The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Mark Cuban has his hands in all sorts of pies.  The US billionaire businessman is involved with tech, media, health insurance, the NBA, and more recently, politics.  He got his first major start with the media company Broadcast.com, which he sold to Yahoo in 1999 for US$5.7 billion worth of stock.   The next year he got into the NBA, buying the Dallas Mavericks for US$280 million, selling a majority stake of the team in late 2023 for $3.5 billion.   Cuban has become something of an authority on sports, and while he’s not familiar with the economics of rugby in New Zealand, he does have a few ideas on it could be saved.  “You’ve got to make it more fun,” he told Heather du Plessis-Allan.  “Not so much on the pitch, right, but in the stands."  There’s a difference, Cuban explained, between the quality of the sport being played on the field or court, and the experience people attending the game have.  “When I got to the Mavs, the people that were at the NBA thought it was all about basketball ... but I was like, you don’t even remember the score of the last game you went to.”  Instead, he says, what you remember is the people you went to the game with – the first date or the buddy that got drunk.   “And I think rugby is fun, but it’s not, it’s not as much a spectacle."  “You’ve got to make it different, otherwise you just get the purists that have been going for 50 years that don’t want to see it changed.”   LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A brand new kiwifruit is about to hit the market.  Zespri has approved the commercialisation of a new red variety, Red80, following the success of Red19.  The fruit has been naturally bred through Zespri’s Kiwifruit Breeding Centre in partnership with Plant & Food Research.  CEO Jason Te Brake told Heather du Plessis-Allan Red80 has a later harvest than Red19, which extends the time RubyRed will be available for consumers.  He says the fruit likely won’t be sold until 2028, as they’re releasing the licence to growers next year, and it will likely be a couple years after that before the first crop is available.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tourists continue to flock across the ditch to New Zealand.  Stats NZ figures show more than 260 thousand overseas travellers visited in October, 22 thousand up on the year before.  More than 120 thousand came from Australia – a record October high.  Tourism Holdings CEO Grant Webster told Heather du Plessis-Allan that New Zealand is currently a cheap destination for Australian tourists when compared to places like the United States.   He says there’s also been strong marketing from Tourism New Zealand, which has been paying off.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just because something's hard to do, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.  Parliament's education committee is recommending New Zealand consider following Australia in banning under 16s from social media.  It's found the platforms are exposing young people to a wide range of harm.  Acting Committee Chair Carl Bates told Heather du Plessis-Allan teens will get around a social media age limit like they get around the drinking age limit, but that isn't a reason not to try.  He says this is about a cultural shift, and the majority of the committee believe we need to step up and ensure the internet is safe for children.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“A week of drama” could have been avoided had the principal of a school with mouldy lunches waited for the investigation rather than going public, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says.  New Zealand Food Safety said yesterday the mouldy lunches served at the Haeata Community Campus were most likely caused by an error at the school.  Seymour told Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan the school should have “kept an open mind” so he did not have to spend a week talking about “what happened to 20 lunches”.  “I guess people might start to ask themselves, ‘Look, this whole saga, it was unreasonable to have a principal who was out in the media for a week, when in reality, Food Safety New Zealand completed the assessment within 10 days, which is lightning speed for most things that happen in government’.  “And if they were just open about what might have been the possibility, we could have waited till now, we could have saved a week of drama.”  One of the lunches given to students at Haeata Community Campus  He also said he had been told by Food Safety that the school had a policy of leaving school lunches in the cafeteria so students could have extras if they wanted, and the mouldy lunches came from there.  He had been told by Food Safety that the school had a policy of leaving school lunches in the cafeteria so students could have extras if they wanted, and the mouldy lunches came from there.  He said the same lunch was served on Thursday, so this seems like the most “plausible” answer.  Seymour said Food Safety NZ had been all over the school and Compass “like a rash” and was confident in the result revealed yesterday.  Haeata Community Campus principal Peggy Burrows did not wish to respond to Seymour’s comments this morning.  She previously told the Herald the findings of the school’s internal investigation were with the board and the school’s lawyers and were due to be released on Friday.  Haeata Community Campus principal Dr Peggy Burrows. Photo / Supplied  Vincent Arbuckle, deputy director-general of New Zealand Food Safety, said an investigation into the incident found that the mouldy lunches were not part of a wider food safety issue with the School Lunch Collective.  “We know the issue caused a lot of concern among parents and students at the school, so we considered it important to provide accurate and independent information about the likely cause,” Arbuckle said.  “After carefully examining all the possible causes, we are able to reassure parents that there is not a wider, or ongoing, food safety risk with the School Lunch Collective.  “The most plausible explanation is that lunches intended to be served to students the previous week were accidentally mixed in with that day’s lunches.”  Burrows earlier maintained that none of its “robust” systems failed between Thursday and Monday, when the food was served.  The lunches served at Haeata Community Campus were covered in a thick layer of mould.  Arbuckle said New Zealand Food Safety’s food compliance officers considered the possibility that the error was made by the distributor.  They found it was unlikely that the distributor delivered lunches from the previous week because several other schools received the same lunch on the same day with no reported issues.  Arbuckle said another reason was that the Compass Christchurch Kitchen (Central Production Kitchen) only receives the number of meals required for the following school day because of the minimal capacity of available chillers.  A food poisoning warning was issued last week after several children from Haeata Community Campus ate school lunches covered in thick mould.  The meals, provided as part of the Government’s school lunch programme, were eaten before a teacher intervened.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are concerns our health system isn't keeping pace with our accelerating cancer rates.  The Cancer Control Agency's latest State of Cancer Report has found more New Zealanders are being diagnosed with cancer, but they're surviving cancer for longer.  It's projecting diagnoses will increase by 50% over the next two decades.  Otago University Medical Oncologist Dr Chris Jackson told Heather du Plessis-Allan this means fewer people getting scans, surgeries, and procedures.  He says funding is increasing, but outcomes aren't improving at the same rate.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A major New Zealand apple grower is pulling the pin on exporting to the US due to Donald Trump's tariffs.   Export tariffs for New Zealand increased to 15% in August.  New Zealand's $70 million of apple exports were excluded from exemptions last month.  Yummy Fruit Company General Manager Paul Paynter told Heather du Plessis-Allan turning away from the US has been an easy decision.  He says if the US wants to charge tariffs and Yummy Fruit can sell its apples elsewhere, that's what they'll do.  Paynter says apple exports to the US have fallen about 30% in the past two years.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cast your mind back a couple of weeks to what the boss of Auckland Port Roger Gray said.  He told us New Zealand is a country that says 'no' so often, Miami cruise bosses he spoke to had taken to calling us 'No Zealand'.  Yesterday the Government unveiled its plan for how we stop that, which is a rewrite of the RMA because the RMA is part of the problem.  It has turned 'no' into an art form in this country. No to your new deck, no to that road, no to you putting a door on the side of the house rather than the front of the house.  We are a country the size of Japan geographically, yet we have 1200 planning zones each with its own unique, bespoke set of rules, while Japan has 13 zones.  Chris Bishop’s proposal is to take that 1200 and drop it down to 17. It's still more than Japan, but about a 98.5% reduction, which can’t be sniffed at.  So prolific and ridiculous are the stories that we can all tell about our encounters with the RMA that I think you’d struggle to find anyone who opposes change.  The trouble has always been agreeing on what change looks like and that is no different this time around.  This RMA reform is welcome, overdue, brave, and almost certainly going to help the country grow.  But mark my words: it will create all kinds of political problems.  Just look at the case of Auckland and Wellington. Both cities need to build more houses but the minute the rules change to make that a reality, the nimbys start complaining.  And that will happen with the RMA. Because sure, your property rights are being strengthened so you can do what you want on your property.  But it's the same for your neighbour, which means if he wants to build that big whatever you have to look at, you might not be able to say no.  None of us want to lose our views, have a road running right next to us or want the infrastructure development to kill the precious, indigenous snail.  And those things might happen because we are all losing some of our ability to say no.  Now, I think that’s a good thing. There’s been too much 'no', clearly, otherwise we wouldn't be 'No Zealand'.  But saying yes will take some getting used to. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Donald Trump has waded into the battle to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.   Paramount Skydance has launched a hostile bid for company in a last ditch effort to outbid Netflix.  The offer would be worth about NZ$188 billion compared to the $125 billion Netflix has been offering.  US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Heather du Plessis-Allan that this level of presidential involvement is new, with Trump saying he’ll look at both proposals.  He says Trump has said that neither company are particularly great friends of his, so it’s unknown as to what his approval will hinge on.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Mike Hosking Breakfast with Heather du Plessis-Allan Full Show Podcast for Wednesday 10th of December, the Contact Energy CEO responds to Chris Bishop's RMA reform and Chris Bishop responds to the industry.  Is there a New Zealander who hasn't skipped a stone? If you think you're pretty good at it, we've got the first ever NZ Stone Skimming Champs coming next year.   Mark Mitchell and Ginny Andersen discuss the RMA reforms and whether Sunny Kaushal and the Ministerial Advisory Group for retail crime are taking the mickey with how much they're charging for their services on Politics Wednesday.  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.