The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Fixing major challenges in the justice system might need to be a team effort from key players across the board.  Concern around mounting stress in the system is highlighted by Chief Justice Dame Helen Winkelmann in her Annual Report.  It identifies key stressors including delays, limited capacity, security challenges, and insufficient funding.   Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith told Mike Hosking speeding up the courts is a classic system challenge.   He says there's a whole lot of different players, like Police and Judges, and everyone tends to blame each other for the situation.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

David Seymour's call around the Paris Accord merely adds to the list of calls around the Paris Accord.  If we could park the emotion and the bandwagons associated with the obsession around saving the planet, the case for 2050 would no longer add up.  For example, take the countries that never signed up, take the countries like America that are leaving, take the future British Tory Government who will bail, take the world's biggest climate alliance for banks who have suspended their activities and proposed a vote on scrapping its current structure after a whole pile of members bailed.  The Net-Zero Banking Alliance stated their commitment was to align their lending with achieving net zero. It didn’t work.  It didn’t come close.  Since Paris in 2015, banks globally have provided loans of $6.4 trillion USD to oil and gas and $4.3 trillion to green projects.  The founder of Reclaim Finance Lucie Pinson says the reality is the banking alliance never truly challenged the fossil fuel business models.  On facts alone, climate is losing. You can argue forever about why and whether that’s good or not, but if it is fact you are using, then the Seymour call and the growing actions of places like America are actually sensible.  Just how much farce, how many COPs 18, 19, 27, 32, do you want to continue the failure?  How many press releases do you want asking for us to redouble our efforts, knowing it will never happen?  How much funding? How many air miles? How many promises that will never come close to reality do we want to pursue in what is simply a vain hope?  A well-intentioned hope, yes. Laudable, but futile.  Maybe net zero or Paris is a guide and an aspiration. A "let's give it a go and see how close we get" sort of thing. Perhaps with no target the whole thing falls apart.  But like a lot of nonsensical ideas, this one has fast become exposed as a bust.  If good intention and hot air was currency it might be different, but the facts and the truth tell us it isn't. Maybe we are all going to hell in a handcart, a dirty, filthy, climate-induced hand cart. Or maybe we aren't.  But the juggernaut of Paris isn't working and never really did.  Good, clear, decisive decision making would mean we stop the rot, expense and energy sooner rather than later. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Donald Trump says reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated.  The US president is addressing media in the White House after his recent absence from the spotlight over the weekend sent social media into a tailspin.  Health rumours have been ramping up since his diagnosis of a chronic vein condition, with photos of his bruised hand circling online.  US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking his reappearance comes after yet another federal judge ruled against his deployment of military tropes in Los Angeles in June.  He says the ruling could have significant implications for the President’s future plans if it holds, but the Trump Justice Department is planning on appealing.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is this a turning point for the wine industry?  Data shows export volumes are expected to grow 4% to 285 million litres in the year to June 2025.  Export revenue is also forecast to lift to $2.4 billion by 2029.  Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers CEO Brent Linn told Mike Hosking Hawke’s Bay is more domestically focused, with production to export only representing 25% of their market.  He says that they’ve built their pedigree on the premium end of the market, and they have noticed some return to purchases of the Hawke’s Bay brand.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The growing volume of purchases from the likes of Shein and Temu are hitting New Zealand’s import economy hard.  Stats New Zealand has revised the National Accounts, with imports down $2.5 billion in the June quarter.  The average value of parcels has dropped sharply, driven by fast fashion and cheap e-commerce.   Retail NZ CEO Carolyn Young told Mike Hosking a lot more people are looking to buy goods from overseas retailers as opposed to New Zealand.  She says they’re trying to encourage people to buy from local stores and businesses, as it’s important to try keep the money in our economy as opposed to shipping it off to China.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Wednesday 3rd of September, our tourism stats are slowly continuing to move in the right direction. So when will we reach 100% of our pre-Covid numbers?  David Seymour says New Zealand should pull out of the Paris Agreement – National says no. Former Fed Farmers Chair and Associate Agricultural Minister Andrew Hoggard speaks on the topic.   On Politics Wednesday, Ginny Andersen and Mark Mitchell talk the Tamaki Makaurau byelection and Brooke van Velden’s controversial comments, plus Mike extracts a promise as to how early they’d get up in the morning for a prerecord.   Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Government ministers have received a reminder about the "separation of powers".  Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden has been criticised for claiming Employment Relations Authority members believed “money grows on trees”.  She's told our newsroom Attorney-General Judith Collins has discussed the matter with her.  National's Mark Mitchell told Mike Hosking Collins has reminded ministers they can't openly criticise the judiciary.  He says the separation of powers is important in a strong western democracy like ours.  Labour’s Ginny Andersen says the problem is that van Velden seems to have appointed people and expected them to make different decisions.  She says her comments demonstrate that they’ve been appointed on the basis that they’ll make certain decisions as opposed to being independent.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Christchurch father-of-three has won a nationwide competition to design a helmet for Formula One driver Liam Lawson.  The competition, run by Lawson’s team sponsors Red Bull, invited New Zealanders to submit original designs and offered a rare chance to see their creativity come to life on the F1 grid.  Nearly 500 designs were submitted, and the winning design will debut at the Singapore GP in October.   Winner Ian Ebbs told Mike Hosking he took into account things Lawson likes —the colours on his previous helmets, and hobbies like golf— as well as including tastes of home.  He says the design is a taste of New Zealand.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

ACT believes New Zealand needs to be more realistic when it comes to the Paris Agreement.   The party, along with NZ First, have expressed interest in withdrawing from the agreement unless we can negotiate a better deal.  Associate Agriculture Minister Andrew Hoggard says that trying to meet our current targets is costing the country too much.  He told Mike Hosking that we’ve got a lot of good stuff going for us, and we shouldn’t beat ourselves to death over being some sort of sacrificial guinea pig.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Schools are keen to move on from open-plan classrooms due to the negative impacts on learning.  The Government's announced it will give funding to schools for the classrooms to get fixed up.  They will be able to get the money from a contestable fund based on need to put walls in the barn-style classrooms.  Christchurch's Avonside Girls' High School Principal Catherine Law told Mike Hosking a few things worked in them, but overall, the experiment was a disaster.  She says there are some defenders, but the majority of people in education believe they were a mistake.  Law says they were implemented at a time when inquiry and student-based learning was a focus.  She says it was a perfect storm, but having 70 students in a classroom meant the importance of teacher-student relationships and routine was lost.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.