The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Are early finishes to blame for the surgical backlog?  Surgeon Chris Wakeman claims that public health professionals won’t perform surgeries past the 4pm cutoff, causing backlog issues.   Health NZ’s Chief Clinical Officer Dr Richard Sullivan told Mike Hosking that early finishes do occur.  The rosters generally run until about 4:30/5pm, and he says that there are very few operations that can be done in less than half an hour.   He says they’ve been running weekend theatres to try get more people through, but you need quite a big work force to do that consistently.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With Matariki this weekend, we’ve come to the end of a short week.  Kate Hawkesby and Tim Wilson joined Mike Hosking to get their session of Mike-bullying in early – going after his expensive tastes, his lack of control over his life, and his special burgundy suede loafers.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The latest carbon auction was a bust.  It attracted zero bids, becoming the eighth auction to be declined.  The secondary market currently sits around $58 a tonne, while the auction price sits at $68.  ACT’s Climate Change Spokesperson, Simon Court told Mike Hosking it shows that industrial emitters, such as coal users, already have enough units in the carbon bank to pay for this year's emissions.  With the success of the secondary market, Court says it’s evidence the Emissions Trading Scheme and the carbon markets are working quite well.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Crusaders’ current Super Rugby season is like chalk and cheese when compared to the las.  They missed the playoffs in 2024, with just four wins in 14 matches.  In contrast, this year sees them host the grand final against the Chiefs – clashing at the Apollo Projects Stadium in Christchurch on Saturday.  Coach Rob Penney told Mike Hosking the Chiefs have beaten them twice this year, but neither team is the same team as they were on those occasions.  He says it’s going to be another tight match, and the team that holds its composure the longest, prepares the best, and plays the best will be the ultimate victors.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Thursday 19th of June, what will our GDP number look like? It’s set to look quite healthy, but will that give us false hope in Q2?  The Crusaders are going to win the Super Rugby final this weekend, so coach Rob Penney is on to tell us how they’ll do it.    It’s a short week, so Kate Hawkesby and Tim Wilson get to have their Mike-bullying session slightly earlier as they Wrap the Week.   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.

A sleep-expert assures Melatonin is safe, but is still urging people to take caution.   Medsafe has given approval for the sleep drug to be available over the counter at pharmacies. It is commonly used to treat insomnia or jet lag.   Sleepwell Clinic Director Alex Bartle says potential side-effects are fairly minor, and long-term effects aren't fully understood.  However, he doesn’t believe it’s as valuable as it’s made out to be.   Bartle told Mike Hosking behavioural treatments are much more effective.  He says a 2017 study shows a person's total sleep time after taking the medication didn't improve, and says he doesn't prescribe Melatonin at all.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are concerns scrapping the traditional census won't deliver the desired results.  Stats NZ is moving to a system using Government collected admin-data, saying the current five yearly Census is financially unsustainable.  Census-style questions will still be asked in much smaller annual surveys looking at a small fraction of the population.  Former national statistician Len Cook told Mike Hosking data-wise, this won't cut it.  He says admin-data comes from about a dozen different sources, none of them complete.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The economy is expected to look better than earlier predictions.  Figures —due out from Stats NZ this morning— are expected to show the country's GDP grew 0.7% for the first quarter of the year.   It's slightly higher than 0.4%, predicted earlier this year.  ASB chief economist Nick Tuffley told Mike Hosking things are expected to slow through the middle half of the year.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now, perhaps the most startling thing of the news yesterday that our old mates at the state radio broadcaster have opened a voluntary redundancy programme, is that they've never done that before.   100 years they've been doing the business at Radio New Zealand. 100 years, never had a voluntary redundancy. Tells you something about how insulated the real world from the real world they are.   Mind you, I don't even know that's true actually, because Radio New Zealand used to be a whole different beast.   In my early days of broadcasting, Radio New Zealand encompassed commercial and non-commercial radio stations, and there was, I can tell you from personal experience, no shortage of carnage fiscally. The place was run by halfwits and we were permanently in a state of flux, if not carnage.   The most famous might have been a thing called Project Aurora, where we allegedly all took pay cuts – that was a scandal in and of itself.  So it's not like the media hasn't seen tricky days, and I think that's the ultimate point here, isn't it?   There's a tremendous amount of coverage of the media, too much, really. And if I can be a little bit blunt, a lot of the tough stuff in the industry is no more upsetting than the dark days for any number of industries.   Also, and this applies to Radio New Zealand, if you live in a false world, it will catch up with you eventually.   Yes, media like a lot of industries is changing, but then it always has. 44 years in and counting for me, I can tell you media has been in a constant state of change, if not upheaval – it's all I've ever known. No, it wasn't always Google or Facebook nicking the ad money, but it was video, or TV, or deregulation of licences, or rubbish management.   Having worked at Morning Report myself, you've never seen such a sheltered workshop of lavish staffing and indulgence. They enter the Radio Awards every year and apart from not winning, the joke in the industry is the number of producers they've got: 19. Are you serious?   For contrast, this show, which 1. wins and 2. has more listeners, has three. And that includes Glenn, which is debatable as to whether we should include him at all.   I wish no one ill will, don't get me wrong. I wish no one ill will. I wish boom times prevailed across the whole landscape. But equally, I wish people lived in the real world. And Willie Jackson handing out tens of millions is irresponsible politics, not a business plan.   Willie and his ilk, as always, never paid the price for this. The poor sap who took the new Radio New Zealand job will.   The money that pays for jobs has either earned or it's given. If it's given, it's always on a whim – in this case a political one. It is not their fault that Willie is an idiot. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Right, let's deal to the economy.  There were two interesting things yesterday.  The first was the food price inflation number showed it is not contained.  Why it is increasing beyond broad inflation is a many and varied thing, and the upside of these numbers is we can control them to a degree.  You don’t have to buy chocolate, given cocoa is through the roof.  You don’t have to buy butter, or a lot of dairy.  Vegetables are up, but that is seasonal. Seasonal fruit and vegetables are always reasonably priced.  Water though, which was the second thing, is not a luxury. Our bill arrived yesterday and, yet again, the price is going up, this time by 7%.  It's like rates and electricity – they're all going up and they're all going up beyond the band of inflation.  The trouble with this is severalfold.  Firstly, this in and of itself is inflationary and it isn't productive. In other words, we are no better off. I still use the same water, it just costs more.  Ideally what you want is more stuff done to produce the income to afford the bills. So if the cost of living is going up 3% and your income is going up 5%, we are okay and are ahead of the curve.  This, sadly, is not happening.  So we most likely have no growth driving the economy and yet we have increasing costs to operate that non-productive economy. That my friends is called stagflation.  So, can we control Israel attacking Iran and the oil price spiking? No.  Can we control the cost of the ship through troubled Middle Eastern waters? No.  But can we control, to some degree, this incessant cost-plus accounting that’s going on domestically by people who got the taste of price increases during Covid and basically never stopped? You would hope so.  This is a central Government thing, especially given a lot of these businesses, weather and power companies, water agencies, or councils have a major central Government input.  If the banks were right yesterday upon the release of the services sector numbers when they said this was an economy in recession, again, price rises in food and water aren't helping what is becoming an alarmingly large hole. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.