Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

The AA is calling for an overhaul of driving fines. It says fines haven't been adjusted for inflation since 1999 and no longer represent a big enough deterrent.  AA road safety spokesperson Dylan Thomsen says doubling the fines would make a good starting point - with some specific offences incurring higher penalties. "We need to look at some specific offences, the ones that show up in crashes most often. Drunk driving, drugged driving, seatbelts distractions like cell phones and speed. And we might actually need to lift those even further to really try and make people care more about sticking to the rules." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New reports out of the UK claim Prime Minister Keir Starmer is looking to blame Nigel Farage and Brexit for tax rises in the upcoming November budget. The UK has a significant financial black hole it needs to fill up, and it's looking more likely that increased taxes are the way forward. UK correspondent Enda Brady says it's unlikely UK voters will accept this. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tonight on The Huddle, lawyer and political commentator Brigitte Morton and Ali Jones from Red PR joined in on a discussion about the discussion about the following issues of the day - and more! New data shows one in seven Kiwis believe violence is needed to get the country back on track. How worrying is this data? The hostages and prisoners have been freed in Gaza - why aren't more people celebrating? Do we need to give Donald Trump more credit for what appears to be - for now - peace in the Middle East? Are the latest dramas involving Te Pāti Māori (allegations of MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi overspending its budget, allegations that Eru Kapa-Kingi verbally abused Parliamentary security staff) a sign of a party that shouldn't be in power? What do we make of all this? New data shows more Kiwis are moving to Australia. Should we be concerned about the ongoing brain drain? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New reports indicate the Reserve Bank of Australia won't be cutting interest rates until at least February 2026. Employment remains high and inflation is still at target, and experts claim the central bank has no reason to do anything big. HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham explains further. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive Full Show Podcast for Tuesday, 14 October 2025, former Australian army officer and Middle East expert Rodger Shanahan on peace in Gaza - and how much credit Donald Trump deserves. The implosion continues at the Maori Party with fiery allegations sent out against their own MP in a late night email. Integrity Institute director Bryce Edwards says it's an extraordinary move. Air NZ is making a long-awaited change to regional flights - Chief Transformation and Alliances Officer Mike Williams explains what's taken them so long. Wayne Naylor from  Hospice NZ explains why NZ gets only 3 from 5 stars as a place to die. Plus, the Huddle debates a new poll that found 1 in 7 people think it's okay to use violence as a means to get the country back on track. 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.

New Zealand First has started to voice concerns over the proposed  Gene Technology Bill, breaking away from fellow coalition partners. NZ First claimed it wouldn't support the current bill - unless National agreed to some significant changes.  The Country's Hamish McKay explained further. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Air New Zealand's teamed up with Air Chathams on a new partnership for Whakatane. It'll mean customers can book single-ticket trips that combine domestic flights on both airlines. Checked-in baggage will be transferred directly to the final destination. Air New Zealand's Chief Transformation and Alliances Officer, Mike Williams, explained what the partnership could mean for both airlines. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So, what happened last night is remarkable. Before the deadline of 10pm New Zealand time, 20 living Israeli hostages - who had been held for 2 years, who had been forced in some cases to dig their own graves, spend unknown lengths of time in tunnels underground, and go without much in the way of sustenance at times - were handed over by their captors back into the care of Israel, which is their home. That is remarkable. Because, I mean, let's be honest about it - in the last two years, there were times where surely we started to believe that we'd seen the last of the survivors make it out. Surely, we'd assumed most, if not all, of the remaining 20 would die in captivity in the years that we may have thought stretched ahead of us. But look at what's happened, aid is now flowing back into Gaza, people are going back to their homes - whatever is left of it - and the shelling has stopped. You would think this would be a moment to celebrate, right? The very thing that so many of us have been calling for for such a long time and increasingly in the last few months has happened. The fighting has stopped, the starvation has stopped. But where is the celebration? I mean, don't you think it's remarkably muted today? Now I realize a lot of that will be that there is some weariness, quite rightly, over whether this peace can hold because so many ceasefires have broken down in the past, and there are so many ways that this ceasefire can break down. It could be a rocket fired in error, it could be Hamas still refusing to disarm, it could be anything. But I do wonder if part of it is also because it's hard for some people to give credit to Donald Trump for the role that he played in this. I mean, already there are opinion pieces that are writing him out of this historic moment and talking up the diplomatic efforts of others, particularly in the Middle East, and warning he will never get a Nobel Peace Prize for this, regardless of whether this peace holds. But you can't ignore his role in this and you can't write him out of this. He was instrumental in a way that Biden never was. And it was for various reasons, mainly because of his friendship with Benjamin Netanyahu - which Biden never had - but also because of his relationship with the Arab countries because of previous work in the region, in his first administration, like the Abraham Accords. Now, let's be fair, it's always hard to give credit to people we dislike. It's also very hard to give credit to people who are so capable of dishing out copious amounts of credit to themselves, like Donald Trump. But Trump does deserve credit and he deserves a lot of it for getting the Gaza conflict to a point that it has never been before, which is that all the living hostages are out. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's real concern from a former Green MP over how openly people talk about committing violence.  A new Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll shows one in four Te Pāti Māori voters and one in five ACT voters agree Kiwis may have to resort to violence to get the country back on track.  The younger generation are more likely to agree, and they're less likely to have friends with differing political views.  Catherine Delahunty says understanding the causes is important.  "I think it's a sign of deepening inequality right now, that some people are really, really frustrated and feel really excluded from our society." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealanders who are dying, or caring for someone who's on their deathbed, have been leaving reviews rating their experience with death in Aotearoa.  In a new initiative led by Hospice NZ, Dying Reviews invites people who've had experience with death to reflect how they were treated by the everyday systems that surround us. New Zealand's national score is 3.28 out of 5, and Government agencies received the lowest ratings of any sector (2.5), while restaurants and events were the top scorers (4.55). Hospice NZ CEO Wayne Naylor unpacked the reviews - and all the variables impacting the scores. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.