Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

When you look around Greater Christchurch, do you look around and think “oh, we could handle another 100-or-so thousand people living here”? 

Do you think to yourself “our roads aren’t clogged up, our schools aren’t overcrowded, we’ve got plenty of houses”? Do you think that? 

Or does it feel to you like we’re just getting by with what we’ve got, with the population we’ve got? 

I think w...

What about all the weasel words we’ve been hearing from the Government about Andrew Coster? Who’s stepping down from the job of Police Commissioner to head the Government’s new Social Investment Agency.  

He’s leaving the police force a bit earlier than expected. He was due to stand down in April and, if I was a suspicious person, I’d see this as a win-win for him and the Government. Because, despite all the plat...

Labour still isn't ruling a capital gains tax in or out, following comments from the boss of our biggest bank. 

ANZ CEO Antonia Watson says while she isn't jumping for joy about the prospect of a capital gains tax, the time has come to for a tax on realised gains. 

Labour's Carmel Sepuloni told John MacDonald that Watson is just another example, of a prominent figure who's now open to the idea.

I don’t know where Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis get this idea from that you can only do a hard day’s work if you’re physically in the office or on the premises, as opposed to working remotely from home. 

Because, from my experience, there is a hell of a lot of time wasted in a lot of workplaces. 

Nevertheless, the Prime Minister and the Public Service Minister are giving government workers a r...

ECAN regional council chair Peter Scott has to go. 

You’ll remember the fuss earlier this year when he admitted to Newstalk ZB that he’d been farming illegally on his South Canterbury property without the appropriate consents. 

And how, after that blunder, he disappeared for a while - ECAN spent $66,000 on a 10-week investigation - and then he was back again. All G. 

Well, not “all G” ac...

World-renowned illusionist and 'International Magician of the Year', Cosentino, is bringing his spectacular new live show Decennium to Christchurch in November.

Decennium is a 90-minute stage spectacular, which was written, produced, and choreographed by Cosentino. He'll perform his most death-defying escapes that will thrill your senses, his greatest mind-boggling stage illusions and cutting-edge street magic that twists your view...

It seems to me that the Christchurch City Council has really got it in for the Arts Centre. 

For starters, when the Arts Centre asked for $20 million in council support over the next 10 years, the council said “yeah, nah” and gave it just under $6 million instead. 

Now, it wants to sting the Arts Centre $18,000 for increasing the number of food trucks operating there.  

The council says ...

With nearly every Comanchero gang member in this country facing criminal charges, is this the beginning of the end for this Australian outfit’s New Zealand operation? 

They set-up shop here six years ago and have been helped enormously by Australia’s 501 deportation programme, but it’s not as if the gang’s been operating here just to give these guys something to do once they get off the plane from Sydney. 

Nothing brings out the redneck in me as much as a judge handing out a concurrent prison sentence. 

You know the situation. A person’s found guilty on, say, two charges —let’s say they get two-year sentences for each— but they don’t go to prison for two years plus two years (four years), instead, they serve the sentences concurrently. Meaning they’re serving both sentences at the same time. 

It’s some...

The Christchurch City Council has learned nothing from the cathedral debacle. 

Because it’s now going to spend $19.5 million over the next four years, so that work can start on repairing and restoring the old provincial chambers building in the centre of town.  

$19.5 million. Nearly twice as much ratepayer money as what was going to go into the cathedral. To get things started on a repair job which ...

I’m glad I’m not working in the health system. Not that I’d be much use if I was, I’ve never been that great with blood.  

But the reason I’m glad I’m not a doctor or a nurse or a GP or a specialist, is the big stick that’s being pointed at all those people by the Government with its new targets. 

If I was starting a shift on a ward somewhere right now, I’d be thinking ‘here we go again’. Another gov...