Full Show Podcast: 16 July 2026

On the Matt Heath and Tyler Adams Afternoons Full Show Podcast for the 16th of July 2026, some great chat about a Greens private members bill to make union membership opt-out.  

And then, stories of getting injured overseas.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk, said, b
follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
The big stories, the big issues, the big trends, and
everything in between. Matt Heath and Taylor Adams Afternoons news.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Talk said, be.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Very good afternoon. Do you welcome into today's show. Really
nice to have your company. We're if you're listening in
this beautiful country of ours. Matt Heath, Hello, Tyler, thanks
for joining me today to do this show.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Sorr.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
I'm a bit discompopulated after the England lost. I'm just
trying and re refocus and say make sure that you
keep your mic off terre in the braks.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Thank you mate, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
People that have just joined us.

Speaker 4 (00:55):
In the first hour of the show that goes to
the major centers and not the regional centers. Yep, Tyler
had two hot my concidents in the last hour.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
I did, and I apologize sincerely for that. But can
I just say, I think you know, like you were
one hundred percent in to this morning and it was
an emotional rollercoaster. Some of that rubbed off on me,
and so I blame you for that hot mic mistake.
To be honest man.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
Yeah, yeah, I did sing an emotional version, a cappella
version of It's Coming Home.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
You did, you did, and they got your emotions.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
They got me, It got me, So I apologize. All right, Well,
let's try and have a professional three hours of radio
A mates. We can certainly do that. So let's get
into this one. This is going to be a great discussion.
We want to talk about unions. This is after the
Green Party is proposing to make union membership the default
setting for new workers, saying it would boost collective bargaining
strength while still giving individuals the choice to opt out.

(01:45):
Co leader Madam and Davidson, she announced the plans this
morning to introduce the Employment Relations Amendment Bill and campaign
on the policy into this year's election. So under the proposal,
employers would be required to automatically enroll new hires into
a designated default union if their role is covered by
a collective agreement, though workers would still be free to

(02:06):
leave the union at any stage. She says the bill
is intended to increase union membership, of course strength and
collective bargaining and reduce income inequality, with the Green Party
arguing declining unionization has weakened workers bargaining power in this country.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
It's kind of quite a strange thing.

Speaker 4 (02:25):
That's even though you can immediately opt out, that you
go in and you're immediately associated with an organization you
have to pay fees to unless you take the effort
to go out. It's right, and the employer has to
do the admin around connecting you to the union. And
I think the idea is would be the biggest a
union associated with the workplace. But I'll be interested to

(02:48):
see what people think about unions now. Of course they
did bring you know, they're responsible for a lot of
things that that workers enjoy now, but a lot of
that stuff is now enshrined in law, isn't it. It
is so the gains have been locked in. But have
you received you'd valuable help from a union or paid

(03:10):
fees without getting the support you expected? And how would
you feel about automatically being enrolled in a union when
you start a new job, even with the opt out feature.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Oh, one hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number
to call. If you've been in a union, what did
you get out of being in that collective agreement or arrangement?
And if you've never been in a union, why what
was your reason for never signing up? Tell us nine
two ninety two is the text. Number is well plenty
coming through, but we'll get to a few of those
very shortly. It is ten past three.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
The big stories, the big issues, the big trends and
everything in between. Matt Heath and Tyler Adams afternoons used talks.

Speaker 5 (03:50):
That'd be.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Twelve past one. So the Green Party want to make
a union membership the default setting for new workers. Is
this a good idea in your view? And if you
have been part of a union, what benefits did you
get from it?

Speaker 4 (04:03):
This text says, what a load of hysteria. The Greens
aren't suggesting compulsory unionism. You can opt out, but if
a person is, you know it doesn't actively join. Has
consent really been given? It's very It's quite a strange thing.
So you join and then you have to opt out?
What about unions just become prove their worth to the

(04:23):
point that you want to opt in?

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah, what do you say? One hundred and eighty ten
eighty is the number to call in nineteen NINETI is
the text, Uh kareem?

Speaker 6 (04:30):
How are you good afternoon? Guys?

Speaker 7 (04:33):
How are you doing?

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Not so bad. What's your thoughts on this?

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Oh?

Speaker 7 (04:37):
My thoughts on that is like, are we complaining about
our young people can't get a job. It's hard to
get a job, Unemployment is up the roof, and then
we're going to put another restriction on businesses to hire people. Well,
how are we going to empower? How are we going
to empower our young generation? Why are we not going
to tell our people if the boss doesn't value you,

(04:57):
if it doesn't give you the money you want, you deserve,
tell them have an I day, go down the road,
get another job. Why are we making ninety states we
tell if some people are slapping the channel face, come
to me, I'll help you. Union is a waste of time.
I've been in this country for twenty five years, never
been unemployed one. They've never been a part of union.

(05:19):
AM proud of my own my own business. I've got
fifteen people rex for me and are proud to look
after them. If I devalue my employees, if I don't
look after them, they will have fully right to go
down the road, get another job. Nobody wants to lose
their good employees. I love every single of them to
bid the best part of my business is my workers.

(05:40):
But why Greening bringing this rubbish system to make it
harder for businesses to hire people?

Speaker 4 (05:46):
Would you agree that unions have done good things in
the past for the country, the kareem and things like
the forty hour week, and you know the health and
safety that's been coming from unions over the years.

Speaker 8 (06:01):
That I.

Speaker 7 (06:04):
In certain part, in certain points. As we said, one
size doesn't at all. I agree some of that stuff maybe,
but in general to be a part of communism to
tell you how to run your live and dictate your business,
I don't think so.

Speaker 5 (06:19):
I don't think so.

Speaker 7 (06:20):
Small businesses seventy five percent of this country is as
a small medium to businesses under twenty five employees. Why
we put in we alreally got so many restrictions.

Speaker 5 (06:30):
We live in New.

Speaker 7 (06:30):
Zealand, for the love of God. We don't live somewhere
ideas lawless as completely world. We we both employee and employees.
They covered by law up to the eyeballs. There is
a system, there's a lord, there is an act. Everything
isn't there.

Speaker 6 (06:45):
Why we believe are never lived.

Speaker 4 (06:47):
Do you have any so you employ people or any
of your employees involved in a union at all?

Speaker 7 (06:54):
They never ask me. They never need it. Some of
my stuff has worked for me. Some of my stuff
worked for me for the last nine years. Actually, I
don't want to kind of like a that's my customer.

Speaker 6 (07:04):
I know it's coffee order.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Oh okay, you're the local grista. You do a great coffee.

Speaker 7 (07:09):
Apparently it's yeah, I just like I probably other words.
I don't not to say money, business name or not.
I'm proud to say it because if I allowed to.
But we don't need, we don't need. We need to
empower our young people. We need to teach them to
be strong. If the boss doesn't value you, it's not

(07:31):
fit for you. Say thank you, go down the road,
find something better. This is the way you can empower
people to grow.

Speaker 4 (07:39):
If you have If you've got an employee and they
come up to you and they want changing conditions, are
you open to hear them individually? If an individual employing
comes up.

Speaker 7 (07:49):
Absolutely, Because we've got employment contract and employment contract is
as based in New Zealand law. Understand that Employment Act.
I can't draw a contract to outlaw the law of
New Zealand and the Act of Employment. Our contract is
costing us. I'm in a lake to look for by
our lawyers to build a contracy to match up what

(08:10):
is the law says in New Zealand. So what is
the point we bring in something else union to come
and breed employee's neck another one something to make it harder.

Speaker 9 (08:18):
For people to hire.

Speaker 6 (08:20):
Do you think you need to create jobs?

Speaker 3 (08:22):
Yeah? Do you think it's different for different industries? At kareem,
so you're in the hospitality industry, maybe unionization is not
right for that particular industry, but there might be for
some that there's workers who come into it, they don't
know too much about what the union could offer in
the default setting. If they don't like it, they can leave,
But maybe that just gives them a bit more information
on their options.

Speaker 7 (08:44):
Thank you.

Speaker 10 (08:44):
Look at now we're asking the right question.

Speaker 7 (08:46):
Why we have it to compost you for every business
is why we're not going to put in those businesses
where they need to be. Why every little deary shop
when you hire sixteen years old to monitor the tell
for the next two hours and it has to be
signing in union and give them a paycheck for what
if union was if union was out there exactly for
the honesty to just be no politically connect on them.

Speaker 6 (09:09):
To be haunts and hard to do a great job.

Speaker 7 (09:11):
I was up for it, they're not. They need to
club the tickets, they need to be at like a
big shot and trying to tell you how to run
your life do bug you off.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Very well?

Speaker 3 (09:23):
I mean there is something in it as well.

Speaker 4 (09:24):
So if you if you are compulsory for you know,
to enrolled in automatically enrolled in a union, then you're automatically.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Paying their union fees.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
I think the Green's proposal would mean that you don't
have to pay fees for a month, but you but
you're in there. But if it's protecting people that don't
really know what's going on, because that would be the
argument the best argument for it is to protect people
that aren't savvy on and can't negotiate for themselves on
or whatever. Then are they going to be Are they
going to be onto it enough to push back and
leave the union or are they just going to be

(09:53):
stuck paying union fees you know, because they they're not
enough to run their own life. So are they onto
it enough to you know, disattached from the union?

Speaker 7 (10:05):
Yeap? So So how is the things So how is
the things for like working actually we said as well as.

Speaker 6 (10:09):
Say like you cannot. You cannot panelize.

Speaker 7 (10:13):
Because of a few back Apple. Every business is in
New Zealand. There's people out there, they're employed, they're there
exploiting the employees. They don't pay right, they don't have
a proper system. Those things can never change. I'm sorry
to say that the rule does not apply to batters,
but we cannot. But you cannot kanelize good businesses like

(10:34):
every like me, like everyone else, to have a compulsory
another people work to clip in the tickets.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
Think you caring? Passionate?

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, yeah, makes makes great coffee.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yes, sounds like it. He's proud of it as.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
Well, runs a business that makes great coffee.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you very much for your call, Kareem,
So do you agree with them? O one hundred and
eighty ten eighty is the number to call, Rachel. You're
coming at this from both sides.

Speaker 11 (10:57):
I am, I am. I don't want to give too
much information about the company, so I'm referring to what
am I allowed to mention them?

Speaker 4 (11:06):
Probably if you if you need to, but if you
can get around without mentioning them, let's let's just make
it easy for.

Speaker 11 (11:11):
You so positive. My sister and my mother were in
a care business. Their union got them paid for their sleepovers.

Speaker 4 (11:22):
Right, And did you say in the sorry, I heard
that wrong. I thought you said ike business. So you
said the.

Speaker 11 (11:26):
Care business here, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, caring, caring for
people who need it. Yeah, right, Yes, they got themselves
paid for their sleepovers, which was a super big one
for them.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
Right when they get paid, because I was just trying
to remember that when that was in the news. So
at what rate do they get paid for the sleepovers?

Speaker 11 (11:44):
I'm not sure if it's a full wage, I can't remember.

Speaker 4 (11:48):
Probably not fall if you're asleep, I guess, but you know,
you're our away from the ouse.

Speaker 11 (11:53):
Yeah, exactly. And if they wake up, they wake.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Up, yeah yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 11 (11:59):
And the kind of things that you're dealing with in
the middle of the night too, you know.

Speaker 4 (12:02):
So they would think that they would think that their
union fees and have been worthwhile because they've been represented
and received something from it.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Indeed, you've got another scenario though, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (12:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (12:17):
So I used to work for a moving company and
they actually had a meeting with us. The union people
came into us staffroom, had a little chat with us.
I kind of sat back and thought, these guys can't
even answer all the questions I'm asking, So I said, yeah, and.

Speaker 12 (12:33):
You're a peck of wallies.

Speaker 11 (12:34):
I'm not interested. And then maybe a year or so
went by and one of my teammates actually said, hey, look,
I've been paying these guys and I've reached out to
them and they've turned around and said, oh, can you
try and work it out on your own?

Speaker 3 (12:48):
Right? The union delegates said that, yep.

Speaker 11 (12:51):
That's what the union said to them.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
All right.

Speaker 11 (12:53):
Well, and kind of little little had been a giggle
on the inside that I hadn't wasted my money.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
Well doesn't, haven't you raised the point and that a
union should prove its worth. So and the first case
you're talking about, they've proven their worth. In the other case,
they haven't proven their worth. So the idea that you'd
be compulsorily you know, you're automatically signed up to them,
shouldn't it be the other way around that you're you
know that that the union is so useful that you're

(13:21):
happy to pay for them, you know, And that's probably
the case with your sister and mother.

Speaker 5 (13:26):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 11 (13:27):
It's like key, we favor and I've got a friend
whose boss was not doing right by them. He wasn't
paying taxes, he wasn't paying acc and he wasn't paying
the guys key we save us. So yeah, then that's
another cafe owner, but we won't go into that. So yeah,
that's my experience with union's paying. But the gent you

(13:49):
had on the phone.

Speaker 8 (13:50):
Before is right.

Speaker 11 (13:51):
You know, if you support your workers and you appreciate them,
then they're not going to need a union.

Speaker 4 (13:58):
Thank you for your call, Rachel. This text says, Matt,
you're ignoring the complexities of the issue. As per usual,
bosses often frown upon people joining unions, and you're expecting
a new employee to feel comfortable enough to stand up
to their boss by joining on day one. It's a
decision made under jus, which I assume is what the
Green's policy is attempting to address. The unions I've been

(14:20):
part of We're great. They got me pay rises, back pay,
positive changes in the workplace, all of which were the
result of the employee ripping us off royally. But like
all human organizations, they're imperfect. That is nothing new. But
if they frown on your text and thank you for
your text, but if they frown on you for joining
the union, you know, will they I mean, if you've

(14:43):
got the opportunity to leave the union, won't they just
keep frowning on you that you're continuing to be part
of the union.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (14:48):
Yeah, because because in this thing, the employers have to
enroll workers, and the employers would have to you know,
require would be required to enroll workers, transmit their details
and administer the relationship between the employee and this third
party organization which is a union. Right, yes, So the
you know, they're looking at you all the time saying
I yeah, yeah, I LOLd you for you and you

(15:11):
appear to have stayed yep. So if they're going to frown,
they're going to frown on that as well.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
Exactly. Thank you very much for your teach to keep
them coming through nine two ninety two, And we want
your thoughts on one hundred and eighty ten eighty. If
you're part of a union, what benefits have you got
from them? It is twenty four past one.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Fearless focused informed. It's the mic Hosking Breakfast.

Speaker 13 (15:31):
Fed farmers have quite rightly raised what you would loosely
call the alarm around a rush of new deals between
councils and local murray. The rush is on because the
government's new Natural Environment and Planning bills. They were released
last year. Under the new law, you can't do local
murray deals under it. It passed its first reading sitting
at committee level due back shortly. Deals have already been
done in the mann of tu Wanganui, North London, Taranaki.

(15:52):
This very sort of thing might be the reason for
the softness in the National Party vote at the moment.
Stitch up deals with local tribes is a gargantuan example
of what needed addressing on day one and we still
haven't closed it off. Back tomorrow at six am the
Mic Hosking breakfast with Defender Trophy News talks, they'd.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
Be twenty seven past one. So the Greens want to
bring in a policy that would see new workers join
the union by default. Do you think that's a good idea.
If you've been part of a union, what were the benefits?
And if you've never joined up, what were the reasons why?
Nineteen nine two texts an one hundred and eighty ten
eighty is the number to call Brian.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
You used to be a union delegate? Is that right?

Speaker 14 (16:28):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (16:29):
It used to be a national union delegate. So my
role was to go into various workplaces and try and
courage people to sign up to the union and train
of a delegates and all that. And part of one
of the one thing that MANA stood out to me
was to tell people that join the union was it

(16:52):
an insurance product in case anything went wrong with your boss.
And then all the managers that I went into that
were very nice to me. I never had an issuative
with any of the managers of the businesses that I
went into, and so I thought that was a little
bit odd that, you know, it started an insurance see
something goes wrong. And then one day something actually did

(17:12):
go wrong, and I had a deal that came to
me and said one of these staff members got accused
off theft and wanted the union to represent them and
do right with them. And I remember a famous x
MP who's now the one thing to me and said
to me, did he do it? And I said, well,
that's beside the point whether he did it or not.
We you know, we've got to support him, so that's

(17:33):
what they pay for. And he goes, well, I'm not
going to support someone that did it. And then basically
they said, you know, wash your hands of them. We're
not gonna We're not going to pay for his legal
fees or anything. We're not going to send our lawyer.
And that was the end of that. And it was
a bit of an eye opener to me. So I
went the union that day and they would have never,
never to do it again.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (17:55):
So what was your What was your sales pitch when
you went in so because you're basically trying to convince.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
People to join the union. Yeah, so so so it
was you was your sales pitch?

Speaker 9 (18:06):
We were told the tell the people that you know,
during the twenty dollars a week, thirty forty dollars an hour,
cost of living and all that. But you know, the
unions there to support you. Anything goes wrong, we're there
to back you and we'll look after you. And it's
an insurance again something that goes all right. Yeah, been
pushed a shove. Yeah, they were all talk on that.

Speaker 4 (18:32):
Did you see any anything, you know, you're you're selling
in this union membership and signing people up and such.
Did you see your union, you know, get any gains
for the people that were that you'd signed up.

Speaker 9 (18:45):
Well, I mean we got pay rises, right, you know,
and then that that's I look at that and going, well,
that would be normal because everyone gets a pay rise
or normally get to pay risk. But then you get
your pay rise to say three percent, and everyone tucks
their hands up and says, well done, yea. But then
your union possy feed up by x amount of dollars.
So your your gain that you've just made as big

(19:07):
does it go back to the union, And so you
know they're a little bitter rough. And then when where
does the money go with the labor party? It's list
fifty percent of the union subsequo too. So effectively it's
it's a beast interest to ask for more money because
they get more money to donate. It's such a it's

(19:28):
a legal money laundering technique.

Speaker 4 (19:30):
And so you know, when you became a for want
a bit of a word, a salesperson for joining a
particular union, were you pro union before that? How did
you get into that job? How did you ride up
through the ranks? Did you apply for a job, how
did you get in there?

Speaker 9 (19:46):
Basically? Yeah, yes, I was eighteen nineteen first job, and
you know, I guess I was a labor support because
you know, support workers' rights and you stick it to
the man and all that. And then you know, he
got voted in and you know, worked up the worked
up to national chain, so we got flown awround the
country and that was all nice. But when I worked

(20:10):
on it, I realized and going, actually this is not
that great. My eyes opened. Yeah, and then that guy
got que to fifth. Don't know whether you you know
he did it or not, never found out. But when
I got basically told you know, he was on his own,
I was like Christ, that could happen to me?

Speaker 4 (20:32):
Yeah, Well, you think that you would back your member,
you'd go, well, we're going.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
To try and defend him and find out the truth.
And we're in your corner.

Speaker 4 (20:40):
We're here to advocate for you. What are you if
you're not there to advocate for your members? What are
they getting out of it? Apart from these payers?

Speaker 2 (20:48):
David thank you so much for you called Brian, Yes,
thank you. Very interesting insights.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
Yeah, from a delegate that decided that the unions have
changed too much.

Speaker 4 (20:56):
This Texas says you fascists or ignoring what Marlama Davidson said.
The unions have won the eight hour working day, paid
leave child labor laws and workplace health and safety protection. Well, yes,
the unions have won those but and they played an
incredible important role in workplace reform obviously. But aren't these

(21:19):
minimum rights now established by law? They are, yeah, yeah,
and apply to union and non union workers alike. So
you've got to thank the unions for what they did. Yes,
but they did it so well that it's law now.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
And trined in law. Yeah, and anyone thinking out there, well,
they could go a little bit further and still have
you know, new things come to the table. But as
Brian said, do you think the unions have changed from
the unions of the sixties and seventies that these days
they are now more political? I mean, it blows my
mind that they donate to political parties. I understand why
they donate to the Labour Party because they think that

(21:51):
the Labor Party will be more beneficial for them and
their delegates, fair enough, but I still think that's an
odd thing to do, that you take your member's money
and then you give it to any sort of political party.
I mean, is there you know, should they be clamping
down on that? That to me blows my mind.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
Well, you'd be annoyed if you're paying, you've been signed
up for a union, even if you're there very briefly.
That isn't just advocating for your rights, but comes in
with the whole political agenda. Yeah, outside of just helping
you as a worker within your particular employment.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, what do you say? Oh, one hundred and eighty
ten eighties number to call it is twenty seven to
two headlines with railing coming up.

Speaker 14 (22:28):
You've talked said bee headlines with your righte New Zealand's
number one taxi app Download your ride today. Disgraced former
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(22:51):
says bird flu will not be a rerun of COVID,
with one case now found in New Zealand and it's
important to remember it's not a human flu. The Housing
Minister says the Central Wellington's Arlington development, untouched for years
and once the country's largest social housing development, is being
scaled down. Fifty million dollars has been spent on it

(23:13):
so far, One person is seriously injured after an altercation
on christ churches or Power Road just before midday. Two
bouncers have been charged into due in court next month
of an alleged assault on a team patron at Canterbury's
famous Grause Pub in May. China missile test highlights New
Zealand's fragile trade lifeline. You can read the full column

(23:37):
at zaid heerld dot co dot Nz. Back to matt
Ethan Tyler Adams.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Thank you very much, Rayleen. It's twenty three to two
and we're talking about unions after the Green Party wants
to bring a policy to the election that would make
it the default setting for new workers to join a union.

Speaker 4 (23:51):
Does it blow your mind? Says as text at big
business donate to political parties. This government already trying to
wind back wins, leave, health and safety. They hate the unions.
Without unions, we would be even more of a third
world country than we already are. I wish my line
of work had an active use. Unions exist because of
punishing injustice and greed within our society.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Cheers Joel.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
Okay you part of a union, Tyler? I am not
part of you that you can't ask that. Absolutely, you
can ask that I'm not part of a union right now?

Speaker 2 (24:20):
Have you ever been part of you?

Speaker 3 (24:21):
I was once, once upon a time.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
I don't know about the rules about unions. Is this
some kind of something wrong both.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Union membership?

Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yeah, legislative issue here. No, I was part of a union,
and I maybe to say I think I can say
that was when I worked for Food Stuffs and there
and their factory distributing food to supermarkets. I was part
of a union there. What did I get out of it?
I don't really know. I was pretty young. I was
seventeen at the time, and a union delegate came in
and said, you want to be part of the union.
I said, yeah, why not? So I signed the piece
of paper, paid my fees, and got my pay rise

(24:52):
every year. But whether I could have done better without
that union, probably not.

Speaker 4 (24:55):
At of those free laders that are getting your same
pay rise but aren't part of the union, how do
you feel about them? Did you start did you start
giving them the stinky at work?

Speaker 3 (25:03):
I was a freeloader at seventeen, so I did pretty
well for myself. But no, it's a fair point, because
then that's why I haven't joined a union since because
I thought, personally, if I'm going to back myself in
any job that I do, I think I can negotiate
higher than most people in the union. I think I
can say to my employer, whoever that is, Look, here's
the job I'm doing. Here's why I think I'm worth

(25:23):
the money I'm worth, rather than some delegate or some
union deciding everybody and how we collicked if group is
kind of worth the same, I just don't think that's true.
I think there are some workers who are worth more
than more than others.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
If you're so good, how can you lift your mic
on twice in the last hour and said stuff you
shouldn't have see it.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
I might need the union to save men.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
I've never been I've never really been employed, so I mean,
I've always been a contract worker.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
So you're the union of Mett Heath. Yeah, you're a
one man union.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
I'm I'm my EMPLOYEEE and employer.

Speaker 4 (25:54):
Yeah, I do have some employee in my other company.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
When you're at the record store, was there any opportunity
to I mean, I suppose that union.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
I must have been I must have be employed at
the record store. That's a good point. Yeah, yeah, that's
a long time again. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
You unions in the eighties fort for quotas in the
meat industry, I says Richard. What happened in practice was
the workers would get through the quota by two pm
and they would all go home paid for the day.
Unions aren't about productivity, they actually hurt the industry.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
Wayne, Welcome to the show. Yeah good.

Speaker 10 (26:25):
They a couple of things.

Speaker 9 (26:28):
Firstly, the.

Speaker 10 (26:32):
That as I read the Greens proposal, they're talking about
collective agreement. People are subject to collective agreements. Yeah, not
the sixteen year old going and working in a dairy
or the person working in a coffee bar who's not
subject to a collective agreement. So it's not every single
person in New Zealand when they get a new job,

(26:52):
has to join a union.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (26:54):
And I guess the reason for that is, as you
just mentioned, I've been involved in a particular company where
about thirty percent of the people were union members, seventy
percent weren't. The union negotiated pay rise and condition and
what have you, which was then applied to the seventy
percent who weren't paying their weekly fees, on monthly fees
or whatever they were. So that's sort of a fairness thing, yeah, right.

(27:19):
The other thing is that while Tyler's right, if you've
got a special talent or something like that that you
can go and sell to an employer, you can negotiate
whatever package you like. But a lot of people and again,
I've been involved in another part of another industry where
essentially the people who were working there were too scared,

(27:44):
too timid, too naive to even think they could go
and sit down with the boss and ask more money.
In that particular one, when everybody else was getting three
and four dollars and hour paying freezes, this particular boss
generously gave the workers in that company one dollar an hour.
And so it's for protections like that. Yes, there are

(28:07):
times when the unions do not function particularly well. Yes
I don't necessarily agree with the fact that they're aligned
with the labor party, but they are there for a reason.
And when you apply that to those industries that are
subject to corrective agreement, for example, you're food stuffs workers,

(28:32):
you know, taking groceries to supermarkets and stuff like that,
where everybody's all on the same level, essentially doing the
same job. The driver who drives a truck from for
Bona Road to Odaho does the same job as the
driver who drives a truck from Foravona Road to Habitati.
So there's no one might do it better though, Wayne, Well,

(28:57):
one might use a little bit less fuel, one might
be more personable, or what have you. But again, in
those sorts of industries, especially now everything is controlled by
GPS and computer, nobody can go unpack the truck at
the side of the road and go to sleep.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (29:12):
But but to go back to your point about people
being a bit timid. But if they're that kind of
person and they've been enrolled in the union automatically as
you say, colinctive agreement situations, and they get enrolled in
the biggest union, apparently this in this this suggestion, right,
are they aren't they also going to be the kind

(29:32):
of person that's too timid to leave the union or
not onto it enough to leave the union that they've
signed up to. And in a way, isn't i know,
freedom of association, which is important, right, doesn't that include
I mean, is it?

Speaker 2 (29:46):
Is it freedom?

Speaker 4 (29:47):
When you're no matter if you have an opt out,
but you're you're signed up to an organization without your consent,
and so if you're a timid person, you're that the
union is supposed to protect. At the same time, you're
signing them up to to to and associating them with
something that they haven't consented to do. You see what
I'm trying to say.

Speaker 10 (30:05):
It just like keep me sober. Nobody nobody consents to
be signed up immediately the key we save them that
does apply to every employee in the country.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, that's a new point to doubt. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (30:18):
Yeah, And so if it is, it is really complicated
and complicated.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
I mean the pushback i'd say to that way, and
is that I think arguably for most people, key WE
savor is a net benefit overall, and unions can it
is more nuanced, isn't it that Sometimes it's good, sometimes
it's tyler.

Speaker 10 (30:39):
A lot of people would say, and you've been saying
about the good things that unions have done over them
in the last number of years that unions are in
that very often a net benefit to the employees that
they serve.

Speaker 4 (30:51):
But maybe they're that the balance way and where they
where they've they've pushed and thank goodness for them to
the point where there's a net benefit and a bunch
of stuff is enshrined and laws now that protect employees
that wasn't there. But there must be a point when
unions go too far, to the point where they restrict
productivity such that people lose their jobs entirely.

Speaker 10 (31:10):
And then there's stuff won't get enshrined in law. You know,
if it's like laws have to be done by parliament. Okay,
if the union pushes for something absolutely ridiculous, it's not
going to get past it's not going to get past
first base. The actual members are going to say, oh,
you know, you didn't be a bit silly here. And
we've had that pushback again in the educational areas, not

(31:34):
to a great extent, but certainly with the Principles where
the Principals Association a large number of their members turned
around and said, oh, I think you're going a bit
too far there, guys, and so they buttoned off and
they got a collective agreement.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
They said that to the unions the Principles. Yeah, which
is a good thing. I mean, because again that's my concern,
Like many people have got teacher friends, and you know
with an education way and that there is some pushback
from those in the teaching profession that by and large
if you want to try and get a pay rise,
you have to be a part of that union. You
don't necessarily have to, but that's the way to get ahead.

(32:09):
But they worry about the political ideology thure seen in
that union and getting really frustrated. So by default, giving
the unions too much power could be detrimental for those.

Speaker 4 (32:19):
While those work like this text here Wayne in ziit,
I are insane. Do not use my name please. Okay,
you are a pariah.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
If you're not involved.

Speaker 4 (32:29):
Then they bring so many things to the table that
have nothing to do with making our pay and conditions better.
I don't want to be a member, but you try
not being a member and a staff room.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Good luck with that.

Speaker 10 (32:39):
Yeah. Yeah, But that's a really really good point because
when they were doing things like advocating for various groups
around the world and various lifestyles and bits and tistes
like that, there was so much pushback from the teachers
in the classrooms in the staff rooms. But after here

(33:00):
a relatively short period of time, those things that got
knocked out of, they got publicized, they got ridiculed, they
got knocked out mm hmm. And that's called democracy, I
tell you what.

Speaker 4 (33:11):
And I've just remembered what I was trying to say
when I had a brain explosion, possibly because I got
up and got emotional watching England this morning against Argentina.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
But I was just thinking of that.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
The point I was making that if you're if you're
a timid person and you're a compulsor, you're automatically enrolled.
But you're too timid, and you know, unions, as you say,
are there to predict the people that maybe aren't as
bold as other people to get the best deal for themselves,
so they enroll automatically. They're too timid to unroll. Next
thing you know, they're paying union fees for years, getting
benefits for everyone else in the in the business that

(33:41):
is that is unenrolled. You see what I'm saying.

Speaker 10 (33:44):
Yeah, well, that's exactly my point. That's why the growing
like I don't necessarily agree with for Greeds, trust me,
but it's one of the reasons why the Greens are saying, hey,
if you're involved in the collective agreement, you should If
your industry is involved in the collective agreement, then you
should be involved in the union unless you wish to
wipe out.

Speaker 3 (34:02):
Thank you for col Wayne, great Court Yeah, interesting points.
So what do you say to what Wayne had to say?
I think it was very balanced, certainly right on the
edge of my knowledge.

Speaker 15 (34:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
Look, there's a lot of gray area on this and
that's why it's a great discussion. So tell us what
you think, O eight hundred eighty, ten eighty. If you've
been a part of a union, what benefits did you get?
Tell us it is thirteen to two.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
Matt Heath, Taylor Adams taking your calls on. Oh, eight
hundred eighty ten eighty. It's mad Heath and Tylor Adams
afternoons news talks.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
They'd be it is ten to two and we are
talking about unions. The Greens want to make it a
default option when you start a new job to join
a union. Do you think that is a good idea?
I eight hundred eighty ten eighty. And have you got
big benefits out of the unions? Darren says I was
not a union.

Speaker 4 (34:43):
I was a non union at the meatworks, and then
considerably more than union workers and also got lots of
overtime and extra shifts because they dealt directly with me.
As for the sleeping as a truck driver, I always
took a nap around three and dispatched. Never had an
issue as it was about fatigue control. Again non union Peida,
welcome to show your thoughts.

Speaker 6 (35:03):
Here, you gy. When I was a young follow week
behind the UNC, I was working after school and the
industry that I was in went on strike. And one
thing I always remember from that when I was sixteen
is going to work because you weren't out of strike
as a part of time worker and all the other
tradesmen just standing at the window abusing the living hell

(35:28):
out of anyone else that worked and that was turned
up for work that was non union, and the abuse
they got was just terrible, scared if let's say that
blah blah blah. And I always remember once the the
strike finnest, they turned up to work like I was
just another Monday. And always from that day I said

(35:51):
I would never ever join the union. And almost two
decades later I joined the union because I had an
employment issue and the union helped or that.

Speaker 4 (36:02):
And what you got the employment issue and then you
joined the union, and because you joined the union, they
helped you with the employment issue before you joined.

Speaker 6 (36:14):
It was an interesting thing, you know, how you get
a gut feeling and I had a union rep that
worked in the same plant, and I said, we're just talking.
I said, I'll join up. And it was like six
dollars a week or whatever it was. There was nothing.
And then within four months I supposed to me joining
the issue, the employment issues came up, and the unions

(36:39):
helped me out legally wise, and I didn't know heavy
lifting really at or just provided information then you know,
the mediation side of it. And then when I left
the trade, I left the I left the union. So
they do you have some some meats there, but.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
Compulsory were you you did when you joined the union?
Did you find yourself yelling scared out the window at
people at any point?

Speaker 6 (37:08):
No? No, You know the funny thing was, you never
told people that you're in the union. And I think
Tyler just mentioned it just before that. You know, I've
been quite lucky over there before I joined that I
negotiate my own wages. You pay me what i'm worth.
But if you're going to pay me fifty cents, then
I'm gonna, you know, work fifty cents more, you know

(37:31):
sort of thing. So when it came to overtime, you're
always the first on the list because you weren't a
blood of us. So you got the overtime, you got
the extra little bit of money, but the only thing
you missed down on was one compulsory day a year
of opinion, the union meeting.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, I mean, is that a good time?

Speaker 3 (37:52):
I don't know, maybe, but glad they helped you out
in the end, Peter, thank you very much for your call.
What do you say one hundred and eighty ten eighty
if you've been part of a union, what benefits did
you get from that? It is six minutes to two.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Maddies Tyler Adams taking your calls on eight hundred and
eighty eight Heath and Tyler Adams afternoons news talks endy.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
It is four to one. A couple of texts before
the news hits us.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
The stick says the union I used to belong to
in the early two thousands would not have liked the
bollocks the Greens agree with. Unfortunately, most unions have been
captured by intellectual elitists who would never have a worker
around to their house for a beer. They would not
approve of our chat. Union leaders pretend to stand for us,
but they really stand for themselves.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Is this tex Star.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
Okay, right, we're going to carry this on after two o'clock. So, oh,
one hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call,
and if you want to send a text nine to
nine two. The Green Party want to make it the
default setting that you join a union when you start
a new job. Do you like that idea and what
benefits have you got from joining a union? Tell us
new Sport and Weather on its way. You're listening to
Matt Heath and Tyler Adams. Hope you're having a great
Thursday afternoon.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
The big stories, the big issues, the big trends and
everything in between. Matt Heath and Taylor Adams Afternoons News.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
Talk said me, very good afternoon to you. Welcome back
into the show. It is six past two, Tyler.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Have you been getting the time wrong again?

Speaker 3 (39:19):
I'm sure I nailed it. So there was a way
slip right at the top of the hour, and I
got a lot of hate for that. Quite rightly, we's.

Speaker 4 (39:27):
Just come through again. Come on, Tyler, says Wilson. Telling
the time is not hard, and that was sent through
at two o'clock.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
I need some backup evidence from Wilson. Please, can you
just provide the exact time and the audio file. If
you can of me screwing up the time once again,
and I'll admit defeat. But well, when you're away Tyler
for four days last week, I only got the time
wrong maybe nine, ten, maybe fifteen times maximum across the week.
That's pretty good, Mabe. I'm proud of you. Right, I'll

(39:53):
keep trying to get the time right if I did
get it wrong. Wilson, when do you go?

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Are you going forty five minutes to three?

Speaker 4 (40:00):
When do you as it? After half that? You said
twenty nine minutes to a seven past two? Now, yes,
but what we're would you accept? So fifty three minutes
to three? Yeah, fifty three to three. That's got a
nice ring to.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
It, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
These are the radio skills that you go to broadcasting
school to.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
Learn, hard fought and hard one. Yeah, absolutely right. We're
going to carry on our discussion about the unions. So
the Green Party has said this morning that unions are
to thank for its workplace rights. Kiwis now see at
a given it's made an election pledge to make union
membership automatic, meeting a call from Council of Trade Unions,

(40:39):
so membership would still be optional, but workers would need
to opt out, not opt in. So, Davidson says, unions
ensured New Zealanders work eight hour days and get paid leave,
but workplaces can exploit isolated employees.

Speaker 8 (40:53):
A particular industry.

Speaker 11 (40:54):
We're removing allowances for things like tools, literal tools for
their trade, removing some of the leave conditions.

Speaker 4 (41:01):
What's a literal tool? Literal tool, not just tools for
your trade? Literal tools?

Speaker 3 (41:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like a hammer's yeah, that would make sense. Yeah,
but do you think this makes sense? So the default
option when you start a new job, you get into
whatever union represents that industry. And if you've been a
part of a union, did you really get the benefits
you thought you were going to get when you were
part of that union?

Speaker 4 (41:22):
This Texas says, I'm in a union. We need to
know the a holes who aren't paying, aren't joining.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
But get the benefits.

Speaker 4 (41:29):
I see, aren't joining, but get the benefits. This bill
should be about union identification. If you aren't in the union,
I should know that's ominous, Okay, right, I should know. Yeah, So,
I mean, do you know who's in the union who's
not in the union. I mean, I guess the people
that are not in the union don't go to the
union days.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
Well, yeah, I don't think there's any problem. If you're
in the union and someone asks you if you're in
the union, then they say, yeah, I'm in the union.
I think you can you can happily ask that. In fact,
I mean Andrew did did a bit of a walk
around before we had this conversation to see who was
part of the union and it there. It turned out
there were quite a few people in various unions in
our newsroom.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Different unions.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
Yes, not in the single news room. They're all part
of the same union. Right, okay, right.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
No one's ever asked me to join the union.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
Do you feel left out? Is a delegate in this place? Yeah?
Yeh wants a meeting?

Speaker 4 (42:20):
I don't know if there is radio host unions. It's
my costing in the union.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
I think he leads the union. Doesn't he be very
surprised that that man was heading anything to.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
Do with you scream scared at me in the car
park the other.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
That makes sense then, ye. So one hundred eighty to
eighty is the number to call if you are part
of a union or you're an employeer. How do you
feel about this, Shane, what's your thoughts.

Speaker 5 (42:46):
Yeah, my thoughts. I've looked at it from my perspective.
I run a small business. I'm a director of a business.
No one in our company belongs to a union. I
joined a union when I got an after school job
in the post office and that was compulsory for me
to join. But I didn't join a union when I

(43:10):
started my apprenticeship and then in a refrigeration engineering trade
because it was deemed unnecessary because we all got paid
well at the time. I've gone into various different production
facilities over the years, from the end of the eighties
early nineties and still going into them now, and I've

(43:35):
seen the change from when unions was still a majority
of what was the staff were part of a unions.
My opinion at the time that they were. They obstructed business.
They stopped business progressing a lot of the time where

(43:59):
a company seemed to be doing quite well, but they
couldn't get the workers to go to work to carry
on working. And this was all around the union wanting
more and so in the mid nineties with Jim Bolger,
there was that law change around collective bargaining and all
that sort of stuff, and that was to try and

(44:19):
stop that. But now I'm going into some of these
factories and I'm seeing staff who are working the eight
our day, probably possibly ten hour days, struggling to struggling
to live, struggling to pay rent, struggling to buy food,
while the boss is actually turning up on a brand

(44:40):
new jag once a year, every second year and getting
paid moon beams. So there needs to be something so
that the workers who are contributing to the profit of
the businesses get some benefit.

Speaker 4 (44:59):
I mean there is laws, right, I mean, there's the
minimum wage, for example, that guarantee that that employers have
to be paid a certain amount, and there's you know
a lot of I guess safety, but yeah, I mean,
do you do you do you pay your you know,
your you're.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
A you're a boss, your employer. I've run a small business.

Speaker 4 (45:22):
Do you do you pay your workers more than the
minimum wage?

Speaker 6 (45:27):
The industry that I was and when.

Speaker 5 (45:28):
We do.

Speaker 3 (45:31):
You do?

Speaker 10 (45:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (45:32):
Yep?

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (45:33):
But do you agree that as a boss you've taken
risk and starting your company, you've had the idea, you
have had had the initiative process, so that you do
need to get paid. I'm going to make sense that
you get paid more than someone that's been hired by you.

Speaker 5 (45:48):
I've got no problem with the small business and that
things like if you look at and but if you
look at the some of these larger companies. I'm going
to refer to the dairy industry. You know, the guy
running that, does he need to be paid eight million
dollars by the guy on the factory floors is getting
minimum wage potentially slightly more.

Speaker 4 (46:09):
Well, he'd argue that, well, you know I've vented. Well, well,
he might argue that, he would go that, I mean,
the argument would be that he brought the value such
that everyone that as a shareholder gets more.

Speaker 5 (46:22):
The shareholder worker.

Speaker 4 (46:24):
Well, in the dairy industry that you know a lot
of the shareholders are the workers, not in the factories.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Yeah, in the factories, right, that's different.

Speaker 4 (46:32):
Yeah, of course, yeah, I mean, I mean that's a
slightly different issue about capitalism, isn't it. But yeah, but
you know, in your work, plap, let's just say this,
he's a question for you because as an employer, right,
so you said that you your employees don't have None

(46:53):
of your employees are union members.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
No, have they ever been approached to join a union?
Do you know.

Speaker 5 (47:04):
Not within our company, a union operator would need to
come and knock on the door and introduce themselves.

Speaker 4 (47:11):
Yeah, and would you and would you think would you
be concerned if a union, you know, operative came into
your workplace and started signing people up with that? Would
that concern you as an employer?

Speaker 8 (47:23):
You know what?

Speaker 5 (47:24):
A few years ago, it probably would have, but it
wouldn't right now. And here's the cruck sort of thing.
So all my workers join the union and then they
collectively decide that they want more than what my business
can provide them.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Yep.

Speaker 5 (47:38):
I would say that to them, and then if they
insisted I'll go and strike, then my business would close down. Yes,
And that's where that's where the guys running these unions
need to recognize that if that, if they're going to
take businesses right to the wall, that's what's going to happen.
And that's what happened in the in the LA eighties

(47:59):
early nineties, where the unions took businesses right to the
wall that it was no longer worth staying in business.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (48:08):
Well, I mean not every not every employees like you.
So you sound like the kind of guy that pays
your employees well and looks after them.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
Well, right, okay, okay, you know what I mean. People
always want to get paid more.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
Yeah, but that's that's one of the dangers though, Shane,
Just that that very thing, right, it seems to be
your business is running smoothly and your workers are fairly
happy from all you know, and you pay them, you know,
a good rate.

Speaker 4 (48:31):
And then someone comes in and says no, actually actually
getting screwed here, and and then they get all get
up and then they feel they didn't they didn't know
they were as unhappy as they thought they were.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Next thing, you know, you're pushed to the limit.

Speaker 5 (48:45):
But I'm still driving in this and Van. You know,
I'm living in an area that's similar to a lot
of them are living in you know what I mean.
I'm not driving and jag and I'm not living in
the Herne Bay.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
But but the guys you're talking about, Shane, is a
very small proportion, whether you know, that's right or wrong
about the CEO's salary and the big companies and it's
but it's mostly small to medium enterprises, right sized enterprises.
That is the vast majority of business in New Zealand.

Speaker 5 (49:15):
Yeah, that's right. The small to medium enterprises are the
vast majority, and that and.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
Those guys aren't driving into Most of those business owners
are driving pretty modest cars and effect a lot of
them are up against the wall and they're probably figuring
out how they can keep paying their workers.

Speaker 5 (49:29):
Oh yeah, exactly, And I've got no you know. But
at the same time, I go into facilities where there
is a massive difference in pay scale.

Speaker 4 (49:39):
Yeah, so you and so you're you've got a small business,
so you're working with your employees day and day out.
You know, there's not the levels of management between you
and your employees, Am I right?

Speaker 2 (49:51):
Chain that's correct? Yeah, yeah, no, it's interesting.

Speaker 4 (49:55):
So if you were as an employer, and it might
not apply to you because there might not be a
collective agreement situation that people working for you will would
walk into.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
But do you think it's.

Speaker 4 (50:05):
Fear that employee are like an employer like you would
have to carry the administrative burden of you know, identifying
that the default union and providing documents and transferring employee
information when you are hiring someone and going through all
the complexities of hiring someone to start with.

Speaker 5 (50:22):
I's got to tell you what that's not adding one
hundred percent of administration onto anything because we do that.
For acc we do that, the key we see them.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
We do that.

Speaker 5 (50:30):
For apprenticeship training schemes, we do that. For holiday pay,
we do that. You know so well, you're pretty.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
Good at admas.

Speaker 5 (50:41):
I'm good at fixing chip better at business.

Speaker 3 (50:44):
That goes far in life, Shane, thank you very much
for your call. So interesting call from Shaney's an employer,
but he has some concerns about the disparity in some
industries and companies. What do you say, one hundred and
eighty ten eighty.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
There's no CEO's union.

Speaker 3 (50:57):
Is there no on their own their individual agreements, single
swim for those guys. Nine two is the text that
is eighteen past two, will be back very shortly.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
You're home of Afternoon Talk Matt Heathen, Taylor Adams Afternoons call,
eight hundred eighty eight News Talk said, be.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
It is twenty one past too, and we're talking about unions.
The Greens have a new policy they'll take to the
election making it default to join a union if you
start a new job.

Speaker 4 (51:25):
Stu says US car industry unions pushed and pushed Detroit
shut down completely.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
I remember I was working in the.

Speaker 4 (51:31):
Television industry in the United Kingdom in London at Bromley
by Bose Studios, beautiful, making a TV show called Balls
of Steel.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
That was a great stunt show. Yeah loose was it great?

Speaker 3 (51:43):
Loose? Yeast the bunny boilery.

Speaker 4 (51:45):
But anyway, I was, I guess, one of the performers
and one of the writers, and we were building ramps
to do the stunts, right yep. And because we'd made
TV shows in New Zealand where we would start the
show by building all the ramps for the jumps and
then we'd do the jumps. You know, that was the
way it work, makes sense. So I went to I
saw all the chippies working the setbuilders. I went to help,

(52:07):
got a hammer and started banging and working out the
angles and stuff. And no bad on me. Why because
the union were like mate, no, no, because that was
their job. So they saw me is already having a
job and a well paid job, and so me coming over.
They didn't see it as me helping them. They saw
saw it as me taking their job.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
They saw you as a scab.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
Yeah, well yeah, I don't know. Well just just that's
you do your job. And you know in New Zealand.
Everyone does everyone Yeah, ever Rode chips.

Speaker 4 (52:36):
In, especially in film and television production here, everyone just
runs around and does their job right, And so they
all walked off. You know, I'm standing over the corner
and my mate who was the producer, this Birmingham guy goes,
you can't be doing that, mate, Come on, mart, come
over to the pub. You can't be You can't be
doing their job for them. So I thought I was

(52:56):
being a good guy, but I was actually being a
bad guy. That is interesting in their world, yes, because
if you have the producers and actors just doing all
the building as well, then then less people employed.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
Did they like you afterwards? Once they came back and
you left the ren below, once.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
We came back from the pub too finished? Yeah, you
saw them get perfect, Peter, Welcome to show.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (53:15):
Hi.

Speaker 16 (53:16):
Back in the seventies that was called the English disease,
when you had a lot of union top guys that
had an English accent and that sort of attitude was
they were trying to have here. But anyway, sideline. But
when I remember starting a job and the boss saying that,
you know, you had to give me this information because
it was collective all about the union stuff, but he

(53:37):
assured me he'd be standing with me and everything'd be good.
But I learned that from a boss's point of view,
he was doing the best he thought was the right thing,
but it was still from his perspective. I went and
worked another place where I actually worked for about ten
and a half years, and at one point for about
six years, I was a delegate, and I saw a

(53:58):
really productive I mean if things came up, there were
oftentimes when they actually worked with the bosses with the
leadership to achieve and but make sure that the stuff.
With that, all of us got a fear shape of
you know, what was going on as well, but still

(54:19):
had the same goals together. But I also had the
other side of it. And another place, my last place,
where things went to custods a bit and they had
a union person come and sit aside me in they
didn't Oh, they did at one point threaten a grievance
thing when when the when the person that was giving
me a hard time ABO was being but stupid. But
once they got past that, so we're just very that's

(54:42):
very helpful how somebody sit with you. I've also seen
people who don't belong to the union. They don't belong
to a union, say them talk tell me stuff that
I know that they wouldn't get away. They wouldn't get
away with us. They had a union to deal with because.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
Employs getting a fair thing.

Speaker 16 (54:58):
But I just wanted to say about that Greens thing,
the option that place I first started that, and and
and the second other places.

Speaker 9 (55:08):
The the deal was with a collective.

Speaker 16 (55:09):
Agreement that the information was given to you and you
but you did the journey, so it wasn't you didn't
get signed up, but you did get everything given to you.
And I think that would be a fair fear balance
where and I know as a delegate, I would seek
out new people that started and just make sure they
had the instance, they had the form.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Did you have current law in New Zealand.

Speaker 4 (55:34):
I could be wrong, but current law in New Zealand,
I think it already requires employees to tell covered workers.

Speaker 16 (55:38):
I know that was removed that National got rid of that.
That's that is one of the one of the problems
is nationals slowly.

Speaker 17 (55:45):
And bendal and we are name is it so employees
don't have to do more and more, right, don't don't
have to mention, don't have to tell covered workers about
I don't have to tell them about it.

Speaker 16 (55:57):
National got rid of that stuff. But and with what's
happening at the moment, it's all very well. You keep
saying that, oh you needs do good stuff in the past,
Well I have to They were the atmosphere at the
moment that I'm noticing that with.

Speaker 9 (56:14):
Karl and chaos you.

Speaker 16 (56:16):
Might call it. They the unions are. I think it
can be more important because they are trying to remove
some of those rights who say that people have got
and they're mucking around with their holiday thing. I know
as well, but there's other things they've been backing around
with and they do that. So as soon as soon
as they got in they started taking things away and

(56:36):
National did it last time as well. They take things away.

Speaker 4 (56:39):
So they haven't taken away, so what are they taking
away now? They're taken away around around part time holidays.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
We're doing a bit of work around there, is that correct.

Speaker 16 (56:48):
People, Yeah, they do it. There's a few things that
they've done over the time. There was stuff around they
tried to do in the past where at the morning
tea at Affen and Tea wasn't a set time and
stuff or something there was some messing around with that
that just seems and also health and safety that's a
night turning into a nightmare. I mean, we're heating from
another pot all the way where these clowns are going.

Speaker 4 (57:10):
But you don't think that there's because I mean there are.
The other side is that people say that health and
safety has gone so crazy, and you know, I've talked
to various people, your tradees and stuff that say health
and safety is really causing them problems and doesn't make
a lot of sense. Do you think they've got health
and safety right at the moment or do you think.

Speaker 16 (57:31):
I don't think that's fair. I know I've had I
remember in one work place I was and I was
setting up on a table changing a light bulb, and
the boss walked in and said, you're supposed to the
health and safety rep and you're seeing on a table.
But no, I've heard that stuff. And I was a
health and safety rep at another place I worked at once,
and I did the training and everything, and there was

(57:52):
I didn't think that there was anything.

Speaker 9 (57:55):
Crazy about it.

Speaker 16 (57:55):
People. I know people complain about it, but we've got
one of the high highest death things when we're something
I think New Zealand's got a pretty terrible record of
health and safety.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
We're just going to go to the ads, Peter, I'll
have a look into that.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
Yeah, interesting, Caul, Thank you very much for your call. Peter,
Oh one hundred and eighty ten eighties number two call.
It is twenty eight past two.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
The big stories, the big issues, the big trends and
everything in between. Matt Heathen, Tyler Adams Afternoons used talk
s EDB. Matt Heathen, Tyler Adams Afternoons call Oh eight
hundred and eighty ten eighty on News Talks EDB.

Speaker 3 (58:35):
It is how pasted too. We're talking about unions.

Speaker 4 (58:38):
Are just going back to what was it, Peter, Peter, Peter, Yeah, sorry, Peter.
So he's saying that we're one of the worst in
the world for workplace injuries.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
So this is I just found an article on the Herald.
I'll just read it. I don't know what it says.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
Beautiful.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Here we go.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
Fifteen years after the Pike reminds us in New Zealand's
workplace Helton safety remains among some of the worst in
the developed world, and New reporters claimed this month Mark's
enviously disaster. Yeah, but Despite major reforms, including the quation
of the Work Safe in two thous and thirty in
the Health and Safety at Work Act in twenty fifteen,
the country continues to record twice as many work paced

(59:13):
deaths as Australian. Okay, well at workplace injuries and illness
arreestimated to cost New Zealand about five billion dollars. A.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
Yeah, so there you go.

Speaker 3 (59:22):
Right, Okay, very good, Peter. I mean, just to your
point though, there's still that balance, right, you know, there's
there's criticism with the way that Australia operates with the
Health and Safety is and that they are too far
on one side. But I get his point that we
are still up there.

Speaker 4 (59:34):
Yeah, but pushing back on something else, he said, under
I've just looked this up under section sixty two of
the Employment Relations at two thousand, when a new employee
enters in an individual employment agreement but their work is
covered by an existing collective agreement, the employer must tell
them that the collective agreement exists and covers their work,
tell them they may join the union that negotiate it,
Explain how to contact the union, Explain that joining the

(59:56):
union would bind them to the collective agreement. Give them
a copy of the collective Corrective Agreement agreement.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
That's good. So there's some transparency there.

Speaker 4 (01:00:03):
So you have to I mean, what the Green's proposing
is that you would be automatically enrolled with the union. Yes,
get one month free and then have to pay and
if you don't opt out yep. But under section sixty
two of the Employment Relations Acts.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
You already have the employer already has to.

Speaker 4 (01:00:20):
Tell you, tell them that the collective agreement exists, and
tell them they may join the union, and explain them
how to contact with you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Well, that's good.

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
So is that working the way it is? Or do
you agree with the Green Party idea. I've got the
headlines coming up. After that, we're going to have a
chat with Allen. He employs seventy staff whoa So we'll
get his thoughts on whether unions worked or didn't work
for his employees. It is twenty eight to three.

Speaker 14 (01:00:42):
US talk said be headlines with your Ride, New Zealand's
number one taxi app. Download your Ride today. A former
Act Party president has been sentenced to an extra eighteen
months in prison for a third sex offense from the
nineteen nineties. Tim Jago is already serving two and a
half years for sexually abusing two males. New Zealanders are

(01:01:04):
already calling in sightings of sick or dead birds after
bird flu was confirmed yesterday in a skewer found on
Patoni Beach. MPI is advising people to call their hotline
and emphasizing the important thing is reporting groups of birds.
MSD data shows benefit numbers keep rising up one point

(01:01:25):
nine percent for the main benefit year on year, and
unemployment is still high. Fewer beneficiaries are calling on work
Ready support, but more are surviving on health and disability support.
The Housing Minister says Wellington's languishing CBD Arlington development, once
the country's largest social housing development, will be scaled down

(01:01:47):
Australia to impose energy and water guard rails on data centers.
Amid Ai boom seymour at Inset Herald dot Co dot
INZT Back to Mattethan Tyler Adams.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
Thank you very much, Rayleen. It's twenty four to two three.
So if you've been part of a union where the
benefits worth it in the long run, the Green Party
is bringing a policy to the election that will see
it at default when you start a new job to
join a union. So is that a good idea? I
went under it. Eighty ten eighty is number to call.

Speaker 4 (01:02:14):
Was part of the union, I'd go to the union.
About Varsha Angela.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
Oh yes, what she done? Now?

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
Well, she said that we were going to get some
of this new Whittaker's chocolate.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
Good points early still waiting Varsia, the.

Speaker 4 (01:02:26):
New nostalgic chocolate flavor. It will be long gone by now,
gum drop block. Yeah, so clearly on air two hours
ago she said we could have some of it because
she had been sent some dissample. Not so, where's my delegate,
where's my union?

Speaker 3 (01:02:39):
She reluctantly said, there was a little bit left. It's
gone now shame shame.

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
Dave says, is a teacher, you are bullied if not
in the union, it's mad. Yeah, a lot of teachers
are texting that in saying that they don't support what
the union stands for teachers. Unions have caused some controversy
with bringing up strange political stuff that isn't actually helping
teachers paying conditions.

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
There were some geopolitical things that they brought to the table,
you know, wanting to take a stance on various things
happening in corners of the world that they have nothing
to do with teachers on the ground here.

Speaker 4 (01:03:10):
Yeah, difficult to influence that from their position. Yeah, Ellen,
welcome to the show. You've got You've got seventy employees?

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
Is that creep I had?

Speaker 6 (01:03:20):
Yeah, I've had some strange union occurrences over the years
on eighty something bus. I've been an all sorts of
industry and teaching and manufacturing university. I've been, you know,
I've been, I've had it. And my first experiences with

(01:03:41):
unions was down at Carral Mill and I was employed
as a fitter and I was fitting these pipes into
the one of the one of the boiler rooms, and
I had a helper, young married boy that was helping me.
And I started to run these pipes, and I found
that the brackets went up on the on the scaffolding

(01:04:01):
so I could hang the pipes. So anyway, I said
to the young boy, said give me that worlder. So
I grew hold of the world, and I started welding
the brackets up so I could carry on doing the pipes.
And after about half an hour three because of now
doing this, I looked around the factory and I couldn't
see anybody, and I said to the young boy, I said,

(01:04:23):
what's going on? Don't know? So anyway down tools popped
out from the scaffolding and walk outside and came round
to this this big shed and all the guys standing around,
hanging around, and I said, what's going on. Oh, we're
on strike. And I said, oh, okay, what's the problem.
He said, oh, there's been a there's been a guy

(01:04:44):
overstepping his job description. So the union's called a meeting
and we're all going on strike. And this was Thursday.
He said, we're going out strike. He said, we're coming
back on Monday.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
Because you were doing some welding, because I was.

Speaker 6 (01:04:57):
Doing some welding and I was employed as a fitter.

Speaker 3 (01:05:01):
Right, it's the old English model.

Speaker 6 (01:05:03):
Yeah, So that was that was my first experience and
my second experience after I ended up by buying an
engineering business and I had seventy guys working for me,
and we worked on this place for a couple of
years and everything was going smoothly. They had all the
free beads and all the businesses. The guys used to
turn up at all hours of the morning and I

(01:05:25):
carry out working and provided they did their job during
the day. If we came up to our both are
at the end of the month. I used to say
to them, on the Friday, right, guys, clean the workshop up.
Afternoon tea from twelve or one o'clock, we'd go down
to the beach. I'd take the boat down there. We'd
do some water skiing, have a barbecue on the beach.

(01:05:45):
And that used to be out. And then one day
my union, my not union bee, he became a union rep.
Foremant came in. He said, oh, we wanted to join
the union. And I said, oh, I say okay, And
I said, what's the story, So we just want to
join the ar I said.

Speaker 8 (01:06:03):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 6 (01:06:03):
I wasn't too concerned about it. And the union rep
came in, had an eating and told the guys, this
is what you should be doing. This is what you're
doing all us doing rah, And I said, oh, that's okay.
So anyway, he bought all the he brought all the
documents to me and he said, this is what's going
to happen. They've got to be here that at eight
o'clock in the morning. I've got to have fifteen minutes

(01:06:26):
for morning and afterning tea they've got to have half
an hour for lunch and they go home at five o'clock.
And then I said really, and he said yes, this
is what they've got to do. I said, okay. So
I said, well, what happens if they are late and
they go over there fifteen minutes for morning and afternoon tea?
And he said, well, that's up to you.

Speaker 16 (01:06:47):
So I said, right.

Speaker 6 (01:06:49):
So I said to the union rep, I said, are
you cappy with us? Yep, yep, that's what I want. Okay,
I said, so, okay, I'll tell you my rules. Now,
if you're ten minutes late in the morning to work,
I'll dock you half an hour pay. If you don't
get back to work after fifteen minutes, i'll doc you

(01:07:09):
half an hour's pay. And that was the story. And
he said, oh, you can't do that. I said, well,
I'm abiding by the union rules. You say eight o'clock
till five o'clock, fifteen minutes for lunch, half an hour
fifteen minutes for morning afternoon tea, half an hour for lunch.
And I said, if you're over that half an hour,
I'll doc you half an hour's pay. Oh you can't

(01:07:32):
do that, I said, well, you've pushed me into a corner.
I said, these are my rules now. So I said,
you've had half an hour for morning and afternoon tea sometimes,
I said, sometimes you come to work at quarter past eight.
Sometimes you have three corters an hour for lunch. I said,
I've never done anything to you. I haven't doct your pay,

(01:07:54):
I haven't said anything to you. I've just carried on.
You've done your work and I've been quiet. But I said,
if you're going to impose these rules on me, I said,
these are the rules that I'm imposing on you. I said,
your choice, right?

Speaker 3 (01:08:08):
And what did the staff say?

Speaker 15 (01:08:10):
Well?

Speaker 6 (01:08:11):
They real pressed off, weren't they. You see, they wanted
they wanted it both ways. They wanted they wanted all
of all the the generosity that I've been given them,
plus they wanted the union to back them.

Speaker 10 (01:08:24):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
Isn't this all part of the argie bargie?

Speaker 1 (01:08:28):
Though?

Speaker 4 (01:08:28):
Because everyone wants a better better situation for themselves, right,
the employer and the employee, and of course you want
to work together. But isn't that isn't this all part
of the argie bargie? And what a union does is
it advocates for its workers, and if it goes too far,
then the employer pushes back, and then in the middle
we find a solution that works for all Allan.

Speaker 6 (01:08:49):
Yeah, yeah, I I I I said to them. I
said to the guys, I said, I aren't I not
being fair to you? And I said, oh yeah, And
I said, well, why do you want to join the union?
Because I've seen the things that unions can do. Some
of them do good, some of them don't, don't do good.
And anyway, I put up with this for about six months,

(01:09:12):
and in the end, I said, our stuff.

Speaker 9 (01:09:14):
So I sold the.

Speaker 6 (01:09:14):
Business and I went into something totally different. I went
into education, right, and I sold the and I went
past the business. Nine months later, Focal Doors Door's gone,
everything's gone.

Speaker 4 (01:09:28):
Yeah, well, there seems to be a lot of that
going on. Union pushes too far, yep, because there's got
to be the balance. Union pushed too far and the
business disappears.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
Yeah right. There's a lot of people texting through examples
of that. Thank you for your story, Allan, appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:43):
Oh one hundred and eighty ten eighty. If you've been
in a similar situation to Alan, tell us about it.
It is sixteen to three. We'll be back with some
of your text very surely.

Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
Your home of afternoon talk Mad Heathen Taylor Adams afternoons
call oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty youth Talk.

Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
They'd be fourteen to three and Julie, you want to
talk about what's happening over in Australia when it comes
to unions, Is that right?

Speaker 12 (01:10:09):
That's right? Thanks Meddie entire I love your programs, by
the way, always something interesting on.

Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
Thank you, oh, thank you for giving us a buzz ah.

Speaker 12 (01:10:16):
I'm hoping to perhaps just give some cautionary notes. As
you know, union's got very, very big in Australia because
it's transferred in particular from Scotland and Northern Ireland. And
now I can see the same sorts of trends now
that we're retired here in New Zealand, although we still
do have a business in Tasmania. We were a privately

(01:10:39):
owned company with just under one hundred full time staff statewide,
so it was a big business by Tazzi standards, and
we had only five staff out of that ninety seven
who were union members. Now, the anomaly was that the
unions they are paying I think it was about fifteen
dollars a week two year in, year out, week in,

(01:11:00):
week out. They weren't even entitled to represent them under
their union's own rules if there was any sort of
dispute or if they needed to have some sort of bought.
But I couldn't say that as the IR HR manager
because that would have been interfering. But one thing that
did really concern me, In fact, I almost was in
tears at the IRE conference ustrating Human Resources Institute, because

(01:11:22):
there were two former union secretaries who had left the
unions and come over to the dark side, as they
saw it, and were now HR and IR managers. And
they were talking about some of the tactics that they used,
and one of them was to say that, okay, we
don't negotiate. Look, let's cut through all this crap.

Speaker 8 (01:11:40):
Let's just look, give us your.

Speaker 12 (01:11:42):
Best percentage rate and we'll just go with that and
we can get it all done today. So the employer
would think about it and say something like, oh, look, okay,
three percent, you know, three percent increase for the next
two years or three years or whatever, terrific. Okay, well
that's your starting point right now. Let's work from that.
And if the employer kicked back. You know, no, wait
a minute, that's not what you said. Oh well, look

(01:12:02):
it's just a negotio. It's a negotiating tactic. Now part
of the rgblogy is negotiating. Admitted that they would actually
lie about what was supposed to the upsetting staff. Now,
of those staff we paid over award, we had a
shareholding scheme where the profits of the company would be
shared with the staff provided they'd been with us for

(01:12:23):
three years or longer. And more than fifty percent of
our staff had been with us for over thirty years,
some of them forty years, so you know, we're seen
as a good employer. In the end, we didn't ever
negotiate an EBA simply because it didn't suit our industry.
In fact, there wasn't an industry like ours in Australia
that had an EBA. In other words, the model just

(01:12:45):
didn't suit. The award worked really, really well. And the
other caution is that just of course the company's having
some good years, don't think that that's going to continue forever.
Because if you locked yourself in to say five percent
to three years, and then something like COVID happens, you're
stuck with that five percent and can't you can't deviate.

(01:13:05):
And as the other guy said, once times get tough,
then businesses really struggle. Now we've been going since the
nineteen sixties. We're still going, but it's been hard. But
the main thing for us has been not getting tied
down to an agreement that just didn't suit the business.

Speaker 3 (01:13:23):
I mean, so the EBA, that's the Australian equivalent of
the bargaining agreement. But so the line aspect, that's the
most concerning, right Julie, that you know, the these members
were making up scenarios that never happened to the workers.
I mean, surely if that has found out, is there
any sort of legislation in place to come down hard

(01:13:43):
on unions who lie about conditions.

Speaker 12 (01:13:46):
No, unfortunately not. And the other thing is that, yes,
eventually they'd be found out and the staff would become
aware of it, and then they would take it up
and the guys would say, oh, well, you know, perhaps
we got you mixed up with another company. You know,
they'd sort of fob it off like that, or else
the staff member would say, well, look, you know, we
were hoping perhaps to get some more money, and who

(01:14:08):
wouldn't like more money, even though as I said, they
were paid above award and were shareholders in a sense
because every year they would get a fully frank dividend.
You know, it was just a real eye No. I
was just so ashamed to think that people could actually
live with themselves and do that, let alone talk about it.
Although I was grateful that they had.

Speaker 2 (01:14:29):
Think you for your call, Julie.

Speaker 4 (01:14:31):
Yeah, I think one of the interesting thing is, you know,
like in that case, it sounds like the employe's got
quite a good deal, but then someone comes in and sees.

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
Sort of Lyle Huxley type situation mono rail like there
is another deal. You can get more and more and more.

Speaker 4 (01:14:44):
But you might not realize as an employee, you don't
know who the whole box, do you. Yes, you don't
know that. You're sure this could be a bit of deal.
We could have this, we could have this, but then
you don't know how on the edge the company is.

Speaker 3 (01:14:54):
Of course, Yeah, and what employee is not going to
say yes to more money If the delegates is hey,
we can get you more this working hours, yeah, more money,
better terms yep, and you go, yeah, I love it
sounds great. This This is my exp answer twenty was
joining the union. I was a receptionist. Love my job
and work colonies using said unions. Said I was being underpaid,
was large sum of money. Boss paid it up. Next

(01:15:17):
round he sacked me. Okay, rights rough this says. I
was a member of the PSA until last year when
they were protesting about Palestine and the Treaties Principal Act.

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):
I left.

Speaker 4 (01:15:28):
The Greens only want to sign all employees up for
the money, as then the unions will be giving more
money to labor, hence they have a better chance of
being in Parliament. Yeah, that's an interesting thing because a
lot of these unions do donate to labor or heving
involved with the Labor Party. And so if you're immediately
signed up, you know, automatically signed up to the default union,

(01:15:49):
you know, you don't know who they're paying money to. Yeah,
and you know over time you're giving money to the
Labor Party or whatever party there or whatever political you know,
whatever that whatever that that union's into. But I think
that's why the Greens have said that in their bill.
You don't pay your fees for the first month, so

(01:16:10):
you've got a month to quit, and so if you
get free membership, for a month.

Speaker 3 (01:16:14):
Yeah, So it's a nice out if you're heavy enough
to understand that and get out before that month's time,
before any of.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
Your money's gone to something that you might not agree with.

Speaker 3 (01:16:21):
But it was a lot of money. I've just had
a lock in twenty twenty three election because they're still
calculating this year's election. Our unions gave three hundred and
thirty five thousand dollars to Labor and no other party
received contributions from unions that election cycle. Right, it's a
lot of money though, three hundred and thirty five thousand dollars.

Speaker 4 (01:16:37):
Yeah, But I mean the whole thing is the freme
of association is a bit of a problem here, right, Yeah,
and that that you know you're you're signing up to
an organization without your consent, even if you can pull
out within a month.

Speaker 3 (01:16:48):
Yeah, exactly. Right back in the mo it is seven
to two three.

Speaker 1 (01:16:52):
The issues that affect you, and a bit of fun
along the way. Mad Heath and Taylor Adams afternoons News Talks.

Speaker 3 (01:16:58):
EDB, News Talks, EDB. We are talking about unions a
couple of texts before the news hits us. This one
here is got guys, I just buy unions. If you're
a hard worker, you're far better off negotiating your own performance. Bay,
Why should you be paid the same as someone unmotivated
and lazy.

Speaker 4 (01:17:15):
I was a compulsory member of the inn Zidei Primary
Teachers Union. They were so pro Labor Party at meetings.
The lack of impartiality was embarrassing. They also kept pushing
for strike days even though the government offers were appropriate.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
I have since left. That's from Alice.

Speaker 3 (01:17:31):
Very good, right, great couple of hours on that. Thank
you to everyone who gave us a call and text through.
We'll see how the Greens go with that ahead of
the election. But coming up, be.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
Interested to see what Labour say about it, because Labour
should be all in.

Speaker 3 (01:17:41):
They've been pretty quiet so far, haven't they.

Speaker 4 (01:17:43):
Yeah, they come out of unions. Yeah to the Union
Party exactly. Surely that's about it.

Speaker 3 (01:17:48):
More to come on that, but after three o'clock, what
happened when you got injured overseas? We're going to tell
you more about that next.

Speaker 1 (01:17:54):
The big stories, the leak issues, the big trends and
everything in between. Matt Heath and Taylor Adams Afternoons News.

Speaker 3 (01:18:03):
Talk said the welcome back into the show, six past three,
Zion furious. I know Vasha yep, Angelie entertainment reporter, Entertainment
and lifestyle reporter. She brought up the new Wittaker's Gum
Job right block limited edition, also the Banana Caramel limited

(01:18:25):
edition Whittaker's new chocolates.

Speaker 2 (01:18:27):
Yep, she said, we could have some.

Speaker 4 (01:18:29):
I mean, if you bring them up and you've got
them on your desk and you don't bring them in
for your your section on the show, then that's that's
a it's.

Speaker 3 (01:18:36):
A black mark right there.

Speaker 4 (01:18:37):
Yeah. But then I went over over right deep into
the Herald.

Speaker 3 (01:18:41):
I saw, Yeah, you went by yourself.

Speaker 4 (01:18:42):
I went deep on a mission to try and find
her desk and this chocolate. And I think I found
the chocolate. I could sort of see it, but I
couldn't see her. Right, I wasn't bold enough to just
go and grab someone's chocolate.

Speaker 3 (01:18:56):
Well, that's very moral of you. Then you went all
the way into the deep recesses of the Herald and
you could see the chocolate. It was. It was tantalizing close.
But you chose. I'm proud of your mate. You chose
not to grab that block of chocolate.

Speaker 2 (01:19:08):
Producer.

Speaker 4 (01:19:08):
Andrew was with me and he was telling me just
to grab it. He was like a you know, the
devil on my left shoulder, saying, just steal.

Speaker 3 (01:19:13):
It, Andrew, Jesus mate.

Speaker 4 (01:19:15):
But yeah, I got so excited doing that chat on unions. Yeah,
I was just thinking about the news break and I
was going to go over and get some of.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
This Wittaker's gum drop. And I'm just so disappointed him.

Speaker 3 (01:19:27):
You could have grabbed someone, just thrown and on making
the hit for you.

Speaker 4 (01:19:30):
But there were so many herald journalists all around that
area right that it's hard to commit a crime.

Speaker 2 (01:19:36):
You know, you're right in the middle of the news.

Speaker 3 (01:19:38):
They just do that thing when you walk down and
everybody stopped what they were doing and were just watching you.
All the heads started towards you.

Speaker 4 (01:19:43):
I was like walking into you know, a saloon in
the Old West. It's like the piano player stopped. Anyone
looked at me. Yeah, the heads turned. They could tell
that I was looking to do something nefarious.

Speaker 2 (01:19:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:19:57):
But yeah, so end of the day, We've got no
gum drop limited edition.

Speaker 4 (01:20:03):
First England lost this morning, so I've been a bit
deflated all day. And then I got so excited about this,
this chocolate.

Speaker 3 (01:20:08):
This is a bad day for you, mate, right, Let's
get into this one and try and pick it things
back up again. So friends of a Kiwi cricketer badly
injured in a pool accident in Spain. They are raising
money for his medical costs which a pool accident, A
pool accident which may hit eighty thousand dollars New Zealand
a lot of money, So will Hamilton. He's been living
in the UK, playing for Barbie Barbie Cricket Club in

(01:20:31):
Northamptonshire since twenty twenty five. He was on a midseason
break in Barcelona with a friend when he was rushed
to hospital after diving into a swimming pool and sustaining
severe injuries. He's spoken to The Herald from his hospital
bed and what she said, I've scared my friends and family,
but all in all I'm feeling okay. But because the
accident happened overseas, he is now facing that substantial hospital

(01:20:53):
and medical cost bill. That bill again around eighty thousand dollars.
So far, more than ten thousand dollars has been donated
through a giver Little.

Speaker 2 (01:21:01):
Page can give a little what's an under that is
a great question.

Speaker 3 (01:21:05):
And we'll give that information out in a few minutes
when I find it.

Speaker 4 (01:21:09):
So he's kind of okay, serious injury, but is he
kind of all right?

Speaker 3 (01:21:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:21:14):
He told that here eighty thousand dollars worth of medical expenses.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
Isn't isn't all right? I mean it's serious.

Speaker 3 (01:21:21):
Yeah. So he suffered a significant facial injury injury, he
told the Herald, and fractured to vertebrae in his spine right,
So that is fairly significant. But he said, all in all,
he is fairly okay. But that's a very key we
thing to say, I suppose from a hospital bed when
you've got two broken vertebrae.

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
I was once a fuck invertebrae. I've broken vertebrae before.
It's not good.

Speaker 4 (01:21:40):
I was once showing off to the girl in Melbourne
on this at this hotel and at this pool at
the top on the top level of this hotel in Melbourne,
and love went and dived into the pool and smashed
my face in a knocked two teeth out.

Speaker 2 (01:21:53):
Oh was she impressed? No, so she was horrified. She wasn't.

Speaker 4 (01:21:57):
She wasn't impressed to start with. After that, she was
no more impressed. And she fature was less impressed.

Speaker 3 (01:22:03):
So that's why we would have chat about getting injured overseas.
Obviously for this poor Kiwi cricketer, he was traveling in Spain, Barcelona,
and because he's overseas, he's not able to get help
with those health related costs. So what happened when you
got injured overseas? I mean it happens to a heck
of a lot of people when you go travel. Even
if you do have insurance, sometimes you can get into

(01:22:23):
a situation when the insurance isn't going to jump in,
but tell us your stories. Oh, eight hundred and eighty
ten eighty is the number to.

Speaker 4 (01:22:29):
Call when you have a seas well, when you're anywhere.
It always says no diving in the pool. When you think, eh,
kill joys, Yeah, killed joys. Why would I dive in
the pool? What else do you do in a pool?
But you know often there's a shallow end absolutely that
can do eighty thousand dollars to damage to your vertebrae
if you're not careful.

Speaker 3 (01:22:44):
Did you dive into the shallow end? Ah?

Speaker 4 (01:22:46):
Well it must have been because I've smashed my face
and yeah, yeah, yeah, with the drinks beforehand. Yeah, I'd
been drinking heavily before hed.

Speaker 3 (01:22:52):
Okay, fair enough.

Speaker 2 (01:22:52):
I think she was impressed out.

Speaker 18 (01:22:55):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:22:55):
Nineteen ninety two is the text number. It is eleven
past three. What happened when you got injured overseas? Tell
us his talk sa'd be fourteen past three? So what
happened when you got injured overseas? Just on the back
of a young key Week cricketer who's playing cricket in
the UK, he was in Barcelona and seriously injured himself
in a pool accident and it looks like his hospital

(01:23:16):
costs are going to be around eighty thousand dollars New Zealands.

Speaker 4 (01:23:20):
The texts has got no sympathy for people who travel
without travel insurance. You have no sympathy for people that
travel without travel insurance. You're so in the pocket of insurance,
big insurance that you think that you shouldn't that you
have absolutely no sympathy because I've traveled a lot without
travel insurance.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
Yep, I've just rolled the dice of life.

Speaker 4 (01:23:37):
As Neid Fantas said in The Simpsons, having insurance as
a former gambling he.

Speaker 2 (01:23:42):
Wasn't willing to get involved in it.

Speaker 4 (01:23:43):
Yeah, and so far with my travel without travel insurance
of gambled and won.

Speaker 3 (01:23:49):
Yep, you've been a roll in five and sixes.

Speaker 2 (01:23:50):
So if I had bought travel insurance, I'd be down.

Speaker 3 (01:23:54):
Yeah, I'll tell you who does he have sympathy?

Speaker 6 (01:23:56):
Though?

Speaker 3 (01:23:56):
There's the people giving to his give a little pages
called a crowdfunder. So if you want to help out
this young keywik cricketer, it's called support well following his
accident in Barcelona on crowdfunder, but so far he's r
pounds which is about seventeen thousand dollars ends in.

Speaker 2 (01:24:13):
Every little help. Yea, Josh, welcome to show you've had
an overseas injury.

Speaker 15 (01:24:17):
Yead?

Speaker 2 (01:24:17):
That are we good mate? Very good?

Speaker 10 (01:24:20):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 15 (01:24:21):
So I had a contract over in Scotland and Aberdeen
playing rugby over there, and we had a tea move
during training and you know during training I was like,
oh yeah, I'll be all right, only need a mouth
cut and yeah. I decided we had a move where
I had to get off the scrum being open side
and get around the second five for a wrap around

(01:24:44):
ball and our hawker decided to go for an intercept
just as I was catching the ball, so I split
my chin open, got twelve stitches in my chin. I
smashed out two teeth. I put both sides in my
tongue off woa. Yeah, but I knocked them out cold
with my jaw. So that was pretty imprisoned.

Speaker 3 (01:25:08):
Out right.

Speaker 2 (01:25:09):
And so I guess did either of you play on
the weekend.

Speaker 15 (01:25:13):
Well, I had a week off and then I went
back in and yeah, I basically opened it up three
times a week after week and went into the doctor
and the doctor told me after the third time, if
I come back again, you.

Speaker 14 (01:25:27):
Can go to the vent.

Speaker 4 (01:25:30):
So did you have I guess you was that an
NHS situation over there?

Speaker 2 (01:25:35):
Josh?

Speaker 15 (01:25:36):
Yeah, So NHS to cover it through with my with
my rugby, which was good, but yeah, I was. They
were very good. They lived half a tooth staughter in there,
and yeah, but a tongue that was ended up having
to guest sizzed off. And yeah, it was pretty pretty horobic.

Speaker 9 (01:25:55):
Is that?

Speaker 6 (01:25:56):
You know?

Speaker 4 (01:25:56):
Is it worse being in Dreid that far from home?
You know, you don't have your family around you, You
don't have a bit of comfort.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
Mum can't come home see you.

Speaker 15 (01:26:03):
Oh, definitely, I you know, it was more I guess
waiting around and they ended up losing my When I
was at the hospital, I sat there for five hours
waiting and then some dude coming who would cut him
miss the cut him of a standing knife and had
no blood and I was dripping blood and he Gwinnham
before me and yeah somehow, you know, he wasn't ahead

(01:26:26):
of me, and it turned out they had misplaced my
papers and I sat there for seven and a half hours.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
Yeah, that is rough sitting there. I slumped over, feeling
sorry for yourself.

Speaker 15 (01:26:37):
Oh man, I had an eaton. It was like, I
think it was about two in the morning and I'd
gone to rugby training at six, so I wasn't fairing
very good.

Speaker 3 (01:26:46):
So did you stick in Scotland long after that or
did you try and get home when you were able to?

Speaker 8 (01:26:51):
Oh?

Speaker 15 (01:26:51):
No, no, I played through. I played two years over there,
so there was only two weeks in. My coach fought
basically broken my jaw and I was on my way home.
But no, you know, I s nacky boys a heartache.

Speaker 2 (01:27:02):
Yeah, yep.

Speaker 4 (01:27:03):
And what about your relationship with that Hoker going forward?
Were you still buddies after that?

Speaker 14 (01:27:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 15 (01:27:09):
We actually had Christmas to give her and now it
was a bit of a funny one, because.

Speaker 4 (01:27:14):
That's a yellow card halfing your hand out for an
interception with no intention of getting the ball, with no
chance to getting the ball, isn't it.

Speaker 15 (01:27:20):
Oh, he didn't put his hand down like literally, like
I said, I got his four heads straight on the chin,
so he was trying to Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:27:29):
Yeah, Josh, thank you very much for your call mate.
That's a doozy of a story.

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
Glad you're okay.

Speaker 4 (01:27:33):
Riding a scooter taxi through Weist, Java when a coconut
fell out of the tree and landed on the side of.

Speaker 2 (01:27:39):
My head, she's Dylan.

Speaker 3 (01:27:41):
That's unfortunate. That's very unfortunate.

Speaker 2 (01:27:44):
What are the stats.

Speaker 4 (01:27:44):
There's some quite interesting stats out there on coconut injuries,
because you know, when I've been on islands and stuff
on holiday, I always look up and see the coconuts
and go, you know, if I go to sleep here
as a coconut, gonna have my head and you're a
highly likely Well, I just wonder how many people get
badly injured or you know, the coconuts are heavy thing
and it falls a long way.

Speaker 3 (01:28:03):
Yeah, from coconut trees. Absolutely, yeah, So I.

Speaker 4 (01:28:05):
Wonder what the you know the stats. Global stats on
coconut injuries or fatalities are across the world.

Speaker 3 (01:28:12):
I've got some stats here on death by coconut. Maybe
we can get to those next.

Speaker 2 (01:28:15):
Okay, okay, interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:28:16):
Right, taking your calls on oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty.
What happened when you were injured overseas? Even if you
had insurance? How did it go in the various places
that you were in terms of the hospital treatment and
then trying to get home as well? Tell us your stories?
Nine two ninety two is the text number as well.
It is twenty past three.

Speaker 1 (01:28:35):
Matt Heathen Tyler Adams afternoons call oh eight hundred eighty
ten eighty on Youth Talk ZIV.

Speaker 3 (01:28:41):
It is twenty two past three. So what happened when
you got injured overseas? Tell us your story? Oh eight
hundred eighty ten eighty. This is after a young New
Zealand cricketer who's playing cricket in the UK's got badly
injured in Spain and he's been left with a big
medical bill. So what happened to you? Where were you
in terms of the hospital treatment and how hard was
it to get back home? Nine two niney two is
the text. And you mentioned before, Matt Heath about a

(01:29:04):
percentage of coconut related injuries. So I've just found a
study here that looked at coconuts related injuries between nineteen
ninety four and nineteen ninety nine in the Pacific Islands.
And this is related to the whole coconut tree. So
in terms of those presenting to the surgical department, three
point four percent of all injuries was related to the
coconut palm. The vast majority of those injuries were from

(01:29:27):
people falling out of the coconut palm, so they tried
to climb it and they fell out of the tree.
But one percent had a coconut fruit fall on them.
Three patients had a whole tree fall on them. So
there's quite high stats. Three point four percent of all
injuries presenting to the surgical department in the Pacific Islands
were coconut palm related.

Speaker 2 (01:29:46):
Well, that's interesting.

Speaker 4 (01:29:47):
So the actual coconut falling out on your head is
a very small part of the situation. Yes, Like in
terms of coconut tree, that is almost the safest part.

Speaker 3 (01:29:57):
That's right. Yeah, it's the climb in the tree that
gets you.

Speaker 2 (01:29:59):
Yeah, a lot of people say, just ask Keith Richards.
Maybe not.

Speaker 4 (01:30:02):
He probably won't remember. Didn't Keith Richards get head by coconut?
I think in two thousand and six, I believe you've
ended up in hospital in New Zealand's when he was vacationing.
I think he fell out of a tree. I think
he was in a tree and he fell off a
branch backwards and hit his head on the trunk right
and he ended up and it was herelifted to a

(01:30:22):
hospital in Auckland. Yeah, they performed moodency. Cranles had to
drain blood out of his brain.

Speaker 3 (01:30:29):
And that backs up the stats, doesn't it. So it
was climbing trees the actual fruit dangerous, but not as dangerous.
There you go, Megan, how are you great things? So
tell us about your injury overseas?

Speaker 2 (01:30:41):
Yep.

Speaker 8 (01:30:42):
My husband and I went over to Italy for his
sixtieth birthday, so trained for about six months on our
bicycles to do a bicycle tour over in the Italian Alps.
Day two, going through a big dark tunnel through the Alps,
I managed to collide with a pole, metal pole, and
ended up in a local Italian hospital. Kind of got

(01:31:05):
misdiagnosed over there was sort of limping around for about
four days following my husband who was finishing the tour.
Day six I think it was, which was basically the
last day of the tour. He comes off his bike
and he ends up in a hospital in blake Garda,

(01:31:26):
which is actually a very nice part of Italy. I
was discovered, but so he was there for two weeks
in hospital, flat on his back was broken pelvis.

Speaker 2 (01:31:34):
Oh geez, So how did he actually come off the bike? Megan?

Speaker 8 (01:31:40):
So he came off there was a car that was
getting quite close, so he kind of like turned around
to have a look and misjudged I think it's probably
a bit tired and whatnot when he turned around and yeah,
So I turned up with the tour, the guy from
the tour and the van and I had to offload
all our luggage. End up at the blooming Italian hospital.

(01:32:03):
I can barely walk on crutches and whatnot, and English.

Speaker 5 (01:32:07):
No one there can speak in Man.

Speaker 4 (01:32:10):
The term broken pelvis that there's a horrible, horrible description.
But when you said you got mis diagnosed, how did
you get mis diagnosed?

Speaker 2 (01:32:17):
Megan?

Speaker 8 (01:32:18):
Well, I basically got told that it was just like
really really bad bruising and that you know, I got
scanned and stuff. There were no fractures and whatnot. I
tell you what, the pain was then excruciating. I was
up all night, having a shower every two or three hours,
just trying to scold my leg with hot water, just
so I could, you know, cope, cope with the pain.

(01:32:42):
But meanwhile I'm flipping stranded in some hotel that I've
found on at the last minute, because of course we're
somewhere where we don't plan to be, and there's no
taxis in this little town. So I'm stuck in the hotel.
Found some friend of the hotel owners. They obviously have
their twelve to two drinkies over there at midday, so

(01:33:05):
he drive me half sloshed to the hospital to see
my husband. And just dealing with the insurance was such
a nightmare. But I tell you what, so glad we
hadn't travel insurance.

Speaker 2 (01:33:18):
Yeah, And how was morale?

Speaker 4 (01:33:21):
So you've got your bung leg that you're in terrible pain,
your husband's got a broken pelvis, You've got this dream
holiday and having just I'm just wondering what the mood
was like between the.

Speaker 2 (01:33:31):
Two of you.

Speaker 19 (01:33:32):
Oh.

Speaker 8 (01:33:33):
To be fair, it was either a relationship building or breaking.
We have been together for many, many years, but it
was pretty hard to be honest. It's probably the most
stressful thing I've ever been through in my life. If
someone else told me that i'd been through there, I'd
be like, oh, that's a bit of bad luck. But
as you say, the lack of support when you're over
there because you don't have friends and family there speak

(01:33:55):
a different language. You're trying to deal with the insurance company.
The guy, the surgeon at the hotel was like, oh,
you guys, you should go to Milan. We can get
you in for the husband to have the operation. Insurance can't.
They're saying, oh, we can't guarantee that it will be accepted.
So I'm like, right, you're staying on your back for.

Speaker 15 (01:34:16):
Two weeks.

Speaker 8 (01:34:16):
We're not going to send you to Milan if we
don't know if they're going to cover it. But in
the end, we got medi traveled back or medivact or
whatever it's called, back to Auckland with two medics who
traveled from Australia and some other country to this little
small town to pick us up. And he took up

(01:34:38):
I think it was eight seats in the aeroplane. So, yeah,
a story.

Speaker 4 (01:34:44):
Yeah, that is a story. So he had to remain
horizontal pretty much.

Speaker 8 (01:34:48):
Yep, he was horizontal for two weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:34:52):
Yeah, that's quite a story, Megan. Is it worth it
for the story now?

Speaker 8 (01:34:57):
Well, the story, it's had quite a bit of mileage.
I haven't talked about it for a while, and I've
never rung you guys before, but I thought it might
make some people think twice considering going overseas and not
getting insurance because we're traveled over Yeah, we've never we've
never had this seppen to us before, anything like this.

Speaker 4 (01:35:15):
Yeah, I mean it's you know, you were doing something physical,
so I guess it's slightly more risky. But that thing
about being overseas, because I've been terribly enjuredized. I was
mugged in London, had my face smashed up. I was
in a terrible state. But that an ability to slink
off home like an animal and lack your wounds in
your own patch, that's you're just you're dealing with pain

(01:35:37):
and complexities and just just yeah, the lack of you know,
like comfort and home comforts.

Speaker 8 (01:35:43):
Yeah, well, I mean, I mean even the television was
in bloody Italian, you know. Yeah, yeah, so I really
felt like I should have done some more duo lingo
before i'd gone over there.

Speaker 2 (01:35:53):
And if you go.

Speaker 8 (01:35:54):
One other just one other thing too for people to
be aware of, as the fine print of insurance. So
we got our insurance I won't name the company, but
through our credit card. So what that means, as you
have there was a percentage of your travel that you
had to book on your credit card. And that was
the first thing that they spent about a week trying

(01:36:15):
to sort out, basically to make sure that we had
booked everything through our credit card, and if we hadn't,
they wouldn't have covered us.

Speaker 3 (01:36:23):
At all, right, right, So the advice is, if you
can help it, don't do it that way.

Speaker 8 (01:36:28):
No, I'm not saying don't do it, but just be
make sure that you do book everything by the credit card.
That was quite a testy moment between me and the
husband because he'd booked the whole trip.

Speaker 2 (01:36:37):
Yeah right, and.

Speaker 8 (01:36:37):
I'm like, I'm like, you better have so the affairs
on the credit card, all that, you know, all those
hotels better have been booked on the credit card.

Speaker 4 (01:36:48):
Moments and is that the last sort of cycling tour
you guys have done together.

Speaker 8 (01:36:54):
We're hoping to go back next year and do it,
but yeah, we haven't. We've we've spent a year recovering.

Speaker 2 (01:37:00):
Yeah all right, Well we did meet some.

Speaker 8 (01:37:02):
Pretty cool people. We met a cool guy that sorry,
I'm sorry to go on. We met a cool guy
bike accident on a motorbike through the Italian Ounce with
his girlfriend. She'd a broken collar bone and he had
some something broken in his leg or something, and my
husband was teaching him key we colloquialism. So he was.

(01:37:24):
He actually worked at the hospital and happened to be
in the room with my husband, so he was. When
I went in one day, John goes, oh, this is
Marco and I said, oh, nice to meet you, Marco.

Speaker 9 (01:37:34):
How are you?

Speaker 8 (01:37:34):
And he goes, oh good, been chewing the fat?

Speaker 3 (01:37:38):
Love it?

Speaker 4 (01:37:38):
Oh well, stay safe in your next journeys, in your
next travels, Megan.

Speaker 3 (01:37:41):
Yeah, great story, Thank you very much. O one hundred
and eighty ten eighty. What happened when you got injured overseas?
Tell us your story. It is twenty nine to four.

Speaker 4 (01:37:49):
Well a New Zealand saying that people don't understand when
you teach to them as piece of purse. If you say,
if you say to any other country in the world,
piece of purse, they don't get it.

Speaker 3 (01:37:58):
What are they getting wrong there? Though it's pretty straightforward?

Speaker 2 (01:38:01):
How does piece of purse make any sense?

Speaker 3 (01:38:04):
Good point? It is twenty nine.

Speaker 2 (01:38:05):
To four US talk say'd be.

Speaker 14 (01:38:08):
Headlines with Your Ride, New Zealand's number one taxi app.
Download your Ride today. Key reactor Sam Neil's cause of
death on Monday has been revealed as pneumonia by his
longtime representative. A private funeral will be held that is
New Zealand farm at an undetermined date. A fight between

(01:38:29):
rival gang members outside Palmerston North District Court this morning
has put one person in hospital. One person is in custody,
with more arrests possible. Mainland Poultry's comfortable. Farmers are well
prepared for bird flu, with lots of work already done
to maintain biosecurity to prevent any spread. A beneficiary advocate

(01:38:49):
says a small uptick in numbers of people drawing welfare
payments is likely deceptive. She says many people who have
lost their job don't qualify for a benefit because they
have a partner The government says we're getting closer to
optional digital driver licenses accessible on a phone, with people
now being as to give their input on the design.

(01:39:11):
China has become more popular than the United States in
much of the world, according to a survey. You can
find out more at inzid Herald dot co dot nz.
Back to matt Ethan Tyna Adams.

Speaker 3 (01:39:22):
Thank you very much, Railly. We're talking about times you've
been injured overseas on the back of a young Kiwi
cricketer over in the UK. He was on holiday and
Barcelona and he's been very badly injured and he needs
a bit of help for the medical bills. So what
happened to you? Tell us Steve, you had a bit
of an injury in England.

Speaker 20 (01:39:39):
Yeah, mate, I was excuse me, I'm full of the
pot So yeah, back in my younger days, I was
in the UK and I felt two stories out of
the building. Yeah, landed off on the roof of another
building and yeah, ended up in hospital and traction for
two weeks. I did have being a young fellow of

(01:40:01):
your name of parents and like you don't have travel
insurance and all that sort, so I did have that,
but I guess being lucky that I was in Okay
when it happened. I got covered under the NHS and
I think it's called and but yeah, still that for
that feeling.

Speaker 9 (01:40:16):
And I was by myself.

Speaker 20 (01:40:17):
I was traveling by myself, no no support and everything.
And so here I was lying in traction because I
crushed too vertebrae in my back going down, plus split
my arm open because I bounced off the bounced off
the side of another building and then hit onto the roof.

Speaker 9 (01:40:33):
So I went.

Speaker 20 (01:40:34):
I went like three points one point hitting another roof
and then down onto the roof, so which broke my
fall luckily.

Speaker 4 (01:40:42):
Yes, but you remember do you remember? Do you remember
the falls? You remember being in the air because.

Speaker 20 (01:40:46):
You know, oh, absolutely, absolutely absolutely, I think yep. And
I at all I was thinking, I wasn't there was
no fear of death or anything like that. But all
I was thinking, you.

Speaker 9 (01:40:57):
Dumb bastard, you threw it up.

Speaker 3 (01:41:00):
Now, yeah, mate, that was.

Speaker 20 (01:41:02):
The thought that went through my head.

Speaker 2 (01:41:04):
And then and.

Speaker 20 (01:41:09):
So yeah, I was in hospital two weeks. But like
the hospital staff were pretty cool. The doctors were giving
me a bit of grief, saying, you know, it's true
that they say key.

Speaker 15 (01:41:18):
We just can't fly.

Speaker 20 (01:41:23):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, but yeah, I made some friends in hospital,
so that was pretty coose.

Speaker 2 (01:41:27):
And how long were you in four state?

Speaker 20 (01:41:30):
Two weeks?

Speaker 2 (01:41:31):
Are you two weeks? Two weeks?

Speaker 20 (01:41:32):
Yeah, two weeks? Sort of sitting up in traction, so
to speak.

Speaker 3 (01:41:36):
So how did you why do you actually fall out
of this this this building? Or what happened that you
fell two stories?

Speaker 20 (01:41:41):
It's it's a well, it is a very funny backstory.
I won't go really right into it, but basically what
had happened. I was somewhere that I wanted to be,
but I shouldn't have been, and I didn't want to
get the person in trouble going out the front door,

(01:42:02):
so I had I said, well, I'll go up on
the roof and find a find a you know, what
are they?

Speaker 9 (01:42:07):
What are you escape?

Speaker 20 (01:42:10):
Couldn't find a fire escape, but I found a big,
big metal those big chunky metal drain pipes having the
buildings over there, and so I thought, oh what I'll
do if shoney de pipe pond.

Speaker 6 (01:42:22):
Pipe?

Speaker 9 (01:42:23):
So I was fite stories.

Speaker 20 (01:42:24):
Up and and then I'll you know, and I'll bugger off,
no no harm, no foul. So I gave the big
gave the drain pipe a big shake on the top
of the roof and it didn't move, and I thought,
sweet as and I topped on it. And as soon
as I turned around, you know keystone cop thing, it
came away from the building.

Speaker 2 (01:42:42):
Wow.

Speaker 20 (01:42:43):
And so I so I went down. The drain pipes
went down, landed right beside me. Lucky it didn't land
on me, because that would have been lights out of
it had of. And yeah, and here I am on
another roof. The girlfriend she heard the noise and everything
came up and looked over and sees me lying on
the roof with my arm cut open and looking white
as a ghost. But my first things think was when

(01:43:05):
I did hit the roof, was to get back up
on my feet because I thought I might have broken
my back. So I did get up on my feet,
and then then the shock at me, and then I
had to sit back down and got a lie back
down again. But yeah, she was pretty full on. But yeah,
it's just one of those crack up stories you have
when you're a young fellow.

Speaker 2 (01:43:24):
Four and pull and my final question for you.

Speaker 4 (01:43:27):
My final question for you, Steve, I've got too literally.
The first one is that the person that who's didn't
it was important that I didn't know you were there.
Did they see you screaming down the bottom and realize
that you were there?

Speaker 2 (01:43:41):
If you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:43:43):
You know, you know what?

Speaker 9 (01:43:45):
The fact is that those people that.

Speaker 20 (01:43:48):
I didn't want to know that I was there had
left the building early in the morning.

Speaker 4 (01:43:52):
I could have walked and is did you vertebrate come
right and you're all all good, You're recovering.

Speaker 20 (01:44:03):
Yeah, well that's that was in my in my twenties.
I'm now getting close to the old six o mark.
I'm still capable, but every now and then I do
get the pain down there, and as the doctor said
at the time, I'm always going to feel it, and
I do obviously when the weather's colder, I feel it
a lot more. But it hasn't stopped me in doing
during my life.

Speaker 9 (01:44:22):
So yeah, it word very lucky.

Speaker 2 (01:44:24):
Was it worth it? Steve?

Speaker 20 (01:44:26):
Yes, it was.

Speaker 3 (01:44:28):
Curdos to the lady then, Steve, great story, Thank you
very much. One hundred and eighty ten eighty. Can you
hear about your injuries overseas? It is twenty to four.

Speaker 1 (01:44:39):
The issues that affect you and a bit of fun
along the way. Matt Heath and Taylor Adams afternoons news talks.

Speaker 3 (01:44:45):
They'd be seventeen to two four.

Speaker 2 (01:44:48):
This brit here says, how dare you claim? Piece of pass?

Speaker 4 (01:44:52):
The phrase originated with the British Royal Air Force the
RAF during World War II, where its surfaced as a
vulgar variant of piece of cake. It traveled to the
Southern Hemisphere and has been abandoned by the British, but
it started with us. Also noticed that the word piss
itself is highly versatiltile in your key vernacular and used

(01:45:15):
in various context including alcohol.

Speaker 2 (01:45:16):
Yeah we knew that.

Speaker 3 (01:45:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, spot on. But that is good to know.
I mean, look, it's in the area. If they don't
want it anymore, we'll take it. Yeah, we'll have you it.
Yeah exactly. That's on you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:45:26):
That's how dare us?

Speaker 3 (01:45:27):
Yeah? There's some good facts though, Peru whateverened to you
when you were inured overseas.

Speaker 18 (01:45:32):
Him the yard in Austria in my early twenties snowboarding
and I broke my tips fid landing and jump from
So the silly thing was I was a very naive
twenty year old and because I thought I had a
British passport, and I thought that all countries were just
covered under the British medical system. Yeah, I was really

(01:45:52):
really lucky to find out that Austria at that time
was the only one, right.

Speaker 11 (01:45:59):
So, yeah, So I.

Speaker 18 (01:46:00):
Had a surgery of two weeks in hospital, and then
I came out of hospital and I had I got
some type of virus, like a vomiting virus. So I
was sick in bed for a week and then I
got up and I found down the stairs of the
place that I was staying it and rebroke my fibure.

(01:46:23):
They couldn't do anything for me, so they just sent.

Speaker 4 (01:46:25):
Me home and I recovered and were you were you
over there on your own proof?

Speaker 18 (01:46:31):
My sister is with me on that trip. She was
able to get the news home to my mum and
sit there and they actually came over to Yeah, and
what they had a trip book in May. So we've
been traveling in mate and I was still on cratches
and I had to downsize my back picked like a
small bag. In fact, I still had more my snowballs

(01:46:53):
than that.

Speaker 4 (01:46:54):
So how do people take you saying, Hey, I've been
in hospital two weeks, I've got out. Now I've broken
my fibure. Were you getting on somebody at that point?

Speaker 15 (01:47:05):
No?

Speaker 18 (01:47:06):
Like, honestly, I'm one of those who were just broken
so many bones. Wrote my elbow the year before, and
when I was in Canada, I thought I broke my
knee and I had a hospital visit, the f of
an ambulance visit. The So I was just a person
that every year do something every snowble season.

Speaker 2 (01:47:22):
So travel insurance ago for you going forward?

Speaker 5 (01:47:28):
God, definitely?

Speaker 9 (01:47:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 18 (01:47:31):
Yeah in Canada it was as so. Yeah, you've got
to read the policy and I need just way it online.
I just get it through the travel ations.

Speaker 3 (01:47:37):
How big was the jump rough? Did you just send it?
Did it actually look good in literally before you're bailed?

Speaker 18 (01:47:43):
No, it was specifically small, and it was in the
horrible two week old powders and my board just stuck in.

Speaker 9 (01:47:49):
The nose and my body.

Speaker 3 (01:47:52):
Yeah, that's gone. I'm sorry, I asked prove great story.
Thank you very much. Oh one hundred and eighty ten
eighty is the number to call get a Todd's sorry, Todd, Welcome.

Speaker 19 (01:48:03):
To show today, guys.

Speaker 9 (01:48:04):
Did I guys love your show?

Speaker 2 (01:48:05):
Oh? Thank you?

Speaker 19 (01:48:06):
Tom So Me and my we were working in London
and we went off to Seville in Spain for two
weeks sort of backpacking trip, and we went to the
expo and I was sort of sitting there at the
expo and the Ossie tent mining our own business, and
these people we met, these Aussies, and these people came
along and said, if you want to go into a

(01:48:26):
beer drinking competition, you get free beer and you have
to run a course and do this.

Speaker 9 (01:48:31):
So we're up for it.

Speaker 19 (01:48:34):
So I won the first I won my hate and
then you had to jump over a table and all this,
and then the finals happened, and so I'm like, they
put these two tables together and you had to jump
over them, but people like hop down them. But may
be and may I thought, oh I can leap that.
So run down the track, drink a beer, run around

(01:48:56):
the post, looking up with the old broomstick, Drink another beer,
go down the straight to jump over the tables, leap
over my foot, HiT's the top second one and I
feel this big crack.

Speaker 9 (01:49:08):
I think, oh shit.

Speaker 19 (01:49:09):
Go down the end, scull the last little Midi or
whatever they were called. Win the race, Get back to
my table, get more free beer. And a hat. Ten
minutes later, I'm feeling really sick and can do my
foot so sore. I go to get up to go
to the toiler. I wake up in the old emergency tent.

(01:49:31):
Must have fainted. And anyway, because I had no medical insurance,
they just basically said, oh, your foot's badly broken, but
you know, there's nothing we can do. You have to
either go back to England.

Speaker 5 (01:49:45):
Or that's it.

Speaker 19 (01:49:47):
So we didn't have flights booked out till like two
weeks later from Barcelona. So for those two weeks we're
just moped around like on the tray bed things booked like.
The misters wasn't very happy. It was like, you know,
luckily this size the guy had managed to steal me
one like one of those ones you put your wrist

(01:50:10):
and in your hand on it, because they wouldn't give
me nothing. Finally got to Barcelona, they were nothing. Got
across into British Airways flight back to London and they
treaded me like a king. They just old deep car
straight up upgraded me to leg room. When we got

(01:50:31):
to London, they got the old electric car straight through customs,
straight to the hospital. X rays plaster and yeah, so yeah,
I'd always had medical insurance. At that time, I thought, no,
never need it, never need it. But yeah, Spain were brutal.
They do not they don't give it, you know, they
don't give it. It's just terrible.

Speaker 2 (01:50:53):
Yeah, it sounds pretty rough. But at least you won
the race. God, yeah I got.

Speaker 19 (01:50:57):
I kept that hat for ages.

Speaker 2 (01:51:00):
With it.

Speaker 19 (01:51:02):
Oh it was worth it, you know, only twenty was
only twenty stupid at that time.

Speaker 1 (01:51:08):
You know.

Speaker 19 (01:51:09):
But yeah, there's lots of stuff like that when you're overseas.

Speaker 2 (01:51:12):
Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 4 (01:51:14):
The NHS has saved a lot of Kiwis overseas, that's
for sure.

Speaker 19 (01:51:17):
How Yeah, yeah, I fell for a roof in London
once and when I was working as you do, and
yeah there's another story. But yeah, it's good.

Speaker 5 (01:51:29):
They're really good.

Speaker 4 (01:51:30):
When I was mugged in London, had my face smashed
and went through my tongue, it's terrible. I went to
the you know, I had a British citizen, so I
was it was you know, I didn't really understand that
it worked. I can't understand when no one was asking
me to prove that I was a British citizen before
they did anything. I was kind of in this delirious state.
I was coming into the consciousness and I was just
trying to constantly find my passport to try and so

(01:51:53):
they could look after me. Yeah, yeah, but they didn't
care because it was the NHS. They just fixed out, yeah,
which is great, and they didn't care where I was from.

Speaker 3 (01:52:00):
There's a teacher there, Matt. I want to know more
about that story when you got mugged.

Speaker 4 (01:52:04):
Yeah, I mean, but I want to hear other people's stories. Okay,
I already know my story fair enough. I want to
hear Mark's story.

Speaker 3 (01:52:09):
Get a Mark, are good? What happened?

Speaker 21 (01:52:13):
I was flying to on my way to Thailand, going
crosses Singapore League and I got asthma an air end
of the flight, and so the the regular flight came
around and said you need any oxygen? I said no,
I'll be good, And before we got to Australia, I
said I need the oxygen. So I went through six
bottels of oxygen before we got Singapore and they mad

(01:52:34):
backed me off. And then I got taken the chance
General and I think that also had peumonia, so that
was why I was struggling to breathe as well. So anyway,
I got three days stay and then I got no
fly pass put on me, so I couldn't fly to
Tiland simmer Mates, and so I was just in Singapore.
My mate Comoro from Thailand. He said, oh, I thought

(01:52:56):
I'd come and keep you comping me. Could have been
a good idea, but I think it was a bad
one because we just ended up drinking and we tried
to get in the casino, and the casino that you
need your passport, and I went up and they said,
now you can't come in.

Speaker 6 (01:53:09):
I said, why not, because apparently I wasn't even registered
to be.

Speaker 21 (01:53:12):
In the country. I was a legal alien. So well,
because I've got them egvecked off the flight. They didn't
chicken the pass word, so I was in the country illegally.

Speaker 6 (01:53:22):
So I had to get all that fixed.

Speaker 21 (01:53:24):
And then when I did get a flight pass, but
for my lungs, he said, we'll do some medical chicks.

Speaker 9 (01:53:29):
So do some chicks.

Speaker 21 (01:53:30):
You said your heart racing. I said, don't worry about
it would be good. You said that we better do
an ECG, and of course I had another operation on that.
So they put me down on the cardiac ward and
come around and said two days stay in Cardiac wards
twenty four K.

Speaker 2 (01:53:44):
You know, I thought.

Speaker 21 (01:53:45):
About it, and I mean I'm scaped. I escaped and
changed my hotel, did some of roughmetic and next day
I thought up on a phone and they get diverted.
I'm up for a bigger class in twenty four K.
So I went back and got it fixed. So I
was three weeks in Singapore. Was only meant to be
half an hour. So that was my story.

Speaker 2 (01:54:06):
And so had did you rustle up the cash mark?

Speaker 21 (01:54:10):
Well, I had the insurance company come to the party.
What I did when I did my insurance, I thought
out everything, okay, what I thought was there, but I
didn't have heart. My heart wasn't racing that time EF
and after and I didn't think you had to tell them,
But you do another thing I also found out of insurance.

Speaker 16 (01:54:30):
If you want.

Speaker 21 (01:54:31):
Any wonder as a traveling companion with your companion with you,
you've got to tell them.

Speaker 3 (01:54:37):
Before you go.

Speaker 21 (01:54:38):
Otherwise, read this small print. So few things about insurance
that you've got to sort of check out.

Speaker 2 (01:54:46):
Yeah, read this more print.

Speaker 3 (01:54:47):
Yeah, good advice. Thank you very much much. Mark back
very shortly. It is seven to four.

Speaker 1 (01:54:51):
The big stories, the big issues to the big trends
and everything in between. Matt Heath and Tyler Adams afternoons
used talks'd be.

Speaker 3 (01:55:00):
It'd be. It is five to four, all right, This
is the end of the show.

Speaker 2 (01:55:03):
Thanks so much for listening.

Speaker 4 (01:55:04):
Thanks for all your calls and text which we had
another hour to hear all these horrible overseas accidents stories,
but we're out of time. Here the sound is up
next here the DUP s Allen is up next, and
after four Heather talks to David Seymour about his idea
o ideas to ban the smartphones and make New Zealand
a tech testing ground. But right now, Tyler, why am
I playing the lead single from Dran Duran's third album,

(01:55:24):
seven and the Ragged Tiger.

Speaker 3 (01:55:27):
You might have me again, Matt Heath, just while I
wait for my shazan to try and pick the sup.
I didn't know the song title.

Speaker 4 (01:55:37):
The song is called the Union of the Snake, and
the Greens have announced they want to snake people into
unions automatically when they are first employed in industries with
collective agreements.

Speaker 3 (01:55:47):
Again, well done, mate, Yeah, it's nice journey.

Speaker 2 (01:55:50):
You keep your shazam to yourself, it's cheating all right everyone,
you seem busy, will let you go.

Speaker 4 (01:55:54):
Tyler and I will back tomorrow afternoon, live until the end.

Speaker 2 (01:55:58):
Give a taste a key we bless.

Speaker 1 (01:56:11):
Mattia and Tyler Adams. For more from News Talk st B,
Listen live on air or online, and keep our shows
with you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio.