The Mike Hosking Breakfast

There are teacher shortages across a range of subjects in secondary school, as there generally are at the start of each year.   More than 400 principal and teaching roles are currently being advertised in the Education Gazette.   In 2024 there were almost 1600 vacancies, a similar number to recent comparable years.   Secondary Principals' Council Chair Kate Gainsford told Ryan Bridge schools are employing a lot of teachers from overseas.   She says it's a worldwide problem, but we also need to be building up a local pool of teachers.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cautious optimism from economists ahead of the latest inflation numbers.  Stats NZ will deliver its latest inflation update on the year to December at 10.45 this morning.  Many economists expect it to be slightly down, but ANZ predicts it will remain unchanged and BNZ is forecasting a slight rise.  ASB Chief Economist Nick Tuffley told Ryan Bridge we need to still be cautious as domestic inflation remains relatively high.  He says for inflation to stay around 2% the domestic rate needs to come down.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's outrage over Donald Trump's decision to release convicted Capitol rioters from prison.   The new President has signed off a flurry of executive orders following his inauguration, many sparking national and global concern.  Trump's issued pardons and commutations to more than a thousand felons involved in the attacks to disrupt the transfer of power on January 6th, 2021.   US correspondent Richard Arnold told Ryan Bridge that includes those convicted of assaulting police officers, many of whom are feeling betrayed.   He says Trump's taken to calling those tried and convicted of crimes, 'hostages', and has often played a recording of them singing The Stars and Stripes Forever from prison.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Donald J. Trump has been inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States.  Behind the pomp and ceremony are lessons for politicians on the left here and around the world.  Labelling your opponent a racist, a nazi, an extremist, a homophobe, a sexist, anti-trans, a threat to democracy, a tyrant, and sexist won’t win you an election.  Biden, and then Harris, threw the kitchen sink of threats about Trump at the public and none of it stuck.  The Obama's, the Pelosi's and the Clinton's of American politics did their best to paint Trump as a dystopian dictator, hell-bent on crucifying immigrants and minorities.  And what happened? They lost. He won.  A clean sweep of the battlegrounds.  The House. The Senate. The electoral college. The popular vote.  And around half of Latino voters, the highest ever for a Republican, even higher than George W. Bush in 2004.  Record numbers of minorities voted for Trump.  His election was of course run against a backdrop of a tough economy and inflation hitting punters hard. Plus, Joe Biden was, well, literally stumbling to the finish line, struggling to walk and talk.  But the fact remains voters picked the guy who’d been labelled all these awful things because they trusted him to turn the economy around, and some also to stop the free speech moderators and pronoun police.  So, what’s the lesson here? For Hipkins it doesn’t matter how many times you call Seymour and/or Luxon a racist - it won’t get you back for the greasy benches.  Labour and its allies are gearing up for a fresh onslaught of attacks on race as the Treaty Bill goes to select committee.  But here’s the thing - most Kiwis aren’t listening. Look at the polls.  The Ipsos issues monitor from late last year showed that. Inflation, health, economy, crime, housing, poverty etc were the big issues. Race relations? 15th on 6%.  Those in the left would do better —and we’d all benefit from this— if they’d stop the name-calling and start coming up with serious, credible, alternative economic plans to get this country firing again.  Labour was supposed to be a party for the workers. They’ve let provincial New Zealand down badly with economic mismanagement and energy policies that may have suited a speech at UNGA in New York, but certainly not the good people of Ruapehu.  And that’s the lesson Trump is giving the left today. The recipe used over the past decade of window dressing, performative politics, identity politics, virtue signalling, and demonising your opponents no longer works on the people who matter most.  The voters. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bic Runga is one of New Zealand’s iconic performers – dazzling audiences since the release of her first single in 1996.   She went on to reach international fame, as well as winning the most New Zealand Music Awards by an individual ever.   Runga is currently on the road as part of the Greenstone Summer Concert Tour, performing alongside Cold Chisel, Icehouse, and Everclear.  The first show of the tour was this past weekend in Queenstown, and Runga told Ryan Bridge that she’s having ‘such a good time’ on the road.  “It was really cool to meet these guys on the road,” she said of the other performers.  “They’re all legends and, y'know, they’re all lovely.”  Runga has brought her family along on this tour, and she says that it’s definitely a military operation trying to keep everyone organised.  “I’m trying to get on stage and someone’s asking me where their sock is.”  “It’s cool to have them, but there’s... it’s just an extra layer of stuff to, y'know, find and wash,” Runga told Bridge with a laugh.  Most people stream music nowadays, but despite having close to half a million monthly streams on Spotify, Runga says that it’s not the main way artists make their money.  “Streaming is a bit stacked up against you,” she said.  “It has been harder and harder for musicians to make money out of things like that, but, y'know, I guess that’s why we tour."  “You have to really love doing it, y’know, I still do it because it’s super fun and I can’t do anything else.”  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Tuesday 21st of January, it's Inauguration Day for Trump and The Spectator’s Amber Duke joined out of Washington D.C. to give the latest.    The Prime Minister is back in the hot seat for his regular Tuesday interview and talks about how he wants to get this struggling economy of ours humming.  Kiwi singer Bic Runga is touring with the Greenstone Summer Tour, joining for a chat and giving a hint towards future music projects.  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.

Donald Trump has been sworn in as the 47th President of the United States.  In his speech he said that "America's decline is over" and the "golden age of America begins right now".  He says America will not be intimidated, will not be broke, and will not fail in becoming a free, sovereign and independent nation, with a colour-blind and merit-based society.  The returning US President is pledging to be a "peace maker and unifier" while building strongest military ever seen.  He says their power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable.  Trump says the US will pursue its manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.  Washington Editor of the Spectator, Amber Duke told Ryan Bridge his speech was really ahistorical in how detailed and specific he was about his policy priorities on his first day of office.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealand's water infrastructure system is leaking at a far higher rate than global leaders.  Otago University research shows 21% of piped water is being lost.  In comparison, the Netherlands loses 5% and Germany 6%.  The leaks are also wasting around $122 million each year.  Professor of Public Health Nick Wilson told Ryan Bridge that New Zealand has a network of very aging pipes that aren’t being fixed in the same way they do in Europe.  He says that leaking and breaking pipes are actually a concern from a public health perspective, as defects can increase the risk of disease outbreaks.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Job applications remain at historic highs, far outweighing the number of jobs being advertised.  SEEK's revealed job ads dropped 2% in December and are down 22% on 2023.  While the number of applications per ad also dropped 2%, they remain 32% higher than in 2023.   Country Manager Rob Clark told Ryan Bridge that since June they’ve seen job ads decline by just 1%, but certainly at the start of 2024 they saw a pretty significant decline.  He says the feeling is that we’ve hit the bottom and are bouncing along it, but they’re not seeing a ton of green shoots at the moment.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Prime Minister says he wants Nicola Willis to drive economic growth across all ministries in her new role.  The Finance Minister has been given the Economic Growth portfolio, formerly known as Economic Development.  Willis will look over education, infrastructure, science and research, less regulation and stronger international connections within the role.  Christopher Luxon told Ryan Bridge she'll continue to manage the country's finances, and ensure the budget is working.   Meanwhile, incoming Health Minister Simeon Brown has been meeting with Health Commissioner Lester Levy.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.