisons, no start date. But they just say it, because they realize they're losing the room on law and order.   Sacrificing everything they believe in. Just to try and get up in the polls. This universal dental plan for under 30s comes pretty close to that egregious turnaround. Labour reckons National wants to win the election quote, whatever it takes and bugger the cost.   Really, Chris Hipkins? National weren't the ones spraying around expensive, unrealistic and unachievable promises over the weekend. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I thought we would start perhaps with power companies who appear to me making rapacious profits. Are they charging too much for electricity? Now the profits would suggest they are.  The four big players —Contact, Genesis, Meridian, and Mercury—  made a combined 2.7 billion, with a 'B', billion dollars last year. Historically high profits. So surely that would suggest that they are rorting little old pensioners who are having to go to bed early in the depths of winter, because the aforementioned little old pensioners can't afford to heat their flats. Certainly Electric Kiwi chief Executive Luke Blincoe thinks the big four have excessive market power, but then you would if you're a little player in a big boy's game, wouldn't you? He told Heather du Plessis Allan last night that the market is broken, especially when Consumer New Zealand estimates that 40,000 households couldn't afford power, while the big four were making $7 million a day. The Energy Retailers Association said the transition to a zero carbon economy means that power companies have to make a profit, as investing in new developments does not come cheap. They say that they're not lying on their profits like Scrooge McDuck covering themselves in money. They are plowing their earnings back into new initiatives like solar and wind farms that will ultimately lead to more affordable power prices for anybody.  So is it as simple as saying that this is an example of paying it forward? That we haven't really seen much of this generation. That's the way it used to work in this country. One generation would pay for infrastructure, so the next generation could benefit from the improvements and then they in turn would pay for the next lot of infrastructure. It's all come to a screaming halt this time round. You can't really have it both ways can you? You can't have cheap power prices, and investment for the future. Somebody has to pay for it and that somebody is us.  Do you see it that way? I mean you can see on the websites all of the different initiatives that they're investing in, and probably if you live near some of these developments you will see it for yourself. They're not lying when they're saying they're investing in new forms of energy. It costs money and that's got to come from this generation because surely we've learnt one thing from this Government, you cannot keep borrowing money and printing money. Sometimes you actually have to suck it up and pay for it right here right now.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Questions remain over whether Air New Zealand will match its competitor and remove the expiration on Covid flight credits. Qantas is ditching the expiration dates for more than $500 million worth of travel credits that were due to run out at the end of the year.   Air New Zealand CEO Greg Foran joined Kerre Woodham Mornings in studio to answer questions around what the airline's next move is. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.