Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

The Government hopes to give a much-needed boost to the building and construction industry with the announcement of $413 million worth of accelerated school infrastructure projects. This follows a raft of school property announcements and the establishment of a new school property agency in July to oversee the planning, building, and maintenance of new school buildings.   Hopefully, there will be some opposition input into this new agency, some opposition oversight. Because back in 2019, Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins, surrounded by adoring children, announced funding of $1.2 billion over four years for school property – a new primary school, 200 new classrooms in Auckland amongst them. The new buildings would be needed for the estimated 100,000 extra students who will enter the school system over the next 10 years. So far, so good.   At the time, Ms Ardern said there were too many kids getting taught in cold school halls and prefabs, and our plan, she said, will turn that around. It's important we plan ahead for growth, so parents can be confident they can send their child to their local school, and their local school will have enough warm, dry and modern classrooms to learn in, something the previous government failed to do.   Then they were voted out in 2023 and in came National, and the next year the Education Ministry put hundreds of projects on hold. Now, why would they do that? Obviously, there are more young people who are going to need classrooms, schools are already overcrowded. There are children being taught in halls and prefabs that are less than ideal.   Well, they did that because Labour had absolutely no concept of fiscal control. Their idea of building new classrooms was to go to a groovy young architect and say, "Come up with something fabulous," and they did. Groovy young architects have got amazing ideas and visions, and they can help children reach their full potential and development with the kind of environment that they can create with an unlimited chequebook.   So, in came boring, grumpy old National. Hundreds of projects went on hold and $2 billion was saved, they say. The value for money review considered 352 projects at 305 schools with a combined estimated cost of $4.6 billion. It decided 110 projects would go ahead with changes such as removing non-essential aspects of the build or using off-the-shelf rather than bespoke design.   If you are going to have an agency that's going to look ahead and plan and build and maintain school buildings, you've all got to be on the same page. Otherwise, what is the point? It makes sense to plan ahead for the future. It makes sense to build new schools where they're needed and to build new classrooms. But not if they're going to be, oh, I don't know, a vision came to me and I just drew something on paper and then it's like, you know, my ancestors are speaking to me and all of a sudden I've got this amazing creation for the cost of a billion dollars.   If you could have three schools built for the same amount of money, then that's the way you go. We go for bespoke award-winning design buildings when we are an oil-rich nation who just doesn't know what to do with its money. What will we do? Oh, I know. We'll give gorgeous young architects, brilliant young things, the opportunity to use their talents and create amazing public buildings. This is a good thing if you can afford it, and we cannot.   Do school buildings really need to be architecturally designed and award-winning buildings? I would argue right now they don't. They're beautiful and they're clever, but that level of expense is not necessary.   It's the same with social housing. We all know Kāinga Ora was given a mandate under the last government to build houses at whatever cost, and away they went. Architecturally designed, beautifully appointed housing communities, which again is all very well and good if you can afford it. But the triumph of ideology over pragmatism saw Kāinga Ora completely blow its budget, leading to debt for generations of taxpayers to pay back. And again, housing projects were stalled while evaluations were made by those with fiscal discipline, who did the sums to see whether Kāinga Ora was giving value for the money spent.   And again, this was necessary, but in the meantime, the construction industry who'd been working overtime, all of a sudden were told everything that they were working on or intended to be working on was on hold, while boring, sensible people did the sums. They had to down tools, and what do you do if there's no work? You go where the work is. They can't wait. It's a nightmare. Yes, we do need infrastructure built, but surely not award-winning designer infrastructure built at any cost.   And what was the Infrastructure Commission doing while all this, ‘I have a vision’ stuff was going on? The Infrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga, was created in 2018. So presumably they saw this vision for Kāinga Ora, they saw the vision for the schools. I mean, why weren't they saying, "Hang on a minute. For that amount of money, we could get three times the value. Put the brakes on. Taihoa. Let's look ahead for 20 years down the track and see what we can get for that money. It's our money that's being wasted and wasted, and it's not being spent wisely.   We need schools, we need hospitals, we need roads. These are beyond party politics. The leaders of the parties need to knock their heads together and come up with a plan to give to us, to say, "This is how we'll be spending your money, wisely, prudently, and looking ahead to the years to come."   The leaders of the parties need to get together and say to the construction industry, "We can guarantee there will be this work for the next 20 years because this is what we need. It's not that hard. This is what we need for the planned population growth. Here is where we'll be building it. These are the designs, and we've all got certainty for the next 20 years. How bloody hard can it be?" See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is there anything good about pine trees? Apart from for the people who own the commercial forests, the foresters. What earthly good do they do? Sure, they bring in much-needed export earnings, an estimated $5.89 billion for the year ending June 2025. So that helps towards the GDP. But look at the costs associated with the Pinus radiata. And they're mainly on the taxpayer, not on the industry itself. The foresters have said, look, if we had to pay the true cost of cleaning up the damage, cleaning up the rubbish, cleaning up the slash, we wouldn't have a business. And when you look at the sums, you can see why. We've seen the extensive damage that slash causes to farms and to infrastructure and beaches during floods. The debris chokes rivers, creates devastating debris dams and leads to environmental disasters with long-term ecological impact. And this is creating ongoing crises for local communities, for tourism, for fisheries. And last night, Country Calendar on TVNZ1 highlighted another problem with the pine forests, wilding pines. Steve Satterthwaite, who with his wife Mary owns and operates Muller Station in the Awatere Valley in Marlborough, says we absolutely need to act now to tackle the problem of wilding pines. If we don't stop these trees, eventually, the pastoral country from here to Kaikoura will succumb to being a forest of wilding pines. The downstream effects of that are water yield. So the Marlborough grape industry would be massively at risk of the rivers running dry, particularly the Awatere. And then you've got the risk of fire. If these mountain ranges got covered in pine trees, then the fire risk would be horrendous. It is so frustrating that despite it being the biggest environmental wilding disaster in New Zealand, it has not been funded at all under the national wilding conifer control programme. Well not strictly true Steve. In May of this year, the government announced a 20% increase in funding to tackle the spread of wilding pines. Then in August, it was announced that $3 million over three years of this international visitor levy revenue will go to the National Wilding Conifer Control programme, in particular for work in the Molesworth and Mc Kenzie Basin areas. This government says, and successive governments, previous governments have said  that they've understood the risk that wilding pines pose to the environment. And they've said the government is focused on protecting the productive heart of New Zealand's economy. Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay said wilding pines cost the rural community significantly, often the bane of farmers' lives, we have an obligation to work with them to control their spread and reduce on-farm burden. More than 2 million hectares are affected by wilding infestations with more to come, as Steve pointed out. The baby trees are already seeding and spreading their seed. It's only going to get worse. Untreated areas are expanding by an estimated 5% each year. Left unchecked, the economic impact could reach $3.6 billion over 50 years. So you add that the cost of the cleanup of the slash to the cost of the wilding pines. Are we really making any money from our export earnings? The reason that commercial forests and the Department of Conservation planted pines were good initially, in the first instance there was a desire to prevent the spread of erosion. It was thought that the pine trees would help stabilise land. It hasn't been entirely successful in some parts of the country, but it was thought that would happen. Yet again, it's unintended consequences. Now we've got more problems really than the pines are worth, haven't we? If the foresters are saying they can't really afford to clean up after themselves, otherwise their business is unsustainable. If you look at the cost of the wilding pine control, and hasn't the horse bolted? I mean, can you ever really get it back under control now? If you look at the cost of the slash, and then you balance that with the export earnings. Is it worth it?  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wilding pines, the invasive species also known as Pinus contorta, are posing a massive threat to the environment. It was highlighted on Country Calendar last by Steve Satterthwaite, who runs Muller Station in the Awatere Valley in Marlborough. He said the wilding pines don't just choke up pastoral land, there's also the downstream effect of  loss of water yield into the rivers, and in Marlborough, that effects the vineyards. Federated Farmers pest animal and weed spokesperson Richard Dawkins told Kerre Woodham that more funding and support is needed to properly tackle the spread of these invasive plants. 'It is possible to get it under control, but it just comes down to resourcing, right? So we need more funding.' LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s the last days of Art in the Park this weekend – a uniquely curated art show held annually at Eden Park.  It showcases the works of both emerging and established New Zealand artists.   The King’s Trust has been the charity partner of the event for the last four years – an organisation formed in 1967 with the vision that every young person should have the chance to succeed.  It’s been running in New Zealand for six years, and CEO Rod Baxter told Kerre Woodham that in terms of economic value, they’ve quadrupled every dollar that was invested.  He says it’s not just about the success of the King's Trust and the Government, and the corporate supporters, but also the success of the community off young people.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The news came in around quarter to 11 yesterday, and it was unwelcome confirmation of what many people had been experiencing, had been feeling. The economy had contracted, and worse, it had shrunk 0.9%, far worse than economists had been predicting.   Economists at the Reserve Bank had forecast the economy would shrink just 0.3% during the June quarter. Retail banks said, "Oh, I don't think so. I think it'll be closer to 0.5." In fact, the figures released by Stats NZ yesterday showed GDP fell almost a full percentage point in the three months ended June, with declines in most industries.   Manufacturing fell the hardest. It dropped 3.5% in the quarter, led by transport equipment, machinery, and equipment manufacturing, which fell 6.2%. Food, beverage, and tobacco manufacturing fell 2.2%. And that was reflected in the decreased export volumes of products such as meat, which we referred to yesterday when we were talking to Infometrics Chief Economist Gareth Kiernan. He was saying it was the drop in exports – if you haven't got the produce, you can't export it. Construction was down 1.8%, reversing a 1.2% increase in the three months ended March.   So what does it all mean? Well, it means fewer jobs, it means fewer people earning, it means less money being earned. It means people scared of spending money if they do have money. It means less money sloshing around in the system. It means people doing it tough.   Roger Douglas, he of Rogernomics fame or infamy, and the Finance Minister in the Fourth Labour Government, called for the head of Nicola Willis. He and Robert MacCulloch, the economist, released a statement yesterday that said Willis was sending New Zealand bankrupt by failing to get to grips with our ballooning fiscal deficits and public debt. Her own Treasury, they said, contradicts her claim that New Zealand is on a path to surplus. They say it is not. Treasury's long-term fiscal forecast showed out of control deficits due to pensions and healthcare spending from an aging population. Willis, they say, is not up to the job and is not levelling with the New Zealand public.   Willis ignored that criticism, and looking at the GDP figures, says Trump's tariffs had an outsized impact on local business confidence, far out of proportion to what actually happened. She said yesterday's data is backward-looking. It's looking at what the economy was doing months ago, and she says that the economy is in fact improving.   “I think when you think about your average Kiwi, they're saying, well, actually, I need to have confidence that I can pay my mortgage, maybe that I can buy a bigger house in future, that I can buy a house at all. And the biggest tailwind for that is lower interest rates. And we know that they are what has spurred previous recoveries. That's actually good economics. Our government has done everything we can to create the space for the Reserve Bank to do this, and they just have to keep doing that job.   “For our part, we've chosen a balanced course of consolidating the books over a few years, which has been endorsed by international economists, by ratings agencies who say that our fiscal plan is a good one. We've delivered significant savings while investing in more infrastructure, in health services, and education services. I completely stand by that approach. And Roger Douglas may want me to slash spending overnight. That would be the wrong thing to do in terms of the commitment we've made to voters, but actually it would be the wrong thing economically.”  So that was Nicola Willis holding the line. John Key, former Prime Minister, came on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning and put the blame squarely on the Reserve Bank.   “This is a saying that Ruth Richardson once had, which was monetary policy needs mates, and that was her argument when she was really tightening up the economy, that the Reserve Bank needed that support because they were in tandem working with the government. I think what you've seen over the last 18 months or so is a government that has been working hard to get the economy straightened up after, frankly, the mess it inherited. But it hasn't had a mate in the Reserve Bank, and the Reserve Bank's job very clearly over time has been to say interest rates need to come down.   “And I mean, look, two months ago, I got hammered for saying interest rates need to come down 100 basis points. Well, they came down 25, they're going to come down another 50. You can put a ring around it in the next monetary policy statement and they'll come down another 25 by Christmas. So the person that's not doing the job or the people that are not doing their job are the Reserve Bank, who frankly, if they just walked around Auckland and Wellington for five minutes, could have felt the fact that the government needed help through monetary policy.”  So, the experts have had their reckons and I'd love to hear yours. Now they say, how often have you been hearing that there are green shoots growth coming? They say that things are getting better, that job vacancies are up, that business confidence is up slightly, that come Christmas most people will be off the big mortgage interest rates and onto lower ones, which will mean more money in your pocket? They're not relying on bringing in migrants to push up the housing market, give you the sugar rush that you get from basically a false economy. They're relying on the economy to rebuild itself, making it more resilient and stronger. That being said, this was a government, or the National Party was a party, that campaigned on better times ahead. We're the ones that can fix things. We're the ones that can turn the ship around. We're the ones that can fix the mess that Labour left us in.   Either the mess was bigger than they thought, or the levers they're pulling aren't as effective as they thought, or we are a timorous lot. We've been knocked around too much, bashed around too much to feel particularly confident. When a lot of business has been suffering since 2022, probably, it's hard to feel confident. It's hard to feel optimistic. It's hard to feel confident about spending money or investing in capital, that sort of thing.   I do think that better times are a-coming. It's just the way economies work. You know, there are cycles. And surely we've reached the bottom and now we're going to go up and then we'll reach the top and round we'll come again, no matter who's in power. So, you know, you can talk a big game, but I think what National has shown is that they are victims of the economic cycle. There were no magic levers they could pull. Could Labour have done any better? The answer to that is no. Absolutely not. That is a very hard no from me. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How much blame for the GDP drop can be placed at the feet of the Reserve Bank?  GDP's fallen 0.9 percent in the June quarter – a much sharper drop than economists had been expecting.  NZ Initiative Chief Economist Eric Crampton told Kerre Woodham what we’re feeling is an effect of getting inflation back in line, but he wouldn’t necessarily blame the Reserve Bank for the drop.  He says it’s one big job is keeping inflation in the 1-3% band, and it largely forgot what it’s job was in 2020 and 2021, and went overboard with the spending.  Crampton says he wouldn’t blame the bank’s current round of tightening, but rather the prior round of exuberance that required it.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back when I was a kid, you knew the school holidays were coming up when the Seafarers Union went on strike. Sure as God made little apples, a week before the school holidays, the unions would be all out, brothers and sisters, and then there'd be all night negotiations between the cloth caps and the capitalist overlords, while parents waited anxiously to see if the annual road trip —south in our case— would take place to go down and see the Christchurch rallies. Generally, at the last minute they would, so it was a mad dash to Wellington, over the Cook Strait to Christchurch for the school holidays. Every single time.   Union representatives were household names in New Zealand – Ken Douglas, Sonja Davies, Blue Kennedy, everybody knew them. The strength of unions abated over the years after the reforms of the Fourth Labour Government. But since the demise of the last Labour Government and the arrival of this centre-right Government, unions have certainly been flexing their muscles.   Primary school teachers have voted to go on strike on October 23rd. “Kerre, isn't that the Thursday before Labour Weekend?” That's correct, it is. So what's that going to do? A glorious long weekend, and two days off school for the kids. Secondary teachers are on their rolling strike this week, again, right before the school holidays, massively disrupting senior classes and school attendance. Nurses walked off the job recently and senior doctors go on strike next week. They are perfectly entitled to do so, but it's a delicate balancing act holding on to public support while pressuring the government to give in to their demands for pay and conditions.   Political commentator Bryce Edwards made a very good point in an article yesterday, which just reinforces what we know. Unions take a softly, softly approach with Labour governments generally, because they don't want to damage Labour-led governments by striking. Unions affiliated to Labour contribute their members' dues to the Labour Party, and unions have voting rights on Labour's leadership under the current constitution that the Labour Party has.   So, in the main, they don't want to embarrass a Labour-led government. That is not to say they don't strike. Teachers held rolling strikes throughout 2023 because the Labour Government was stonewalling on negotiations. And in part, teachers say it's because the last Labour Government mucked them around for so long that they're striking again. They can only settle pay and conditions in the three-year blocks. And by the time Labour settled with the PPTA last round, it was time to begin negotiations again. But they are much more likely to strike than to negotiate. That's what the head of the Public Service Commission, Sir Brian Roche said – that we offered them a good deal, they didn't bother negotiating, just said, "Right, we're striking”.  The disruption to kids and their parents is far, far more than just the one day they strike, though. By choosing to strike right before the school holidays, kids don't see the point in going to school for the last week. They're lumped together in mixed classes. There's no real learning taking place. Teacher-only days in many schools on the Friday. What the hell is the point?   It's a real struggle for people I know who have teenagers to get them to school because they'd go if they were learning, they'd go if it mattered, they'd go if they felt they were going to get something out of it. When all they're doing is being lumped together in one mess class with a couple of duty teachers to make sure people don't go missing or harm one another, that's basically the end of it. It's basically babysitting for a couple of days, and the kids know that, so they think, why bother?   At what point do you lose sympathy for striking public servants? At what point as a teacher or a nurse do you lose patience with your union? I think most of us have sympathy with teachers, and nurses and doctors, and police officers, understanding just how important their jobs are within society. But are they more important than what you do?   And at what point do you decide that actually, you'd rather be paid on performance, not how many years you've hung in there at the chalkboard? At what point do you think, I would rather be teaching my classes, not striking to give my peers pay and conditions that some of them simply do not deserve? When you know that you're a better, more competent, more hard-working, more innovative, more empathetic teacher than the one next door, does it not rankle just a tiny bit that they're getting either the same as you or more, because of simply being there longer than you? At what point do you believe in yourself?   At what point do you negotiate your own pay and conditions the way the rest of us do, because you believe in your abilities and what you bring to the workforce? And if they're not good enough, you go.  At what point do you back yourself? And say, you know what, I do a really, really, really good job and I want to be paid more than the lazy ass next to me. I wonder why teachers in particular are so insecure in their own bargaining powers? How many teachers would rather not be in the union, negotiate their own contracts?   If you don't feel that you are fairly paid in your job or your conditions aren't ideal, have you used the union to negotiate for you or do you do it yourself? Have you found the unions useful? I look at teachers and I think, you know, we all know there are some that are so much better than others, who are so much more hard-working and innovative. Why don't they get more?   Still, it’s up to them. If they want to have collective bargaining and collective conditions, that's their choice. But for how many is there a little seed of doubt settling in thinking, really? The way New Zealand is at the moment, the way the kids' schooling has been so severely disrupted over the last few years, our conditions aren't that bad when you look around. When you look around at what other people are earning and what other people are doing.   At what point do you think the union's not for you?    Back in the olden days, the unions were all powerful, dominant, a really strong collective force, and they wielded enormous power on the economy and on governments, but they struck themselves and bullied themselves into irrelevance.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The country's getting up to scratch on teaching Kiwis how to manage possible lone wolf attackers in crowded spaces.  Police are promoting the mantra 'escape, hide, tell' to show the public what to do during an attack.   The Crowded Places Strategy includes information on how to detect possible attackers, and how to conduct security audits.   Auckland's Newmarket Business Association CEO Mark Knoff-Thomas told Kerre Woodham there have been situations where people freeze or start filming, which isn’t ideal.  He says they want to make sure people are armed and educated with the best knowledge possible, as even if it’s not applicable in New Zealand, it may come in useful overseas.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our economy's been shrinking much faster than economists thought.  Latest data just out from Stats NZ shows GDP fell 0.9% in the three months to June.  That follows six months of growth, after six months of contraction.  Infometrics Chief Forecaster Gareth Kiernan told Kerre Woodham it's far worse than any economists were expecting.  He says this number is completely "off the charts", as far as they're concerned.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shane Jones' warning was clear and concise. As of 2029, if no new gas fields are found or an alternative energy source is not found, there will be no gas available for industrial, commercial, and domestic use.   “In simple terms, what's going to happen in 2029-2030 in the event that we either don't import gas, or we don't find a major find, is that the demand will still be there, but the supply will be below the demand. And there'll be a fraction of gas available, but for those big users, and quite frankly, the energy companies use quite a lot of gas and they can pay because they hand it on to you and I, that's what the crisis will be. There will be too many businesses in New Zealand still dependent on gas and the supply of the gas will be below their need for gas.”  Shane Jones, as other commentators have noted, does talk a big game and is prone to hyperbole to make his point – should have been a journo. Gas NZ Chief Executive Jeffrey Clarke says homes and small businesses accounted for less than 13% of gas demand last year and are likely to have gas for longer than 2029, if only because other bigger customers will find alternatives, and because domestic and small business are profitable.   But there's no doubt that the brutal reality is that we don't have as much gas in our gas fields as we thought we did, and that existing fields are going to run out sooner rather than later. Worse, according to an explainer story in The Post, gas industry sources believe that the aging Maui gas field will require expensive maintenance work in the middle of next year, raising the very real possibility that its overseas operator OMV could simply look at the bill for the maintenance, look at the life of the gas field and say, you know what? Don't worry about it. We'll shut it up early. Close the field.   And some businesses won't survive that. In Shane Jones' report to Winston Peters, where he made the dire warnings, Jones says without profound action, the die is cast. There'll be a rust belt decline in New Zealand with a widening gap in societal well-being.   We're already seeing it. Carter Holt Harvey shuttering its Eves Valley sawmill near Nelson, Kinleith closing and Tokoroa, and now Carter Holt Harvey closing the plywood plant there. Timaru's meatworks gone, Winston Pulp closing its factory in Ōhakune - small town New Zealand is once again fighting for its very survival.   What are the options? What are the alternatives?   According to Gas NZ, homes and small businesses account for less than 13% of gas demand. It doesn't mean that they are going to be really struggling to find alternatives to keep themselves going. The small manufacturing plants, we've already seen it, it's the cost of energy that is closing them, the manufacturing plants around New Zealand.   Can you find alternatives to gas before 2029? If you are living in a small town where your major employer is owned by a multinational, the answer is they'll probably just shut up shop, as we've seen happen in other small towns. They'll look at the cost of finding an alternative energy source and go you know what? No.   If you're a small town locally owned business, you might think differently. There might be more skin in the game for you. You might be willing to make a huge capital investment in resourcing the power supply to keep the plant open. But ultimately, once you do the sums on the back of an envelope, it just comes down to whether you can afford to or not.   And in that case, what is the future of small-town New Zealand? Is the die cast? Are we looking at a rust belt decline and a widening gap in societal well-being unless we can find alternative fuel or simply another way of keeping small town New Zealand alive? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.