June 3, 2025 • 11 mins
THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Wednesday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Green Shoots! Green Shoots!/Hot Showers All Round/Dodgy Data/And In Other Dodgy Data News...
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news Talk said be
follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Rewrap there and welcome to the rewrap for Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
All the best buts from the mic asking breakfast on
news Talks they'd be in a sillier package. I am
Glen Hatton today. Are we going to have enough water
to make the power this winter? Have the answer for
you shortly. I know you're you're hanging on you don't
know where to take a long shower or short shower.
Just wait a minute.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
We've got some interesting, if not spurious, tourism data. And
then we had some interesting, if not spurious polls to
discuss as well.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
The first up the confidence business confidence, consumer confidence?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Is there any and if not, why not?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Well?
Speaker 5 (01:07):
I hope Christian Hawksbeck spent some of his weekend digesting
that consumer confidence report. It came straight off the back
of the business confidence report and both are going backwards.
Consumer confidence went down five points to ninety two. You
need over one hundred to find overall positivity. There is
no positivity to be found. But according to Christian last
week the Reserve Bank think they're on target. Have done
(01:28):
about the right amount of stuff they need to do,
and things are in the middle of where they need
to be, so more stimulation for the economy is not
really needed. Is he serious? I mean, I asked him
if you heard the interview last week, are you serious now?
To be fair, his argument is some of the stuff
they have done takes time to trickle through.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Now.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
I hope he is right on that, but I don't
see you'll hear trickling at the moment. He seems to
suggest that the good parts of the economy are good
enough to give an overall sense at the bits and
pieces the RB look at are in some sort of
balance i e. Inflation is within this one to three band.
But you simply can't have as much of the economy
as we do i e. The consumer and business generally
(02:05):
in the doldrums. And not to be concerned about what
it is you can would do if you wanted to
fire the place up a bit. Look at the business
numbers not only going backwards, but inflation expectations are on
the rise, and the desire to hire is sinking. We
seem almost solely reliant on beef and milk and kiwi
fruit to make money. Anything domestic is struggling, but foreign
receipts can hide that pain on a balance sheet where
(02:25):
the government have trouble is a balance sheet doesn't vote.
The bloke who isn't making money does. The person who
can't find work does. The person who's eking out a
weekly wage on ever increasing rates and power bills does?
See A good country has a good economy, and a
good economy is broad and expansionary. The surveys tell us
this isn't happening, and hasn't been for years now. Christian
tells us, oh, it's all okay, and he might not
(02:48):
have to do any more than he has. I say
he's wrong, and in three months time I would rather
not be proven right.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I mean, this is about grandmother researchy, and you'll be
a bit of that in this podcast of just warning
you ahead of time today. But I know of at
least one business that's finally started to make budget again
after a fear period not doing that. So that's something
that feel good about things.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
I think there's just this ever slight vibe out there
that we might be on the verge, don't you reckon
springs just around the corner, so we wrap especially now
we can just jump into the shower and shower and
shower and shower, because we're not going to run out
of power.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Power power Now, Christmas came early for tea way as
in the aluminium smelter yesterday. They get to do business.
They get to do business in a country where you
would have thought of doing business would be encouraged. Anyway.
They've been prevented from doing all the business they can
because they have a deal, of course with their power company, Meridian,
whereby they have to contain themselves if things are a
bit tight in the old power department. It is indeed
(03:52):
a weird old world where we revel in ideas like
AI and crypto and data centers, and yet we don't
have the slightest idea where the power to make all
this is coming from. Big tech is under pressure globally
as well. It's claim they've got data centers running and
using things like water in areas of the planet where
water is scarce. New Zealand wants to be a data
center hub and yet can't allow an aliuminium plant to
(04:13):
run to its capacity because it didn't rain enough. Good
news is it has rained a bit lately, so the
Southern Lakes look solid, which means they think we might
not be as pinched as we have been in other winters.
The idea that you aspire to run a power grid
that is reliant on things you have no control over
is a very modern version. I would have thought of insanity.
We need it to rain, we need it to blow,
(04:33):
we need the sun to shine. We have no control
over any of those things. So we convince ourselves we
aren't idiots by thinking we will build options. So if
the sun isn't out, the wind will blow, or if
it doesn't blow, at least it will rain. But when
it doesn't do any of those things, which it hasn't,
we need t y and your average punter to take
it easy on the cold mornings. And that is with
(04:54):
right here, right now. Hardly any AI or crypto or
data centers. Imagine how stuck we would be if we
actually had got any of those things up and running.
Gas would help, of course, but labour stopped all that,
and our reopening of the market is only just beginning.
We Rea really do look very nineteen eighty seven. Meantime,
the coal comes in from Indonesia, defeating the entire purpose
(05:14):
of the climb and exercise of renewables cart before horse anyone.
They say it will all work out. Eventually, we will
have so much renewable capacity, we'll have all the bases covered.
Do you believe that? Do you believe a country that
makes its biggest power user limits its capacity every time
winter comes really is a country that deals successfully.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
You've got to hand it to the Husk.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
He never gets tired of heading his head against the
brick wall on certain issues, and I think power generations.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Is one of them.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
He keeps complaining about it. I guess he hopes that
that one day something will change. He knows that he's
sixteen hour rewrapped. Right, I'm going to lead you, with
some trepidation into the dodgy data phase of the podcast.
(06:03):
We're going to start up with a bit of tourist
info or is it this info?
Speaker 5 (06:08):
Back to this tourism really quickly to give you an
indication of how much we're struggling. So we do the number.
It's all headline stuff these days. Tourism brings in twelve
point two billion dollars and you go, wow, is that good? Well,
you wouldn't know, because they don't compare it to anything.
Let me compare it to something dairy twenty two, So
twenty two versus twelve. Dairy is number one. Tourism's number
(06:31):
two at twelve. It comes in just above our third
biggest income owner, which happens to be meat and awful,
which is nine.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
How much of that is awful and how much of
that is meat? Do you reckon?
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Bit of work to do?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I would have thought that you'd want the meat to
be more or less in balanced with the awful, because
if the demand is from more awful than meat, do
you then need to genetically modify animals that are.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
More awful than meat.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
I've spent so much time concentrating on offul and I'm
saying to feel a.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Bit gross rerap anyway. So yeah, that.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Unusual and perhaps misleading tourism data there, and now some
more unusual tourism data at this time.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Rankings for things.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
To this tourism as there's a couple of bits and tourism.
One best beach in the world or the most complained
about beach in the world. The company called cloud Woods
cloud storage review site for reasons best known of themselves
looked at two hundred. The world's top beach is analyzed
the number of complaint related keywords like dirty, overcrowded, long queues, noise,
worst speach in the world wide Kiki. If you've ever
been there, you'll know what I'm talking about. It's one
(07:51):
of those places you get to and you look at
as this is it is apparently Venus. Another one I've
been to cycled along Venus. That was, you know, with
a lot of homeless people, a lot of weed. The
southern California Risque Bondi gives in the top ten list.
But this sleep tourism. So it's an insurance company called
all Clear Order. It reviews the ninety popular city break
(08:13):
destinations compared factors including reviews, mentioning sleep, percentage of positive reviews,
average hotel cost per night, so in other words, if
you were cheap, it helped. Each destination was awarded a
possible score of one hundred. Auckland one of all the
cities in the world. They looked at ninety cities in
the world. Auckland one with a score of ninety two
point three. Its blend of quote fresh sea air, bountiful
(08:38):
scenic landscapes, and low pollution levels, which I suppose all
technically is correct, coming second but well behind Auckland with
a score of eighty eight point one, the vibrant cafes,
the affordable hotels and the scenic waterfront. I speak, of course,
of Wellington. Second best place to sleep as a tourist
(09:01):
in the world are Grenada, Brisbane and Bruges made the
top five. Could just think of it this, I would
have thought.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
The key to being a sleepy city is how tired
the city makes you, and that would certainly go a
long way to explaining why Auckland and Wellington have done
so well, because you know, especially tourists probably turn up
at the train station expecting a train to be there
to take them to where they want to go, and
either there isn't a train service it can go that way,
(09:33):
or it's just not running today because it's a long
weekend and they're doing some work on the line.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
But perhaps the seals on the track, so you can't
have a train that day. And then there's a lot
more work walking involved. You've got to go and find
we have buses, take a bus, and then of course you.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Can't park close to anywhere and you need to be
either in those two cities, so there's a bit more
walking by the time you get home or back to
your hotel room, and you absolutely bugge and you're nod
straight off.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I would have thought the rewrap right now. Our final
piece of.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Interesting in quotation marks data. It comes courtesy of not
one but two poles. Unfortunately they don't quite match up.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
Poll out this morning, and this is why I spend
so little time on poles. So last night's pole, you
saw the numbers Nationals on thirty four or are they
Because Radio New Zealand's got a poll out this morning
it's got them on thirty so are they thirty four
or are they thirty you'll note those numbers are outside
the margin of era. Last night, Labor we're on twenty nine.
(10:33):
Radio New Zealand's got them on thirty three, so they're
twenty nine or thirty three, outside the margin of era.
The other part of the TV one poll I liked
last night was the budget satisfaction, which is a stupid
question because I mean, are you satisfied with the budget?
I mean, what does that even mean? Anyway? The point
being thirty nine was satisfied, thirty nine percent was satisfied,
eighteen percent don't know, don't care, so that's fifty seven
(10:55):
percent once again. The majority of New Zealanders are, broadly speaking,
either not that interested or they're satisfied the same with
pay equity. Broadly speaking, they agree with what the government
are doing, and they don't care. They don't care. Things
always high this time of the electoral cycle, because of
course we generally don't care.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Talk about heading ahead against the correct war.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Now it's me imploring everybody to never ever pay any
attention to any polls or predictions or forecasts from meteorologists, posters,
political experts, economists, anybody ever again, and we can get
on with the rest of our lives. And then whatever
(11:38):
happens happens. I am Glenn Hart, and what I can
confidently predict is that I'll be back here again tomorrow
with another rerap.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I'll see you there.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
For more from News Talks at b Listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to a podcast from news Talk said be
follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Rewrap there and welcome to the rewrap for Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
All the best buts from the mic asking breakfast on
news Talks they'd be in a sillier package. I am
Glen Hatton today. Are we going to have enough water
to make the power this winter? Have the answer for
you shortly. I know you're you're hanging on you don't
know where to take a long shower or short shower.
Just wait a minute.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
We've got some interesting, if not spurious, tourism data. And
then we had some interesting, if not spurious polls to
discuss as well.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
The first up the confidence business confidence, consumer confidence?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Is there any and if not, why not?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Well?
Speaker 5 (01:07):
I hope Christian Hawksbeck spent some of his weekend digesting
that consumer confidence report. It came straight off the back
of the business confidence report and both are going backwards.
Consumer confidence went down five points to ninety two. You
need over one hundred to find overall positivity. There is
no positivity to be found. But according to Christian last
week the Reserve Bank think they're on target. Have done
(01:28):
about the right amount of stuff they need to do,
and things are in the middle of where they need
to be, so more stimulation for the economy is not
really needed. Is he serious? I mean, I asked him
if you heard the interview last week, are you serious now?
To be fair, his argument is some of the stuff
they have done takes time to trickle through.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Now.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
I hope he is right on that, but I don't
see you'll hear trickling at the moment. He seems to
suggest that the good parts of the economy are good
enough to give an overall sense at the bits and
pieces the RB look at are in some sort of
balance i e. Inflation is within this one to three band.
But you simply can't have as much of the economy
as we do i e. The consumer and business generally
(02:05):
in the doldrums. And not to be concerned about what
it is you can would do if you wanted to
fire the place up a bit. Look at the business
numbers not only going backwards, but inflation expectations are on
the rise, and the desire to hire is sinking. We
seem almost solely reliant on beef and milk and kiwi
fruit to make money. Anything domestic is struggling, but foreign
receipts can hide that pain on a balance sheet where
(02:25):
the government have trouble is a balance sheet doesn't vote.
The bloke who isn't making money does. The person who
can't find work does. The person who's eking out a
weekly wage on ever increasing rates and power bills does?
See A good country has a good economy, and a
good economy is broad and expansionary. The surveys tell us
this isn't happening, and hasn't been for years now. Christian
tells us, oh, it's all okay, and he might not
(02:48):
have to do any more than he has. I say
he's wrong, and in three months time I would rather
not be proven right.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I mean, this is about grandmother researchy, and you'll be
a bit of that in this podcast of just warning
you ahead of time today. But I know of at
least one business that's finally started to make budget again
after a fear period not doing that. So that's something
that feel good about things.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
I think there's just this ever slight vibe out there
that we might be on the verge, don't you reckon
springs just around the corner, so we wrap especially now
we can just jump into the shower and shower and
shower and shower, because we're not going to run out
of power.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Power power Now, Christmas came early for tea way as
in the aluminium smelter yesterday. They get to do business.
They get to do business in a country where you
would have thought of doing business would be encouraged. Anyway.
They've been prevented from doing all the business they can
because they have a deal, of course with their power company, Meridian,
whereby they have to contain themselves if things are a
bit tight in the old power department. It is indeed
(03:52):
a weird old world where we revel in ideas like
AI and crypto and data centers, and yet we don't
have the slightest idea where the power to make all
this is coming from. Big tech is under pressure globally
as well. It's claim they've got data centers running and
using things like water in areas of the planet where
water is scarce. New Zealand wants to be a data
center hub and yet can't allow an aliuminium plant to
(04:13):
run to its capacity because it didn't rain enough. Good
news is it has rained a bit lately, so the
Southern Lakes look solid, which means they think we might
not be as pinched as we have been in other winters.
The idea that you aspire to run a power grid
that is reliant on things you have no control over
is a very modern version. I would have thought of insanity.
We need it to rain, we need it to blow,
(04:33):
we need the sun to shine. We have no control
over any of those things. So we convince ourselves we
aren't idiots by thinking we will build options. So if
the sun isn't out, the wind will blow, or if
it doesn't blow, at least it will rain. But when
it doesn't do any of those things, which it hasn't,
we need t y and your average punter to take
it easy on the cold mornings. And that is with
(04:54):
right here, right now. Hardly any AI or crypto or
data centers. Imagine how stuck we would be if we
actually had got any of those things up and running.
Gas would help, of course, but labour stopped all that,
and our reopening of the market is only just beginning.
We Rea really do look very nineteen eighty seven. Meantime,
the coal comes in from Indonesia, defeating the entire purpose
(05:14):
of the climb and exercise of renewables cart before horse anyone.
They say it will all work out. Eventually, we will
have so much renewable capacity, we'll have all the bases covered.
Do you believe that? Do you believe a country that
makes its biggest power user limits its capacity every time
winter comes really is a country that deals successfully.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
You've got to hand it to the Husk.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
He never gets tired of heading his head against the
brick wall on certain issues, and I think power generations.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Is one of them.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
He keeps complaining about it. I guess he hopes that
that one day something will change. He knows that he's
sixteen hour rewrapped. Right, I'm going to lead you, with
some trepidation into the dodgy data phase of the podcast.
(06:03):
We're going to start up with a bit of tourist
info or is it this info?
Speaker 5 (06:08):
Back to this tourism really quickly to give you an
indication of how much we're struggling. So we do the number.
It's all headline stuff these days. Tourism brings in twelve
point two billion dollars and you go, wow, is that good? Well,
you wouldn't know, because they don't compare it to anything.
Let me compare it to something dairy twenty two, So
twenty two versus twelve. Dairy is number one. Tourism's number
(06:31):
two at twelve. It comes in just above our third
biggest income owner, which happens to be meat and awful,
which is nine.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
How much of that is awful and how much of
that is meat? Do you reckon?
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Bit of work to do?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I would have thought that you'd want the meat to
be more or less in balanced with the awful, because
if the demand is from more awful than meat, do
you then need to genetically modify animals that are.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
More awful than meat.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
I've spent so much time concentrating on offul and I'm
saying to feel a.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Bit gross rerap anyway. So yeah, that.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Unusual and perhaps misleading tourism data there, and now some
more unusual tourism data at this time.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Rankings for things.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
To this tourism as there's a couple of bits and tourism.
One best beach in the world or the most complained
about beach in the world. The company called cloud Woods
cloud storage review site for reasons best known of themselves
looked at two hundred. The world's top beach is analyzed
the number of complaint related keywords like dirty, overcrowded, long queues, noise,
worst speach in the world wide Kiki. If you've ever
been there, you'll know what I'm talking about. It's one
(07:51):
of those places you get to and you look at
as this is it is apparently Venus. Another one I've
been to cycled along Venus. That was, you know, with
a lot of homeless people, a lot of weed. The
southern California Risque Bondi gives in the top ten list.
But this sleep tourism. So it's an insurance company called
all Clear Order. It reviews the ninety popular city break
(08:13):
destinations compared factors including reviews, mentioning sleep, percentage of positive reviews,
average hotel cost per night, so in other words, if
you were cheap, it helped. Each destination was awarded a
possible score of one hundred. Auckland one of all the
cities in the world. They looked at ninety cities in
the world. Auckland one with a score of ninety two
point three. Its blend of quote fresh sea air, bountiful
(08:38):
scenic landscapes, and low pollution levels, which I suppose all
technically is correct, coming second but well behind Auckland with
a score of eighty eight point one, the vibrant cafes,
the affordable hotels and the scenic waterfront. I speak, of course,
of Wellington. Second best place to sleep as a tourist
(09:01):
in the world are Grenada, Brisbane and Bruges made the
top five. Could just think of it this, I would
have thought.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
The key to being a sleepy city is how tired
the city makes you, and that would certainly go a
long way to explaining why Auckland and Wellington have done
so well, because you know, especially tourists probably turn up
at the train station expecting a train to be there
to take them to where they want to go, and
either there isn't a train service it can go that way,
(09:33):
or it's just not running today because it's a long
weekend and they're doing some work on the line.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
But perhaps the seals on the track, so you can't
have a train that day. And then there's a lot
more work walking involved. You've got to go and find
we have buses, take a bus, and then of course you.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Can't park close to anywhere and you need to be
either in those two cities, so there's a bit more
walking by the time you get home or back to
your hotel room, and you absolutely bugge and you're nod
straight off.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I would have thought the rewrap right now. Our final
piece of.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Interesting in quotation marks data. It comes courtesy of not
one but two poles. Unfortunately they don't quite match up.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
Poll out this morning, and this is why I spend
so little time on poles. So last night's pole, you
saw the numbers Nationals on thirty four or are they
Because Radio New Zealand's got a poll out this morning
it's got them on thirty so are they thirty four
or are they thirty you'll note those numbers are outside
the margin of era. Last night, Labor we're on twenty nine.
(10:33):
Radio New Zealand's got them on thirty three, so they're
twenty nine or thirty three, outside the margin of era.
The other part of the TV one poll I liked
last night was the budget satisfaction, which is a stupid
question because I mean, are you satisfied with the budget?
I mean, what does that even mean? Anyway? The point
being thirty nine was satisfied, thirty nine percent was satisfied,
eighteen percent don't know, don't care, so that's fifty seven
(10:55):
percent once again. The majority of New Zealanders are, broadly speaking,
either not that interested or they're satisfied the same with
pay equity. Broadly speaking, they agree with what the government
are doing, and they don't care. They don't care. Things
always high this time of the electoral cycle, because of
course we generally don't care.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Talk about heading ahead against the correct war.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Now it's me imploring everybody to never ever pay any
attention to any polls or predictions or forecasts from meteorologists, posters,
political experts, economists, anybody ever again, and we can get
on with the rest of our lives. And then whatever
(11:38):
happens happens. I am Glenn Hart, and what I can
confidently predict is that I'll be back here again tomorrow
with another rerap.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I'll see you there.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
For more from News Talks at b Listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio.
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