Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

You know it's an election year, don't you, because crime, law and order is front and centre. Although to be fair, crime has been making headlines since the ram raids, and since the Government kept telling us crime was going down and we didn't really feel like it was. Now, National’s police spokesperson Mark Mitchell has produced a set of figures from police that show the number of reported retail crime incidents has spiked to more than 10,000 in a single month, the highest in recorded history. In the 12 months to 30 November last year, an average of 8541 retail crime incidents were recorded monthly. In October 2022 alone there were 10,020 incidents. During the same period up to 30 November 2018, an average of 4336 retail crime incidents were recorded, just half the number we're seeing today. Jevon McSkimming, the Deputy Police Commissioner was on with Mike Hosking this morning, he said it's not necessarily that there's more crime, it's just that more crime is being recorded. He also goes on to say that it's all well and good to arrest people, but all the component parts within the judicial system have their part to play. Stats are difficult. As Jevon McSkimming said, our data is better now so that every single incident gets recorded. So, a shoplifting incident that five years ago might not have come to the police attention, now does. So that's why it looks like there's more crime. And then you've got the Government saying, well, crime is coming down. How do you know that? Well, because the number of assaults recorded has gone down. Is that on the police data or on prosecutions? Because if you're trying to keep people out of jail and you're not prosecuting them, then the figures will come down. It doesn't mean there's any less crime. It's all incredibly confusing. And depending on which stats you want, I suppose you can craft your own narrative, can't you? Lies, damn lies and statistics. Are you on Team Jevon or Team Mitchell? Do you believe that more data is being collected, that the police are doing a great job in rounding up the people who are committing crime? Or is more crime being committed because people feel emboldened and entitled and they know that nobody's going to touch them if they march out of a supermarket with their trolleys laden full of groceries that don't belong to them? I tend towards the latter camp.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s back to school today for many children and if your household was anything like ours, it's full of nervous excitement and brand-new school bags for a brand-new class. Old mates and new mates. We cannot wait to hear the stories fresh off the playground on the first day back, and school should be exciting. It should be something that children do look forward to. It should be a safe place where children are encouraged to learn and to see the world as somewhere where they can take their rightful place. And yet our truancy rates have never been worse. Just 39.9 percent of New Zealand children attended school and kura regularly last year. There are many, many reasons for that but the implications for this country of dealing with a generation of semi-literate young New Zealanders is horrifying. The thing that gets me most is that awful waste of potential. Young people are ripe for learning.  They may have come from pretty shabby backgrounds, but if you get them right, if they feel safe, if they feel secure, if they're fed, if they've got people who are feeding their minds, just not their bodies, then they will grow, and they will flourish. They will be the best they can be, and that's got to be good for all of us. The new Children's Commissioner, Francis Eivers, has said that she is fully focused on lifting children out of poverty, but that is a lot harder than it sounds. We had a Prime Minister who was utterly committed to improving the lives of our most vulnerable kids and even her most generous supporters say that when she left office, the job was not done.  Eivers says it's easy to forget that 20 kilometres down the road from where any one of us live, children are starving. But why are they starving? That's what I really want to know.  From the Kick Start breakfasts put on by Sanitarium and Fonterra where there are Weet-Bix, there's milk, there's fruit. From the Kids Can charity, providing clothing and food, to the schools that qualify who have hungry kids, to the money you and I have spent, $216.7 million in operating funds, $3.9 million in capital expenditure to provide school lunches across the country. If you go to school there should be no reason at all for you to be going to school hungry.   If that's not working, then let's perhaps look at putting $220 million somewhere else to try and get the very best out of our most vulnerable kids.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now Stuart Nash is back as Minister for police, the first thing he wants to do is see the removal of ciggies from dairies as he thinks that's the answer to preventing ram raids. Steps have already been taken to get cigarettes out of corner shops, not because of the ram raids, but because of the health effects and the Smokefree Aotearoa policy. We have the prohibition of the sale of smoked tobacco products to anyone born on or after the 1st of January, 2009. And there's also a restriction on the number of businesses that can sell ciggies and pipe tobacco, no more than 600 nationally. So the writing is on the wall. Eventually there will be no cigarettes at corner stores.   I just don't see that taking cigarettes out of dairies is going to magically solve the problem of robberies? It's not. I mean ciggies are going the way of DVDs anyway, and hopefully dairies can find a way to survive without going the way of video stores. I love having the dairy up the road. When you're not the most organized person in the world, a dairy up the road is a lifesaver when in the middle of baking and there's no baking soda, or there's no bread or you're out of milk. Dairies are also generally family-run businesses. They're hard-working people, they're nice people, and they’re part of the neighbourhood. I'd hate to see them go. A lot of them have introduced vape outlets as part of a way to survive; I guess that's pivoting. They will find a way to survive if they need to.   But as Police Minister, taking ciggies out of dairies is not going to be the answer, I can tell him that for nothing. As a texter said this morning “so what, the answer to the ram raids on Glengarry’s is that they stopped selling wine. The answer to the burglaries on the Michael Hill retailers is that they stop selling jewellery.” They're not the problem. Their product is not the problem. Even cigarettes are not the problem. Entitled dysfunctional families breeding violent thieves, they're the problem.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

1News broke the news last night that there may be a breakthrough in the management of forestry on the East Coast. Four cabinet ministers attended the meeting; Ministers Stuart Nash, David O'Connor, Kiritapu Allan and Meka Whaitiri. There was also Federated farmers, the forestry owners, Gisborne District Council, local mayor and Mana Whenua present.  To discuss this local minister and Regional Development Minister Kiritapu Allan joined Kerre Woodham. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The first of stats are in regarding mortgage holders' ability to deal with the new and increased mortgage interest rates, and so far so good. Those with homes and mortgages collectively paid $3.5 billion of interest to banks in the December quarter, 53 percent more than just over a year earlier when interest rates were the lowest on record.   Record high wages have helped when it comes to mortgage holders resilience, although the rising cost of living is eating into that.   And these are only the first of the stats - around half of the country's mortgage debt is due for refixing this year and that will increase the number of borrowers who face high interest debt. Massey University's Claire Matthews joined Kerre Woodham. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Student Volunteer Army has organised a Big Clean-Up of flood-damaged areas around the Auckland region for this weekend. Spokesperson Robbie Nicol joined Kerre Woodham to discuss the plans. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We have the cabinet reshuffle, of course, and although to me it's simply shuffling the same pack of cards, the same deck that has the same jokers and the same wildcards in it. You would have to say that Labour's done a pretty good job of rebranding itself as new and shiny and exciting. We no longer have a Minister for Covid, thank heavens. We do have a Minister for Auckland the first time since Judith Tizard was Minister for Auckland. You wouldn't have to do much to better her performance. So you know, Michael Wood doesn't have a terribly high threshold. After leaving Auckland to languish and lockdown for the better part of a year, the Prime Minister has decided that Auckland is in fact important, and important enough to have its own minister.   More interesting is going to be rather than the reshuffling of the deck is what policies are going to be put on the back burner and what the PM has decided to forge ahead with.  He's made it very clear that the focus is going to be on cost of living, on the fact that people are doing it tough. And this new look Government will be focusing on that. So more interesting to me is going to be the policies. What's he going to shelve? What's he going to focus on to reinvigorate the economy? You can't just keep taxing people to get your money. You need to have successful small business to have a successful country. So that is what the Prime Minister is going to need to focus on. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A business leader claims Kiwi companies are being hit hard by a workforce shortage. Stats NZ's latest labour market figures for the December quarter, showing unemployment has inched up to 3.4 percent. Employers and Manufacturers Association head, Brett O'Riley, told Kerre Woodham we don't have enough highly skilled people. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There have been many stories emerging from frustrated travellers still stranded overseas because of flooding at Auckland Airport.   Leanne Geraghty, Air New Zealand Customer and Sales officer joined Kerre Woodham with the latest developments. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Auckland, Northland and the Coromandel Peninsula have been given red level weather warnings, the most severe warnings as more rain is forecast to fall on the sodden regions. NEMA has issued a safety warning that the heavy rain could cause flooding, slips and damage because the ground simply can't take any more. And one way of trying to minimize the load on already stretched first responders and emergency workers is to minimise traffic on Auckland's roads while vital infrastructure is repaired.   Accordingly, businesses were told to ask their employees to work from home and the Ministry of Education responded by directing all of the regions school', early childhood centres, and tertiary institutions to stay closed until the 7th of February. So again, there has been criticism about how this was communicated. Most schools found out thanks to the media after some confusion as to whether they should be opening, and eventually the Ministry of Education took the decision to impose a lockdown, in effect, on schools in Auckland for a week.   I totally understand why they want to minimize any chance of first responders being stretched thinly. I get that. But when you look at school attendance, truancy has never been worse. It's been steadily declining since 2015. Covid exacerbated the problem and that decline in school attendance has been across every decile, every year level, every ethnicity, in every region, and the biggest drop among primary and intermediate kids, who are the very ones that we can't afford to be skipping school.   Fewer than 60 percent of students currently attend school regularly. So you've got kids who haven't been at school for more than two years, who are street smart but educationally below the line and who are using their street smarts to survive.  We had callers last year saying they found it really difficult to get their teenagers to school. And these are kids from erstwhile “good” families where there is an expectation that young people will attend school. But you can hardly drag a six foot two, 100kg bloke into his school uniform and into the through the school gates. They have to want to go. But when the schools haven't prioritised attendance, when they've said look, you can learn at home. Why would you bother going?  I think they are between a rock and a hard place that you need to give first responders and emergency workers the opportunity to patch up and repair what's broken before the forecast heavy rain.  But we have seen just how badly school closures have impacted young people. The principals warned that there would be a spike in youth crime with the Covid closures. Schools should be shut as a measure of last resort, surely?  The schools in the worst-affected areas can be shut. Schools that can open should open. Schools have their own unique characters, personalities and communities. Surely they can decide for themselves what is best for their children and their families. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.