Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Today, we thought we'd have a look at jury duty, given a story in the New Zealand Herald this morning. I've only been called for jury service once, a couple of years ago, before Covid, which isn't really a couple of years, is it? It's like six years ago. I was keen as mustard. Couldn't wait. 

Fortunately, I have a very supportive employer who's able to sustain me doing my jury service. So I was able to take the week off and I ...

In an opinion piece in Newsroom, former United Future leader and Political Commentator Peter Dunne writes about "How to stop NZ First from playing the two main parties off against each other".

Under our MMP system, NZ First often holds the "kingmaker" position, allowing them to leverage the two main parties, National and Labour, against each other during coalition negotiations.

Currently, NZ First is polling strongly (between 9% an...

Stats New Zealand released the labour market statistics yesterday while I was on air talking to my caller Troy, and the numbers were not good. 

KW: The unemployment rate is 5.4% in the December quarter, up 5.3 in September. So we'll discuss that with Liam Dann in a minute. There we go.  

T: Interesting in an election year, that will be interesting for sure. 

Interesting in an election year for sure, Troy. For a gover...

The job market's remaining tougher, for longer, than many economists were expecting. 

Unemployment's reached a ten-year high of 5.4% in the December quarter, and the broader under-utilisation rate is close to a ten-year high as well, at 13%. 

Finance Minister Nicola Willis is trying to point out silver linings, saying the data also shows more jobs have been created, and hours worked are increasing. 

Frog Recruitment ...

Unemployment's risen again to a ten-year high, with 165 thousand Kiwis currently out of work. 

Stats NZ data shows the unemployment rate was 5.4% in the December quarter, up from 5.3% in the September quarter. 

It's now the highest it's been since September 2015. 

The Herald's Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham while today's rise is small, it's also unexpected. 

He says there was some hope we had seen the peak of unem...

Remember the terror of the driving test? Your heart in your mouth as you drove around the mean streets of Timaru or Ashburton, or in my case Tauranga, with a gimlet-eyed traffic cop watching your every move. The parallel parking, the hill starts. I only got my license because the cop took pity on me, I'd have lost my job if I didn't pass the test. But it's been 40 years now and I haven't had any major incidents in that time, finger...

The Government wants to open New Zealand up to mining investment from all countries, not just from the US. 

New Zealand's one of dozens of countries negotiating with the US on a potential minerals deal. 

Ministers from New Zealand, Australia, the US, UK and EU are also meeting in Washington DC this week to discuss a potential security alliance over critical minerals. 

Minerals Council CEO Josie Vidal told Kerre Woodh...

As children head off to school this week, many of them for the first time, a woeful number of young ones are ill-prepared for the classroom.  

A recent survey conducted by the Auckland Primary Principals' Association and released by the ECE sector partnership, found nearly 90% of Auckland primary schools have reported an increasing number of children starting school without basic skills, such as talking, eating, and toileting....

It's believed the pandemic can't be used as an excuse for why a growing number children aren't ready for life in the classroom. 

Some primary schools are reporting record levels of children arriving without basic skills such as talking, eating, and toileting. 

Auckland Primary Principals' Association President and Milford School Principal Lucy Naylor told Kerre Woodham this was the case immediately after Covid, but it's s...

We thought we'd start with the new 12-month prescription rules. They came into force this weekend and are designed to save time and cut GP visits for patients. But community pharmacists say this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back because it's the latest in a raft of changes in a sector that is fighting to survive. The rules mean that people with long-term stable conditions can now get prescriptions of up to a year from...

I've always understood the theory behind mainstreaming. We're all different, we all have different abilities, different attitudes, and a classroom of individuals with diverse personalities and levels of learning prepares young people for the real world. You're not among your own kind once you leave school and enter the workplace, enter the community. Mainstreaming means that kids who are different physically, intellectually, social...

The Government is building two new specialist schools for children with complex learning needs.  

The schools in Palmerston North and South Auckland will open in 2027 and 2028 respectively.  

Education Minister Erica Stanford says debate has raged on whether such children should be in mainstream or special schools.  

She told Kerre Woodham that there’s an argument that every single child should be mainstream no matte...

Concerns that banning the use of boats and jet skis by fire stations is a box ticking exercise. 

Fire and Emergency NZ banned the use of all powered watercrafts by local fire stations in May of 2025. 

The decision means that Waikato’s volunteer fire stations are unable to use their jet skis and boat during emergency situations on the Waikato River. 

Yesterday saw Fire and Emergency face tough questioning on the subje...

I have said it before and I'll say it again. We can argue for hours, we can have online debates, we can write letters to the editor about whether extreme weather events are the result of anthropomorphic activity or whether we're just in the middle of a natural cycle that's occurred for millennia, but ultimately, what we think about climate change doesn't really matter. It's what banks and insurers and councils and the Government th...

The arrival of Netflix and other film streaming services was the death knell for video rental stores. Five years after Netflix arrived in New Zealand in 2015, the majority of stores, once mainstays of our weekends —who didn't go in and spend an hour or so in the video rental store trying to decide what to choose for the weekend?— had closed across the country.  

Yet despite 99% of New Zealanders saying they used email regularl...

And here we all are, another summer, and while for many people it was fun in the sun and family catchups, for others it was dealing with floods and landslides. Specialised crews are still working, and will be working for some time yet, on recovering the bodies of the missing Mount Maunganui campers. Families are mourning the loss of a Welcome Bay grandmother and grandson killed in another Bay of Plenty landslip, and around the coun...

Inflation's officially higher than it's supposed to be. 

Latest Stats NZ data shows inflation's reached 3.1% – up from 3% at the last update three months ago. 

That's above the Reserve Bank's target range of 1 to 3%. 

The Herald's Liam Dann told John MacDonald it's also well above the Reserve Bank's forecast of 2.7%. 

He says there were hopes inflation was starting to fall again, so to see a rise like this isn't...

Ambulances have been seen coming and going from the site of a major search operation at the base of Mount Maunganui. 

Multiple people remain unaccounted for after yesterday morning's landslide, with crews working through the night to shift a massive amount of dirt and debris. 

A source has told the Herald as many as nine people are potentially trapped. 

Herald Senior Investigative Reporter Michael Morrah is on the sc...

People still aren't accounted for in Mount Maunganui's Beachside Holiday Park after a landslide roared into the campsite at the base of the mountain at about 9.30 this morning.  

Images show a caravan on its side inside the nearby the hot pools.  

Newstalk ZB Sport reporter Brian Kelly says about 30 police cars have arrived – the most he's seen in the town.   

He says there’s a couple of helicopters, seven or ei...