Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

2025 has been regarded as a challenging year for economic forecasting, with experts stumped about what decisions to make. Traditional indicators have been regarded as contradictory, but one expert's developed a workaround. Sam Dickie from Fisher Funds explains further. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australian researchers have developed a vaccine to protect livestock during an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. The five-year research project was a partnership between Meat & Livestock Australia, Tiba Biotech and the NSW Government - and cost $20 million to develop. The Country's Jamie Mackay explains further. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rare thing to be able to say- but Wellington City Council has just made a sensible decision and voted against erecting a fence along the entire length of Kumutoto and Queen's Wharf. Now, if you know the part of Wellington that I'm talking about here, it's the area seaside of the TSB Bank Arena and Fergs and Shed 5 and Foxglove and so on.  That whole area at the moment has beautiful concrete walkways that have been laid, lovely seating and lighting and so on.  And then there's a little barrier either side. If there's sea on the other side, there's a little barrier that comes up to a concrete barrier, maybe mid-shin for you. Now, council officials planned to erect a fence instead - a full-length fence either side of every walkway, up to about 1.2 meters or so, lining almost the entire walkway, 3.5 km of it, at the cost of maybe as much as $30 million. And they wanted the council - probably because they realized how this is going to go down with people - to rush through voting on it without talking to the public about it first. For once, Wellington City Council has actually done the right thing and pumped the brakes here. I think, to be fair to the officials, that this is coming from a good place and that this is the recommendation in a coroner's report. A coroner has had a look at somebody who's fallen into the water, died in the drink, and said: you should put a fence up. Because there have been a few examples lately, especially young men who've got on the raz and then fallen into the water, and that has been the end of them. But - this is gonna sound harsh - I don't think that you fence off an entire walkway because some young people sometimes have a drink and then fall in. I don't want, just as much as you - I don't want people to die needlessly in accidents. But there is a balance to be struck here between personal responsibility and safety measures that we put up to stop stuff happening. I think you go for an intermediate thing here. You stick up some lights, you make sure people can see where they're going in the dark, but you do not fence off the entire thing because that is overkill. It is not normal for us to have fences between ourselves and the sea. Take Auckland, where I live at the moment.  Go for a walk under Auckland's Harbour Bridge, there are huge stretches exactly like this. No fence whatsoever. You're just walking there and there's the sea. It's a fall down, you just have to look after yourself and be careful.  Walk on piers anywhere in this country, they often do not have fences. You've just got to watch where you're going. If you chuck up a fence, you stop people doing what they're supposed to do near the sea, which is sitting there looking at it, enjoying nature, or fishing off the walkway into the sea. Think about what the Wellington officials were trying to do here - they were literally fencing off the sea. When you fence off the sea, do you not think that you are going just a little bit too far? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive Full Show Podcast for Thursday, 7 August 2025, Ballance, one of the biggest names in agriculture business, might have to put its operations on hold for four months because gas is getting too expensive. CEO Kelvin Wickham talks to Heather. Did Auckland Council get your rates bill wrong? Heather tells you how you can find out. Nurses Organisation President Anne Daniels is worried about the impact on EDs when St John volunteers stop their work in hospitals. Wellington Councillor Tim Brown explains why he doesn't want a fence lining the waterfront - despite a number of deaths. Plus, the Huddle debates just how damning Treasury's report on Labour's Covid spending is. Get the Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive Full Show Podcast every weekday evening on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tonight on The Huddle, Jordan Williams from the Taxpayers' Union and former Auckland mayor Phil Goff joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!  Wellington Council has voted down a proposal to build a fence around its waterfront. Do we think this was the right move? High gas prices are set to bring down another company - this time it's fertiliser manufacturer Ballance. How many more of these incidents can our economy take? What can we do to stop this? It's been revealed the Government spent too much during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new reports. What do we make of this? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fuel taxes are set to be replaced by road user charges for all vehicles - and it's left many wondering how these changes will be implemented. Eroad has welcomed this development, and their share price has risen in the hours since Transport Minister Chris Bishop made this announcement. Eroad co-CEO Mark Heine says the company's been making use of electronic road user charges (eRUC) for years and says the technology's there to get this going. "We're still working through with the Government for the pricing for that, but our target is to get it as cheap as possible." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One school principal is not phased by mistakes being found in a Ministry maths resource book.  18 errors have been found and fixed - including incorrect sums and a Te Reo Māori typo. Auckland Primary Principals' Association President Lucy Naylor says it's not ideal, but the resources only make up about five percent of what's taught. She points out they didn't cost schools. "Given the maths resources have been given free to schools by the Government, it kind of outweighs the errors." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wellington councillors have voted against advice to fence parts of the waterfront. They were considering a proposal to immediately spend $7 million installing fences on the Kumutoto and Queens Wharf precincts - without community consultation. Councillor Tim Brown says he feels they've spent $8 million dollars improving lighting and other initiatives around the waterfront. He says he feels they've met their safety responsibly. "The best thing for us to do in terms of common sense approach was to sit back and have a look at the effect of what we've already done - before we decided we needed to do something additional." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's fears St John's cutting of community programmes will put more pressure on health workers. The organisation's new community health direction will see the Therapy Pets and Hospital Volunteers and Community Carers programmes wrap up by next June. NZNO President Anne Daniels says logic suggests these cuts have been made due to declining funding. "Even though these volunteers don't get paid, there is an infrastructure cost. And like everybody these days, funding is less than it should be - and I suspect that's the same for St John. But I can't say, hand on heart, that I know that for a fact." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A temporary shutdown may be on the cards for fertiliser manufacturer Ballance as it struggles to secure affordable gas. The farmer and grower co-op says it may close its Kapuni plant for up to four months as a contingency. The company manufactures about a third of New Zealand’s urea fertiliser each year. Chief executive Kelvin Wickham says they aren't able to secure gas on a long-term basis.  "We are hunting for short-term gas - and if we can find some short-term gas, we'll use that. But if we can't, then we'll be forced into a short-term shutdown." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.