Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

I want to start off with the Bendigo-Ophir mine near Cromwell, and the question is should it get fast track approval? The Australian company Santana Minerals has applied to build four open pits in the Dunstan Range near Cromwell, the largest of which would be one kilometre long and 300 metres deep, and it's alongside a two kilometre long tailings storage dam which would stay there forever.  

The company says the project follow...

A community split in Central Otago as the fast-track panel considers a gold-mine proposal from Australian company, Bendigo-Ophir.  

Santana Minerals estimates it could extract $4.4 billion of gold from hills above the Clutha River with open pit and underground mining 

Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton warns it has considerable environmental risk.  

Local mayor Tamah Alley told Andrew Dickens ...

Let's talk about something that is very crucial to our economy and that's the India Free Trade Deal. We are an exporter. We live because of what we export from the farms and in particular free trade deals help. So New Zealand's major exporters turned up the pressure on Parliament yesterday, urging all political parties to support the country's proposed free trade agreement with India. 28 exporters and industry groups including Fede...

Midday today, our time, is the deadline set by President Trump for the reopening of the Straits of Hormuz. Failure to do so will apparently be punished by a widespread bombing campaign on civilian targets in Iran.  

Of course, for all of us, this is a bit worrying and a little bit horrifying. I had been saying around the office today, welcome to the end of civilization. I said that to Murray Kirkness, the editor of the Herald,...

A major new Australian study tracking more than 270,000 children has found that long hours in childcare — especially more than 40 hours a week — are linked with a higher risk of children struggling with social competence and emotional maturity by the time they reach school.  

And that makes total sense, doesn’t it? That’s because they basically go into a school system – they're being educated, they’re being taught how to read,...

New technology promises to speed up the process in checking for skin cancer, and it's set to take the pressure off the health system.

Skinscape 360's new full-body scanner is one of just 115 of its type in the world and uses 92 cameras to take an instant 3D snapshot of a patient in order to quickly flag anything of concern.

Dermoscopist Clare Gunn says this technology isn't covered by insurance yet - but they're hoping to change th...

I want to start with the story of Jacquie Kidd. Jacquie's a former nurse who's spent more than 20 years researching Māori health inequities. She is the AUT professor of Māori health and she is now facing her own terminal cancer diagnosis. She's got a touch of the bowel cancer, which has now spread to her lungs. She is 62 years of age. 

Since she's found out about this cancer, she's penned a memoir called ‘Ngākaurua: My experie...

An ACT MP is questioning the spending of taxpayer money on a football match.   

The Government's supporting a clash between English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur and Auckland FC at Eden Park as part of its $70 million Major Events package. 

ACT MP Todd Stephenson is asking why the match is being subsidised by taxpayers, when neither club is a charity and both are backed by billionaires.  

He told Andrew ...

Here we are in the middle of autumn, or is it the start of another winter of discontent? Because April the 1st is the time of scheduled price increases. All sorts of things are going up. The minimum wage goes up today, putting more pressure on small businesses. Thank you very much, at a time of pressure anyway, you're going to have to spend more on your wage bill. Meanwhile, the ACC earners' levy is going up to $1.75 for every $100...

"It's the economy, stupid," is a catchphrase that means the primary concern of American voters is the state of the American economy and how that economy affects their personal finances. It was a phrase coined by a strategist in Bill Clinton's successful presidential campaign, and it's pretty much what Christopher Luxon campaigned on in 2023.  

The Labour Government were, and I paraphrase, incompetent economic vandals who had d...

New Zealand First is ramping up its campaigning with an election fast approaching. They announced that if they have any say in the matter, if they form any part of a government, half of all mining royalties will go to the region from whence it came rather than head straight into the treasury coffers in Wellington.

New Zealand First says it will build up wealth and infrastructure in the regions allowing for future development rather...

The former Prime Minister, the former Health Minister, the leader of the Labour Party has to go. His position is simply untenable. Chris Hipkins has consistently maintained he never received advice telling him there was a risk involved in requiring 12 to 17-year-olds to have a second Covid vaccination. As the Herald headline says this morning, a Cabinet paper shows otherwise.  

Derek Cheng's story shows that the Covid Vaccine ...

I doubt there'll be many people out on the water —certainly not in the upper North Island on the East Coast— but the next time you go out, let me know what the catch is like. The Government's done a U-turn on minimum size limits for commercial fishers, but that's not enough for fishing advocacy groups. They want the Government to kill the Fisheries Amendment Bill entirely. They say it's not doing enough to protect our fish stocks. ...

A commercial fisherman is aiming to clear up some misconceptions around the industry in the wake of the Government’s controversial Fisheries Amendment policy. 

The Government yesterday U-turned on one clause, which would’ve eased the minimum fish size limits for commercial companies.  

Doug Saunders-Loder, the President of the NZ Federation of Commercial Fishermen, told Kerre Woodham they’re unfortunately in a situation i...

The Education Minister’s pressing ahead with a major overhaul of NCEA, scrapping the current system and replacing it entirely. 

Cabinet’s signed off on a move to subject-based assessments in Years 12 and 13. 

The first changes will roll out from 2028, when NCEA Level One will be axed altogether. 

Erica Stanford says English and Maths will be compulsory for all Year 11 students under the new model, and is seeking more...

So help is on the way from the Government, as expected. The announcement came around 12:30pm yesterday. Thought it might be too late, because according to Donald Trump, “me and the Ayatollah are going to be controlling the Straits of Hormuz”. Be open very soon, he says. Well, that's good, isn't it? But in the meantime, while we wait for that to eventuate, Donald Trump and the Ayatollah cutting the ribbon over the Straits of Hormuz,...

If Trump's envoys weren't talking to Iranian officials, who the hell were they talking to? When you get older, you expect that you can make more sense of the world, but I've got to be honest here, I am struggling to make sense of anything. I was reading the headlines at about 5 this morning. Trump talking about the good and productive talks having been conducted by special envoy Steve Witkoff, his son in law Jared Kushner. There'll...

In today's edition of Fuel Watch, the Green Party is offering its votes to the National Party to get on with passing what the Greens call a sensible and urgent fossil fuel crisis relief package.

And you know what, it is quite sensible.

They're not suggesting a horse and cart for every home - that's sensible. With the Greens and National's combined 63 votes, the Greens say you don't need any other political party to get this through...

The Green Party is offering its support to National to fast-track a fossil fuel relief package, bypasssing other parties with their combined 63 votes.

The proposal includes three months of free public transport, a windfall tax on fuel companies, and targeted payments for rural and low-income earners.

The Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick told Kerre Woodham, "we have put a sensible and urgent fossil fuel crisis relief package on...