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August 27, 2025 • 13 mins

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Thursday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) We Have to Wait? Stink/Reasons Not to Work In the Public Service/The Latest Pointless Woke Outrage/Should've Made More Stout

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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk S EDB.
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
Rep there and welcome to the Rewrap for Thursday. All
the best bits from the Mike Hosking breakfast on News
Talks EDB in a sillier package. I am glean Heart
and today we need to talk about bank competition. Some
people think there needs to be more. Some people think

(00:47):
we already have it all right, We've already had that conversation,
the public service cuts. The statistics around this are really
quite remarkable. The Great Cracker Barrel staff it seems to
have taken over from the Sydney Sweeney American are they

(01:10):
American Eagle Jeens some kind of deans Anyway, we'll get
into that. And meanwhile another craft goes under here in
New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Boo.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
But before any of that, supermarkets and they are playing
that they're not selling up of fortune favors. I don't
think that's really part of the issue.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Nikola Willis Beck yesterday for another Guns at Dawn with
the supermarket, she had the results of the RFI Request
for Information A main takeout. We're all too tied up
in red tape. We need to make it easier to
do business.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
We know this, of course, because before the RFI she
told us this, and she told us she was going
to do something about it. She told us she was
going to do something about it again yesterday, Play another song, Nicola.
Then bad news, Aldie and Little, a couple of large
supermarket players who she had been courting, didn't even take
part in the RFA. Why because, as I've told you
for the last two years, at least, we are too
small and the scandal Nickeler insists exists, actually doesn't. There

(02:05):
is no mystery. They just can't be bothered with the
country house. Costco did take part, though, but Costco aren't.
Nichola's answer why because Costco aren't going nationwide, even Nicholas
said they may may have one or two more stores
in coming years. Then the worst bit of her greatest
hit show, the finger wagging exercise yet again of threatening

(02:29):
to break the industry up with regulation. She's awaiting a
report when when she doesn't have a date, who's doing
the report? Hah, same company that did the same report
for the Labor Party. Good work if you can get
that a So what did we actually end up with
a re announcement of the fact that we are hard
to do business with. Fine, stop telling us, actually change

(02:50):
some laws. Second, major players couldn't even be bothered taking part.
And third, the thing that may bring real change? Do
remember rider. I think all this is nonsense, but Nichola's mind,
it's a scandal. The thing that may bring real change
is no closer because we don't have the report, and
we don't even know when we're getting the report, And
having got the there is of course no reason to

(03:10):
think such a major business busting trigger by a so
called business friendly government would even be pulled. So is
you trolley any cheaper? Has Nicola or her grocery commissioner
another game changing pile of nonsense? You reference yesterday actually
achieved anything? Has a scent been saved? Has a law
been changed? Has a new player arrived? Or is this

(03:31):
just like the Bank's no smoking gun to be found?

Speaker 2 (03:35):
So yes, Anyway, Mike interviewed Nikola Willis and she said
it won't happen overnight, but it will happen all with
that effect. So it's not clear exactly how long it
will take for our groceries to get cheaper, but they
will eventually by that time they will have got more expensive,
and they are now, I suppose, so it might be
hard to notice anyway.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
It's the rewrap.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Oh yes, while we're on this subject of competition, let's
go back to the banks for a minute, because apparently
we're not being served well there either.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
But I've got to London, So should I go to London?
So here's the problem. Tech Edwards, who is part of
the monopoly group. He once set up two degrees likable
guy and he and I Arododds, not particularly. It's just
ideas and thoughts and stuff like that. So I'm arguing
there's no great scandal and banking. He's arguing there is.
I back by argument up by saying that the Finance
Committee looked at it for inexcess of a year. There

(04:29):
is no scandal. There's a few things you can tweak
and change, and they are and you know, some of
the money being held by the retail banks at the moment,
as regards the rules around the Reserve Bank, etcetera. All
that stuff, but nothing material is going to unfold in
this country. He says, no, no, no, no, no no no.
What he needs to do he said to me, we
didn't say to me. He said, Sam, he said, we
need to fly you to London and you need to

(04:50):
look at these these neo banks. And a neo bank
is a bank that's readily available, and they're big in
Europe allegedly, and they are online, so essentially they can
offer better services and better deals, but you don't have
physical facilities, and lots of people use them. And so
I looked up the neobanks is digital banks. They're in Australia.

(05:11):
They've got Juno. Now I've heard of Juno, so that's
a neo bank. Up Bank is another one. And we
actually have some neo banks in this country. They are
called Dosh, Emerging Debu. Now have you heard of them?
The answer, of course is no. Now should you have
heard of them? Maybe? Maybe not if you had heard
of them and you suddenly thought to yourself, I'm being
ripped off at my regular bank. I'm going to go
to a nego bank, Dosh Emerge or Debut or maybe

(05:32):
I'm going to given that they're digital, why wouldn't you
deal with one in Britain or Denmark or Scandinavia or
Australia or Juno wherever you like. And the answer is
because I don't think there's a scandal in banking, because
if there was and these were the difference, they would
have made a difference by now.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
So they also, given that they're digital, why would you
have to go to London to look at them?

Speaker 3 (05:49):
One hundred percent? That's the next thing. Sam and I
were discussing this, but we decided that wasn't as important
as us going to London, and maybe once we got
there going oh, we probably didn't need to be here
after all, but at least we'd be down Oxford Street.
It says he's having a good time.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
I don't know so, and I'd just be here pushing
these buttons exactly.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
So I don't know what to do. It's a very
nice invite to text, to invite us to London so
we can go study. It's one of those It's like
a sabbatical, isn't it. We're going on special sabbatical and
we'll come back with a special report.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
You can come up with a list of places where
they have I think they're quite big in South America.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
That's what I would end. You're always in the report
saying further investigations required.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
So yes, he's invited Mike and his research team. I
feel like I could make a case that I'm part
of that team because I never get get to go anywhere,
and we's going to stay behind and push the buttons.
But if nothing else comes out of it, at least
I've got a recording of Mike doing this. Doesn't get
much more disturbing than that, and I'll be definitely been

(06:50):
playing that back at every opportunity I can rep right
public Service. They you know, they've really been told to
tidy out their act, and the more we find out,
the more disturbing it is.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
I can tell you this with nothing is with real enthusiasm.
I see that the Public Service Commision potentially doing what
the main government should have done two years ago. What
the government did two years ago was say they were
going to rectify the absurd size of the public service.
Remember that it had blown out to gargantuine proportions under
the Labour government, who knew no bounds in terms of
fiscal largest based on debt. What sadly actually the new

(07:27):
government did with the public service was tinker. It peaked
at a bit over sixty five thousand. It now sits
this morning at a bit over sixty three thousand and
has in fact, in the ensuing period gone up again.
So rough math, they will tell you they got rid
of about two thousand people. Now, as a raw number,
that's a lot of jobs. As a percentage though, it's tiny,
and as an effective exercise and efficiency and savings, it's

(07:48):
a joke. The shame of it was the new government
of the day had license. Of course, Yes it was controversial,
Yes the Union's bleated and moaned, and yes the media
went to town on a Tory slash and boon exercise,
all that predictable nonsense. But the trick was always simple.
If you're going to dish out the bad news, go hard,
doze it, blow it up, do it once, do it properly,
fall out the headlines. The anger will be exactly the

(08:10):
same whether you trim a couple of thousand for no
effect or six and a half thousand, say and make
a difference. So they blew it. They took the heat
but got few of any results. In an odd way,
if you think about it, it's symbolic of the weaker
parts of this government at the moment. Lots of ideas,
lots of rhetoric and execution. They never quite aligne. But
now the Commissioner Brian Roach, looks to be having another
crack by merging departments. Ministries of Women, Pacific People's, Disabled,

(08:34):
people's married Development could all be in for an up ending.
I'd go further personally, the never ending series of commissioners
and their officers that have got no actual power and
really only right reports. They'd not be missed. But the ministries,
for ministry's sake, is what holds this country back. They
will all fill a space to meet their budget. Of
course they will so called mandate. If this is on,
and I pray it is, wait for the bleating. Every

(08:57):
one of them will tell you the critical nature of
their existence, but I defy any one of you to
list me the profound and productive change that they have
made to any one of our lives. And given you can't,
then they fall into the category of largest waste and tokenism.
Do it once, do it right. That's how change should happen.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Oh I'm glad I don't work in the public service.
Imagine if somebody was trying to justify my position. What
is it that you do?

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Well?

Speaker 2 (09:25):
I push buttons at random until something happens, and then
I do a couple of imaginary radio shows where I
go into a small room and talk to some people
I hope are listening that might not be fired just
straight away. I'd be one of those Verse two thousand.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Up against the wall the rerap.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Okay, so the latest woke outrage out of the United States,
hot on the heels of Sydney Sweeney having good genes,
which of course you can't say, is now one for
the other team. Now the Cracker Barrel, which we don't

(10:11):
even really know what it is, but we do now
because they changed their logo and now they've got to
change it back.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
Are you following the Cracker Barrel story? It's the most
mental story in the history of mental stories. Cracker Barrel
is a sort of a country restaurant chain in America.
They changed their branding. They changed their label. The old
label used to have an old bloke, an old timer.
People believe the company's ambassador, who's an uncle w Herschel,

(10:36):
was that figure and he was leaning against the barrel
of the logo. So the new logo doesn't have the barrel,
doesn't have the old timer, just as Cracker Barrel. For
some reason, this is part of a seven hundred million
dollar transformation plan. For some reason, when people saw the
new cracker barrel sign, the right wing went nuts, literally nuts.
Trump weighed in, and as a result of Trump weighing

(10:58):
in and all the right wingers going nuts, their shares
tanked twelve percent just because they changed their sign. And
after all of that they've now reversed it seven hundred meals.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
You can't go wake like that.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
Well, what's woke about a sign that doesn't even look well.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
It had a person on it and now it doesn't
have a person. They didn't even change the color or
the font like.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
They literally just took the person and the barrel away. Really,
if you don't know what we're talking about, you're not
familiar with the logo, it is actually worth going and
looking at it and thinking it's time we can in
the United States off the planet and send it off
into space. I mean, I've always said that the rewrap

(11:41):
Finally sad news, another craft brewery has gone under.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
I always feel like a part of me has died
when this happens.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
Sad news and just my little strange obsession with us.
But unfortunately I have to tell you the fortune favors,
which is and this is what the media call them
one of New Zealand's most successful or one of Wellington's
most successful breweries for fortune favors. So they're gone, So
they've fallen. Another other day and other business that falls over.
After nearly a decade in the capital, Shannon Thorpe Dale

(12:13):
Cooper business was no longer financially sustainable. Cost of living
crisis has proven too difficult for us to navigate. We're
down twenty percent on last year, which is already twenty
five percent down on the year before. So very sad,
very sorry. Five hundred unique blends. I would argue you're
probably blending too much, but nevertheless, be that as it may.
The media always calls people who go under the most successful.

(12:34):
How can you be successful that also go under? It
just does not make sense, which is not to be
mean to the people going under, But you can't be successful.
Why you're going into liquidation? It's grammatically incorrect.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
Well, if you're making Awesome Bear, no you're.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
Not, because you wouldn't be going into liquidation if you were.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
That just means you're not selling Awesome Bear.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
Which is the point of the exercise.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
It is twenty these I argue that you can be
very successful at making bear, but it doesn't necessarily mean
that you're going to be very successful at selling it.
I mean, if you're making good staut, you'll be successful
at selling it to me. But maybe that's where they
went wrong. Maybe they just got obsessed that so many
of them do with the hazes, the i pas and

(13:19):
the APAs and the hoppy things, when really he doesn't
love a really hearty stout or porter with a nice
high alcohol content. Come on, guys, that's all I want.
I am. Ye know, Blean Hart's almost forgot my name there,

(13:39):
That's what it is. Pretty sure I'll see you back
here again tomorrow, I'll find out for sure, I'll get back.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
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