The Mike Hosking Breakfast

The country's youngest national snooker champion expects to turn professional in a couple of years.  16-year-old Riley James took out the title at the 2025 NZ National Snooker Championships over the weekend.  He told Mike Hosking that going into the tournament, he thought his changes were high.  “I always knew if I was in the right headspace, I play some of the best snooker in the country.”  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Tuesday 14th of October, we are seeing real progress, huge progress, in our kids’ learning with the release of the results of structured literacy.  We've got winners across the board – Sauv Blanc in the UK is hitting record marks and 16-year-old Riley James made history as the youngest ever winner of the NZ Snooker Champs.  Speaking of winners, Kiwi Supercars driver and Bathurst champ Matt Payne basks in the glory and going into the history books.  Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matt Payne has become King of the Mountain in a wet weather shemozzle at the Bathurst 1000.  He has joined the high-octane New Zealand pantheon of Jim and Steven Richards, Greg Murphy, Shane van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin.  The 23-year-old and his co-driver Garth Tander climbed from 18th to take the title in minimal visibility, sneaking into the lead for the first time when James Golding and Cooper Murray collided with a couple of laps remaining.  Golding crossed the line first but was handed a five-second penalty for the incident.  Payne told Mike Hosking being in the cockpit was pretty hard work.  “There was a couple of times where, where all I was thinking was just actually trying to stay on the road.”  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The tourism industry is feeling bullish with business heading back towards being on track post-Covid.   Visitor arrivals reached 92% of pre-pandemic numbers for August – up on July's 87%.   Tourism Holdings Chief Executive Grant Webster told Mike Hosking it's the time of year and the success of tourism campaigns working their magic.  He says growing air capacity and visas being sorted are other momentum points that mean the next 12 months are looking positive.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An expert believes there's still a number of Kiwis returning to New Zealand, despite a falling net migration rate.  It's fallen to 10,600 for the year to August 2025.  Overall, Stats NZ figures show migrant arrivals dropped 16% to more than 138 thousand, while departures increased 13% to just under 128 thousand.  Massey University sociologist Paul Spoonley told Mike Hosking it's still a major net loss, but Kiwis are coming back, even from Australia.  He says there's always been Kiwis leaving and returning on the traditional OE.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The components of a Gaza ceasefire agreement seem to be falling into place.   The heads of the US, Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar have signed off the deal at a summit of world leaders in Egypt.  Hamas has released 20 living Israeli hostages and four of the 28 deceased in exchange for Israel freeing about two thousand Palestinians.   CBS Radio's Steve Linde told Mike Hosking the fact the Trump administration's so firmly behind this deal is significant.   He says for the first time, there's a hopeful feeling in the air, but the Middle East is a very volatile place and anything can spark it off again.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Education Minister's confident successful primary school literacy results aren't just low hanging fruit. Results from the new phonics literacy programme show 58% of students are at or above expectations after 20 weeks. More than 40% of students exceeded expectations in Term 3 – more than double the first term. Erica Stanford says they're tracking where they hoped. But she told Mike Hosking this couldn't be achieved by just anyone and required a government who was prepared to follow the science. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listen to the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Monday 13 October. Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I have read the latest KPI's for the Government. This is the things they are going to do before the end of the year. "Drag this dump out of the quagmire" would have been my number one, but theirs is introducing new planning legislation to replace the RMA. Which is no bad thing. But introducing stuff isn't the same as ticking stuff off, is it?   And in this list, which is 33 "things" long, is part of this Government's image issue. You most likely won't have read or seen the 33 because it’s a good example of the news cycle, or our attention span, or a bit of both. Remember when they first came out? There was mass coverage. A Government with a "to do" list was novel. It showed things you could see and come back later to and check whether it had actually happened. It was very business like. You may also remember that, mainly, they get done. This Government has roughly achieved what it set out to do so as an exercise in discipline it deserves some sort of recognition. But here's the problem - a cheaper power bill and an annual surplus might have been more use. So as several quarters and lists have passed we appear, and by that I mean mainly the media, to have lost interest. As far as I can tell the latest list is virtually nowhere to be seen, and I do quite a bit of looking. Further, it starts to look like a list, and this is the problem, that has stuff in it that is a mix of indecipherable, non-specific, and/or part of a sort of ongoing, broad-based thought bubble. Here's a good example - number 3 is "pass legislation to allow granny flats to be built without a consent". That's perfect; it's simple, clear and ticks the box. But what about number 15? "Begin the hospitality sector review". Is forecasting the start of a look at something, a thing? Number 20: "Take cabinet policy decision on options to provide more tools to address antisocial behaviour". Take a decision? For tools? For behaviour? Come on, that’s stacking a list. That’s whiteboards and blue skies and boring meetings. We have an economic shambles on our hands and your hot, fourth quarter take is some tools for behaviour? Maybe one of the KPI's in the first quarter could have been "lets not make bollocks up for future lists so they look like we ran out of stuff to do". LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jason Pine and Andrew Saville join Mike Hosking this morning to discuss the weekend's sports. On the table today: The weekend of supercars at Bathurst has concluded in a thrilling wet race that came down to the wire. Canterbury look set to win the NPC, can they be stopped? And Tiger Woods undergoes another back surgery, is it time to hang up the clubs? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.