Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

The Australian Reserve Bank will keep the Official Cash Rate on hold at at 3.6 percent. The RBA's Governor, Michele Bullock, says Australia is in a 'difficult position', but they're committed to addressing inflation. HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham explained further. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fonterra's making the case to shareholders in a bid to sell off its iconic brands. French dairy giant Lactalis has agreed to pay $4.2 billion for the consumer business. The Country's Hamish McKay explained further. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tonight on The Huddle, former Auckland mayor Phil Goff and Conor English from Government relations firm Silvereye joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more! US president Donald Trump recently unveiled a 20-point peace plan for Gaza. Do we think Hamas will agree to this? Could this be a gamechanger - or just another plan that goes nowhere?  Should Kāinga Ora have negotiated better to get more for the Dixon Street apartments in Wellington? The CTU is calling for electricity generators to be returned to public ownership ahead of the Government's big energy announcement. What do we make of this? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now, we need to talk about the Reserve Bank's excuses for how it completely stuffed up its job and let inflation get away on it during Covid. We spoke about this on the show yesterday, it's done the review and it says, quote, - "in hindsight, an earlier and more aggressive tightening might have reduced inflation sooner." Yeah. Really, Sherlock?  But this would have been difficult given the data available at the time. Now, basically what they're saying is: yeah, we could have done better if we could see what was happening at the time, but we couldn't see what was happening at the time. Which is a crock, isn't it? Because there were people who could see at the time what was happening, and they said so. They said it publicly, they said the Reserve Bank needs to start tightening up - in some cases, months, if not even more than a year, before they did. I mean, the New Zealand Initiative first identified that Covid could cause inflation in April 2022 - that's a year and a half before the Reserve Bank started tightening. Brad Olsen called on them to start lifting the OCR in July 2021, that's about three months before they started. They started in October 2021. Now, that's good on them for - at that point - starting to move, but they were doing it. They were pumping the brake ever so slightly while still pushing the accelerator in a big way, because they did not stop pumping the economy and they kept their cheap money for banks program going all the while. In February 2022, the following year, the New Zealand Initiative was warning them and saying - hey, listen, this inflation is a thing here. But that lending continued, that cheap money to the banks continued all the way through to December 2022. When it stopped, inflation was already at 7.2 percent, which is nutso. Now, to be fair to the Reserve Bank, it wasn't just their fault. Grant Robertson was doing a fair bit, right? He was spending like crazy, and even though he was warned by Treasury, he just kept on spending too. But that doesn't exonerate the Reserve Bank, it just makes their job harder. But they cannot pretend that they didn't see what was happening, because others did see what was happening, and they needed to see what was happening - because that is what they are paid for. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive Full Show Podcast for Tuesday, 30 September 2025, former Tony Blair adviser John Mcternan speaks to Heather about Donald Trump's peace plan for Gaza - and whether it will lead to peace. The Government is celebrating getting closer to meeting some health targets but postcode lottery is still alive and well. Malcolm Mulholland from Patient Voice Aotearoa revealed what needs to change to make health access better across the country. Should horseriders be allowed to use a shared footpath? Plus, the Huddle debates whether Kainga Ora should have sold Wellington's Dixon St flats for more than $1million - and whether the big Defence Force flyover at the All Blacks game was embarrassing. 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.

There's a feeling Donald Trump's threat to impose a 100 percent tariff on any and all movies made outside the United States is unworkable. The US president didn't specify when or how it could be enacted in his post on social media - which followed an initial threat on foreign-produced movies in May. Screen Production and Development Association President Irene Gardiner says there's confusion about what he means. "It seems to be that the problem he's trying to solve is American productions not shooting in America. So the way to fix that is their own incentives." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The CTU's head says excessive dividends for shareholders are stopping power companies investing more in generation.  The union says the partially Government-owned gentailers should re-nationalise.  Energy Minister Simon Watts will make an announcement tomorrow on sector reform.  Richard Wagstaff says gentailers have their priorities wrong.  "Between 2016 and 2020, there's 1.2 billion in capital expenditure - that was about a fifth of the dividend payout. There's no more generated today than there was 10 years ago." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Horse riders in the lower North Island have raised concerns over safe road access. A shared path along the Ōtaki to North of Levin Expressway - a project currently under construction - prompted concern after horse riders were excluded from the path. NZ Equestrian Advocacy Network chairperson Shelly Warwick says the group's lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, citing concerns over equity.  "There are alternatives for every other user if you want to take them, but they've made a shared-use path to cater for vulnerable road users to get across this community, but excluded horse riders." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's concerns the figures given on Government health targets don't give the whole picture. Numbers on cancer treatment access, childhood immunisation, ED stays and wait times improved in the latest quarter. But Patient Voice Aotearoa's Malcolm Mulholland says the data doesn't reflect things like when patients leave ED. He says there are also questions around the cancer target - which asks for 90 percent of patients to start treatment within 31 days of deciding it'll happen. "Many oncologists would say - that's the wrong metric, the right metric is from the date of diagnosis to the date you are first seen by a specialist." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

US President Donald Trump has unveiled a new 20-point-plan to end the war in Gaza - and one former British Prime Minister is set to play a key role. If Hamas agrees to the deal, the war will end immediately, with Israeli troops withdrawing and Hamas releasing all hostages. Donald Trump will head the Gaza transitional Government, made up of Palestinians and experts, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Former Political Secretary to Tony Blair, John McTernan, says plenty of groups trust Tony Blair's word - and he brings plenty of experience. "He's trusted by everybody, because when he's involved in a deal, the deal is stuck to because people can trust his word - he's a major operator."  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.