March 18, 2026 • 12 mins
THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Thursday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Wait... This Number Might Be Meaningless?/Poll-a-Rama/Ringing the Wong Number/Never Was a Story. Never Will Be
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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):
The rewrap ooday there and welcome to the rewrap for Thursday.
All the best, but it's from the mic hosting breakfast
on news Talks Heed Be in a sillier package, I
am Glen Hart and today so you know that I
have a firm role now that we will never mention
a poll either on the mic hosking Breakfast or on
this podcast ever again. So today we're talking about two
(00:47):
different ones. Christopher Luxon's dinner date and how that might
help us through the fuel shortage and Chris Hopkinson's ex
wife and all that drama still not a story, but
before any of that. So yeah, GDP man, we used
to love talking about the GDP. We were so into
(01:09):
the GDP, and now it's kind of like, what's the
point of it? Gd pointless?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Given their pic fury, Is there any real point in
today's GDP reader mean, we're in the land of who
the hell knows what's going on? So what happened in
the past three months of last year doesn't seem quite
as impactful as it might have two and a half
weeks ago. It's also a number that's apparently anyone's guest,
is quite the gap between the worst and the best forecast.
But upside upside, it will be in growth, and it
will add to the very good number in Q three.
(01:33):
In other words, in the latter part of last year,
the recovery was real fast forward Q one this year
as in right now a mix of numbers from spending
to manufacturing too. Trachometers that had January maybe a bit
wobbly February much better in March as we sit here
right now, blown away by the war. Of course, the
forecasts looking forward, which is different to today's stats, was
(01:54):
for three percent GDP this year three percent next year.
War aside, they are excellent numbers. In fact, in my
opinion about the maximum output of an economy like ours,
I mean we have capacity constraints. Of course, we can
only do so much growing before inflation starts to take off,
and I reckon about three percent about it. So if
the war ends in the next couple of weeks and
the fallout is constrained, we can return to the reality
(02:17):
that things are very definitely on the right track. This,
of course, all ties into the election good growth is
a vote dibdend for a government that has worked hard
to turn the joint around. Interesting to see if the
joint doesn't get turned around because of the war, whether
the government gets the blame. You see, there's a poll
out in Australia this week. They blame the government for
their current woes, not the war. To be fair, the
(02:38):
poll only took the very very early stages of the
war into account. But the war, of course is not
a local government's fault. It's Trump's net Nyahu's. But would
a vote to blame a government for not cutting fuel
tax or not taking say gst offer it in vegetables,
or like shurlank and not turning every Wednesday into a holiday?
In other words, can labour make hay by promising a
lot knowing it never has to deliver? Can the price
(03:00):
of mints be directly sheeted back to a conservative economic
manager who wants the market to do what the market
will do when outside forces play havoc? Or a bit
of old fashion left wing interventionism appeal to a house
with a stretch budget. The best hope, of course, as
the war doesn't last, the impact is minimal and we
can return to a country and an economy that, as
GDP today will show, is doing pretty damn well.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
You know, I'm saying to wonder if these stumbers have
always been pointless and not really all that relevant to
our everyday lives, and we could just ignore them and
move on or is that just mean so rewrap? Actually,
speaking of pointless numbers, the most pointless of all, of course,
are our poll numbers.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Does the Talbot Mills poll out yesterday blow wide open
the overt and corrupt actions of parts of the media
that went to town last week and indeed the week
before that, on the Prime Minister, does the Talbot Mills
poll out yesterday with National on thirty two build on
evidence that they are not twenty eight, nor were they
ever twenty eight, nor then was there ever a need
(03:59):
to go to town last week and the week before
on the Prime Minister. As we count the numbers of
poles and I've got at least six, if not seven,
that have National well versus the one that had National
at twenty eight, can we conclude the twenty eight was
an outlier, should have been seen as one and therefore
treated as such and given large sways of the media
didn't treat it as such. We can very confidently now
(04:20):
say those parts of the media showed an unprofessional bias
against the government. Can we also say if the Poles
continue to show national in the thirties not the twenties,
and Poles continue to show as yesterday's does at worse
to hung parliament, but more realistically, based on the Marray
Party assumption a re elected government, that rolling a leader
of a party destined for a second term is not
actually a realistic prospect or anywhere close, and the less
(04:43):
realistic it is, the more absurd their agenda driven brain
explosion looks. Hipkins too, was asked this week, I note
whether his leadership is safe? Safe from what furious ex wives?
Is that? The problem? The political media only have a
grab bag of questions these days around the same theme.
Are you quitting? Are you safe? Is the coup brewing?
Are you going home to consider your options? The problem
(05:04):
with so many of them, being so inexperienced as they
are is they lack any form of institutional and as
such haven't really seen proper political drama. A rogue pole,
a rogue x Isn't it mix that with the fact
that they are overtly biased against the government and all
you need is one ropee pole at twenty eight and
its operation epic fury gallery style. In a world where
(05:25):
news cycles turn at an increasing rate of knots, this crime,
and it is a crime committed by those charged with
political coverage, deserves ongoing attention simply because it's electioned to
year and yesterday's pole starts to expose very clearly that
the government has two oppositions, one made up of labor,
the Greens and the Murray Party, and the other made
up of a decent chunk of the media, some of
whom are funded by the taxpayer. And if that doesn't
(05:46):
worry you an election year, nothing does.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
No more and more.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And I know I've said I bang on about this.
I've been doing this job for twenty five years this year,
and so yeah, I feel like I've got a reasonable
amount of experience behind me when I say just ignore it, man,
just go with it. Don't worry about it, don't worry
about the media. Yeah, don't worry about the poles. Just
do what you do. People will respond or not responded.
(06:13):
I don't even know who I'm talking to. Do Let's
move on, rewrap, Actually, let's let's stay with polling, but
let's not even talk about our Polly. Let's talk about
Australian polling, about Iran and what's going on.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Heck, what's happening hole out in Australia. They're like everybody else.
I suspect the number would be similar here if we
did a poll, a resolved survey yesterday. Sixty one percent
of Australians want to stay out of the wall completely.
Thirteen percent are eager to get into it. So sixty
one thirteen you can't argue with it. Forty Now he
is in forty seven percent support regime change. So the
theory is, okay, we just don't want to do anything
(06:49):
about it. So yeah, no, you go do it because
I don't want to. It's got that vibe about it,
doesn't it. Twenty nine percent endorse the government, support of
the strikes, thirty five percent to post it. So they
want regime change, but they don't want the government to
support it, and they certainly don't want anything to do
with it. So that's a Australians for you.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, I think I get it. I mean, I'm the
last person to try and empathize with an Australian but
I get that. You know, if you ask me that
all those questions, I'd probably say, morally, it's the same thing.
And it goes back to what I was saying before.
Just let people get on with their own stuff. We
don't have to get involved with their stuff. I mean,
we can have an opinion about their stuff, a personal opinion,
(07:32):
but you know, once you have an official opinion, then
you've got to officially you do things, and I think
we'd probably rather not, don't you re wrap right, So
we've sort of segued into the Iranian thing. Iranian, Iranian, Irani.
I heard an Iranian guy actually say today, Irani. Anyway,
(07:55):
I've got a bit I've distracted myself for yet, let's
get back to it. So as a result of all this,
of course, the petrol's a bit more expensive. I've got
to fill up today, so I'm a little bit feeling
a little bit nervous. But are we safe and secure
with getting our petrol from the people we thought we
were getting our petrol from, or if they decided to
(08:16):
give their petrol to somebody else. Turns out if you
have the Prime Minister of Singapore around for dinner, you
might be all right.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Here's what Lawrence Wong, So here's how I see these
things happening. So when Lawrence Wog, the head of Singapore,
was here a couple of months ago, he went round
to Luckson's house for dinner. Quite didn't adest the two
of them by themselves, no security, know nothing. And that's
part of Luckson's re engaging with the world. And this
happens with Peter's, happens with McLay, happens with all most
ministers have got out into the world to re engage
(08:46):
with the world. We were an isolated country. We closed
our borders, we closed our doors, and we had a
foreign minister who hated flying and didn't go anywhere. Now
why am I telling him the story because it occurred
to me in the early hours of this morning while
I was washing my hair, that where do we get
our petrol from. We get it from Singapore and we
get it from South Korea. Luxon's been to both places.
(09:06):
He can ring Wong if there becomes because the oil
is not the problem. In my view, the oil is
not the problem. Yes, there's not as much oil, but
it's still out there. There's still plenty of oil out there.
But the supply. The access to it is the issue
if in a couple of weeks this becomes a problem.
The ability of a prime minister of one country to
ring the prime minister of another country and go, mate,
you know the deal we've got on supply. How about
(09:28):
you want of that deal? The ability of that prime
minister to talk to the other prime minister is enhanced
immeasurably if you've had good, ongoing contact at the highest level.
So Luxeon's desire to get us back out in the
world might well yet pay major, major dividends.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So he can literally just pull up the phone, look
up Lawrence's number and rang the Wong number. Is it worth?
There was a bit of a stretch, wasn't it just
to And was it casually racist as well? That joke? Maybe?
I don't know. Let's move on quickly the rera are
(10:09):
we still talking about Chris Hopkins and the ex wife
and the really are we really doing this?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
I think Audrey Young yesterday read the Hickins thing, which
seems to have disappeared as fast as it came, which
is good, sort of like lithium. Anyway, she writes very
very well as you would expect, and this is what
I like about people like Audrey. She gives institutional perspective.
Like all things, context is key, and so that great
(10:38):
debate we had for about twenty four hours about personal
lives and public lives and all that sort of stuff
is she writes this very good piece in the Herald
yesterday and she takes us back to Margaret Pope, Naomi Longee,
David Longie. So we're talking the late eighties, Don Brash
in opposition. Brash's marriage breakup spilled into the public arena.
(11:02):
NBR journalists found out that Brian Connell if you remember
the name, had confronted Brash at a caucus was to
do with morals. Helen Clark accused the Sunday Star Times
of running vile, baseless lies and rumors about her husband
Peter Davis. You remember all of that at the turn
of the century. So it puts it into some level
of perspective. We've been here before. It comes. It goes
(11:24):
the suggestion yesterday, this thing has legs, is going to
move votes. It's not true. The news cycle is so
fast these days, and was zero to one hundred so
quickly that what really is insignificant becomes the biggest deal
in the world until it isn't. So read her piece
and you'll get a good background about where we've been
(11:45):
and potentially where we're going.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
It's you know, I remember that time that America voted
Bill Clinton back into office after the Monica Lewinsky thing.
Remember that guy Trump who got voted in not once
but twice after all the stuff that we know about,
he's got up to think in comparison, I don't know
(12:12):
what's you know this is? This is my my one
overrided theme of the day. Just don't worry about everything,
ignore it, carry on with your own stuff, stop worrying
about what other people are up to, and just mind
your own beeswax. I've turned into my Nana somewhere along
(12:34):
the way. I am Nana Glenn. I'll see you out
here again tomorrow for more Sage Words of Wisdom.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Moment for more from News Talks b listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcast 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):
The rewrap ooday there and welcome to the rewrap for Thursday.
All the best, but it's from the mic hosting breakfast
on news Talks Heed Be in a sillier package, I
am Glen Hart and today so you know that I
have a firm role now that we will never mention
a poll either on the mic hosking Breakfast or on
this podcast ever again. So today we're talking about two
(00:47):
different ones. Christopher Luxon's dinner date and how that might
help us through the fuel shortage and Chris Hopkinson's ex
wife and all that drama still not a story, but
before any of that. So yeah, GDP man, we used
to love talking about the GDP. We were so into
(01:09):
the GDP, and now it's kind of like, what's the
point of it? Gd pointless?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Given their pic fury, Is there any real point in
today's GDP reader mean, we're in the land of who
the hell knows what's going on? So what happened in
the past three months of last year doesn't seem quite
as impactful as it might have two and a half
weeks ago. It's also a number that's apparently anyone's guest,
is quite the gap between the worst and the best forecast.
But upside upside, it will be in growth, and it
will add to the very good number in Q three.
(01:33):
In other words, in the latter part of last year,
the recovery was real fast forward Q one this year
as in right now a mix of numbers from spending
to manufacturing too. Trachometers that had January maybe a bit
wobbly February much better in March as we sit here
right now, blown away by the war. Of course, the
forecasts looking forward, which is different to today's stats, was
(01:54):
for three percent GDP this year three percent next year.
War aside, they are excellent numbers. In fact, in my
opinion about the maximum output of an economy like ours,
I mean we have capacity constraints. Of course, we can
only do so much growing before inflation starts to take off,
and I reckon about three percent about it. So if
the war ends in the next couple of weeks and
the fallout is constrained, we can return to the reality
(02:17):
that things are very definitely on the right track. This,
of course, all ties into the election good growth is
a vote dibdend for a government that has worked hard
to turn the joint around. Interesting to see if the
joint doesn't get turned around because of the war, whether
the government gets the blame. You see, there's a poll
out in Australia this week. They blame the government for
their current woes, not the war. To be fair, the
(02:38):
poll only took the very very early stages of the
war into account. But the war, of course is not
a local government's fault. It's Trump's net Nyahu's. But would
a vote to blame a government for not cutting fuel
tax or not taking say gst offer it in vegetables,
or like shurlank and not turning every Wednesday into a holiday?
In other words, can labour make hay by promising a
lot knowing it never has to deliver? Can the price
(03:00):
of mints be directly sheeted back to a conservative economic
manager who wants the market to do what the market
will do when outside forces play havoc? Or a bit
of old fashion left wing interventionism appeal to a house
with a stretch budget. The best hope, of course, as
the war doesn't last, the impact is minimal and we
can return to a country and an economy that, as
GDP today will show, is doing pretty damn well.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
You know, I'm saying to wonder if these stumbers have
always been pointless and not really all that relevant to
our everyday lives, and we could just ignore them and
move on or is that just mean so rewrap? Actually,
speaking of pointless numbers, the most pointless of all, of course,
are our poll numbers.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Does the Talbot Mills poll out yesterday blow wide open
the overt and corrupt actions of parts of the media
that went to town last week and indeed the week
before that, on the Prime Minister, does the Talbot Mills
poll out yesterday with National on thirty two build on
evidence that they are not twenty eight, nor were they
ever twenty eight, nor then was there ever a need
(03:59):
to go to town last week and the week before
on the Prime Minister. As we count the numbers of
poles and I've got at least six, if not seven,
that have National well versus the one that had National
at twenty eight, can we conclude the twenty eight was
an outlier, should have been seen as one and therefore
treated as such and given large sways of the media
didn't treat it as such. We can very confidently now
(04:20):
say those parts of the media showed an unprofessional bias
against the government. Can we also say if the Poles
continue to show national in the thirties not the twenties,
and Poles continue to show as yesterday's does at worse
to hung parliament, but more realistically, based on the Marray
Party assumption a re elected government, that rolling a leader
of a party destined for a second term is not
actually a realistic prospect or anywhere close, and the less
(04:43):
realistic it is, the more absurd their agenda driven brain
explosion looks. Hipkins too, was asked this week, I note
whether his leadership is safe? Safe from what furious ex wives?
Is that? The problem? The political media only have a
grab bag of questions these days around the same theme.
Are you quitting? Are you safe? Is the coup brewing?
Are you going home to consider your options? The problem
(05:04):
with so many of them, being so inexperienced as they
are is they lack any form of institutional and as
such haven't really seen proper political drama. A rogue pole,
a rogue x Isn't it mix that with the fact
that they are overtly biased against the government and all
you need is one ropee pole at twenty eight and
its operation epic fury gallery style. In a world where
(05:25):
news cycles turn at an increasing rate of knots, this crime,
and it is a crime committed by those charged with
political coverage, deserves ongoing attention simply because it's electioned to
year and yesterday's pole starts to expose very clearly that
the government has two oppositions, one made up of labor,
the Greens and the Murray Party, and the other made
up of a decent chunk of the media, some of
whom are funded by the taxpayer. And if that doesn't
(05:46):
worry you an election year, nothing does.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
No more and more.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And I know I've said I bang on about this.
I've been doing this job for twenty five years this year,
and so yeah, I feel like I've got a reasonable
amount of experience behind me when I say just ignore it, man,
just go with it. Don't worry about it, don't worry
about the media. Yeah, don't worry about the poles. Just
do what you do. People will respond or not responded.
(06:13):
I don't even know who I'm talking to. Do Let's
move on, rewrap, Actually, let's let's stay with polling, but
let's not even talk about our Polly. Let's talk about
Australian polling, about Iran and what's going on.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Heck, what's happening hole out in Australia. They're like everybody else.
I suspect the number would be similar here if we
did a poll, a resolved survey yesterday. Sixty one percent
of Australians want to stay out of the wall completely.
Thirteen percent are eager to get into it. So sixty
one thirteen you can't argue with it. Forty Now he
is in forty seven percent support regime change. So the
theory is, okay, we just don't want to do anything
(06:49):
about it. So yeah, no, you go do it because
I don't want to. It's got that vibe about it,
doesn't it. Twenty nine percent endorse the government, support of
the strikes, thirty five percent to post it. So they
want regime change, but they don't want the government to
support it, and they certainly don't want anything to do
with it. So that's a Australians for you.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, I think I get it. I mean, I'm the
last person to try and empathize with an Australian but
I get that. You know, if you ask me that
all those questions, I'd probably say, morally, it's the same thing.
And it goes back to what I was saying before.
Just let people get on with their own stuff. We
don't have to get involved with their stuff. I mean,
we can have an opinion about their stuff, a personal opinion,
(07:32):
but you know, once you have an official opinion, then
you've got to officially you do things, and I think
we'd probably rather not, don't you re wrap right, So
we've sort of segued into the Iranian thing. Iranian, Iranian, Irani.
I heard an Iranian guy actually say today, Irani. Anyway,
(07:55):
I've got a bit I've distracted myself for yet, let's
get back to it. So as a result of all this,
of course, the petrol's a bit more expensive. I've got
to fill up today, so I'm a little bit feeling
a little bit nervous. But are we safe and secure
with getting our petrol from the people we thought we
were getting our petrol from, or if they decided to
(08:16):
give their petrol to somebody else. Turns out if you
have the Prime Minister of Singapore around for dinner, you
might be all right.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Here's what Lawrence Wong, So here's how I see these
things happening. So when Lawrence Wog, the head of Singapore,
was here a couple of months ago, he went round
to Luckson's house for dinner. Quite didn't adest the two
of them by themselves, no security, know nothing. And that's
part of Luckson's re engaging with the world. And this
happens with Peter's, happens with McLay, happens with all most
ministers have got out into the world to re engage
(08:46):
with the world. We were an isolated country. We closed
our borders, we closed our doors, and we had a
foreign minister who hated flying and didn't go anywhere. Now
why am I telling him the story because it occurred
to me in the early hours of this morning while
I was washing my hair, that where do we get
our petrol from. We get it from Singapore and we
get it from South Korea. Luxon's been to both places.
(09:06):
He can ring Wong if there becomes because the oil
is not the problem. In my view, the oil is
not the problem. Yes, there's not as much oil, but
it's still out there. There's still plenty of oil out there.
But the supply. The access to it is the issue
if in a couple of weeks this becomes a problem.
The ability of a prime minister of one country to
ring the prime minister of another country and go, mate,
you know the deal we've got on supply. How about
(09:28):
you want of that deal? The ability of that prime
minister to talk to the other prime minister is enhanced
immeasurably if you've had good, ongoing contact at the highest level.
So Luxeon's desire to get us back out in the
world might well yet pay major, major dividends.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So he can literally just pull up the phone, look
up Lawrence's number and rang the Wong number. Is it worth?
There was a bit of a stretch, wasn't it just
to And was it casually racist as well? That joke? Maybe?
I don't know. Let's move on quickly the rera are
(10:09):
we still talking about Chris Hopkins and the ex wife
and the really are we really doing this?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
I think Audrey Young yesterday read the Hickins thing, which
seems to have disappeared as fast as it came, which
is good, sort of like lithium. Anyway, she writes very
very well as you would expect, and this is what
I like about people like Audrey. She gives institutional perspective.
Like all things, context is key, and so that great
(10:38):
debate we had for about twenty four hours about personal
lives and public lives and all that sort of stuff
is she writes this very good piece in the Herald
yesterday and she takes us back to Margaret Pope, Naomi Longee,
David Longie. So we're talking the late eighties, Don Brash
in opposition. Brash's marriage breakup spilled into the public arena.
(11:02):
NBR journalists found out that Brian Connell if you remember
the name, had confronted Brash at a caucus was to
do with morals. Helen Clark accused the Sunday Star Times
of running vile, baseless lies and rumors about her husband
Peter Davis. You remember all of that at the turn
of the century. So it puts it into some level
of perspective. We've been here before. It comes. It goes
(11:24):
the suggestion yesterday, this thing has legs, is going to
move votes. It's not true. The news cycle is so
fast these days, and was zero to one hundred so
quickly that what really is insignificant becomes the biggest deal
in the world until it isn't. So read her piece
and you'll get a good background about where we've been
(11:45):
and potentially where we're going.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
It's you know, I remember that time that America voted
Bill Clinton back into office after the Monica Lewinsky thing.
Remember that guy Trump who got voted in not once
but twice after all the stuff that we know about,
he's got up to think in comparison, I don't know
(12:12):
what's you know this is? This is my my one
overrided theme of the day. Just don't worry about everything,
ignore it, carry on with your own stuff, stop worrying
about what other people are up to, and just mind
your own beeswax. I've turned into my Nana somewhere along
(12:34):
the way. I am Nana Glenn. I'll see you out
here again tomorrow for more Sage Words of Wisdom.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Moment for more from News Talks b listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio.
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