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July 5, 2026 12 mins

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Monday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) On Any Sort of Day/Hotel Moans/How Britain Works/How Sick Leave Works/How FIFA works

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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed be
follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
The Rewrap.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Okay Aden and Welcome to the Rewrap for Monday. All
the best but from the mic asking breakfast on Newstalgs.
They'd be in a sillier package. I'm Glen Harten today.
Hotel wines. Things that annoy you about staying in hotels.
It's Chapain saying him to stay at a hotel, isn't it?
How UK politics whek is, how Britain works really well,
how the Labor Party certainly does anyway, how sicklyave now

(00:46):
works in Germany? And boy FIFA, aren't they just the
most above board, undercorrupt organization that you've ever come across.
But before any of that, Mike went to Wellington and
loved it.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Wellington looks to me to be in rude health. That's
my observation from the weekend. Wellington looks to me to
be in rude health for a city down on the dumps,
with the reputation problem, with a previously shot boing council,
public service issues, in any number of surveys talking about negativity,
how come Wellington look so busy down for dinner Saturday night,
right drive from the airport round the bays, Packed, jurvoice key, packed,

(01:20):
bumper to bumper. If you'd told me, if you know Dubiska,
if you'd told me there was an all black test
down the end of the road at the stadium, I
would have believed you it was going off. Restaurant Packed
they did two settings a night, can't get a table.
Restaurant next door, Packed got a Michelin Star earlier in
the week, but they told me it was always busy anyway.
Hotel flat out. I mean it could be the school holidays,
I guess. Stood in the hotel room right after dinner

(01:41):
looking down at the traffic, I got no idea where
they're off to, but tell you what, they're a lot
of them. And having lived in Wellington for a decade,
I think it's probably the best looking of our cities.
I decided that again over the weekend. I think it's
the best looking of our cities. There's a lot of
seriously good architecture in Wellington's some beautiful buildings and a
lot of suburbs with houses with spectacular views, of course,
but it's rep Katie asked on Instagram, where's the best

(02:04):
place to eat in Wellington? One person said the Korry Lounge.
Another person said anywhere in Auckland. See. In fact, a
lot of people make those sort of jokes. There's a
very strong anti Wellington vibe around the country. And yet,
and I guess this is the tourism snapshop problem, isn't it.
One night does not a proper impression make All those
international travelers you know that talked about how fabulous the
world is and how miserable New Zealand is. When we

(02:27):
went around the world the other day, I think we
busted the myth. I mean, any place when you're in
a hotel, in a restaurant, not a care in the world,
would seem better than home. But it doesn't mean they
don't have their issues.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Of course.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Now I don't know, Wellington seems a good looking town
to me. The Hospo scene, despite all you hear on
a Saturday night, I mean it was pumping, it was overflowing,
it was busy, it was bustling. And as I sat
in the restaurant for breakfast seven o'clock yesterday morning, Sunday morning,
tell you what, there's a lot more action out in
the streets than you had ever seen in a place
like christ Here to Auckland at the same time on
the weekend. And that's before you get to the joggers

(02:57):
on Evans Bay Parade running into a southerly in seven degrees.
You gotta love that. Wellington, the image Wellington the reality
not the same thing.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Pretty sure of the people I've heard bad mouthing Wellington
in the past has been Mike Costking. I'm sure that's right,
but maybe maybe I misunderstood its rewrap. Anyway, not everything
got a massive tech. I think he thinks the hotels
fall a little short down there.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Thank goodness, Mike, you're giving Wellington a decent hearing. We
was sick of your radio team running us down. I
don't know who in the radio team is running you down.
Kogi often has three settings at night. Well it's encouraging
to hear, and it's as good as many other restaurants
in Wellington. I would say it's as good as any
I've had for a very long time. They have to
work hard service wise to make up for all the
negativity the media gives that. Mike Wellington fantastic. We have

(03:46):
so many great restaurants. Yeah, certainly, the hospital scene has
always been alive and wellish as far as I can
work out in the capitol, which is encouraging. Weird you
stay well. I don't want to get into a sort
of fight about it, but I've always argued Wellington needs
better hotels. To put it bluntly, it's not like they're
short of hotels, but they need some more upmarket hotels.

(04:06):
They need some more international hotels. The Intercontinental, which is
the one that most people would recommend to stay. It's
good locations downtown, it's big, but it looks like it
was you know, last time it was sort of looked at,
it was two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight.
You know, the carpet needs a bit of a referb
all that sort of stuff. In fact, they gave us
a letter when we checked in answer me this question.
When you book, should there be a thing that says

(04:28):
we've got renovations going on. They start at seven o'clock
in the morning and they're going seven days a week.
Should you be told that when you book or should
you be given the letter when you arrive? And that's
not the worst story about hotels. And I should point
out by the way the Intercontinental, although it needs a
new carpet and the liquor of paint. The people are
very nice, very very nice people. Everyone dealt with with
very very nice people. And it's great location, of course,

(04:50):
but Wellington overall, major cities need top end hotels. That's
what attracts the tourists, especially the Americans who want to
spend a bit of money, etc. But so I'm checking
in in Singapore, so so they have the renovations they
don't tell you about. That's not the end of the world.
Who cares. I check into Singapore the other day and
they had another letter to me, and this letter goes,
the government have ordered us to cut the power off tonight.

(05:14):
So at one o'clock in the morning, for four hours,
the power's going to go from the hotel, which ordinarily
isn't the end of the world because they think you're asleep,
except for the fact Singapore tends to be a bit warm,
and when the power goes off, the air conditioning goes
off and things heat up like real quick. So should
they have told me that before I wring them up

(05:34):
and see can I have a room for the night?
They go, of course, you have a room for the night,
but do be aware that the power is going to
be off for four hours, at which pine I might
have gone. I know, I'll go somewhere where the power
is not off, but they don't tell you that there
should be rules about that.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
So I think this is quite an hysteric day on
the Mike Husking Breakfast. Not only has he said nothing
but nice things about Wellington, he's also said something about
negative about Singapore, sort of about hotel and Singapore anyway,
I don't know which ways up the rewrap. So all
sorts of skullduggery and favors and power being influenced by

(06:10):
money and the UK specifically I'm talking about. I know
it gets a bit confusing as the which country I
mean when your start off saying that stuff.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
Now, Morgan McSweeney, you may remember, was one of Kea
Starmer's fall guys and the Mandlson scandally ran the Labour
Party's twenty twenty four campaign that saw Labour land a
comparatively small amount of the boat thirty seven percent in
exactly the right place though, to give them a stonking
great majority in there, and fourteen years of Tory rule
ended badly for McSweeney. It's ending badly for Starmer, of course,

(06:39):
and a bloke who never got elected by Britain is
going to run the place in a few weeks theoretically
for the next three years.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
Now.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
I tell you all this because McSweeney's never spoken before
until now, and what he says is fascinating. He claims
the party didn't prepare properly for power, didn't think about
how the world had changed since they were last in government,
didn't talk about it enough, didn't plan. That's why Starmer
was such a disaster. What makes it fascinating for us
is one it was Starbar and Labor. The Chris Hipkins

(07:06):
you might remember, visited in Liverpool at their conference to
get some tips. And two it is Hipkins and Labour,
according to Trevor Mallard, former MP and speaker, who ended
up at the Featherston Bookfair recently telling exactly the same
story about his party. So do we have a theme
or a trait? Are Labour groupings essentially lazy or blind
or arrogant or a combination of all three? Labour New

(07:27):
Zealand twenty seventeen set a record and working groups you
might remember because they hadn't prepared for government nine years
they had Labour and Britain had fourteen years. Perhaps as
interesting as Peter Dunn's latest column and newsroom, where he
reports at the recent Labour Congress was well staged but
lacked anything new subsidies for apprenticeships worthy but dull, he said,
reminds voters of the economic mess labour last got us into.

(07:50):
So does labor movement lack imagination. The two, of course,
I guess, may be coincidental, but they might not be.
Is Labour about simply waiting for the other lot to lose?
At their heart, they're not actually up for a bit
of hard work and prep New Zealand Labour were jettison
for a calamitous record, British labor would be on the
burgs of the same thing if they didn't have five

(08:11):
year terms. McSweeney, Mallard and Dunn all tell the same story.
If you're a potential labor supporter here, surely that story
is worrying, if not frightening.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
And that's before you get to the Nigel Farage allegations
that seem to be around about at the moment as
well more yet more allegations that he's taken money from
not strictly squeaky clean sources. Let's put it that way, right.
Have you ever called in sick when you weren't? Don't

(08:43):
try that in Germany anymore.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
I found this interesting. Germany's tightening sickly rules. They're ending
a three day grace period. The grace period simply means
you ring up me going but sick, and them they go,
don't worry about it, you've come and when you're better,
So it eliminates the nation's traditional three day grace period
mandating a medical certificate from day one. It's part of
a broader thirty four point economic strategy boosting productivity, reducing

(09:07):
workplace had a team. The only reason I raised that,
apart from him being interesting, why wouldn't we look at
something similar here? So nothing wrong with being sick, you
just need to prove it instead of just bunking off.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Pretty sure that is how it works here. I'm pretty sure.
I'm not quite sure what it says in the host
contract about, but I'm pretty sure your boss can ask
for a doctor's certificate pretty quickly. I'm going to maybe
it depends on your contract. Luckily, Mike never gets sick,
so it's not an issue for him the rerap apart
from that one time where we sent him to England

(09:39):
to report back from stuff that was going on their
rapy World Cup final and he was so sick he
couldn't get out of bed. Apart from that time anyway,
not that I hold a grudge, and we've got completely
different World Cup we're talking about now. It's the football
World Cup. I'm currently watching Brazil cock it up constantly

(10:03):
against Norway. And meanwhile, it turns out it's good to
be the preser because you can just ask for your
guy who got redcarded to be unredcarded.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
If there's any bitching going on at the World Cup,
it's the cost of tickets. But New Zealand you'll realize,
you know, being one of the worst sides to get
to the World Cup got ten million bucks. So you
can't have a sport that hands out ten million bucks
to people who aren't that good while not, you know,
also handing out free tickets. So anyway, this the betting
market's gone off Kelchi thirty billion, thirty billion in trading

(10:34):
volume last month, poly market ten point eight, biggest gambling
event in history. Kelshie more than seventy percent increase from
May's total of seventeen point nine billion. Poly markets record
high monthly volume reverses a downtrend that they had, So
you get an event. People are into it. USA to
play Belgium sixty four million on KELCI, one hundred and

(10:57):
twenty two million on poly market odds of the USA
winning the tournament, well, one of them's got four point
three percent, the others got three percent. But people literally
seemingly will bet on ethan and not only that, but
they seem to have the money to bet on anything.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
It's It's great, isn't it that you know, certain things
were allowed to do in society and certain things we aren't,
And yep, it's pretty weird. Anyway, going back to what
I was saying before as well, that's before you get
to the whole arm ah, mister president, you would like

(11:37):
as to what unread card somebody, but we haven't done
that since nineteen sixty two. Oh no, not a problem.
We'll sort it out FIFA. That's just fantastic. And he
didn't even mention that the way that this afternoon's game
England Mexico game was rescheduled and then re rescheduled over

(12:00):
the weekend. I don't know if you caught up with that.
So you had fans who thought that they were going
to be missing the game that they'd find in all
the way there for only to then be old, no, no,
it's on the normal time. Anyway. I don't know if
we can really blame Trump for the web. I think
we can actually sort of blame Trump for the weather,
actually draw baby draw and all that. Anyway, we're getting
a bit sidetracked. This podcast should have ended about ninety

(12:22):
seconds ago, so let's do that now, and we'll start
it up again to murray see then.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
The rerad Rerap For more from News Talk sed B.
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