Full Show Podcast: 14 February 2025

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Digging through the spin spence to find the real story.
Or it's Andrew Dickens on Hither Duplessy Alan Drive with
One New Zealand. Let's get connected and news talks that'd
be welcome.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Afternoon. You've made it to the end of the week
and it's Valentine's Day. My name is Andrew Dickens and
on the program today, the Auditor General says schools are
misspending their government money. We're going to speak to our
school principal who spent five thousand dollars on jackets for staff.
That's in five minutes time. A third senior health official
resigns with the week, So why and should we be

(00:38):
worried or relieved? And can we find new blood? What's
the future for Tokaroa, the South Waikato mayor on today's developments?
And can the Crusaders reverse last year's form. We've got
the Crusader's boss after five point thirty and Elliott Smith
is phizzing and he's going to be here in about
fifteen minutes time. We'll have all these stories plus correspondence
from right around New Zealand and the world news as

(00:59):
it breaks. You can comment by giving me a text
ninety two ninety two. A small charge applies. You can
email Dickens at Newstalk ZEMBS.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
The count Dickens.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
And it's now eight minutes after four. So it's back
the debate about the four year electoral term. It's part
of the coalition agreement. It's the part we all forgot about.
And the promise was fifteen months and then we'll introduce
a bill for debate. That time is up, so let's go.
And David Seymour came out and said it. I think
the real debate about this is not the length of

(01:30):
the term, but how we make the decision. So David
Seymour obviously wants a referendum, and you know, I think
that's appropriate. This is a major constitutional change that's too
big for the House of Representatives. I don't want this
decided down party lines, which could skew the results depending
if the MPs are in power or not, because you know,

(01:50):
opposition MPs want the incumbents out as soon as possible,
while the government wants power for as long as possible.
That will prey on their minds when it comes to
the vote. I've also found that the House of Representatives
these days is not actually very representative, not as representative
as we would like. There's all sorts of people with
all sorts of agendas running all over the place. There
are outliers to whichever party they represent. So no, this

(02:15):
needs to be decided by the people, and I think
it's such a big decision that it needs to be
decided by a super majority. That means seventy five percent,
four or against. We've never had a referendum like that before.
But to change the Bill of Rights needs a seventy
five percent vote, So there's a precedent, but this one
needs to see the country all on the same page

(02:38):
and therefore a supermajority. Meanwhile, here's a question for you,
why do we need a bill to call a referendum.
The coalition has already agreed on the idea, so let's
just do it. I mean, we're here just to say yes,
not no, and we're going to ask Peter Dunn about
that after five on the idea of a four year term,
I'm all for it. We've seen in the last fortnight
debate about whether this government is a one term one,

(03:01):
and the major factor in that is that we're in
a major economic rebuild and really it's too soon to
figure out if we're on the right track. The three
year term means that we're already debating the government's performance,
and people are deciding their vote and their allegiance on
whether we're doing the not on whether we're doing the
right thing based on their beliefs. They're actually deciding how

(03:23):
is your pocketbook today? And I don't think that's right either.
Four years is good and four years is long enough
to get things done and short enough to get rid
of them if they're screwing things up.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Dickens.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
So the Auditor General has flagged some questionable spending by schools.
In twenty twenty three. According to a new report, auditors
found that fifty four schools had spent money in a
way that personally benefited their principles. Some examples of this
sort pilates classes, adventure, tourism, even overseas family travel. So

(03:54):
the annal Tennae is the New Zealand Principles Federation present,
and she joins me, Now, hell are they am? Oh?
Curita platters and overseas trips don't sound like education spend,
do they?

Speaker 4 (04:06):
Well?

Speaker 5 (04:06):
Look, you know that's what the auditing process is all
about really is just to ask those questions about why
boards of trustees are, you know, are okaying some of
these payments. So obviously the auditing process is there to
ensure that there is checks made by someone other than
the principle and they make recommendations. This is not new,

(04:28):
This happens every year.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yes, But the question is are pilartis and over trip
overseas trips okay or not.

Speaker 5 (04:35):
Look, I'm not going to comment on the individual schools
or whether or not boards or have you know, should
have spent it on this or that is, I have
no context to the reason behind I guess the spending
and I wasn't at the board table, and that's really important.
And it's not that I'm deflecting from your question. It's
just that the boards would have talked about why and

(04:57):
the reason for and had a long conversation about the spend.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Are boards of trustees any good at this here?

Speaker 5 (05:04):
Well, this is the thing. Our boards of trustees are
actually representatives of our community. So not all boards will
have someone on their that has got financial skills. You know,
some of the biggest schools might have representatives for accountants,
but no, many boards don't have you know members who

(05:25):
have financial oversight, and so what really happens is most
schools will have a off site burster or an off
site accountant to double check and make sure that the
boards have all the information, flag any spending that or
flag any budgets that are going over So there are
checks and balances in there. But boards of trustees really

(05:47):
do need professional development in and around financial management.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Ten fortunately, yeah, and I understand and I agree. And
ten schools though were reported to have made excessive gifts.
Just schols get carried away with gifts? Are they necessary?

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (06:03):
I don't think so. And once again it would be
a discussion that's head at the board table of which
I haven't been part of, so I can't comment on
the reasons why that has been done. Certainly, they will
all have policies and around gifts. I mean they're and
gifts sort of cover a lot of things. So you know,

(06:25):
once again there's a conversation head and they'll follow the
policy that the school has put in place. Those policies
are often you know, they are in line with the
ministry advice and guidance, and they also have to meet
those financial expectations by the auditors. So they are double checked.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, no, Tenny from the Principal's Federation. I thank you
very much. I Meanwhile, one of the schools that was
named in the report was bream Bay College. In twenty
twenty three, bream Bay College spent ten thousand dollars on
a farewell event for the school's former principal, and five
thousand of that went on buying a jacket for all
the staff to wear them photos so they look good.

(07:03):
Julian Cosgrove is the current principal. He joins you, now,
how are Julian afternoon? The board approved the jackets. The
Audience General has flagged it. How do you justify it?

Speaker 6 (07:14):
Look Spending money on jackets is fairly common in schools.
They're important for staff, especially on duty. So the jackets
wentn't just for that occasion. They were used and continue
to be used by staff on duty, both to be
identifiable for students, but also it keeps them warm. They say,
wintless North, but we do, and so it's nice.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
So these are like puffers. These aren't dress jackets. These
are like puffers or something.

Speaker 6 (07:39):
No, no, these are these are jackets that you would
expect to see staff that we are on duty in
the school.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
I had to say this. So we talk in grammar
school with school back in the day, and nobody got
bought jackets anywhere.

Speaker 6 (07:51):
I've been at schools where that's been practiced in the past.
Sometimes they subsidized and sometimes they've been given.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
So what do you say to the taxpayers, which includes you,
who are listening to this and they hear that the
staff are getting five thousand dollars worth of jackets so
that they look good.

Speaker 6 (08:06):
Well, it wasn't just about looking good. I understand the
consum but actually it's a fairly practical item for a
staff member who does duty outside. Obviously, we have a
really large site, so there's a lot of duty done outside.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
So do I still think it was a good decision
when we were in the middle of a cost of
living crisis and everybody's doing it hard.

Speaker 6 (08:26):
Look, I wasn't part of the group that made the decision,
so I wouldn't want to question with it was the
right decision at the time.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Okay, well, here's the thing. You might be leaving soon
or one day you know you won't bring Bay College
all the time.

Speaker 7 (08:38):
Would you be happy?

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Would you be happy enough as part of your farewell
event that people spend ten thousand dollars, including five thousand
dollars on jackets.

Speaker 6 (08:47):
Look from my view, it was a decision made at
the time and it's not for me to comment on those.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
It's when you leave and you found out that somebody
organized to do and it was going to cost ten grand,
would you say, well, I don't think.

Speaker 6 (08:59):
It's it's a fair question, but it's actually a lot
of that funding wasn't spent on an event. So for example,
money was used in there for Kappa hockey uniforms which
weren't necessarily for the event either. So one of the
things we've done as a school, as we have looked
at where we do now work with an account and
to make sure the way we code things is a
bit easier to follow, because that seems to be I

(09:19):
think part of why we made some mistakes there or
wasn't as obvious it could as it could have been.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
One final question, just talking to Leanna or Tenancy says,
some boards of trustees don't have any financial experience on them,
but others have accountants and all sorts of people. At
brim Bay College, do you have a good board with
financial experience.

Speaker 6 (09:37):
I've got a very good board and there is financial
experience on my board.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yes, all right, I thank you very much for your
time and yeah, thanks mate, it's a pleasure. And there
was Julian Crosgrove, who is the principal of brem Bay
College Your Thoughts ninety two and ninety two, a few
people saying that's an absolutely outrageous waste of money. Okay, Now,
Elliot Smith is is New Zealand's premier rugby caller and
Super Rugby comes back today and Elliott Smith is with

(10:02):
me in just a couple of minutes time.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
It's the Heather Tops see Allan Drive Full Show podcast
on iHeartRadio powered by News Talk ZIPB News Talk.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
It is nineteen alf to five. Mister Elliot Smith, have
you been training for the commentary because obviously your lung
capacity has to be good, stamina has to be good. Absolutely,
mind power, your focus.

Speaker 8 (10:23):
I've had three months off commentary and you know it's
an off season. You can't you can never do too
much in the off season. Just keep that taking over,
deep breaths, everything's vocal warm ups. You know you've got
to get ready for all that.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
All that and you're not working tonight. That's right, Yeah,
Night one off, But Crusader's Hurricanes first up. The Crusaders
have to have a redemption story.

Speaker 8 (10:42):
Well, there's so much intrigue, isn't there about the Crusaders
this year? Can they bounce back? Was it just a
once or last year was just a one bad season
where everything piled up for them and they couldn't get
their way out of it. Or is it the fact
that you know, Scott Robertson's gone, a few players have gone,
Richie Wong has gone, and this is actually the slide
that's going to continue this that's the fascinating part and
the you know in the box Night one against the Hurricanes,

(11:04):
familiar rival for them who have now lost obviously Artie
Savida more on a PACIFICA. Jordy Barrett's not there this season.

Speaker 4 (11:10):
T J.

Speaker 8 (11:11):
Pettinara has gone to Japan. So it's a new look
Hurricanes team tonight as well. So a bit of a
blockbuster game with real sense of the unknown to kick
things off tonight, very much looking forward to that.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
You want to block bust up replay excuse me, replay
of the final tomorrow Blues Chiefs with all the first
fives from that game actually will play at fifteen.

Speaker 8 (11:30):
That's right, Yeah, they two All Blacks is gonna wear
the fifteen tomorrow. Harry Plumber at ten. I mean he
had an All Blacks test last year, didn't he for
a few minutes off the bench against Australia. Gain Josh
Jacob for the Chiefs, very very promising up and coming player,
went on the All Blacks fifteen, the second tier tour
to Europe back end of last year. He's a player
with the men's promise. So both coaches Van Cotta and
Claydon Millan handed the keys to the leaser experienced tens

(11:54):
and they're going to guide the ship around me. Not
bad players to have at fifteen or move into the
line at ten should you need it. I'm sure Chiefs
fans will be hoping the finals at least closer than
last year, which was what a forty one to ten blowout,
and then the Blues won of their first title in
twenty odd years. But they go on as the hunted
this season, which isn't you know, uncommon territory for the
Blues in the last couple of decades. So different for

(12:15):
them is that they were used to trying to hunt
down teams. Now they're the hunted themselves.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
All right, we have these sevens and blackfurn and sevens
are playing today and they're at this weekend and they're
in Vancouver for the Sevens tournament, and of course they
have to play in jerseys that say inios, despite the
fact that in Theos haven't given them any money this season.

Speaker 8 (12:31):
I a bit of free advertising for inios, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
Well? What have they not got a T shirt that
they can wear that doesn't have the branding on it,
just to say, look, you did it. You didn't send
the check.

Speaker 8 (12:40):
But it doesn't have the All Blacks or the other
sponsors on it. So I suppose what's the best outcome
to you? We are the sponsors and keep the brand,
the All Blacks Sevens or Blackfan and Sevens brand and
keeping that uniform, or do you tape it over? Williams
did the taping over a couple of years. That's true.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
That's true. That's true. I had a silly idea which
I probably shouldn't say publicly, but I will, is that
there must be monogram shops up there, so you in
the OS and then Dead Beats minogram underneath, just to
show them that Sir Jim Radcliffe is not a man
of his word.

Speaker 8 (13:12):
But then they'll take those photos and put them in
a lawsuit. That in your sestra respond to is you
don't want to give any field to the fires. You
excuse the pump to anyos. Okay, maybe in good faith
you just keep wearing them.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
And cricket, we have the Try Series final. We're on fire.
We beat Pakistan, we beat South They again, we play
Pakistan again tonight at ten o'clock. It's not on Sky,
it's not on TV in there, no, but you can
watch it for free.

Speaker 8 (13:37):
It's free on YouTube search Sports Central and it's completely
legitimate and illegal stream. It's been that the games have
all been on there for the series. Pretty good coverage.
It's the Pakistan broadcast to coverage and the black Caps.
You know that the bearly play one days anymore, can
Williams And I think you've played about ten in the
last six seven years because it's just a format that
has been allowed to drift away. But with the champions

(13:59):
Trope on the doorstep over the next couple of weeks,
black Caps have got a good chance to win a
Try Series and head into that series full of confidence.
Russia and Avenger battling though with an injury, that nasty knock.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
He talks anyway, he kept his eye on the ball.

Speaker 8 (14:12):
He did which is what you're told to do.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Literally, yeah, figuratively yeah, everything, Yeah, and he bled a lot.

Speaker 9 (14:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Absolutely, we'll go and this is great. Signed for black
Caps and Elliott. Looking forward to your call tomorrow and
Blues Chiefs. That's going to be exciting of course on
Gold Sport and iHeartRadio.

Speaker 8 (14:25):
Absolutely yep, looking forward to that and all the action
tonight there as well.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
Good stuff for twenty four, recamping the day's big news
and making tomorrow's headlines. It's Andrew dickens on hither dupless
allan drive with one New Zealand let's get connected news talks.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
They'd be It's the time's ow four twenty six loads
of reaction on the text ninety two to ninety two.
Small charge applies first to the rugby. I find Super
Rugby a snowfest without South African teams. It's unwatchable. Thank
you for your text. Meanwhile, now the textas says Andrew
fizzing for Super Rugby season, go you Crusaders. Then we
come to education. Ben writes to me and says, my

(15:02):
son got a pie for the school lunch program today.
He said there was no waste for the first time,
and every single pie was seaten and the kids were happy.
It was a nice treat. Yes it is, and now
they want it every week. Now I'm sorry you've done it.
Now you've opened up Pandora's box, and in Pandora's box
is a pie and they're loving the pie. To the jackets,
Oh my god, jackets for teachers are not a luxury

(15:24):
coffee machines and fine art in the Ministry of Education officers,
they are luxuries. Cops get jackets. Okay, Now the Texas
says a disgusting waste of taxpayers money. Staff should provide
their own clothes. Maybe if they're coaches for sports teams,
but otherwise no. Then on the four year term, I'd
love a four year term. If Nashal got in, I'd

(15:45):
hate it. If labor getsin and somebody else wants to
talk about the og paper mill that's closing down because
it's too expensive to make paper. Should we have tariffs
to make the importing a paper more expensive. We're going
to talk about this after five o'clock today, very surely
the world wires and Jason Walls, our political editor, at
a quarter to I got to tell you a story

(16:06):
about Barry as well. What happened to him? No Heather
update today, I'm.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
Afraid informed insight into today's issues. It's Andrew Dickens on
hither duplicy Alan drive with one New Zealand let's get connected.

Speaker 10 (16:21):
News talks'd be.

Speaker 11 (16:22):
Will never of fall, We'll never will never offa.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Graded house given the dance treatment. Who knew this is
use talks? He'd be a former Defense and Foreign minister.
Are sounding a lamb about New Zealand's position in the Pacific,
and I guess this is all about the cooks. We'll
be talking about this with Jason Walls in about ten
minutes time. Anyway, we're still talking about the Auditor General's

(16:56):
report into school spending. I have a text who says
school jacket or T shirts all have a school logo on.
Nobody wears these outside of a school. It's not exactly
clothing you would want to wear down to the pub.
It's not exactly what you would call a fashion statement,
and it's not exactly a bonus to your wardrobe and
they're expensive. And this is all true. Go to an
opshop and see how many you can see there. Meanwhile,

(17:17):
on the school spending, here's some of the things that
schools spent on. One school spent ten grand on gift
vouchers to thank people involved with school lunches. One spent
twenty thousand dollars on premium laptops and notebooks for the
school price giving. One school gave a fifteen hundred dollars
gift voucher to a board member to recognize eight years
of service. One school paid forty thousand dollars to staff,

(17:40):
including the principle, to show appreciation because they worked hard.
During COVID, there were fifty four schools where the auditors
reported to boards about sensitive expenditure that provided a personal
benefit to the principle, and that is gym memberships, pilates, classes,
sports events, nutritionists, consultations, have a pie, they're in the

(18:02):
school lunch now, Nutrient products, adventure tourism guide of walks
and overseas family travel. You judge it is twenty two
to five.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
It's the world wires on news talks. They'd be drive.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Sorry for some having like a stuck record but Donald
Trump has announced more tariffs. This time. He wants reciprocal
tariffs on every country that has trade barriers with the
United States. He's not even going to spare India, even
though he just had a meeting with Narendra Muddy today.

Speaker 12 (18:31):
I had discussions with India and the first term about
the fact that their tariffs were very high, and I
was unable to get a concession. So we're just going
to do it the easy way, and we're just going
to say whatever you charge, we charge. And I think
that's spare for the people of the United States.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
In Australia, a rough day at the office for Australian
Prime Minister Alberizi. He visited the safe labor electorate of Whitlam,
presumably named after God, to announce plans for offshore wind farms.
Unfortunately for him, it was a tough crowd.

Speaker 13 (19:05):
We support blue collar jobs. Another still works here. Turbines
are made of steel, by the way, and we wanted.

Speaker 14 (19:17):
And has been hundred listing because Fred it like a
safe seat.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
Good call, going to a safe seat. And finally, okay,
I've seen this. I've seen the video. A kayaker was
swallowed by a whale and survived. He was he was
kayaking around and as Dad was filming him, and out
of nowhere up comes a humpback whale swallows them up.

(19:51):
This is off the coast of Chili. Thankfully, humpback whales
don't like eating humans or kayaks. They eat plankton. So
as soon as the man and the boat ended out
in the humbank wales mouth, he was sped out pretty
quickly and he returned to shore un injured, but now
will famous.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
International correspondence with ins and Eye Insurance peace of mind
for New Zealand business.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
Dan Mitchison joins me from the United States of America
with the time at twenty to five. Hello Day, and
hello Andrew. We're just talking about more tariffs. Tariff seemed
to be a daily thing with you guys.

Speaker 9 (20:28):
Yeah, they do, don't they. And as you mentioned, the
President today had a meeting with the Prime Minister of
India and had offered to talk about easing some of
those tariffs and buy more US oil gas and concessions
that we may have sort of postponed or pushed back
a trade war. But it doesn't look like they're going
to do that. Like you said, it's going to be

(20:48):
sort of a tit for tat situation. And he's saying
this right as the Prime minister right there.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Here is a big thing. He says across the board
for those people who have trade imbalances, smiling, He's got
the Indian prime minister. They're smiling, and basically he nails
India right there right next to him.

Speaker 9 (21:07):
Yeah, yeah, it's that seems to be the way he's
going with a lot of leaders these days. And then
of course he brought up the migrant situation. You know,
more than seven hundred thousand from from India or here
in the US illegally, and that's the third that most
that we have behind Mexico and l Salvador. And the
Prime Minister said, well, okay, anybody that's here in the
US illegally, you're going to be taken back. And President

(21:28):
Trup said, you know what, we're promising a mass deportation.
It's kind of the things you would think that they
would discuss maybe behind closed doors and then maybe a
spokesperson would release after the meeting, But to have a
lot of this sort of right there in the public,
with the cameras going live, it's just it makes it
for very a very awkward situation.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah, but it's also shokan or and that's his style,
and then they'll sort it out later, you know. And
that's that's the way. That's why so many of the
initiatives don't actually happen, because it's like, oh, yeah, there's
some there's some fine print to actually deal with. Sorry
about that, yeah soon. Now, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Has
been sworn in as Health Secretary.

Speaker 9 (22:06):
Yeah, and you know, he's one of the President's most
controversial cabinet picks. He's going to oversee a lot of
our health agencies here, he's going to have eighty thousand employees,
a trillion dollar budget, a lot of people both sides
of the isle. Republican Democrats had questioned his health claims
about vaccines. No Democrats backed him, and only former Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was the only Republican to vote

(22:27):
against him. But you know, he said that I promised
the President that if I was confirmed, I'm going to
do everything into my power to put the health of
Americans back on track. But it's kind of hard seeing
him be fair minded about this when he's had such
an extreme view and such a controversial view about vaccines
for so long, wait.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
To see responsibility can cause changes. Now I am talking
to my overseas correspondent about love. Now, am I talking
about Valentine's Day and the experts saying that men may
be more romantic than women? Am I really doing this
right now?

Speaker 10 (23:03):
Well?

Speaker 7 (23:03):
Well you are.

Speaker 9 (23:04):
I mean it's it's Valentine's Day already over there. We
still have a few hours before it's Valentine's Day over here.
And they are saying that, according to behavioral and brain sciences,
that romantic relationships are more central to men's well being
than women. And they're saying that, you know, in popular
culture that women prioritize romantic relationships more than guys, although
they're finding that evidence paints kind of this different picture.

(23:27):
And they're finding that research, you know, the men on
average relying more on their romantic partners for emotional support
and intimacy, and single men are more likely than single
women to search for a partner, and they're more likely
to sort of I think, idealize romantic connections. Now, can
I just say this before anybody else goes off? Let
us remember romance changes over time. So when you're dating

(23:48):
flowers in a week and get away may seem like
a huge romantic gesture, but as you get older and
you're married, you know, helping with the kids, or doing
laundry or cleaning the house, fixing dinner maybe just as
appreciated as you know, jewel or a weekend getaway too.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Absolutely, it's a team and it's team would and you're
thanking the teammates, and I thank you, Damn Michison. All
the very best and happy Valentine's Days here lovers in
the air. Yeah, well, Craig Poll, Laura, have you got
a Valentine's Day present for no.

Speaker 14 (24:21):
Or?

Speaker 2 (24:21):
And won't ask you. I've got a valentine Day's present
for the mother of my children, who I've been with
for forty four layers. And I'm going to go home
confidence and somewhere cocky.

Speaker 7 (24:35):
That I nailed this.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
It's a test. It's a test. It's women's tests of men.

Speaker 15 (24:39):
Are you up to it?

Speaker 2 (24:40):
Anyway? Sixteen to five? Barry can't be with us? Can
I tell people why?

Speaker 14 (24:45):
No?

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yes, we'll talk about this after the break. I will
talk to Jason Walls. And there are concerns about New
Zealand's position in the Pacific.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
That's next politics with centrics credit, check your customers and
get payments.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yes, it is now thirteen minutes to five. Normally it
would be Barry sober at this moment. But Barry has
hurt himself. It's not serious, but it's enough that he
can't come to work because he's seeing a doctor who's,
you know, patching him up a little bit. But yes,
he's hurt himself. And I won't tell you how he
hurt himself, but he has hurt himself, which is very
unfortunate because I did promise that he would talk to

(25:22):
us today about Heather and mackay and what's happening at home.
But I can't now, so you'll have to wait till
Monday when Ryan is back. But I will talk about
politics because Jason Walls has stepped into the breach after
Barry hurt himself.

Speaker 7 (25:36):
Hello, Jason, Hey, what an intro.

Speaker 15 (25:38):
It's going to be sorry to let everyone down.

Speaker 7 (25:41):
It's just me.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
No, you're our rock. Barry a flippity gibbet that flies
in the wind.

Speaker 7 (25:47):
Now.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
So we're talking about this with Rob Campbell. Just after five,
the another top Ministry of Health official has resigned. That
is the third in a week. They're dropping light flies.
Are they being pushed or are they jumping?

Speaker 15 (26:02):
Oh yeah, Well, I mean you'd have to look at
this and say that if they're not being pushed, they're
deciding that eventually they probably would be.

Speaker 7 (26:08):
And today's a perfect example.

Speaker 15 (26:10):
I mean, we had the statement this morning out from
Safati and she said that the challenges of restructuring and
unifying an entire health system is not to be underestimated.
She went on to say that it is now the
time to allow someone new to take up the mantle
of one of the most challenging and rewarding roles within
the health sector. And then she went on to say,
and get this, now, having made the decision to go,

(26:32):
I have decided to leave promptly. Doesn't exactly sound like
somebody that is leaving because they've had a lovely time.
It's all sunshine and rainbows and they're just moving on
to the next thing. That that's not the sort of
thing that somebody would say when they're leaving when everything
is good. So you would have to look at this
situation and think that, you know, we had Maji Appa

(26:53):
leaving this time last week, We've had the Directed General
saying that she's leaving this morning. Things are not all
all fantastic right at the top of health in New Zealand.
That's not to say that the governments, specifically Simmey and
Brown and Chris Luxon not happy. I mean they're probably
clearing house to allow for some of their own people
to come through. And speaking to press this afternoon, Health

(27:14):
Minister simme and Brown he had a message that he
was keen to hammer home and listen carefully because you
might not catch what that message was.

Speaker 16 (27:23):
I want to thank her for her commitment to ensuring
the health system delivers for New Zealanders and delivering these
targets so that we can deliver on those government targets
delivering and now we're making sure we're delivering and they
are focused on delivery, focus on delivery. We want to
empower them so they can deliver.

Speaker 15 (27:38):
Just call them the pizza Man because Simeon Brown wants
to deliver.

Speaker 7 (27:41):
Now, that was the.

Speaker 15 (27:44):
Thought that or that was the thought that he was
trying to get through today. He was asked outright if
he forced to fight the out here's what he said during.

Speaker 10 (27:52):
The general Apposhe no.

Speaker 16 (27:54):
Ultimately she made her own decision here what she called
me yesterday to let me know what tosion she had made.
And look, I wish you all the very best in
terms of the decisions she has made.

Speaker 15 (28:04):
So remember that she was appointed only in November twenty
twenty two to a five year term, so she didn't
need to leave or her term didn't expire until twenty
twenty seven. So there's a clear, clear reason as to
why she resigned so soon.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yeah. Well, look, hold on, first of all, for the
people to know, Diana Safati is basically the new Ashley
bomb Field, right. She's the Director General of Health. She
went in there in twenty twenty two. She was involved
with one government that was busy, sort of amalgamating everybody,
and so there's a big workwoad there. Suddenly there's a
new government who's actually devolving it all over again. There's
a new guy making more demands. I mean, she's running

(28:41):
hither and that all health people are. They've gone back
and forth and left him right, and they're not paid
a huge amount. And she just thought, nah, she just thought, nah,
that's what my opinion is. There's a former defense and
a foreign minister sounding the alarm about us A New
Zealand's position in the Pacific.

Speaker 7 (29:00):
Yeah, there is.

Speaker 15 (29:00):
Well, according to Waikato University Foreign Policy and Internation International
Relations professor doctor Rubin Stiff, we should all be quite
worried about what's happening right now.

Speaker 7 (29:10):
Have a listen.

Speaker 17 (29:11):
Well, it looks like the trudministration and are hitting to
try and in the rush of the Ukraine war. To me,
it's because they want to fixate on the priority the theater,
which is the endo percent. I'm hoping we don't cascade
into war. I don't know what probability to put on it.
Fifty to fifty doesn't sound great that I'll put fifty
to fifty on it, that there'll be a conflict that
involves us in the nixteen.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Fifty to fifty pikes.

Speaker 7 (29:34):
I do not like those odds. Okay, fifty to fifty.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
I'm too over conservation.

Speaker 7 (29:39):
But you boy, I might be right in the firing lines.
So yeah, not very good odds at all.

Speaker 11 (29:45):
Now.

Speaker 15 (29:45):
He was on a panel along with former National Minister
of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully and Labour's former Defense Minister
Andrew Little, and they both agreed the Pacific region had
become somewhat more more of a source of tension, and
McCully says that the US frankly are not doing a
good job and in.

Speaker 18 (30:03):
The region, the US has not been able to deliver stuff.
The diplomacy has made a difficult fact that in the
compact stage you've got that Department of the Interior is
the lead players for many things. Those things have been unhelpful.

Speaker 7 (30:18):
And guess who is stepping up And.

Speaker 18 (30:21):
Now you'll see China deliver stuff in a way that
the UIs hasn't been able to.

Speaker 15 (30:27):
So if you've been paying attention to the news in
New Zealand this week, I mean this obviously dovetails off
what's happening with the Cook Island. So not surprised to
hear this at all. Andrew Little went on to talk
about how we need to increase our defense spending. Now,
I will not the Defense Capability Plan, which is essentially
the blueprint for a long term defense spending in New Zealand,
is still not out. It was meant to be out

(30:47):
late last year and it's been delayed a number of
times now, and there is some internal rumblings that that
is because there's concerns about defense spending. But we're edging
closer to the budgets, wondering if it's just going to
be wrapped up into that.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
Now, all right, Jason, thank you for stepping into the breach.
Was that guy named Reuben Stiff.

Speaker 15 (31:07):
Unless I'm pronouncing his name wrong, yes, st e Ff.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Staphor Steff okay, step So I can't make the joke
that was a Steph warning. Adam was right. But there
we go. There's a Friday, and we're loose, and it's
seven to five, and I thank you for your time.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
Putting the tough question to the newspeakers. The mic asking breakfast.

Speaker 19 (31:25):
Former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is well, this, of
course you're in the country to talk about economics, which
we're deeply interested in at the moment and trying to
grow the economy. So give us some advice from Australia.
How do you deal with the world and foreign investment
and immigrants and their money without blowing it up politically.

Speaker 20 (31:41):
It's a tough equation to balance. The most important thing
is people need to understand that your immigration program has
strong rules and they're enforced, and that your borders are secure.
In our experience in Australia. People don't think the rules
are being followed and the system's being gained, they won't
buy it. But more broadly, on attracting foreign investment, remove
the barriers that are coming through regulation to improve comparedness.
It's really not rocket thive back.

Speaker 19 (32:02):
Monday from six am the Mike Hosking Breakfast with the
Rain Driver of the Lawn News Talk ZB.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
Now four minutes to five. I'm Andrew Dickens and for
Ryan Bridge. We've been talking Valentine's Day with Dan Mitchison,
who gave us some romantic advice that guys, it's not
just about flowers and dinner for one day. It's actually
about helping out around the household like all year. But
I do have a woman who has texted me is
that I love my flowers and dinner that my hubby

(32:28):
gets me on Valentine's Day. Imagine that two times a week,
or maybe even three times a week, or even more,
imagine that you'll be in rapture. Someone asked about the
Chilean who got swallowed by a whale whether his name
was Jonah. Well, certainly looks like it Jonah in the whale.
Remember that story? Now, serious stuff a third health boss

(32:50):
has left. We'll ask Rob Campbell about this. He's been
in the chair and so he knows the pressures that
they're under and whether she might have jumped or whether
she was pushed. Talked to Robin five. Also talking to
Gary Petley, who is the South Way Kato District mayor. Tokoroa.
Some very bad news today. More on that to come
with newstalks.

Speaker 4 (33:07):
At B.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
Questions, answers, facts, analysis, The Drive show you Trust for
the full picture. Andrew Dickens on Hither Duplessy Alan Drive
with One New Zealand Let's Get Connected.

Speaker 10 (33:30):
News talks at B.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
As Welcome back to the program, filling in for Brian Bridge.
He's back on Monday. So we've had another major exit
in our crumbling health sector. Directed General of Health Diana
Safati has resigned. She will leave the role promptly. In
a statement, Safati highlighted the challenge of restricting and unifying
an entire health system and how it was not to

(33:54):
be underestimated, as she announced her final day will be
next Friday. That's soon. This is after the Director of
Public Health step down on Monday. Health New Zealand's Chief
execu left last Friday and the Health New Zealand board
was sacked last year. So joining me now is Health
New Zealand former Health New Zealand chair Rob Campbell. Hell
to you, Rob good Afthton. So the Health spokesperson Patty

(34:16):
Henay describes the changes as a government orchestrated blood bath.
Is this a sign of onward once people being cleared out?

Speaker 3 (34:25):
Look, I actually don't think that it is. I think
people have reached these decisions under tremendous pressure of trying
to run a dysfunctional system without enough money and without
enough clarity of direction. I think it's that more than
people having their headcut off.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
So if that's the case, what needs to be done.

Speaker 3 (34:44):
Well, there's obviously a deep problem and it's been there
for a while. It didn't happen under this government or
under the previous government alone, But there is a need
to think the way we run our health system. We
can't run it by recycling public service heads and XDHB

(35:04):
people X Ministry of Health people through the system. It
needs some press thinking if we're going to be able,
if we're going to address these sort of issues.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
So if we're getting new blood, do they need to
have a clinical background or has that proven and effective.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Well, I think a clinical background in the terms of
understanding is absolutely essential, but it's not so much that
the person holding this position has to be explentation. That
they have to be able to listen to clinicians and
the other professionals in the health service as to what
it is is really needed and what can be done.
And they need to listen not just to the people
in the public health system but also out there in

(35:41):
the private sector because the great amount now of health
services in New Zealand, from GPS to midwives two number
of private hospitals and other sort of facilities are driven
and run by private sector interests and you have to
be able to work with all of these to make
this work.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Well, that's quite hard to find. That's a special skill set.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
Yeah, well, it's not easy to find, I'm sure, but
there's lots of positions available, and I think there are
people who with the right sort of freedom to act
and with the right sort of political support, would be
more than willing to take it on. There's lots of
people working in various bits of the health sector who
have the capability to do this, but they need those
two things. They need some freedom to act, and they

(36:23):
need some political support and that may mean spending, but
spending is only part of it. They need to support
for a new direction.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
But here's the thing. You're talking about very special people
with as I said before, extended skill sets. Do we
even pay enough to attract the sort of people who
have those skills?

Speaker 3 (36:41):
Well, you know, pays not all of it, And to
match the sort of skills we need on a ghobile
market would be very very hard, indeed, and it would
be pretty distorting to do this. So now I think
we've got to find the right person. I think the
right person would be readily available at the sort of
money we paying out. I really don't think that's the issue.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
I am with three so rapidly. Is this any reflection
on Simeon Brown, the new Minister of Health.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
I don't think you end off there quickly. He's only
just walked. He don't just walk down the door. Notice
reflects long sending and big tended problems. And after all,
the commissioner at the moment only has a few months
less rib I understand on his prison contract because we
want to go good stuff.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
Rob Campbell, former Health New Zealand, here, thank you, for
your time, and the time is eleven after five. Andrew
dickens tokeoor Right, the owner of the Khaleath mill at Tokaroa,
has confirmed plans to permanently end paper production from June.
About two hundred and thirty factory workers will then lose
their jobs. OG Fiber Solutions says it will transition the

(37:43):
mill to focusing just on pulp, no more paper, and
it will move to a paper import model for its
packaging operation. So Gary Pittley from the Southwark, he is
the South Southway Katto District mayor joins you now, hello Gary.

Speaker 21 (37:59):
And how are you?

Speaker 2 (38:00):
Matt good? How are you? Sad day?

Speaker 21 (38:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (38:03):
Said day, sad day Okay. So is this the end
of it all? Or is there any room to save
any other jobs before June?

Speaker 21 (38:13):
From what I from what of the people I've spoken
to Andrew, I think they'll continue to ask via the
options available throughout that whole exercise, and it could. It
may not just be those that are directly affected. There
may be some job swaps that have been put to
the too og og Solutions and that wouldn't They don't

(38:38):
want to tell somebody who's been there for quite an
long period of time opting for redundancy but doing a
job swap with an affected worker. So those options have
to be looked at, and we're just to see where
they land. And they've got till June and before they
make that song of.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
This scene, other than making the decision you hate do
og five or see good people.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
I was probably a.

Speaker 21 (39:04):
Loaded question, Andrew, but you know, I guess from my perspective,
and I come from twenty one years having worked there
and left there under the redundancy model in nineteen ninety eight,
so it was but then the situation was different then
because it was my decision to go then and my

(39:25):
wife and I wanted to pursue other options out in
the field.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
Let's go back to your new job. You are the mayor.
This is going to have a huge impact pact on
the town. And we were talking to a boat before
who said, yeah, sure there's two hundred odd jobs that
are going, but it's actually all the contractors who who
had a part of it all. It could be more
like a thousand. And then for every job that you lose,
that affects three other jobs. And the problem with toker
Row is that you were too dependent on one industry.

(39:51):
So so how big is this impact going to be
and is it survivable?

Speaker 21 (39:56):
It's it's huge. It's huge because, as you alluded to,
those two hundred and thirty workers, and it's a support
wrap around service from contractors that add up, and truck
drivers and transport deliveries and carriers that add up to
that that will add up to their total. Is it survivable? Yes,

(40:17):
I think it is, and I believe that the council
have been working on initiatives to get new business into town,
and we've got a industrial park that we're developing now
and twelve of the thirteen sites have been sold already.
That's being developed that will create about two hundred to

(40:38):
three hundred jobs. The o Fie or Ofi dairy factory,
the new one on the south side of town, is
looking at signing off on phase two of their development,
so that will create more jobs.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
I suppose this is a warning mate to all the
towns in New Zealand that are dependent on one employer
that you can never diversify your employment base enough and
that you must always work on it, you know, to
get safeguard against the rainy day that's coming.

Speaker 21 (41:09):
Yeah, I think the reality around that Andrew is that
everybody gets comfortable on their own in their own space.
And I guess where we should have been looking more
in my view when redundancies first started happening, when we
went from a four thousand and four thousand, two and
a half thousand workforce to four hundred, and that will

(41:31):
suggest that discussions sort of been on alternative employment or
getting new business into town.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
Okay, of course, we wish you all the best of
luck and everybody. And Tacora is a lovely town. You've
got a great forest right there, You're close to the
lakes for recreation and it's close to going skiing as
well if if the snow ever arrives. And I just
want to wish you and all the people of Tacora
and Southwark all the best of luck, and I thank
you for your time. Gary, Thank you very much an
Gary Pitley. He is the South Wykato District mayor. It

(42:05):
is sixteen minutes out of five now out of the
four term. The four year term is back on the
table and a referendum is wanted by David seymore So
we'll talk about the ends and the outs and the
wins and the wherefores with Peter Dunn in just a
few moments time. So they say. In Spain the rain
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SO Act Leader David Seymour was making the case for

(43:31):
a New Zealand adopting a four year parliamentary term. It's
part of the coalition agreement, he says. If you're worried
about that giving the government too much power, he says
in exchange, select committees will be organized differently to make
sure that the Opposition always has a majority at the
Select Committee, which doesn't occur at the moment. It's understood
the government will soon introduce legislation that will put the

(43:52):
issue to a referendum. There's lots to unpack here. Political
commentator Peter dunna is with me, Hello, Peter Collo. Four
year term a good idea.

Speaker 22 (44:02):
Well, I'm personally in favor of, always have been for
one simple reason. At the moment. With the three year term,
you really get about two years of effective government, the
first six months for settling in in the last six
months of battling down for the hatchet. So a four
year term would give you a three year run at least,
which makes it easier I think for implementing long term

(44:23):
policy changes. I don't have the same propensity to chop
and change every election.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
So look how Parliament can actually push through legislation quickly
and notts have been criticized about the lack of scrutiny.
But should we really remove the three year check in
with the voters?

Speaker 22 (44:38):
Well, it depends. I mean some people say three years
is too long for a bad government, but too short
for a good government. But if you look around the world,
you know most countries have been moving to a four
year term. In Britain it's five, In Ireland, I think
it's four, Australia it's got four years. In a number
of the states. The presidential term in America is four.

(45:00):
I think we're a bit of an outlier at three,
but I think the additional year would just give a
bit more stability and focus to governments that wouldn't always
be sort of chopping and changing because the next selection
was just around the corner.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
And David once to change the Select Committees, which at
the moment they have more governmental members and opposition members.
He wants to give the opposition the majority on Select
committees as a as a check and balance. Good idea
or bad weird I think that's.

Speaker 22 (45:24):
A really good idea. Actually, when I was a minister,
I dealt with situations where I had the Select committee
looking at my legislation had an opposition majority or an
opposition chair, and I actually found that they were probably
more constructively because they were conscious that they had They
weren't this yet to sort of cause mayhem. They were
there to do a good job. So I think giving

(45:44):
a majority on select committees to the opposition is a
good idea. It would be a good check and a
good balance. But it would also make the opposition need
to act responsibly because I think the public will see
through them if they just saw that as a way to.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Disrupting, and then we'd end out in a level of
stats and stagnation and just sitting there going nowhere.

Speaker 22 (46:02):
Yeah, of course I think it's a good idea.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
So my final question is it's going to a referendum.
I think that's appropriate because the people should say because
it's the people's system, it's the people's votes, et cetera,
blah blah bah. But I think it's such a big
constitutional change it should be a supermajority, a seventy five
percent majority to get this, so that we're all on
the same page. What do you think of that?

Speaker 22 (46:22):
Yeah, well, it certainly should be decided by a referendum
because for the reasons you've set out a supermajority, whether
it's seventy five percent or sixty percent or something. I
think it's a point worth considering. And one of the
controversies you remember about MMP was that the final vote
was passed something by I think it was fifty four percent,
and people said that was a bit too close. So
I think some sort of a safeguard thet I'm not

(46:43):
sure that whatever the outcome, it was clear cut wouldn't
be appropriate.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
Very good, Peter Dunn, always a pleasure to speak with.
You have yourself a great weekend. This is Newstalk B.
It's five twenty three.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
On the iHeart app and in your car on your
drive home it's Andrew Dickens on Hither Duplessy drive with
One New Zealand let's get connected news talks.

Speaker 20 (47:04):
They'd be well.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
I was going to bang on about competition right now,
but your texts about the four year term have been
great and they're flying in, so I'll see what I
can get through. Dermott says, every political pundit who talks
on this says four years is the way, and they
say most people agree. I bet my bottom dollar ain't
no way this passes in a referendum. Nobody is giving
these turkeys an extra year with the lack of trust
we have in them. Thank you Dermott. Someone says, Andrew,

(47:26):
if the politicians want it, don't do it. Another text
Peter Dunn's rationale for the four year term over three years,
where because the third year is election year, nothing gets
done is rubbish. It's a political choice by political parties
not to have the courage of conviction and their own
policies and to not keep working through that third year
to get things done. Stick with the three years, and
let's get in politicians that are not afraid of actually

(47:48):
doing some work. Another person is in favor of American
mid term elections. Yes, that's all well and good if
we had a couple of houses, But we don't have
a couple of houses, and that would take a constitutional change,
I think is well beyond all of us we're actually
considering at this time of the year. Still in a
February and it's Valentine's Day, for goodness sake, and it's

(48:08):
the middle of summer and the tide's quite good tomorrow
and for some reason known only to the rugby people,
it's the start of the Ruby season, yes February the fourteenth,
and so we're going to talk to the Crusader's boss
in just a few moments time, because it's fair to
say yesterday last year not the best. Have they turned
things around? And then we've got the sports huddle for

(48:30):
you as well, with Nick Gully and Clay Wilson of course,
so this is going to be fun. It's Friday, and
this is miss.

Speaker 7 (48:38):
Should be.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
Getting the facts, discarding the fluff. It is Andrew dickens
on hither duples the alum drive with one New Zealand
let's get connected news talks.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
That'd be.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Welcome back to the program. Is still thinking about this
four year term, Chris Rickins. Another way of looking at
four year terms is that maybe labor would have been
kicked out after four years instead of six. A lot
of people are saying those sorts of things. Andrew a
good idea, but four for national two for labor, so
we can't go too far backwards. And of course there'll

(49:25):
be lefties who'd think the exact opposite ron, But thank
you so much for your text. All Right, it is
twenty four to six, Andrew dickens, unbelievably. On February the
fourteenth Super Rugby Pacific is back. The season kicks off
in about ninety minutes. The Crusader's hosting the Hurricanes in
the first match. So I have Crusader's CEO, Colin Mansbridge

(49:49):
with me now Halla Colin caur Andrew, how are you mate?
I'm very good at what about you?

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Have?

Speaker 23 (49:54):
You?

Speaker 2 (49:55):
Has the trauma of last year resolved itself?

Speaker 4 (49:59):
I think so an interesting when you can do something
about it, as in prepare and get ready, it gives you,
It gives you.

Speaker 10 (50:07):
A chance to put something out there today.

Speaker 4 (50:09):
So no, it has resolved itself and we're up for it.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Well, okay, you've still got the same coach.

Speaker 8 (50:17):
Yes we have.

Speaker 4 (50:18):
I guess if you wanted to make a if you
wanted to make a a position, that's the coach's fault.
Holy that then you'd say change your coach. But of
course we went through a pretty good process to come
out the other end. And so there's about forty or
fifty little things we needed to do and in a
game of five margins, you get ten or fifteen of

(50:40):
those right, and you'll be in playoff contention.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
You lost a lot of old heads for last year,
including your coach obviously, and you've got some new young guns.
Are the young guns turning into old heads?

Speaker 4 (50:51):
I think I think half the battle is actually putting
the putting a similar combination together week after week after week,
and getting players confident in playing with those players and
doing not too many wholesale changes. When you're doing significant
number of wholesale changes, all that cohesion drops out the window.

(51:13):
So I think we've got some We've got much more
availability in the squad this year, and we've got some
of the old heads and we've got some younger guys
coming through, got some new people. James O'Connor has been
awesome coming in and so yeah, you know, we're really
really excited about what this group can do.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
So on that point, you've got the Hurricanes. They have
four captains, you know, and I think that's because they
realize that super rugby is a nutritional game these days.
You have injuries and you want to keep you want
to keep, as you just said, you want to keep
some consistency through the season. Is super Rugby Pacific just
too tough on the bodies.

Speaker 4 (51:50):
I think that the captain's things interesting Andrew, isn't it
because I think, yeah, they've got four, we've got one, but.

Speaker 10 (51:55):
We've got lots of people of the leadership group. We've
got a number of people in leadership.

Speaker 4 (51:59):
Group, so you want a number of people able to
step up. But it's quite nice to have somebody who's
like a you know, like a captain, somebody who leads
on and off the field and there's a sort of
focal point for the for the group without putting too
much pressure on. In terms of whether it's tough on
the body, I think there's no doubt it's a you know,
these are fit, strong, powerful young men and probably fit

(52:23):
a stronger and more powerful than they They play an
exciting brand of high paced rugby and and there's lots
of collisions in it, so it can be it can
you have some attrition on some of the bodies, but
they do tend to recover reasonably well and are well
looked after.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
And speaking about that attrition, the change this year is
into the kicking rules and the kicking and the chase,
et cetera. So are they we've seen it in the
Six Nations. Are these good changes?

Speaker 10 (52:53):
Some of these?

Speaker 4 (52:54):
I think, I think what's happening yes, In short, yes,
I think what's happening all over the globe is that
we've realized most people involved in rugby have realized that
the game has to be attractive, not only and fun
to play, but for fans to watch and so, and
it has to be safe. So if you've got chases
going on and people blocking those chases and therefore the

(53:18):
collisions are more dangerous than they need to be, and
also that the contests aren't there, then I think both
the punter and the person who's playing the game just.

Speaker 10 (53:28):
Wants to see that improve it.

Speaker 4 (53:29):
And so I think lots of these little changes that
have been brought in, especially in Super rugby, we tend
to be the breeding ground of innovation, and it's why
it's such a fast and exciting and interesting competition.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
You've got Brad Moore, he's been talking about that kick game.
He was talking this morning. He was saying, just don't
just kick it away, kick it away with purpose, you know,
and all that sort of thing. He seems like a
good bloke. How confident are you of keeping him because
I understand Wales might want to steal him.

Speaker 4 (53:58):
It's always nice when we've got people who want to
steal our coaches. New Zealand Rugby did a fairly good
job over the last couple of years and stole a
few of ours. But we're really stoked that Brad's name
pops up in these conversations. He's obviously contracted with us
for two years and I think he's really really happy
he's come in as contribution has been excellent. He's really

(54:21):
enjoying the group, that they're a harmonious group, there any
false harmony being there. They're testing and challenging each other,
and I think he's really enjoying himself.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
I can hear wind. Are you watching footy?

Speaker 4 (54:35):
Have I given it away?

Speaker 3 (54:36):
So?

Speaker 4 (54:37):
The development teams just playing at the moment and the
Crusaders have just gone ahead against Hurricanes Development, So yes, I.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
Am watching forty what's to the crowd?

Speaker 4 (54:48):
We'll get between sold and then fourteen thousand. Right at
the moment, the crowd's not that big, but they're starting
to come in so it'll actually not pretty full too.

Speaker 10 (54:58):
And it's a wonderful day, wonderful.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
For watching footy, And how keen, are you for the
new stadium.

Speaker 10 (55:05):
I can't wait.

Speaker 4 (55:06):
It's I haven't spent a lot of time personally going
around on the inside. I've spent a lot of time
on the outside.

Speaker 10 (55:13):
But the feedback about it from the suppliers.

Speaker 4 (55:17):
And some of their sponsors have been through is that
they are blown away by it will be. I forget
the National Stadium being Eden Park. I'm telling you of
the National Stadium as one New Zealand Stadium next year.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Oh that's fighting words. Look mate, all the very best
of luck with the game that's happening tonight and go
the Mighty Blues and thank you for your time. Thanks,
that's good as color Mansbridge. Here is the Crusader CEO.
It is eighteen to six.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
The Friday Sports Huddle with New Zealand Southeby's international realty,
local and global exposure like no other.

Speaker 24 (56:00):
It's been talk about restoration and restoring the manner and
the significance of the Crusader image.

Speaker 25 (56:08):
Interscapable factor is that Anios and the owner of Anios
are reasonably wealthy. They won't have taken this action lightly.
They will have looked at all of the options, including
the cost of.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
Legal the worries have been around thirty years now.

Speaker 4 (56:24):
You know what we believe is another team in Auckland
is only going to lift the game.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
And we would hope to say, hey, time for the
sports huddle. We've got Nick Burley news talks HEREB Canterbury
Sports Reader and Clay Wilson news talks HEREB Sport News
Directed together. Gentlemen, good evening to you leaving Andrew all right, Andrew, hey,
Clay and the Crusaders do better.

Speaker 3 (56:47):
Well?

Speaker 24 (56:48):
Not with thirteen or fourteen injuries that Nick gar reported
to us ur in the week after we came back
from training, seems like a like a hard ask. I think,
you know, you'd say their prospects look perhaps a little
bit better this year with a couple of a couple
of faces back, but starting the season with such a
big casualty ward as it's pretty tough going and you've
got the Hurricanes going down there who have a pretty

(57:09):
good roster, and you'd have to think are going to
be somewhere in the mix. But probably the man to
really ask about that, as our Canterbury sportsman like himself.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
I was about to say, Nick, Billy, has your boss
actually still and all your talking points or what else
would you like to say? You've been there and look,
I've just had mister Mansbridge actually come on and say,
these are fit and healthy men. You know they can
it's not too hard. They've got fourteen injuries and they
haven't even played a game.

Speaker 14 (57:31):
Yeah, look I found that comment. I think what to
help out my friend Colin Mansbridge there what he was
probably suggesting. It's compared to last year in terms of
the type of player that they're without. If we look
at last year, which was a bit of a basket
case by the end of it, I know Will Jordan
at all, Scott Barrett played four games to Mighty. Williams
is out a long time. Cody Taylor had a non

(57:51):
playing sabbatical ridden into his contract. These are guys who
are there outside of Cody Taylor's got a wee hamstrings train,
but they're there tonight. Will Jordan, you know it's Scott.
They're going to make a huge difference to this team.
And rightly or wrongly, in terms of talking about attrition
throughout the season, a large part of the success is
what players you do have available over a competition which

(58:12):
spans the best part of four months, so look, I
think the Crusaders are in a much better position. Pretty
much everything that possibly could have gone wrong last year
did go wrong, and I do suspect that they'll be
a lot better this year.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Do I think they can win?

Speaker 14 (58:25):
I think it's the Blues and the Chiefs to lose personally,
but I think.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
They'll be there at the business end of the season.
Because they are playing tomorrow in a replay of the final.
That'll be good. A final rugby question. Joe Schmidt abandoned
by Australia or no? Or did he know he abandoned Australia,
which is actually must be heartbreaking for Australia. But here's
the thing. Can we can we take him up in
some role or another with the All Backs or with
the New Zealand rugby Clay.

Speaker 24 (58:49):
Well, another of our Steam colleagues, Eliott Smith, made this
point during his column for The Herald and and I
you know, you have to look at what Joe Schmidt's
done across world rugby and just everything you hear about
Joe Schmidt. He's a rugby man through and through. He
lives and breeds it and he clearly knows the game
inside out. You look at someone like Sawayne Smith, who
obviously was just a brilliant mind, and Joe Schmitt seems

(59:09):
to fit into that kind of kind of mold. We
obviously know that, you know, he hit his time with
the All Blacks and he's gone to Australia, but he
does really want to be in New Zealand and terims
of his family and that kind of thing. If he's
back here, how does he fit into an All Black situation?
Perhaps he doesn't, we know. With when Scott Robertson came
on board, they tried to get those two guys to
work together and what we sort of heard was that

(59:32):
perhaps Joe Schmitt wasn't quite as comfortable with that. So
whether it's that or Elliott alluded to the Black Ferns.
You know, they've got a World Cup coming up this year.
A great mind like that, someone who's brilliant behind the
intricacies of the game.

Speaker 10 (59:43):
Maybe he's a perfect.

Speaker 24 (59:44):
Man if you can get him on board in a
in a roll with the Black fans this year.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
Which which which Wayne Smith did. So yeah, that once
again there's there's that storyline. The new professor is Joe Schmidt.
What do you think? What do you think?

Speaker 3 (59:54):
Neck.

Speaker 14 (59:55):
I think it's it's incredibly important Andrew where we have
so much intellectual property in terms of coaching rugby coaching
going overseas and understandably so to Europe because the money's
there in Japan, because the money's there. There's a situation,
as Clay outline there where this is a coach who
wants to be in New Zealand because of family reasons
that we need to make the most of his geographical

(01:00:15):
position within the country and whether you slice it up
and get him to work with the Black fans. But
how about the All Black sevens for example, the men's
team who struggled last year, or just as a men's
or a consultant to our six super rugby teams here
in New Zealand. I think they'd be stupid not to
pick up the phone.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
New Zealand Rugby, Nick Burley and Clay Wilson is a
huddle today. We're back in a few moments time league
and golf and all sorts still to come here on
newsks'b It's thirteen to six.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
The Friday Sports Huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty
elevate the marketing of your home.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
All right, it is now ten minutes to six. Claiy
Wilson and Nick Burley on the sports huddle. We have
a man of pacifica bid for a second NRL team
in Auckham. Couple of visuals there can all can support
another sporting franchise and the other issue is well, actually
I'm just going to go straight to Nick Bewley because
you'll be heart broken the South I've missed out. Three
teams in the South Island missed out, so you'll be

(01:01:12):
sitting there going well, there's no way another team in
Orcland's going to get it.

Speaker 14 (01:01:16):
Well missed out for now, I should say, Andrew, it's
a very slow moving beast, this NRL expansion. And there's
someone who's sort of covered those three christ Church consortium
or group of business people over the last of the
twelve to eighteen months. Yeah, it's very much a slow
moving beast. But look what the point you were making
there around can they survive in a market like Auckland.

(01:01:38):
You think Blues Warriors break is Auckland FC and Maana
pacifica the super rugby team, and I think you've just
got to go knock on the door at Maana PACIFICA
and understand how tough it has been for them to
survive and be where they are at the start line
for this edition of Super Rugby. So look, I quite
I like the romantic idea give in the amount of

(01:02:00):
PACIFICA players in the NRL. I think something upwards of
forty percent of men's players in the NRAL are of
some sort of Pacific Pacifica descent. But the bottom line
is it is not a cheap exercise. And you look
at the crowds and population and the stadia issues, I just,
I honestly don't think it will work.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
That's the funny thing, Clay. After all the talks that
Aucklands has too many stadium we seem to not have enough.

Speaker 24 (01:02:25):
Well, it's funny you talk about stadiums, because that's what
I started to sort of pop into my mind when
I've thought about this Man PACIFICA team. It's a bit
like the stadium issue because of well, because it's so
slow moving. It's sort of hard to really get your
hopes up too much or sort of invest too much
in something like this because the NRL really aren't haven't
shown a ton of interest even in those in those

(01:02:47):
christ Church both consortiums. So I know they say they've
been speaking to the NRL, but you know the NRAL
until they come out publicly and sort of offer up
something in terms of Nick another New Zealand franchise at all.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
But yes, obviously it's going to.

Speaker 24 (01:03:01):
Make sense financially, and where do those corporate sponsors come from?
Do they have to go to go elsewhere? And with
my Wana Pacifica obviously there's a large Pacifica base in
that team. But in the NRAL Rugby League it's slightly different.
As Nick alluded to, there's already so many Pacifica players
playing in this competition, so that kind of pathway does
exist for them at at the top level. So whether

(01:03:24):
it would work in rugby league, I'm not sure. The
romanticism of it is there. Of course it would be
great to have a Pacific team, but I think we're
a long way between sort of the idea, the sort
of bid now in any kind of reality down the road.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
And do you finally talk about something that does not
involve an oval ball. TV and Z is to air
live golf. Okay, now, live golf gets some funny old
pressed because it's Saudi backed and it's called sports washing,
and should our national broadcaster owned by the state be
getting into bed with a competition owned by Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 14 (01:03:56):
Nick, I think we're or in quite a long bow
these days when you look deep down at where money
comes from in the grandest scheme of sport. Are we
now going to say that next week when Joseph Parker
flights for another world heavyweight title in Saudi Arabia, TVNSD
aren't able to air any preview review stories on their

(01:04:20):
sports news look. Liv Golf exists, and there has been
controversy around it, of course, but this is the somewhat
unfortunate reality of the situation that that is where the
money is being pumped into sport at the minute on
a global stage, and we just have to accept it.
I don't have an issue with it. I think where
we're getting too far in the weeds if we're going

(01:04:41):
to start having issues with it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Clay, you agree, yeah, I think so.

Speaker 24 (01:04:45):
Next so right that that if you start diving into
where money comes from from, not just for sporting things,
but for any kind of benches around the world these days,
you're probably going to start winding around some pretty murky
corners and it is, as he says, a really an
unfortunate reality for those people who you know, I'm certainly
not a geopolitical expert by any I work in sports,

(01:05:08):
in strictly sports, but look, obviously that that issue has
existed and it's always going to hang over these sports
that are getting Saudi money pumped into them. But you
are drawing quite a long bow to start saying, well,
you know TVNZ can't can't screen a golf tournament, aren't you.
So yeah, it's a tough it's a tough one. It's

(01:05:30):
a very complicated one. But at this stage, I think,
you know, if they can get a hold of something
like that, people are people in this country are gonna
watch it. And the stage that it is, the.

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
Golf is good, and that comes down to it. I
was I was thinking I could ask you about the
top one hundred highest paid sports people in the world
are all men, but you are all men, and I
don't want you to get into any trouble it or
broadcasting standards complain to anything like that. So I'm going
to leave it there. I thank you, But by now,
Nick Burley and Clay Wilson.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
It's the Heather duple c Allen Drive Full Show podcast
on My Art Radio powered by News Talks EBB.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
Yeah, the world's top one hundred highest paid athletes have
been revealed. You won't believe how much Christiano Ronaldo may
but why don't the women make money as well? We're
going to talk to Tony Bruce as sports sociologist about this.
It's coming up right after the News and Sport, which
is just moments away here on News Talks mb Plugostry.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
Keeping track of where the money is flowing. The Business
Hour with Edward Diggins and Mayor's Insurance and Investments, Grow
your Wealth, Protect your Future, News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
Welcome back to the program on Valentine's Day. Thank you
so much for choosing us. My name is Andrew Dickins,
filling in for Ryan Bridge, who's back from his spamily
thing on Monday, and I'll be back on early edition
from Monday. So let's talk business, but we're talking the
business of sport. The world's top one hundred highest paid
athletes have been revealed, and they are all men. Cristiano

(01:07:01):
Ronaldo topped the list. The football player formerly from Portugal
now in the Saudi area. He's earned he earned last
year two hundred and sixty million US dollars. That's four
hundred and fifty seven million dollars in Kiwi dollars. That's
half a billion for one man to kick a ball.
Works out about and thank your answer for doing the calculation.

(01:07:23):
Fifty two thousand an hour. Not bad if you can
earn it. The highest paid female, however, was tennis star
Cocoa Golf regular visitor to Auckland. She earned seven point
one million dollars less than the guy who placed one
hundredth fascinating. Tony Bruce is a sports sociologist professor at
Auckland University and led the Contemporary Study of Women in

(01:07:45):
Sports Media internationally and joins me, Now, hello, Tony, Hi, Andrew.
So it's fascinating, really, isn't it just how much money
these guys earn, and also the disparity between what they're
paid and what they get an endorsements.

Speaker 26 (01:08:02):
Yeah, I think that's the endorsements is the thing that
makes a big difference between those who make the top
fifty list and those that don't, because you can see
I had a good look at the women's list, and
some of the women in that top list they're only
there because they get very good endorsements, and it's the
same with quite a lot of the men. So it's
the money coming in sort of in a way external

(01:08:25):
to the sport organization or the sport they play itself.

Speaker 3 (01:08:29):
That seems to make the difference.

Speaker 26 (01:08:30):
And who gets to stand out.

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
I presume it's because they build a brand and the
brand is valuable to advertisers. So I know there's one
bloken there who is making three to four times more
in endorsements, so he actually gets paid to play the sport.

Speaker 26 (01:08:43):
Yeah, it's interesting to look at who makes who makes
that list and who gets the endorsements, and often it's
a mix of personality, success and longevity, and so you
won't often find flash in the pan athletes who suddenly
burst onto the landscape and then disappear. If you look
at all the people that are at the top, they're

(01:09:06):
playing global sports that have long competitions, incredible media coverage,
a global audience. But also they've been playing that sport
for a very very long time.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
But there's also a disparity in those brand sponsorships and
endorsements between men and women. And I have the case
here of Lydia Coe, who is very close to becoming
the top earning female golfer of all time over thirty
five million dollars US. However, in endorsement she only gets
one point five million dollars, So she's not getting the

(01:09:41):
endorsements the way the men do.

Speaker 26 (01:09:43):
Yeah, and it's we're hoping or hopeful I should say
that that seems to be changing over the last of
the three or four years we're starting, and we saw
it in New Zealand with the women's Rugby World Cup
and the fee for World Cup and the Cricket World
Cup that there's a a lot of media discussion and
organizations discussing how women's sport is different and how it

(01:10:05):
actually offers opportunities for endorsements. So we're seeing a lot
of organizations discussing putting more of that kind of endorsement
money into women's sport. But at the moment it's like
a drop in the buck bucket compared to what the
men are getting.

Speaker 2 (01:10:20):
So let's get into the quagmile, which is why do
men get paid more than women? And there's lots of
crocodiles in this quagmile, I have to say. But what
people always say, the common answer is that male sport
has more viewers because it's better. What do you say
to that, I.

Speaker 26 (01:10:39):
Will I'm trying to decide how to say that politely
or respond to it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
Politely.

Speaker 26 (01:10:43):
I would say that that's rubbish. But men's sport has,
you know, hundreds of years of history and of building
generations of fans, and women's sport doesn't have that kind
of impact yet because women.

Speaker 3 (01:10:59):
Have been playing for almost as long as men in many.

Speaker 26 (01:11:01):
Different sports, but what they do hasn't been visible. And
so I did quite a bit of research during the
twenty twenty two Women's Rugby World Cup, and the thing
that interested me the most was the number of older
men who kept telling me that they had fallen in
love with women's rugby because the players were fresh, they

(01:11:23):
were open, they were obviously playing for the love of
the game, and my feeling is that they they felt
like it was rugby of old before rugby professionalized. And
so we know that people are drawn to the honesty
and frankness and the different perspective on the world that
women players have. What that hasn't done And obviously the

(01:11:46):
quality on the field is getting better and better and
better because they're getting opportunities to be full time professional athletes.
So there's opportunities there, but that opportunity to be a
full time professional athlete accept in sports like tennis, for example,
it is very very new. And of course if you
look at the top women's list tennis, it's slitted with

(01:12:07):
tennis players, yes, because that's a sport that has had
time to build that history, build that audience, and it
gets more or less the same coverage as men.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
Yeah, and yet they don't get enough money. And yeah,
Cocoa Gough is number one hundred and seven on this
list and doesn't make the top one hundred, and she's
the top player making the most money.

Speaker 26 (01:12:27):
So you know, I wouldn't mind being at number one hundred.

Speaker 21 (01:12:31):
And seven myself.

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
Okay, excellent, that's a complete interview.

Speaker 26 (01:12:35):
Yeah it is, but it's it's a lot of it's historical.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
So I think, what could it also be that men
value sport more than women. Men value watching sport so
much more than women, and so the advertisers and the
people paying the prize money realize that there are more
eyeballs on the men's sport.

Speaker 26 (01:13:00):
I think that's definitely a possibility. I think because I've
been studying netball as well, recently, and that is a
vociferous and passionate fan base for women's sport, but they're
not visible. And so fans for men's sport are much
more visible than female fans. So there is Yeah, I

(01:13:22):
think what you're what you're getting to is there's sort
of multiple aspects that all come together to mean that women,
top women athletes are fighting for the kind of attention
that top male athletes have almost taken for granted these days.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
Okay, but they're catching up, which is what you've said
all the way through the interview. And we'll wait to
see and maybe that this will be different in the future.
And Tony Bruce, I think you've got a great thing
to have to study. I have to say it's a
lot better.

Speaker 26 (01:13:46):
It brings me lots of pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
I bet it does. I'm just going to watch some
sport for a while. Don't worry, it's my research.

Speaker 3 (01:13:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):
I've tried that one before. It doesn't work so well,
it's still good. And I thank you for your time today.
That is Tony Bruce, who studies the stuff at Orkin
University in the sociology department. It is six point fifteen
Jason Walls Raps the political week in a mow.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
It's the Heather Duper c Allen Drive Full Show podcast
on my Heart Radio powered by News Talk.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
Zippy Newsbian Political News. Just to hand, a judge has
ordered the Trump administration to temporarily reinstate foreign aid funding.
More on that as it comes to hand, and let's
talk about politics right now. You have to say the
New Zealand politics in twenty twenty five has hit the
ground running. So much happening. And to review this week,
I'm joined now by Jason Walls. Hello, Jason, Oh, good evening, Andrew,

(01:14:37):
Welcome into our week of review. Do you think the
Prime Minister is angry with David Seymour. We've had reportage
that the two have a schism.

Speaker 26 (01:14:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (01:14:46):
I would say the Prime minister's probably looking at the
antics of David Seymour and I'd say he's nestling his
head in his hands and that has been his default
position for a lot of this week. I mean, the
fact that he tried to drive that land rover up
part Eliament's front steps is one thing, but then really
doubling down and saying it was the security guard that
was at fault and it had to be it was

(01:15:07):
Jerry Browne actually that had to stand up at Parliament
and actually say the security Guard was right to do
what they he did. The whole thing has just been
a major distraction for the government. I mean, this is
a government that has consistently said that it's going for
growth and we need growth in this country because we're
having a myriad of problems in terms of the economy.
So that is one way out of the problems that

(01:15:28):
we're having and David Seymour is distracting from that message
on growth. So yes, I think he's going to be
quite annoyed at David Seymour. But then again, you know
this is what Chris Luxon designed when he wrote the
Coalition Agreement. Essentially, you've got a position where you can
let these minor parties be the minor parties and they
don't have to lose their identity and becoming like this

(01:15:48):
gray mush of a coalition. There's actually three distinct members
of it. And I think that Chris Luxon might be
kicking himself a little bit this week, but I think
in the long run it's probably quite good for the
coalition and a future proofing itself.

Speaker 2 (01:16:01):
It's an active relationship, you know, and it has ups
and downs, et cetera. I mean, do you think maybe
if there's a little bit of overhype about the fact
that the coalition could be in crisis and could fall
apart or is that just wish for thinking from labor supporters.

Speaker 7 (01:16:15):
Oh yeah, that's definitely overhyped.

Speaker 15 (01:16:16):
I mean, if this was happening a couple of weeks
before the election, especially the Polkinghorn letter where the Prime
Minister said it was ill thought out and then David
Seymour said the Prime Minister's comments were ill thought out,
I think that was probably quite a flare up between
the two of them, especially David Seymour talking that openly
about the Prime Minister. But again, we're about eighteen months

(01:16:38):
away from the election.

Speaker 7 (01:16:39):
There's a lot of water.

Speaker 2 (01:16:40):
To can I just hold you to account for that
because the next one might be in November twenty twenty.
People see keep saying the elections next year, and I go, actually,
I think it's a year and ten months away. Really,
I think we're twenty two months away from an election,
so there's plenty of water to go under the bridge. Hey, absolutely,
what's going on in health? We've had our third resignation
in a week.

Speaker 15 (01:16:58):
Yeah, well, I mean you've got to look at the
situation and think that Simeon Brown is showing shades of
Christopher Luxeon here, I mean Chris Luxon. I mean, say
what you want about the man, but he refreshes his team,
as he likes to call it, quite ruthlessly. You saw
what happened to Shane Aretti, shot, saw what happened to
Melissa Melissa Lee, Penny Simmons. Even Matt Doosey lost a
few portfolios. If you're not performing, the Prime Minister is going.

Speaker 7 (01:17:21):
To demote you.

Speaker 15 (01:17:22):
So Simeon Brown is I'm really taking a leaf out
of the Prime Minister's book. Although it's probably more likely
that some of those top leaders, I mean the Director
General who resigned today, the CEO Majiappa who resigned last week,
probably just saw Simeon's vision and just didn't want to
be a part of it.

Speaker 7 (01:17:39):
So there could be a bit of both in that.

Speaker 15 (01:17:40):
But yeah, it really really levels the playing field for
Simeon to stack the deck with people that he wants.
In Health, I mean, I've been speculating who might take
over as Health New Zealand CEO. You've got the likes
of Amy Adams who might be called into the fold.
Jonathan Coleman, a former minister, Michael Woodhouse Potentially he's got
his foot in the health world at the moment, but
however he had a bit of a falling out with

(01:18:02):
Luxe and so it's not as likely. But they need
people like Simeon, like Chris Luxen to deliver on their
vision otherwise they're going to be in for a world
have hurt.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
Well, that's right, But I tooked to Rob Campbell about
it earlier today and he was saying, you need an
extraordinary skill set to run these jobs, and there isn't
a big paypacket. So whether they can attract them and
I don't know, we'll wait to see.

Speaker 22 (01:18:22):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
When the Cook Islands went off to China to do
a deal, people warned that China is making bridges and
wanting to step in. How worried should we be about
the Cook Islands relationship with China and the Pacific as
a whole.

Speaker 15 (01:18:34):
Yeah, I mean if it was any other Pacific country,
I think we'd be a little bit more relaxed with it.
But Cook Islands and New Zealand have this historically strong
tie and to see their Prime Minister Mark Brown acting
like this and going off to China without consulting New
Zealand and looking into this agreement that they're doing is
quite concerning because it shows that China's influence in the
Pacific has become so vast, to the point where even

(01:18:58):
our closest I won't say because technically Australias are only
formal ally, but our very very close partners are basically
going off to China without a second thought in New Zealand.
And we did hear from the Lakes of Murray McCauley
and Andrew Little earlier today just how tense that situation
in the Pacific is. The US is frankly not stepping
up to what it promised, and that void is being

(01:19:19):
filled by China. So we shouldn't be surprised at this,
but we do know New Zealand has got a lot
of work to step up in the region.

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
What we know about the deal is that China wants
to do some deep sea mineral mining, and they want
that deep sea mineral mining because of course the States
and other places are denying them the rare earth metals
that they need to make the electronic stuff. So there's
a real economic thing there as well. And we heard
that Bob Brown is really concerned about sovereignty at Cook
Island sovereignty as well. So that's a perfect storm of
circumstances that drive people eastward exactly.

Speaker 15 (01:19:50):
And I think that's going to be the next theater
to keep our eye on.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
And I thank you, Jason Walls, enjoy your weekend, and
I thank.

Speaker 7 (01:19:56):
You very much, thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (01:19:58):
It's a pleasure. It is nice twenty three. And I
said eastward because you're so used to say eastward when
you talk about China, but for us, of course that westward.
It is, yeah, six twenty three.

Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
Everything from SMEs to the big corporates, the Business Hour
with Andrew Dickens and Mayor's Insurance and investments, Grow your wealth,
Protect your future, News talks dB, it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:22):
Is six twenty six. How confident are you that inflation
has been beaten? The food price index is sticking up
a little bit right now. We have inflation ticking up
in America and we have the OCR announcement next Wednesday,
So I guess this is a debate for next week.
But how confident are you that inflation is gone in
New Zealand. I mean, while, let's talk about the oil industry.

(01:20:45):
We heard this week that Anios is struggling and that's
why they went off the your backs Jersey. And we
also heard this week the BP just had a horror
quarter and a horror year with multi billion dollar busses
mounting up. And BP will announce the finding of a
strategy review at the end of I think it's the
twenty sixth soon. It's widely regarded that they will be
pulling out of their renewables investment because they're dragging the

(01:21:07):
company down. And when that was reported, it was predictably
greeted with a chorus of well, there you go, go, woke,
go broke. Now that's not the way the analysts see it,
and here's what they see. BP's biggest problem is that
it's an oil company and not a renewables company. Although
the two things are all about powering our world, the

(01:21:27):
two business models are vastly different. The renewables market is
actually surging, and Nikola Willis said that this week, but
it doesn't have the margins or the simplicity of carbon energy,
so it's hard to make a good business. It takes
a different approach but even then it's really hard to
squeeze those sorts of profits that an oil company has
got used to. Over the last fifty to one hundred years.

(01:21:50):
BP has been bitten by this. Before. It tried to
get into fracking. It didn't work. They didn't know how
to run a fracking company. So now they buy up
existing fracking players because they don't know how to run
the operation. Many decades ago, Shell tried to get into
the coal business, and that was a total tanker. The
advice from market analysts is that VP and other companies

(01:22:13):
who deal in oil should just stick to their knitting.
They should keep exploring for oil. They should sell oil
because that's what they're good at, and they should leave
renewables to other players. And if the forecasts are correct,
the oil companies will slowly shrink until a point where
they give up drilling entirely. And at that point they
should be milky what assets they have and returning cash
to shareholders. That's the way to do it in business.

(01:22:37):
This is how disruption works. Tobacco companies have learnt the
same lesson. They are failing to get a comparative return
on vaping. They've moved away from the leaf, they've gone
to the vape. They're not making the same money. The
Internet has to pass the papers. We know of that one,
and there's loads of other examples. And for a wake
up call, Almost all the analysis I have read predict

(01:22:57):
the end of oil companies as we know it within
fifty the years. And that's got nothing to do with
going woke or going broke. That's got everything to do
with the fact that change is tough and so is disruption.
It is six twenty nine. We're off to Asia very
shortly to talk to Peter Lewis. Now we've been talking
about this China deal with the Cook Islands, but what's

(01:23:18):
Asia saying about it? That's next.

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
If it's to do with money, it matters to you.
The Business Hour with Andrew dickens and there's insurance and investments,
grow your wealth, protect your future.

Speaker 10 (01:23:42):
These talks endv.

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
Is just feeling down.

Speaker 27 (01:23:46):
Just make you happy.

Speaker 2 (01:23:52):
Well, good evening to you. What I'm Andrew Dickinson for
Ryan Bridge. He's back on Monday. My favorite text of
the week, very enlightened comments, Andrew. He goes on, unfortunately
very enlightened comments. Oil companies are mining companies, cost plus business.
You don't have to be that smart to run them. Yeah,

(01:24:12):
and that is true, and I wish that I could say, yes,
it's my enlightenment that actually brought you those comments. But
you can read it everywhere. You can read it everywhere.
It's out there from analysts who just look at businesses
with the cold, hard eye and draw a rule over them. Yesterday,
we were talking about the effect of Trump tariffs on
businesses around the world, and our feller Fromfesher Funds was saying, well,

(01:24:36):
there's a lot of businesses who are now factoring their
earnings down now because of them. And when I said that,
people started texting saying, oh, that's just an anti Trump
ti rate.

Speaker 7 (01:24:46):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:24:46):
These guys just crunch the numbers and they try to
put their politics to the side because it's all about
the money now. Inflation, this is the story of next week.
Paul writes, as a food importer, I can tell you
price increases are far from over. Reshipment prices are moving,
and our exchange rate is killing us as well. This
is true, and another text saying inflation is such a

(01:25:09):
relative concept. Low to middle income owners will be hit
massively by food inflation soaks up their disposable income, but
high income owners who can afford debt get hit by
interest rates hardest. At the same time, inflation for a
university student is different for the inflation experience by a family,
which is different to the inflation experience by someone nearing
or at retirement age. And then you've got the CPI

(01:25:30):
bucket made up of all sorts of stuff. Yes, so
it is the complex stuff and I get that. But overall,
the feeling is in the markets that it started to
tick up again. It's doing it in America, and it
could very well be doing it here because we're at
the end of a supply chain. This, by the way,
is next week's story, but right now it's twenty one

(01:25:50):
to seven Andrew Dickens and I'm joined by Peter Lewis
from Asia.

Speaker 28 (01:25:55):
Hello.

Speaker 2 (01:25:55):
Peter, Hello.

Speaker 10 (01:25:57):
I'm going to.

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
Start with the story about Chyler and the Cook Islands
because that's been big news in New Zealand. Because of
course the Cook Islands, you know, it's a dependency on
New Zealand. They're part of us, they use our New
Zealand dollar. You know, they're supposed to talk about this.
They went off to China to do a deal without
telling us what the deal was, and that gave us
all coniptions and put our noses out and joined, I

(01:26:18):
wanted to know, after we've been talking about this at nauseum,
here is Asia talking about it? And if they are,
what are they saying?

Speaker 29 (01:26:26):
They're not talking about it much. Maybe that will increase
a little bit. Now that Mark Brown has actually arrived
in China today is going to attend the closing so
Many Asian Games and.

Speaker 10 (01:26:37):
Then he is going to meet with Premier Lee Chang So.

Speaker 29 (01:26:41):
The Foreign Ministry said today that this was a routine
visit designed to develop cooperation between the two nations, which
is what China says pretty well every time, and it
says these arrangements are not these are not there to
exclude anyone else. They're purely about by relations. But of

(01:27:01):
course we know that China loves podding countries like New Zealand,
who are seen as allies at the US in the
ribs over things like this, and jumps at any opportunity
to develop relationships with countries that have traditionally had relationships elsewhere,
like the Cook Islands. It happened with Peru, for example.

(01:27:22):
China's just opened the deep water port there so that
it can move shipped directly from Peru to China without
having to go through America.

Speaker 10 (01:27:33):
So it does have a habit of.

Speaker 29 (01:27:34):
Doing these things, and it also likes to present countries
like the Cook Islands and other countries in the Global
South in emerging markets that there are alternatives to relationships
with countries like New Zealand, Australia, the US, and one
of them is with China, and China can be an
attractive partner for these countries. So China will be fully

(01:27:59):
aware of the history of the relationship with New Zealand,
then it will be fully aware of how sensitive it is.
I suppose the surprising thing about this is that the
Cook Islands didn't say anything to the New Zealand governments
about what it's agreed, and we're still not totally sure
what has been agreed with China.

Speaker 10 (01:28:17):
Maybe we'll find out this week.

Speaker 2 (01:28:19):
Well we should all hope so. But here's the thing.
Matt Brown from the Cook Islands has been talking about sovereignty,
about cutting the apron strings with New Zealand, so you
know this is an offer that's right there. But you
say that about China building a deep water port in
Peru They also build a deep water port in Sri
Lanka and the problem is they kept some ownership there
when that when bus they bought it up, and that's

(01:28:40):
nearest devint a military base right there beside India. So
that's the concern that we have here that you know,
it's trojan horses, yep.

Speaker 29 (01:28:50):
And it's a valid concern because this is how China operates.
It starts off as as a sort of fairly loose
arrangement or engagement, and then it starts to deepen over time,
and before you know it, China's talking about opening a
port in the Cook Islands, which then turns into a
military base. This is exactly the process that has happened elsewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:29:10):
And then America wakes up and goes, how the hell
did you let that happen? And we went, well, where
were you, buddy, So that you know, and exactly speaking
of which, Donald Trump is obviously somewhat isolationists, and he's
looking and winds now and now we've got the reciprocal tariffs.
So how is Asia reacting to those reciprocal tariffs that
the prison has announced earlier?

Speaker 10 (01:29:31):
Well, with some trepidation.

Speaker 29 (01:29:33):
There's a wide range of tariffs across Asia maybe, and
it's saying that two of the countries that could be
hit the most India and Thailand, because they have a
wide range of tariffs. I mean, India has on average
about thirty three percent tariffs on goods from abroad, has
one hundred percent on some goods like motorcycles. And as

(01:29:55):
it happens, Indian Prime Minister Undra Modi is in Washington
right now met with Donald Trump today to try and
mitigate the impact of this. But Donald Trump is adamant
even if you're a friend that he said today sometimes
our friends are our worst enemies when it comes to trade.
He is going to put these reciprocal tariffs on India,

(01:30:15):
even though he was saying he loves India, He's got
a great relationship with Neurendramodi. This is the way it's
going to work now. One of the fears is that
let's suppose you're Japan or many goods there, they have
zero tariffs, and in fact, tariffs are very very low
in places like Japan, like Singapore. But Trump is talking
about not just assessing a country's tariffs, but what he

(01:30:39):
says are non tariff trade barriers. So he's talking about
things like, for example, VAT. Now VAT is not a tariff,
it's not a trade impediment. It's basically a tax on
the consumer.

Speaker 10 (01:30:52):
A tariff.

Speaker 29 (01:30:53):
You know, disadvantages are foreign exporters to the country over
a domestic one. But everyone plays VA. It doesn't matter
whether you're foreign or whether you build the product in
that country.

Speaker 10 (01:31:05):
You have to pay it.

Speaker 29 (01:31:06):
But if it's going to start looking at things like
VAT and non tarift impediments, then it means that it's
very very uncertain as to what the rates are going
to be that could work very widely between countries, and
they're going to be very subjective. So this is not
a way in which you can really develop global trade
or bilateral trade between two countries. Companies won't want to

(01:31:29):
invest where there's that sort of uncertainty.

Speaker 2 (01:31:33):
No, And of course the people who pay the VAT
and pay the tariffs are in fact the American consumer.
And then that adds into inflation, and of course inflation
is already picking up in America, and so it's all
kind of bad. But as Donald Trump says, you know,
we're going to go for some pain, and he said that,
and that what the pain is there it's been measurable
as well. Hey, I got to go, but I thank you.

(01:31:54):
Enjoy your weekend there as Paul lewis out of Asia.
Next Kevin Gray out of the UK.

Speaker 1 (01:31:58):
Talk to Europe, closing the numbers and getting the results.
It's henridiculous squidth of the business hour and Mayor's insurance
and investments, Grow your wealth, protect your future.

Speaker 10 (01:32:09):
The news talks Envy.

Speaker 2 (01:32:11):
Okay, it's twelve to seven and Darsie Voldegof is only
twelve minutes away, also the news. But right now let's
go to the UK and talk about Europe. And it's
Kevin Great. Good morning to Kevin, Good morning Andrew. Now
it's good evening here, Good morning to you. I know
enough is that old one? Just a horrific thing in
Munich with the cab which drove into the crowd.

Speaker 23 (01:32:34):
What's the latest, yees so overnight here an addition to
the number of people injured. We now believe it's at
least thirty. Earlier we were told it was high twenties.
We do believe children are included in that, and we
do believe some are critical, but perhaps of more significance.
We now are also being told that counter terrorism officers

(01:32:55):
have taken over the investigation, and that we're told is
because there are indications the suspect, a twenty four year
old Afghan asylum seeker, had an extremist background. Now we're
not being told what that is. That's just what it is.
In Munich today where this happened, there is the Munich
Security Conference. World leaders, including Volodomezelenski from Ukraine and US

(01:33:17):
Vice President j. D. Vance are due to arrive in
the city. Five thousand officers on duty. But as you
can imagine, a heightened sense of tension, very very much
so in this And what more do we know of
the twenty four year old Afghan asylum seeker suspect. Well,
it is reported he came to Germany in twenty sixteen
as a minor, had his request for asylum turned down

(01:33:39):
in twenty seventeen, but strangely it appears he was then
allowed to stay in some sort of a special visa,
which meant that everything was suspended for a while. That
deportation order was suspended and he was in the country legally.
Police are saying, but this is really fraught because the
Germany goes to election polls in ten days time. And

(01:34:03):
the far right alternative for Germany is polling high with
one of its big policies referring to the mass deportations
of immigrants.

Speaker 2 (01:34:12):
Yes, in these it's amazing how vehicles have suddenly become
weapons of mass destruction for terrorists and also bad people.
And I remember this from the nice truck in the
south of France. I had many friends here and there
on that night. It was a horrific way to exect
any revenes, no matter what the motivation. Now you've got
a politician who exaggerated her CV.

Speaker 23 (01:34:35):
Yes, and not just any politician, our chancellor, either the
second or third most important person in government. We were
told when Sekir Starman took over in July that he
was going to restore trusted politics. It's now been revealed
that the Chancellor's own she being the Finance Minister, effectively
the Chancellor's own curriculum vitai or resume, was full of them,

(01:34:57):
shall say, exaggerations. She said a few times that she
spent the best part of a decade with the Bank
of England. She didn't. It looks like she spent six
years there. One of those years was actually working away
on a course for a qualification. And also it would
appear at one point that she has rather extended other

(01:35:18):
stays at other financial institutions and exaggerated her role within
those institutions. So kir Starmer was asked about this our
Prime Minister, he has always all been dealt with in
the past etc. But as you can imagine, plenty of
people saying, no, this isn't dealt with properly. She needs
to be sacked and to apologize for what Summer claiming
are deliberate lies. Her office as saying these are unfortunate

(01:35:43):
things which she hasn't checked. Somebody else wrote her profile
even on LinkedIn, and she didn't check it. There's also, incidentally,
concern it would appear on one of her jobs where
there was a probe about expenses. Again, all that's a
bit vague. The BBC has gotten in on this and
he's doing lots of investigative work.

Speaker 2 (01:36:03):
I'm just looking up in the Oxford English Dictionary what
best part means, because you know six years she said ten,
it was actually six's that's more than well, it's over
the median point. But is that the best part? What
does best pad actually mean? Oh and fancy a politician
actually exaggerating. Who would have thought, finally we can, on
this Valentine's Day here in New Zealand and just dawning

(01:36:25):
for you not talk about love. And apparently it is
much better to be in love and partnered up than
to be single.

Speaker 23 (01:36:34):
Yes, financially so so next time you're complaining about the
cost of those roses, have a think, because in the
UK they estimate being single costs more than five thousand,
one hundred and fifty New Zealand dollars more a year.
Why well, that's because single people are generally forced to
spend about twenty two percent more on rent or mortgages

(01:36:55):
because of course there's only one person, not two. Council tax,
that's the local race. The local tax you pay energy
is twenty eight percent more because you're paying the same
amount of cost to heat a property that you are there.

Speaker 10 (01:37:07):
Were two of you.

Speaker 23 (01:37:08):
Thirty two percent more on broadband and phones as well,
and that really does suggest that people who are single
are finding it very expensive. I'm always mystified by those
single supplements you see on holiday, but obviously the situation
is much more difficult than that, and this incidentally is
far worse if you live in a city like London
than it might be in the countryside apparently. And I

(01:37:31):
have to say that it looks like the financial resilience
of single people is tested really throughout the lives. Forty
six percent of them have failed to save enough to
cover three months of es Central shopping, compared to just
sixteen percent of couples here in the UK.

Speaker 2 (01:37:45):
Everything's worse than London, mate, And that's why I tell
all my mates with and they kill kids. So they're
going on the oe and they're going to go and
live in London and go have you thought about Southampton? Heykevin,
have a great week in and I thank you for
your time. Kevin Gray out of the UK.

Speaker 1 (01:37:59):
It's the hitherto Let's see Allen Drive Full Show podcast
on iHeartRadio powered by News Talk zibby.

Speaker 2 (01:38:06):
New s ZIB. Well, that's me and Ryan's back on Monday,
and hopefully Barry will be back on Monday as well.
After hurting himself a little bit today, couldn't come into work,
but he'll be back on Monday. And let's play some
It's some it's a Friday, let's played some music. Ants?
What is this?

Speaker 8 (01:38:24):
My love? Don't cost a thing?

Speaker 28 (01:38:25):
Right, Jennifer Lopez to play us out tonight because I thought,
with what Kevin was talking about and how you're financially
better off to be in a couple better, I wish
you all embrace the spirit of Valentine's Day and the
financial savings that come with that. Love don't cost a thing,
Andrew and Jalen isn't trying to tell us that at the.

Speaker 2 (01:38:40):
Year Well asked Ben Affleck if Jennifer Lopez's love didn't
cost something, and I think you'll find a different answer.
My thanks to producing Laura, My thanks to Anthony millsitach
on the buttons, My thanks to Libby doing some of
the prep. Thank you for your company, Ryan Beck on Monday.
As I say, I'll be back on early edition. Have
a great weekend.

Speaker 27 (01:39:01):
Okay, if I want to talk, even if you were broke,
you need not.

Speaker 4 (01:39:11):
Leave me.

Speaker 27 (01:39:12):
You mean, if you were broke, a comet to drugs.
Even if you were broke, my love cost me show

(01:39:35):
Even if you were broke, My love don't cost think
I want to drug take us if I'm on, even
if you were broke, my love dom Coster thing

Speaker 1 (01:39:51):
For more from Hither Duke Lessy, Alan Drive listen live
to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio

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