Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

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.

Most of us are doing it at the moment, aren't we? Crunching the numbers of the household budget, seeing where we can make economies? Whether there's any way we can earn a little bit extra. Sorting out what the necessities might be, what the nice to haves are. The Mayor of Auckland is no different. He released his final budget proposal about half an hour ago, a day later than planned, and one of his main drivers is privatising the $2.2 billion shareholding in Auckland Airport. He wants the Council to offload that. He's willing to offer sweeteners to councillors to get his budget and the sale of the shares across the line. He'll reinstate funding for social services and the arts, as well as a $16 million budget cut for local boards. And he'll increase the pay of bus drivers to $30.00 an hour in an attempt to restore suspended services. But to get the sweetners, to get the lollies, councillors are going to have to vote to offload the shares, which is, Mayor Brown says when he was talking to Mike Hosking this morning, the best investment the council could make for itself. Wayne Brown's quite right. You can't just print money and we've seen what happens when you do that. You have to find the economies in real time, in real life. The way Wayne Brown puts it, selling the shares makes sense. Why would you borrow all of that money and pay $100 million in interest a year, to earn $20 - $30 million back? Is it that there is an expectation that the shares are going to increase in value to the point that you'll make $200 million in dividends? But when? And can you afford to play the stock market with other people's rate money?  I wouldn't have thought so.   I get the selling of the shares. I'm all for it. Unless you can give me a compelling reason otherwise. And I get that you have to raise rates, but just putting it on the shoulders of business again might be the straw that breaks the camel's back for many businesses.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

NZ Herald Super City reporter Bernard Orsman joined Kerre Woodham mornings to break down what has been described as a chaotic press conference for Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown's budget reveal. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I've been trying to get my head around just how big a deal the issue is with Jan Tinetti, Minister of Education, who has now been referred to Parliament's powerful Privileges Committee. This is following her failure to correct and inaccurate statements she made in Parliament back on, I think it was February 22nd. So what happened? Jan Tinetti was asked a question, I think by Erica Stanford, in the house, and she was asked to categorically state that she had played no part in the delay of a release of school attendance information. She said she had already stated that. She then said that it was a decision for the Ministry. Well, it turns out that her office had instructed officials to delay the release of the information, and they'd done that so it could be timed with a truancy announcement. So, she had misled the house. Here's the problem for Jan Tinetti, she learned that she had made a false statement that day. After Question Time back in 22nd of February, she's made a statement; she said no, nothing to do with it. Comes out, finds out from official, oh I made a false statement. She did nothing about that. She didn't correct that statement until after she received a letter from the speaker, Adrian Rurawhe on May 1st, saying that her answer needed to be correct. So she did it the next day. I mean it’s not an argument or a conversation in the bloody pub is it? It’s Parliament, you’d think you would know the rules. Personally, if it was me, I'd be mortified if I knew I'd made a statement that was incorrect. For me, while the charge she's going to face is contempt and she's going to have to account for her delay in correcting the record, to me, I think by far who most egregious offence is not knowing the bloody rules in the first place.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a big story, a big call, that's been made by the Metropolitan Police in the UK. It’s pretty dramatic on the face of it. The police chief there has announced that the Metropolitan Police in the UK will no longer attend emergency calls related to mental health incidents.  It's not just an advisory; it's an order by the chief to their officers not to attend the thousands of calls that police get every year to deal with mental health issues. There are two essential reasons given. One is that in sending police instead of medical professionals, those in a mental health crisis are being failed, and not getting the right people to assist them. And secondly, the failure to the public, in general, and the huge amount of time that it takes away from the police from the essential duties they have in solving and preventing crime, as well as dealing with the victims of crime. And one of the stats there, which I imagine is quite comparable to here, is it takes about 14 hours to deal with the mental health patient and hand them over to people who are better qualified to look after them. Now, look, it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to see that this issue has likely inevitable parallels with New Zealand.   If I had a relative who was having a mental health crisis and needed help, I'm actually not sure where I'd turn, especially in the wee small hours.  Maybe with the challenges that we have with law and order, it is time for us to follow suit and be a bit more hard-nosed about this and make the same call and let the police get on with their job. And what is their job? Dealing with crime. Let them look after dealing with crime, preventing crime and dealing with the victims of crime.   You don't have to look too far, of course, to see that we’re obviously we're not doing well on that. Another $11 million from the Government for fog cannon when it's not stopping some people being robbed.  So is it time for us to make the same call and let the police get on with the job that they're trained for? But then how do we handle our mental health patients? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.