Full Show Podcast: 18 August 2025

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Pressing the newsmakers to get the real story. It's Heather
duplic Ellen drive with One New Zealand to coverage like
no one else.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
News talks heavy.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Afternoon. Welcome to the show. Coming up today, the government's
announced changes or is announcing changes shortly to the consenting rules.
We'll speak to the minister after five o'clock. Now it's
the big Ukrainian meeting at the White House in just
a few hours. We'll have a chat to the Ukrainian ambassador.
And also there are calls to raise the age for
working holidays from thirty to fifty. Would you work on

(00:34):
holiday at fifty?

Speaker 1 (00:35):
We'll explain, Heather duplic Ellen.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
So, if anything, tonight's meeting at the White House is
actually more important than Saturday's meeting was in Alaska, because
this is the meeting with Celensky, right, this is the
meeting with a guy who has been invaded, has to
spell out how much land he is prepared to give
up to Putin. And that is a lot harder than
what happened in Alaska, which was just Putin laying down
his dream scenario. And you can see that the European

(00:59):
leaders realize that this is important and is more important
because they're coming with Zelensky. You've got Kiir Starmer of
the UK, Ammanual macronoff France, Frederick Merse of Germany, a
whole bunch of others, and they're going to be Zeleenzi
Zelenski's hype squad at the White House to try to
stop Trump bullying him, which is actually fair enough after
what happened last time. But I have to be honest.
I find Europe endlessly frustrating over Ukraine. I mean, here

(01:22):
they are dropping everything to rush over to Washington with
Zelensky to presumably stop Trump from taking too much of
Ukraine's land away from them. But where was this haste
in dropping everything and helping Ukraine to stop Putin taking
Ukraine's land away from them? These guys have, these are
the European guys. Have absolutely supplied weapons, but the spend
when you look at it, has actually been tiny. I

(01:42):
mean they make such a song and dance to the
fact that Ukraine has to hold the line otherwise Putin
will come for them next, but then they hardly actually
help Ukraine to hold the line for a war that
threatens them. Germany has put in less than zero point
two percent of GDP, the UK much the same, France
less than zero point one percent of GDP. In a
few weeks ago, You'll remember they had the idea of
putting European boots on the ground in Ukraine. They formed

(02:04):
the Coalition of the Willing and it was all go,
and then it never happened. No boots ever arrived. Now,
those boots might actually have been helpful to Ukraine and
being able to fight Putin off. And so it is
somewhat rich that these leaders who are not prepared to
actually really help Zelenski hold the line against Putin now
suddenly want to help him hold the line against Trump.
I mean they are probably right. Putin probably does want

(02:25):
Ukraine and then more afterwards, and forcing Zelenski to give
up Land only delays the problem, doesn't solve it, because
Putin will just come for more later on. But what
other option does Zelensky have right now, because he cannot
keep fighting like this if Europe won't actually help him fight,
other than just giving him a few nice words in
a hype squad.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Heather du for CLA, I remember when we were driving
driving in your car, skied.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
It's a fast fill out of Trump nineteen.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Ninety As the text understand the text fees apply, We're
going to speak to them. The color willis by the
way after. There's a little bit more on this that
I need to fill you in on, and i'll get
you across it shortly.

Speaker 5 (03:02):
Now.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
On another matter altogether, Regulation Minister David Seymour has decided
he's not going to change the laws around wearing helmets
on bikes on the fact that it's mandatory at the
moment you have to wear them, and the Ministry has
advised Seymour that it should stay that way because if
we start removing the mandate, a lot more people are
going to die. Patrick Morgan from the Cycle Action Network
is with us. Hey, Patrick, Hello, how are you well?

(03:23):
Thank you? Has he made the right call?

Speaker 6 (03:26):
Well, he made the right call to ask for advice
on this, but he made the wrong call to drop it.
We've never had a review of New Zealand's compulsory bicycle
helmet law, and after thirty years a lot of evidence
has come in which shows that maybe we made the
wrong call.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Here, Okay, well, why do you think we made the
wrong call? What is this evidence?

Speaker 6 (03:48):
It depends on the problem You're trying to solve. If
we're trying to reduce head injuries, which is a good
thing to do, then the evidence would show you would
require helmets for many things that we do every day,
such as driving our fast cars, such as walking, such
as DIY. But if we're trying to solve the problem
of inactivity, which we know is killing more than two

(04:10):
thousand people a year in New Zealand, you'd want more
people to be active than anything that's a barrier to cycling.
Should we should look at removing that. So let's think
about every other country in the world that's looked at
helmet compulsion. They look at New Zealand and say, what happened?
There was a really bad thing. We need to think
this through very carefully.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Can we actually patrick see a drop off where we
force the helmets and people stop cycling?

Speaker 7 (04:35):
Absolutely?

Speaker 6 (04:36):
And we know that because in Australia, when helmet laws
introduced state by state, you can track the falloff in
cycling and which has.

Speaker 4 (04:43):
To fall off.

Speaker 6 (04:45):
So in New Zealand, after helmet compulsion was introduced more
than thirty years ago, we know the number of children
riding to school dropped off to dropped off by about
eighty percent. Now there's other reasons for that, but we
know that forcing people to wear bike helmets is disproportionate
to the massive health benefits and fun people get from riding.

Speaker 8 (05:07):
Again, but.

Speaker 4 (05:10):
I mean, it's complicated.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
At Patrick. Here's the thing, Okay, I really want people
to be riding on their bikes. But man, I'm a
mum and I'm not a helicopter parent at all, but
I'm still strapping a helmet on that kid, because if
you fall off your bike, that is I mean, that
can do some damage that you live with for the
rest of your life. That is a massive impact. It's

(05:31):
not worth the risk without a helmet.

Speaker 6 (05:33):
Look, I absolutely understand that, and I respect people who
make that call. You could say exactly the same thing
about driving in your fast car, like your song said
at you know, eighty or one hundred and ten kilometers
an hour. A helmet could do a lot more use
if we made the compulsory for people in cars.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
I mean, I'd love to know the incidence of people
having crashes versus the incidents of people having really like
and the range of crashes, like serious crashes versus serious
crashes on your bike, because I know a lot of
people have had serious crashes on their bike, and it
feels to me like it's more frequent than in a car.

Speaker 6 (06:12):
Yeah, so that's a good reason to do a proper
review of the helmet law. Yeah, and make sure that
it's achieved what it's set out to achieve thirty years
ago with all the new evidence that's come in. Is
it possible, say, get on your here that riding a
bike is amazing. If you're riding at twenty kilometers an
hour on a rail trail where there's no motorized traffic,

(06:33):
does it really make sense for the government to tell
you to put a plastic hat on.

Speaker 9 (06:37):
No?

Speaker 3 (06:38):
I agree with you on that, although, Yeah, I mean,
if you're if you're driving down Ponsonby Road where you've
got no separation, you should probably be wearing a helmet.
I would have thought. Is it possible that the reason
that we had the drop off and would see the
drop off when the helmets are introduced is because when
you introduce the mandate, people suddenly realize how dangerous this
activity actually is around cars.

Speaker 6 (06:57):
Yeah, I think you're onto something that it's certainly dangerfied
cycling in the nineties. You probably remember the campaign as
you know, telling you about the terrible things can happen
when you hit your head, and you know that's a
valid concern. But before we pass the rule, it needs
to be proportionate to the risks and the benefits. And
I suspect that that assessment was never really done in

(07:21):
New Zealand, so it's time to take a fresh look
at it. But speaking on behalf of Cycling Action Network,
we think there's higher priorities at the moment. Protected bike lane,
safe speeds. These are all things that the Minister for
Regulation could more profitably be spending his time on.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
Yeah, listen, Patrick, I really appreciate your time mate. You
look after yourself. Patrick Morgan's Cycle Action Network. Hither the
overweight people who don't exercise are not suddenly going to
jump on a bike and ride it because you don't
have to wear a helmet. This is a fair point. Well,
oh lord, can you know and you know how strapped
for cash ACC is. So can you imagine if everybody
starts coming off their bikes and there goes there. Now
we've got can't think straight anymore because of that, and

(08:00):
AC like, never mind what they're paying now beforehand, they
start paying that now and we have big trouble the
ocr This is the ocr week. Thanks good lord. I
love an ocr week, don't you. It's a it's a
rare source of economic happiness for me to see that
little thing come down and go yep, mum ulgare just
coming for your friend. Got the decision on Wednesday. Consensus

(08:22):
is that it's going to be cut by twenty five
basis points down to three percent, with a bias to easing.
Good old Kiwi Bank is still out on its own,
a still going bank, needs to cut more, bank needs
to stimulate the economy. And good on Kiwibank because Kiwibank
is of course bang on sixteen past four.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
It's the Heather Top cl and Drive Full Show podcast
on iHeartRadio powered by News Talk z B.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
Hither this is hypocrisy on the helmets when compared to
drunk lime scooters riding with no helmets. Mark, you make
an excellent point. Eighteen past four.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Sport with tab in play with real time odds and
stats eighteen that responsibly.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
Jason Pine sports talk hosters with us A poney, Hello, Heather, Now,
are you convinced by the All Blacks victory is pretty good?

Speaker 8 (09:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (09:08):
Seventeen points bonus point win in the first game of
Rugby Championship away from home. I think that part of
it's very convincing. You look at the game and you
think first half very very good, last fifteen minutes pretty good.

Speaker 7 (09:21):
It was that first twenty minutes.

Speaker 10 (09:22):
Of the second half that perhaps they'll be examining ahead
of the second Test, where they let Argentina back into
the game, somewhat got within seven, couldn't really get anything going,
just kind of found it hard to get into the
game again after halftime and they've freely admitted it in
the press conferences that followed.

Speaker 7 (09:39):
So yeah, momentum shift the way of Argentina.

Speaker 10 (09:41):
But really either when you win by seventeen and as
I say, talk up a bonus point, then I think
you're pretty happy overall.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
What did you make of the way that the Wallabies
beat the South Africans which unbelievable.

Speaker 7 (09:55):
Yeah, completely unbelievable.

Speaker 10 (09:59):
At twenty two ahead at Alice Park, a place that
the Wallabies haven't won for sixty six years, you think
this is just going to be a bath, an absolute
shell acking. But thirty eight unanswered points to win it,
you know, in that fashion was just remarkable really, And look,
I don't know whether this means that Australia are now

(10:20):
a world force in rugby or whether this was just
one flash in the pan performance. I guess we'll find
out a bit more when they met again in Cape
Town on Sunday. But absolutely remarkable really. And you know,
for South Africa to give up a lead of twenty
two points against anybody anywhere is bad. When you do
it at Alice Park, you know, their spiritual home, that's

(10:41):
just it's it's unheard of.

Speaker 7 (10:43):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
How do my mate James Aconnor playing number ten?

Speaker 10 (10:47):
He was awesome, Heather, he was awesome. He was he
was close to man of the match. He was bloody good.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Hey. That's for all the haters who thought that Joe
just didn't have options. Maybe he didn't have options, but
be playing with the Crusaders for a season does amazing
things to you.

Speaker 7 (11:03):
Maybe he was the answer all along?

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Who you Yeah, Hey, listen, what about the wars You
just got to win ugly, Ah, you just got to
win ugly sometimes, And that was pretty ugly the other night.

Speaker 10 (11:13):
But we wake up on Saturday morning and the Warriors
had the two points and back in the top four.

Speaker 7 (11:17):
So now here we are three games to go. They're
in the four.

Speaker 10 (11:20):
If they beat the Titans, beat the Eels, beat the
Sea Eagles, they will finish in the top four.

Speaker 7 (11:25):
Can they do it?

Speaker 10 (11:26):
Well, that's another story entirely, but at least they snapped
the winning street, they got the two points and the
destiny is back in their own hands.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
Did I see that Karen Berger's just announced that she's
gone from New Zealand?

Speaker 7 (11:38):
Yep, you can.

Speaker 10 (11:39):
Are you asking me the other day about which ones
were definitely gone? I said, cren Berger, not yet, but
she is now Yep, she's leaving confirmed today.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
But as far as I understand where where, we know
that she's even but don't know where she's going. Is
that right?

Speaker 7 (11:51):
That's right?

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Yes, Okay, thanks piney appreciate it. That's Jason Pine Sports Talkhoaster.
We're back at seven. Karen Burger just that if you yeah,
I mean you've been you'll keep following. This is can
be fascinating. Karenberger is just the latest netbuler who's announced
that she's headed over Well, she hasn't said she's going
over the ditch. Pretty obvious she's going to go over
the ditch, and it takes. I can't remember what the
total was at eight last week, so she's the eighth

(12:13):
one from what we can from what I can remember,
but I suspect there may be more of those four
twenty two.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Digging deeper into the day's headlines, it's Heather duplic Ellen
drive with one New Zealand coverage like no one else's
news talks.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
They'd be good on you, Heather for calling out noisy
Europe for years did nothing to end the war. Thank you, Trevor. Actually,
on that subject, Chris Luxen is being asked. He's just
holding his post cabinet press conference at the moment. He's
being asked about this because overnight, at one am our time,
there was a phone call, a coalition of the Willing
phone call which had been convened by Sir Kair Starmer
of the UK. Everybody was on that call, Air Buddy

(12:50):
right down to Albanezi. Luxen wasn't on that call, the
inferences because he was sleeping and he's been and we
had officials there instead. He's been our That's why he
wasn't on in the call, and that he thought did
he not think it was important to be part of
that phone call.

Speaker 11 (13:05):
Yeah, it is, and I normally do and I have
tried to make them wherever possible I can. Obviously, this
one was at one am in the morning. It goes
for two to three hours, and then I'm on a
media around this morning and obviously down here for Cabinet
this morning as well, so I was well represented by officials.
But you know, what is encouraging is the progress that
we are seeing the fact that there is conversations happening.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
So alternative theory. Alternative theory is that Luxon would have
loved to be on that phone call because this is
the kind of thing that he does, and that man
can go without sleep because he's been a CEO that
sleep don't count for nothing when you're actually running the show, right.
I think alternative theory is he didn't want to be
part of that phone call because it's anti Trump, because
all these guys are getting together with Zelensky to try

(13:45):
to get Zelenski to hold the line against Trump, and
we are trying very hard not to be anti Trump
and anti the US at the moment. For twenty six,
Heather do for Cel Grant Robertson has been doing a
round of interviews ahead of his book coming out, and
wouldn't you know it, wouldn't you know it? We are
all completely unreasonable expecting him and Jacinda and Chippy and

(14:06):
Aisha to give their evidence in public because they did
nothing wrong. They don't need to answer for anything they've
made them. They have given us heaps of explanations for it.
We just apparently need to work through our anger.

Speaker 12 (14:20):
Their anger and that emotion that goes with that will
be worked through by people in their own ways. I
don't think going out onto the lawn of Parliament when
there were nooses hanging in the trees, when people were
making direct death threats against us is a reasonable response.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
No, but they're not the only angry people, are they.
I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think
it's a little bit like restorative justice, you know how,
when you know we do this as a as an
alternative to court cases, you get the people into the
room and you say, when you did this thing to me,
it really hurt me because and then they go, oh, sorry,
miss yeah, I shouldn't have done that. Yeah, I'm really sorry,

(15:00):
And it makes everybody feel a lot better about it.
And I feel like we could have done with a
little bit of restoratives, restorative justice from these guys. Anyway,
there is more where that came from from grants to
stand by and I'll make sure I get you across
at headlines.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Next, the day's newspakers talk to Heather First, Heather Duplicy
Ellen drive with One New Zealand and the power of

(15:33):
satellite mobile news'd be.

Speaker 4 (15:37):
You don't right sorry.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
Post Cabinet press conference, Government has just announced a whole
bunch of changes for consenting of buildings and territorial authorities.
Who's going to be doing an amalgamations, legal obligations and risks,
blah blah blah, all of that kind of stuff will
get you across that shortly. Is going to be with
us in ten minutes. On politics, and Oliver Pterson is
standing by out of Australia. Here the people who say,

(16:06):
who say one am in the morning shouldn't be allowed
to run the country. It's either one am or it's
one in the morning, and then it is followed by
a series of a's, r's, g's and h's.

Speaker 4 (16:16):
Just ah.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
Now, I totally totally am with you on this. It's
not one am in the morning. It's one am. That's redundant.
We know it's in the morning because of the am However, however,
what I'm going to say to you is, don't be
unkind to Prime Minister Luxton. Because he is saying a
lot of words every single day because of his job.
He's going to make some mistakes. And John Key made

(16:39):
John Key just made whole words up, and he was
not half bad at running the country. Twenty four away
from five.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
It's the world wires on Newstalks' drive.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
So the US Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff says, Russian President
Putin has agreed to a sort of NATO light security
you guarantee for Ukraine. Steve says, Ukraine will not be
able to join NATO, but it will get Article five
star protection from the US and European countries.

Speaker 13 (17:02):
We sort of were able to bypass that and get
an agreement that the United States could offer Article five protection,
which was the first time we had ever heard the
Russians agree to that.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
Now, Zelenski wants to hear more details, obviously, and he
wants Russia to stop trying to move the front line.

Speaker 14 (17:19):
The contact line is the best line for talking, and
Europeans support.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
This quantas has been slapped with a fine of almost
one hundred million New Zealand dollars. This is for illegally
outsourcing on eighteen hundred rather ground handling jobs during the pandemic.
The union is pretty happy with this result.

Speaker 10 (17:36):
This is the largest breach in industrial relations history and
it devastated these workers and their colleagues and their families.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
More with Ozzy correspondent Olie Shortly and finally, the NFL
season hasn't started yet, but we've already had the first
hot Mike f bomb. Minnesota Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell was
doing a live interview with TV commentators during a preseason
game against the hat and Kevin started started out talking
about how excited he was for the season, and he
suddenly let some profanity slip out when he realized that

(18:07):
his team had just incurred a penalty.

Speaker 4 (18:09):
Ircated about this year's team and excited about this play
card boas what are we going on? A fast motion?

Speaker 9 (18:16):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (18:17):
No, international correspondence with ends and eye insurance, peace of
mind for New Zealand business.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
It wasn't even that bad, was it. Oliver Peterson six
PR Perth Life Presenters with us hallo Olie.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
Hello, Hennah, how good were those Wallabies on the weekends?

Speaker 1 (18:35):
Mate?

Speaker 3 (18:35):
You guys have every reason to be stoked about that.
How good was James O'Connor.

Speaker 4 (18:39):
A brilliant I tell you to bs.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
You were snack talking him on Friday, and I told
you Thursday or whenever I can't even remember. And I
told you playing one season with the Crusaders was going
to make the boy and it did.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
Well, that's it.

Speaker 15 (18:53):
I mean, he's a bench player for a New Zealand
franchise and he's his starting fly half for the Wallabies.
And look we've knocked off South Africa the time of Johannesburg.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
We're gonna we're gonna beat the All.

Speaker 15 (19:02):
Blacks when they played the Bleederslow Cup here in Perth
in October.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
You guys are cooked.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
Well, look I'll tell you what I mean. Listen, Ollie,
with like, with respect though, and and not to blow
smoke up ourselves, but this is what happens when you
play like a New Zealander. You've got James O'Connor, who's
learned to play here, You've got Joe Schmidt who was
a key we like if you guys, this is how
good our rugby is so your actual credible contenders now

(19:29):
because we're helping you out mate.

Speaker 15 (19:30):
That sidestep from Max Jorgenson and Tom Wright just incredible.

Speaker 4 (19:34):
Unfortunately Harry Wilson's done his knee, so a little.

Speaker 15 (19:36):
Bit of strife there, but just you know what, he's
great like all jokes aside, rugby is back in his
country and for rugby with a World Cup obviously on
our doorstep to be held here in Australia. We need
this heather, We desperately need it for the game, which
is really exciting.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
Yeah, no, I'm actually thrilled. It's a better for us
as well. Now tell me about this man hunt.

Speaker 4 (19:56):
Yeah, this is a bit scary, isn't it.

Speaker 15 (19:58):
A Forest Lodge hotel yesterday afternoon here in Sydney when
all of a sudden there is known to other crime
gangs by the way, but a whole group of people
have been in there watching a Ultimate Fighting Championship fight
from about midday when a bloke name Maradonna Yalda was
injuring a shot several times outside the hotel and his
associate Gilbert Schino killed and I were peppered with bullets

(20:22):
as they tried to flee the shooting. As I said,
these groups are known to each other. And what really
worries police in the western suburbs of Sydney is this
is all crime related. This is all organized gangs, one
on top of the other, sort of the Melbourne underworld
that we had those particular crime fights going back into
sort of twenty years ago or so. It's really spreading

(20:42):
around Sydney at the moment and it's getting away from police.

Speaker 4 (20:45):
So they're on the front foot with this.

Speaker 15 (20:47):
They're on a manhunt at the moment to try and
find these people who fled the scene.

Speaker 4 (20:50):
There was about sixty people.

Speaker 15 (20:51):
In the pub at the time and it wasn't until
this morning anyways.

Speaker 4 (20:55):
Still closing down that area of Western Sydney.

Speaker 15 (20:57):
But it's a real worry about these organized crime gangs
in Western Sydney.

Speaker 3 (21:01):
Right, Did Albinezy say anything about what they actually managed
to get out of this phone call overnight?

Speaker 15 (21:05):
We just said everyone's enthusiastic about achieving peace in Ukraine.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
It was your PM on the CALLI Oli he was
asleep because it was one of them the morning.

Speaker 15 (21:16):
Look, I've we've been up the night before cheering the
wall of He's on against the spring box, let's be honest.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
But obviously the Japanese PM, the Canadian PM was there.

Speaker 15 (21:23):
But yeah, Albo, he was pretty keen to tell everybody
on his social media this morning that I'd been up
overnight everyone involved with the call. Obviously that's not the
main call, is it. Because as we know, Zelenski has
now arrived in Washington. So it's a very interesting day,
isn't it, Heather, and I know.

Speaker 4 (21:37):
That will be glued to what's happening over in the US.

Speaker 15 (21:39):
But Albo just said that it's been very clear illegal.
It's in a moral invasion of a sovereign nation that
the Ukrainian people have shown courage and resilience and resisting
a much more powerful neighbor. So I think he just
took the opportunity to stand on his soapbox.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
Yep, loves it now, Quantus. I mean, this was a
joyce thing, wasn't it.

Speaker 4 (21:57):
Yeah, it was a joyce thing.

Speaker 16 (21:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (21:59):
And by the way, it's not as you said.

Speaker 15 (22:00):
It was one hundred million New Zealand dollars today in
those fines. But this is also on top of Quantus
having to pay effectively one hundred and forty odd million
New Zealand dollars already to date in compensation for those
illegally fired workers. So when it all adds up, I
mean this has cost Quantus probably about two hundred and
fifty million.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
New Zealand dollars.

Speaker 15 (22:21):
So this is eighteen hundred employees, as you said, who
were sacked during COVID the ground handling operations. And part
of that as well is when they went to rehire everybody,
they were told you just can't take any more industrial
action in the future. So they've obviously been handed this
penalty today. Cortus could have been fined a little bit
more than that. In fact, they could have been fined

(22:42):
on wasst one hundred and forty million New Zealand dollars
today and they receiving about one hundred million dollar US
a New Zealand dollar fine. So I think that they
have if you're like almost got enough lightly.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
Yeah, wow, that's a really big summer money. Hey, thanks
very much, really appreciating Holly. Oliver Peterson six PR Perth
Live presenter. He one am in the morning is nearly
as bad as overseas countries. It's called a tautology, isn't it?
Is that what a tut. Is that a tautology ends
you know everything? You're like our Britannia encyclopedia. Do you
not know this one? Thank you? He said, he yes,

(23:14):
it's a tautology. It's a tautology is when you say
the thing that is redundant, you don't need to say
the second thing New Zealand you work. Yeah, But I mean, well,
how else would you say overseas countries? You'd say nations.
I don't know anyway. It's a tautology, but I appreciate it. Heather,
Why did you call the Prime Minister Luxton? It was
a joke between me and John because John text me

(23:37):
at thirty four minutes past four and he said to me, Heather,
please address our prime minister with respect. I e. You
need to call him prime Minister Luxton. I love it
when people try to correct you and then they dick up.
Isn't that funny? He's like you, you must call him
prime Minister Luxton. So I was like, and I will
John prime Minister Luxton. Yes, I will continue to call

(24:01):
him luxon or Laxo or CML like he likes. That's
what he likes. When he sends you a text, he
signs it off CML at the bottom. He likes that
quite a lot, so probably into that anyway, It was
just my joke between me and John. Sorry that everybody
else got wou because did they get wound up? Like
you should see the number of texts telling me off.
Obviously I know what his name is. I'm not stupid

(24:21):
or somethink. What was I referencing just Sin Dardurn, wasn't
I Yep? Bricks dumb. Now listen, the government has decided
one of the things that they're doing about the consenting
is that they're changing where the obligation lies where the
risk lies. So basically, instead of the councils the territorial

(24:42):
authorities that sign off on it sign off on your
consent to work, instead of them having to bear all
of the risk for what has been signed off, everybody
will be at well, we'll have to bear the risk
for their own work. Right, So if you've done the
sparky work, you're at risk for that if something goes
wrong with you that you take the risk. If you're
the bilder blah blah blah carries on like that, Chris Pink,
you can see the trouble here if any of these bill,
if any of these businesses fall over, then you're in

(25:03):
a bit of trouble because who you're going to chase then,
So Chris Pink will explain it to us when the
he's with us. After five, it's quarter to two.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Politics with Centric Credit. Check your customers and get teaments certainty.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
We'll get you some more of the Grant Robertson interview
from Q and A shortly thirteen away from five and
Barry So for Senior political Correspondence. So I say, Barry,
good afternoon, Heather. Do you really think the reason that
Luxon wasn't on that phone call is because he was sleeping?

Speaker 17 (25:24):
Well, I've got a piece of audio that where he
explained that there's news conference which is just being held
at the moment. But you know, I'm sure many listeners
watched the great event unfold in Alaska over the weekend
as I did, and really I think it was a
triumph for Vladimir Putin over Donald Trump. I mean, Putin

(25:49):
came away with exactly what he wanted. Donald Trump now
saying that when he sits down with Voladimir Zelenski in
Washington tomorrow, then he's got to agree with what came
out of that particular meeting, and we don't really know
exactly what came out of that meeting, so no doubt
the well, no wonder why the European leaders have now

(26:11):
banded together in a show of force that I can't
recall ever having seen, and all getting on eraplanes and
heading off to Washington themselves to give Zelensky some sort
of at least moral backing that he didn't have when
he was humiliated by Trump and JD Vance in the

(26:32):
Oval Office. So they'll have their meeting with each other,
but the other European medal leaders will join later. But
the sounds of things and let's just hope we don't
see a repeat in the Oval Office that we saw
in February this year. Lutson was invited to attend that
zoom meeting of the Coalition of the Willing, as you said, overnight,

(26:55):
but says officials took his place because he said, of
the meeting's time.

Speaker 11 (26:59):
This one was at one am in the morning. It
goes for two to three hours. And then I'm on
a media around this morning and obviously down here for
Cabinet this morning as well. So I was well represented
by officials. But you know, what is encouraging is the
progress that we are seeing the fact that there is
conversations happening led with President Trump but also the European leaders.
But again, you know, our message is pretty clear. Russia
could stop this today if it wished, by having a

(27:22):
cease fire immediately on land Sing.

Speaker 17 (27:23):
And the thing is, I don't see how Luxeon would
have added anything to it or got anything more out
of it by not being on the Zoom meeting. So
I can't blame him.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
You don't think that he wasn't part of it because
he's trying to avoid being anti Trump and this is
an anti Trump.

Speaker 17 (27:41):
Well, indeed, it would have been a Trumper meeting, there's
no doubt about that. Basically a meeting to come to
an agreement that Trump can't be the bully that was
seeing him being.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
Is that not the real reason?

Speaker 7 (27:52):
Well, who knows.

Speaker 17 (27:54):
But like you know, it was a terrible time when
he had, as he said, media rounds on the cabinet
this morning, to be up all night talking to leaders
where he's got officials that can do exactly the same
job and report back to him in the morning.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Okay, what do you make of the moves to build
it as speed up the building consents.

Speaker 17 (28:12):
Well, you know it's been long said that building a
standalone house in New Zealand takes fifty percent. It's more
expensive here than it is in Australia, so something has
to be done. And I know that you're having Chris Penk,
the Building Minister, on after five o'clock, but there are
shortcuts and I guess liability that rate payers can find

(28:37):
themselves facing if a company goes belly up and the
components they want to be able to single out of
that to make it not so expensive for rate pays,
not making them liable. So Pink says, the changes will
see less liability for counsels passing on the shorely work
to rate pairs to settle.

Speaker 14 (28:57):
Each party will only be responsible for this of the
work that they actually carried out or the decisions that
they signed off. This will remove the fear that slows
down the consenting process currently, reduce costs and reduce the
risk to ratpayers having to underwrite someone else's mistakes. Right now,
there are sixty six different council building concent authorities across

(29:17):
the country, each with their own interpretation of.

Speaker 8 (29:20):
The building Code.

Speaker 14 (29:21):
This has resulted in a ridiculous situation where builders can
have their paperwork rejected by one council whereas it would
be accepted by the one up the road. I expect
that they will seize the opportunity to pull resources such
as inspectors and IT systems and pass the savings on
to ratpayers.

Speaker 17 (29:36):
Well, let's hope that happens. But you know, you'd have
to say that indemnity insurance should surely be encouraged for
each component of the building construction work, because otherwise you're
going to have a company going bully up. What are
you going to do about?

Speaker 3 (29:51):
And then who have you got to chase?

Speaker 9 (29:52):
Larry?

Speaker 3 (29:52):
Thank you appreciate a very sober senior political correspondent eight
away from five.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
Putting the tough questions to the news bakers, the mic skiing.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
Breakfast, the Prime minister's with this hand on heart?

Speaker 6 (30:02):
Would you appear publicly at the COVID inquiry?

Speaker 4 (30:05):
If coll Yeah, I would.

Speaker 11 (30:06):
I mean, I think these Zealanders have gone through a
huge amount of suffering. Those former ministers should show up.
But I'll be honest with you, I get what they're
trying to do. You know, if you're Hopkins you're trying
to politically guess like the country and say you had
nothing to do.

Speaker 9 (30:15):
With that record.

Speaker 11 (30:16):
Well you did, so I think they should show But
Grant Robinson says it's a show trial, is it?

Speaker 4 (30:20):
I disagree.

Speaker 11 (30:20):
I think it's something called accountability, and I think showing
up and actually giving the justification for way you took
the action she did at ultimately I think made the
cost of living worse. You know, Hopkins a Verola making
a case they want to lead the country again. I
think I'll be a disaster, but I think they should
at least show up.

Speaker 18 (30:34):
Back tomorrow at six am the Mic Howskiing Breakfast with
Avida News Talk ZB.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
Here the indemnity insurance for each of the trades would
be a massive cost that would have to be passed
on just for a waterproofer or tyler. It's nearly thirty
five thousand dollars. Well interesting because that I think is
the part that the government has not done any work on.
So they've said you'll take the risk related to your work,
but then it hasn't and this was key element if
it hasn't actually been worked on. But anyway, Chris pink As,

(31:02):
I say the Minister with us shortly, so we'll ask
him about that. So Grant Robinson, So, as part of
his book tour that he's doing at the moment, he
fronted up on Q and A. As I told you earlier.
The other thing that he said is that he basically
doesn't think he did anything wrong spending sixty six billion
dollars during COVID, even though it was the biggest amount
that was ever spent.

Speaker 12 (31:20):
There were no costless decisions in COVID. We either paid
in money or we paid in lives. I get the
fact that in hindsight you say, gosh, that's a lot
of money. It was a lot of money, but it
was a necessary response to keep new ylinders healthy and
to keep these ylinders in work.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
Okay, now, obviously this is where I get so frustrated
about this. Obviously he had to spend money, and obviously
no one's going to quibble with the fact that some
money had to be spent. It's the quantum, it's how
much money was spent. It's on what the money was spent.
Like for example, absolutely, we're all fine with the wage subsidy, aren't.
We all think that was a good idea up to

(31:57):
a point. But then after that there was just a
free wasn't it. There was no rules about paying it
back if you didn't need it. They didn't even bother
to do the basic work. And I'm so and I
love Jack, but I'm so frustrated that he didn't go
harder on Grant on this. He just kind of left
the Ayts thaying move on.

Speaker 19 (32:12):
Now.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
This is I think what's going on here is that
Grant is picking and choosing who, quite rightly, this is prerogative,
who he wants to talk to, and he is picking
people who maybe he thinks are ideologically aligned with him
on this or sympathetic to the moves that he made
and the decisions that he took. So I think he
is designing this round of tours, this this this round
of media interviews so he doesn't get a hard hard time.

(32:37):
We'll see how it plays. That he's got a few
more days to go. Also, by the way, here's the
answer on whether Jacinda will move back here.

Speaker 16 (32:42):
Do you think if she wanted to, Jasinda Ardun could
come back and live a peaceful, undisturbed life in New
Zealand Right now.

Speaker 12 (32:49):
I'm not sure there's any prime minister who could do that.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
I think John Key's pretty comfortable.

Speaker 12 (32:53):
Well, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (32:54):
But long this it's fine, I see.

Speaker 16 (32:55):
I mean like this is it's interesting because this hasn't
hasn't really sort of feel like it's a a kind
of an elephant in the room.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
I think we all know the answer to that. It
wouldn't be a fun time, would it. Chris Pink is
with us after five o'clock and also apparently in Northland
they're not reporting short shoplifting to the coppers. Will find
out why. Shortly new stalks.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
The B the only drive show you can try the
truck to ask the questions, get the answers, find and
give the analysis. Here the duplicyl and Drive with One
New Zealand and the power of satellite mobile news talks
the B Afternoon.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
Big changes are coming to help speed up building consents.
The government says councils are extremely risk averse because they
carry the ultimate risks. So to get things cranking, they've
decided to make each party of the building process responsible
for their fair share of work. Chris Pink is the
Building and Construction Minister down with us now, hey Chris here.
So basically the builder is responsible if the building stuff goes,

(33:56):
it's up the sparky's responsible if the sparky stuff does
the same thing.

Speaker 8 (34:00):
Yeah, exactly, And I'm just adding there.

Speaker 14 (34:01):
If the council signs off something that they shouldn't have,
then they'll be responsible for us share, but not the
whole thing, which is what currently happens.

Speaker 7 (34:08):
Now.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
What happens, for example, if the roofer does a bad
job on the roofing, and they are obviously responsible for that,
but then they'll let the water in, and then the
flooring gets done and the jib work gets done, and
that's the builder's work. Who's responsible for all of that?

Speaker 14 (34:21):
Then well, if there's a fault that's taken place in
one part of the system of fact ruins the work
of someone else, but that second person wasn't responsible because
they should have had the right to expect that the
roof wouldn't leak in the first place. Then then it
wouldn't be for the person who's made no real world
error to be responsible.

Speaker 8 (34:39):
It would be on who's actually made the.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
Cock up and what happens if the building company or
any of these companies falls over, which happens all the time, Chris,
who do you chase?

Speaker 8 (34:48):
Then?

Speaker 14 (34:49):
Yeah, well, that's why we have seen today that we're
going to have consumer protection measures in place, and there
are some already that exists out there. S it's a
matter of thinking about what ones we need to be
available or maybe even mandatory. So you've got professional and
dimnity insurance for engineers and architects. You've got the master
builders and certified builders have their own guarantee schemes, and

(35:11):
then you've got group home builders who've got their own
comfort that they provide to their franchise customers. So there
all kinds of possibilities and we'll get that detail right
by talking with the sector.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
Now Okay, hold on, why haven't you done that, because
in April last year you told us you were working
on in dimnity insurance and it's now, what like nearly
eighteen months later, you've done nothing.

Speaker 20 (35:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (35:31):
Now, we've spent the time talking with the sector and
including councils but also the building professionals about whether we
should go to proportionate liability, which is the change we've
announced today, along with some other stuff by the way,
But now we'll be able to get that legislated and
in the meantime spend detail spend time getting that detail
right about what those measures should be.

Speaker 8 (35:52):
I've got a reasonable idea.

Speaker 14 (35:53):
Because Cabinet hasn't yet signed those off I can't tell
you that that's what will definitely be in place.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
All right, Hey, Chris, thanks very much, Chris pink Building
and Construction Minister Tiler do for see Allen. We are
only hours away from the big Ukraine meeting at the
White House. Selenski is set to meet with Trump and
he's bringing with a high squad of European leaders. This
has obviously discussed Putin's demand. Vessel Mroshnichenko is the Ukrainian
ambassador to Australia and New Zealand and with US now

(36:17):
Vessel welcome back.

Speaker 5 (36:20):
Hi.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
Are you guys prepared to give up? Don bess.

Speaker 9 (36:25):
Well, I think it's the wrong question, because it's not
about the giving up. It's about the people who live
there and about their future. And you have to understand
that Russians have invaded Ukraine eleven years ago and they
came back with much bigger war because they got emboldened
by the very weak reaction and they wanted to finish
the job. They wanted to take over a Kiev in
three days and occupy Ukraine in three weeks. They failed miserably.

(36:49):
We defeated Russians as are approaching Kiev and three and
a half years later overwhelm million casualties later, mostly on
the Russian side, but many Ukrainians have suffered a lot. Well,
they only control thirty percent of the territory. So what
can we achieve by rewarding an aggrasser. But rewarding a grasser,
we're going to get more aggression. Of course, we want

(37:11):
peace more than anybody else, but we didn't start the war.
Russian studied the war. So we have to work together
with America, with Europe, with New Zealand and Australia in
forcing Russia to stop this war. And Russia understanding is
only hard power, and we have to demonstrate the power,
which is immunity because unity is are with strengths.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
Okay, how do you think, I mean, how much of
a make or break is it not belonging to NATO,
because that's off the table according to Trump.

Speaker 9 (37:39):
Well, what we are talking about is about security guarantees
because Russian has invaded US twice already in the past
eleventy years. And you know, majority of Russians support this war,
they won't put them to finish the job. But he
cannot deliver, so he cannot subjugate entire Ukraine. Now, he
will probably get inspired to do that later. For us

(38:00):
to prevent that from happening, we need to have strong
military and we need to have strong economy. But on
the military side, we need to create conventional strategic have
conventional strategic weapons and other equipment and strong army to
deter Russia from the invasion in the future. Of course,
we'll need support of the Europeans, perhaps, you know, boots

(38:23):
on the ground from France in Britain. That would be
kind of like stabilization forces which will deter Russians from
an invasion in the future. And Americans must be committed
as well.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
Does this not frustrate you? It frustrates me endlessly that
the Europeans have such strong opinions about what Ukraine needs
to do on Europe's behalf, and they're prepared to drop
everything and fly over to the White House to make
sure that Selinsky does the right thing, But when it
comes to actually putting boots on the ground, they failed
to do it.

Speaker 9 (38:47):
Well, it's not really true to be frank because European
Union is the biggest donor of Ukraine. They have provided
over one hundred and billion euros in assistance. They continue
supporting Ukraine very heavily. We are on the pass towards
you in integration. But what is at stake for New Zealand?
Because look, Russia is a permanent member of the UN
Security Council. So Russia has nuclear weapons and they decided

(39:09):
to destroy democracy next door because the fact that Ukraine
is on the map as an independent country is the
root cause of war. This is what Puttin is saying,
because the only threat that Ukraine has is that we
are democracy and he's a dictatorship and that was a
threat to his regime, which I agree with, right, But
the fact that he could do it and he could
invade the country open up a Pandora box because other

(39:32):
dictators are watching that and they're going to use it
as a president. They're going to use it as a blueprint.
And they also have nuclear weapons and they have large armies,
and they will be changing borders because if Russians can
get away with even technically controlling twenty percent of Ukrainian territory,
which we may end up with you know, we will
never see the territory, but they may end up controlling

(39:53):
that land, just as Soviet Union controlled Lithuinia, a Lot
and Estonia during the Soviet Union. Right. But it's very
dangerous for New Zealand because for a small democracy, you know,
you don't have any protection except for rules based international system,
which is this mental.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
I understand the argument, yep, I understand the argument. Vassal.
I appreciate your time as it always do. Thanks so much,
Vassal Maroshnichenko, who is the ambassador of Ukraine to Ozzie
and New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Heather Duper see Ellen.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
So funny thing has happened. So somebody who I know
has sent me a text this afternoon and was like, hey,
there's a big meeting happening this evening in the Beehive.
I was accidentally invited to it, but now I know
about it. And the meeting is a meeting about gas
and it's going to I think it's up at Luxen's

(40:39):
office and attending will be Prime Minister Christopher Luxen, Nikola Willis,
the Finance Minister, Simon Watts the Energy Minister, and Chris Bishop,
the Minister of just basically every od idea that comes
out of that place. By the looks of things. Anyway,
why this is interesting is this is going to be
happening between six and whatever like around about then Nikola

(41:01):
Willis is going to have a chat to us, and
then she's off to the meeting, so we're talking to
her at six. I'm going to ask her about it.
But this comes something's up at the I suspect that
these guys have realized that there is well I mean,
I don't know why they've just realized it now, but
there is a massive problem, massive gas problem going on.
If you've got businesses mothballing increasingly like we did last
week and shutting down and all kinds of stuff going

(41:21):
on and people aren't able to afford it, something has
to be done. This is the second winter rehab we've
had under this government. Nothing's been done just yet, and
we're waiting for answers. So they've got a report on
their desks, the Frontier Report, which has a bunch of
recommendations they apparently hate. But perhaps they're having this meeting
to have all chat about that. We will ask them
about the secret meeting after six quarter past five, have

(41:41):
a look around You're going to see a lot of
byds on the road, especially now that I've pointed this
out to you. But the reason actually is because so
many businesses are now buying the byds and leasing them.
And it's not just any businesses. I'm talking about leading
businesses brands that you know. BYD vehicles are featured in
the fleets of Meridian Energy, Saint John, Genesis Energy, a
B Fonterra, just to name a few. And also the government,

(42:03):
the government endorsed BYD New Zealand doesn't approved all of
government vehicles supplier and the top provider of electric vehicles
to government departments. And also also on top of all
of that, the Uber guys love them. They are now
amongst uber drivers preferred vehicles and they're also the preferred
choices for the Mevo car sharing guys. And you can
have one too. Comes with comprehensive warranty and support. Includes

(42:24):
a six year or one hundred and fifty thousand K
general warranty, eight years one hundred and sixty K coverage
for the battery, power and drive unit. Plus you also
get the roadside assistance. What more do you want? Check
them out byd Auto dot Co, dot nz Heaver do
for Cellen whether nobody in the West is prepared to
put soldiers into Ukraine. They spout that Ukraine is important,
but their populations won't support deployment of their armies in Ukraine.

(42:46):
Go figure. I mean, that's the reality of the situation,
isn't it? Nineteen past five? Now it turns out anecdotally,
at least Northern retailers are not reporting shoplifting to cops.
The revelation cropped up over a series of meetings with
small business owners around the region the past week. Leah
mcerro is North Chamber's chief executive and with us Alien
cra how are you, I'm well, thank you. Was it

(43:08):
a lot of these retailers saying it or just a few?

Speaker 19 (43:11):
There already seemed to be a very common theme that
people felt there was no point for them to report
the crime because they didn't get any response back. So
that seemed to be quite common amongst all of the
Northland areas that we visited.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
And so why are they doing it? Is it because
they don't believe the police are interested and police just
don't turn up.

Speaker 19 (43:32):
Well, I think it's not so much the fact that
the police are not interested I think they definitely are.
It all comes down to resourcing, of course, and whether
the police can in a timely manner respond to the
retailer's request or their report that there has been shoplifting.

(43:52):
But most often I think the retailers said, look, you know,
if it was a small crime of somebody who was
just picking something up and it wasn't a high value,
they felt that the police wouldn't respond and therefore wouldn't
be interested. And that's actually incorrect because while they may
not be able to respond quickly or respond in person,

(44:13):
the fact is that the data goes into the system,
and when the data is in the system, we can
see the patterns of behavior. So I think that's probably
what's driving the I guess the reticence.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
But so what you're saying, what you're saying is leet, don't.
You're not saying report it because the police are going
to come and solve your shoplifting. You're saying report it
because once they get a whole bunch of intelligence, they
may solve other shoplifting. Absolutely in the.

Speaker 19 (44:38):
Mix, that's right, and it's the patterns of behavior that
they need to look at. And while each incidence in
its own right feels small. Collectively we get it, starting
to get a pattern and you know, as the police
are explaining, sometimes these are fairly sophisticated people stealing and
it's not just the one off. But without that information

(45:01):
they can't actually see that.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
Appreciate it, Hayley, and thanks so much. Look at yourself.
Leah macro, Chief Executive of North Chamber. Five twenty one.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
The name you trusted to get the answers you need,
it's Heather duple Clan drive with one New Zealand coverage
Like no one else US talks.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
They'd be yeah that we don't report minor shoplifting in
Hamilton CBDI. The first of all, we don't feel like
there is any points. Secondly, the way we deal with
shoplifters is not something we really want the police involved in. Brackets.
Wink wink, Well you do what you got to do.
I suppose five twenty four. Now, for some weird reason,
I thought a lot this past weekend about what happened
on Friday with Health New Zealand trying to ban the

(45:38):
wantons and the marshmallows and the meat fat from their
hospital cafeterias. I had two takeaways after thinking about it
a lot. The first is that Simeon Brown played that beautifully.
Within twenty minutes of hearing that interview with us on Drive,
he'd put out a statement ordering Health New Zealand to
review their policy and inject some common sense. Now that
is smart politics. That's why he's called Golden Bulls. Second,

(46:00):
I couldn't quite put my finger on Friday on why
it was that this wound me up so much. But
actually the reason I realized in the end is because
it removes choice from people who should have choice. For example,
I don't know if you know this, but if you
stay in Starship with your child, they feed your child,
but they don't feed you. So I was in there
for a couple of nights when baby girl was about

(46:21):
six weeks old earlier this year. She had a bit
of an infection, but they weren't feeding me. So they
gave me a couple of vouchers and they said, dog
head on down to the cafeteria and redeem them, and
I did. The wantons were rubbish, so I don't mind
them being banned, frankly, but the second meal I had,
which I think was a roast, was actually excellent. Now,
the important thing here is I was breastfeeding, so I

(46:42):
needed a lot of calories, and I needed a lot
of fat, and so the fat on the roast is
really important for me to get that in there so
I can make some good milk for the baby. Right,
So them ordering the staff to then go around cutting
the fat off is actually not good for breastfeeding months.
Second thing, if you have a kid who's in there
sick for a while, and let's just say the kid
loves marshmallows and they're hot chocolate. Now the band and

(47:03):
the marshmallows from the hot chocolate, that might have been
that kid's one little treat to brighten their day. So
that actually, frankly shouldn't And that is what annoyed me
so much on Friday. This is the same kind of
we know best attitude that you get from the breast's
best nazis who try to prevent new mums from getting
formula when they're in hospital. Everyone's life is actually different.
Everyone needs different things to eat at different times. Sometimes

(47:23):
we need certain things for the nutrition. Sometimes we just
need a treat, Sometimes we need formula, sometimes we need
breast milk. It should be up for us to decide
what we're doing, and hopefully if Health New Zealand takes
a hint from the minister, it will be up to
us to decide.

Speaker 8 (47:38):
Ever do for see, Ellen's get a load of this, Okay.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
So I was taking to my mum about the gas
at the weekend and she said to me, she's got
one of those gas bottles, you know, instead of like mans,
She's got a gas bottle. She said, that's it. The
gas is too expensive. She's switching to electricity, so she's
going to pay the bill. She's going to pay the conversion.
The German was just telling me before she knows some
people two people in the house, their gas their power

(48:02):
bill for power because they've got a gas fireplace eight
hundred and ninety dollars for the month. Oh my gosh,
that's an income. Eight hundred and ninety dollars. We've got
a gas fireplace. I don't want to tell you. I mean,
we've got more than two people, like we've at least
got five people in the house. But it's still extraordinary,

(48:23):
isn't it. Anyway, if that rips your ninety it's reporting
season at the moment. We're into it on the markets,
and yeah, you're gonna You're gonna love what I tell
you about contact success in terms of money off the
back of you. So stand by Headline's.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Next Yeah, on your smart speaker, on the iHeart app,
and in your car on your drive home, it's Heather
Duplicy Ellen drive with one New Zealand and of power
of satellite mobile news talk the.

Speaker 5 (48:53):
Bed standing by proschursing Josipherghanni. And then after six, as
per usual on a Monday, Nikola Willis the Finance Minister.
Heather the Prime Minister's meeting will be about the credit rating,
not the gas. The government's been told you can't keep
borrowing money to put people on unemployment, thanks Pedro. Actually,

(49:15):
Fitch Ratings has confirmed or affirmed New Zealand's long term
foreign currency issue a default rating at AA plus with
a stable outlook. New Zealand's ratings are underpinned by its
advanced and wealthy economy, high governance standards, and robust policy framework.
I'll tell you what, there will be a sigh of
relief being breathed in the behalf. More than likely this
was going to be what happened, but there was a

(49:36):
not trivial chance that it might have been downgraded. Right now,
twenty four away from six.

Speaker 4 (49:41):
Heather doup is the al as we know.

Speaker 3 (49:43):
Tourism numbers are not flashed. That's New Zealand revealed last
week the tourism numbers have dropped for the second month
in a row. One suggestion to fix this is that
we raise the upper age limit of our working holiday visa.
It's currently at thirty. Why not take it all the
way to fifty. The idea has come from Tim Alp,
the managing director of Lilo Hate.

Speaker 21 (49:59):
Tim, Hey, how are you going?

Speaker 3 (50:00):
I'm well, thanks? Do you reckon people up to the
age of fifty want to come here and work?

Speaker 8 (50:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (50:05):
I do.

Speaker 18 (50:05):
I think.

Speaker 21 (50:05):
I think definitely there's definitely interest from people who are
a little more flexible in terms of this stage of
life and who are really keen to do you know,
post COVID look at sort of working holiday.

Speaker 3 (50:14):
Adventures, like what kind of areas would they work in?

Speaker 8 (50:19):
Oh?

Speaker 21 (50:19):
I think in all areas around hospitality, tourism, they want
to come down here, see the see that they're a bit
more disposable time come down here and travel and also
work and you know, it might be cafes, might be
fruit picking, it might be on ski fields are these?

Speaker 3 (50:32):
I mean a lot of people between the ages of
thirty and fifty have families because we leave it till
so late nowadays to have babies. So are you thinking
about people who are childless?

Speaker 21 (50:42):
Oh, both childless and people who want to potentially come
down with families and travel. But I think what we're
last seeing is people are going, Actually, I can, I
can work remotely nowadays, so we've obviously seen the digital
visa change and no man visa change, which has been
quite attractive. But just people who are a bit more
flexible who may want to come down. I just think
by limiting it to thirty or to thirty five, we

(51:03):
aren't that competitive with the likes of Australia and Canada.
Who are you know, who are killing it?

Speaker 3 (51:07):
And also tim, I mean, aren't people in the a
you know, especially when you sort of start having that
forty aren't you sort of the height of your career
or getting into it so you probably want to stick
it out wherever you are.

Speaker 21 (51:18):
Oh, I think some people are definitely in that, But
I think some people are also having a bit of
life changing experiences as well and going Actually, there's sometimes
more to life than focusing one hundred percent on my career.
I want to take a bit of a break. I
want to take six months a year off. I just
think it gives flexibility and we are seeing an increase
in that, so why not cater towards it?

Speaker 8 (51:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (51:36):
Total, Well, there's no downside is there if we do this?

Speaker 21 (51:38):
No, there's no downside at all. If anything, it makes
us a lot more competitive globally in people who are
wanting to take up this opportunity.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
What's going on with tourism? How bad is it?

Speaker 13 (51:47):
Oh?

Speaker 21 (51:48):
It's tough here, you know, it's definitely tough. I mean, look,
there are some green shoots in the horizon, but you know,
when you lock yourself down for a couple of years,
it's hard to bounce back up again, right, and so,
and we are competing in a very you know, huge
competitive market globally. As that's the reason why I'm sort
of saying, well, why put the barriers up? Why don't
we just introduce new things to make it more and
more attractive.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
Your minister is the minister and irresponsible for this would
be Erica Stanford, wouldn't.

Speaker 8 (52:12):
It no, Louise Hupton allu.

Speaker 3 (52:14):
And have you chatted to her about it.

Speaker 8 (52:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 21 (52:17):
No, I haven't chaded her about the specific one, but
she's definitely taking a pretty proactive approach. I think the
government's finally realize that tourism is a huge contribute. Should
be the number one expert inner it's not right now,
and there's a really good opportunity for us to sort
of pull ourselves out of sort of some of the
state that we're in right now if we really embrace tourism.
But we've got to get out there and market New
Zealand as a place to come to. Airlines got to

(52:39):
come on board as well and make it a lot
more attractive to get here. And but once hear we
know they love it, we just got to open ourselves
up and be a lot more low cattering good stuff.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
Tim, thanks so much, appreciate it. That's Tim Alp Lilo
Managing Director. It's twenty one away from six the.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
Huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty Unique Homes Uniquely
for You with us.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
This evening, we have Tris Shurson, Sharson, Willis pr and
Joseph Begunny, CEO of Child Found. Hello you guys, Hello, Hello,
you into this idea. Trish no, you don't want to
go on a working holiday in your late forties.

Speaker 22 (53:14):
Well, I mean I think it's one of those great
headline grabbing ideas, but I'm not convinced at the age
bracket that it's been pitched to that those people are
going to want to do the kind of jobs that
would be on offer.

Speaker 9 (53:28):
No.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
I I personally tend to agree, being roughly in that
age bracket.

Speaker 19 (53:32):
Josie.

Speaker 23 (53:34):
Yeah, by that age, I don't want to go on
a working holiday. I just want to go on a holiday.
And look, I just think if you're going to open
it up to age fifty maximum, well you might as
well just have no age restrictions. I mean you might
as well say anyone can come on a work.

Speaker 3 (53:50):
Yes, because do you know what, I'll tell you what, Josie,
what the German thought would be a great idea is
if you have like a Nana O Pah come and
stage your house from Germany.

Speaker 23 (53:57):
Yeah, well maybe it is, but I still think it.
This is the big productivity growth plan from the government
and we're focusing on the sort of low value tourism
and I love a juicy van. This is nothing against juicy,
but you know, basically do we really want more and
more and more backpackers coming doing working holidays and frankly

(54:17):
lowering the average wage by taking such low wage jobs
and places like Queenstown that actually lowers the average wage
across the whole of New Zealand. So it's fine. I
love it when French people come and do a working
and they quite good waiters and waitresses and so on,
and they flock to Queenstown because they want to go there.
But this is not a great growth strategy for New Zealand.

Speaker 22 (54:41):
And also just bearing in mind the number of older
New Zealanders, especially right now, who are looking for work,
so there could be an issue there.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
And just a.

Speaker 22 (54:50):
Personal note from me, I see the van holiday makers
and in my head, that's my worst nightmare. Making a
cup of tea on top of your duvet with that's
also your pantry.

Speaker 3 (55:05):
He's got your little poop pot underneath.

Speaker 18 (55:07):
This in a.

Speaker 3 (55:13):
For the people for the young people, well you do
you have a fun time when you're young and you
can do crazy things like that. Jose, how do you
think the big meeting in the White House is going
to go overnight?

Speaker 23 (55:24):
Well, you're right that the EU does need to step
up and I think they've realized that if they're not
at the table, they're on the menu. So they've really
decided they're going to come and be Zelenski's bodyguards this time,
and great to see that. I'm sure Zelenski and all
of the seven European bodyguards he's bringing that, they've all said,
we will we do not want a pre meeting press

(55:48):
conference in the Oval office, thank you very much. We'll
go straight into the meeting, because that's of course what
happened last time to Zelensky. Yeah, I mean the EU
needs to do the heavy lifting. But let's not let
Trump off the hook here. I mean he has America
has walked away from forty years of protecting democracy, liberal
values and the rules, and they're walking away from it.

Speaker 19 (56:09):
And leaving it up to the rest of us.

Speaker 9 (56:10):
So it's a big.

Speaker 23 (56:13):
Hinge moment in history for us, right, So the EU
does have to step up. I understand what you're saying
hither when you're calling on the EU to do more,
and they should have done more to day, but I
think they are seriously looking at it and going, well,
if America is not going to be there, we have
to step up. But they want to make sure that
America is on board with whatever plan comes next. And

(56:33):
that's the big thing. So what's going to happen next? Well,
the best case scenario, and it doesn't sound that great,
is that Russia keeps the territory that it's already occupied,
which is awful, but it doesn't get officially recognized. Ukraine
gets its security guarantees, the sort of Article five type
guarantee where the US also agrees to come to its

(56:55):
aid if it's invaded again, and they get to join
the EU and there is no to them rearming or
defending themselves. That's the best case scenario. Worst case scenario
is that Russia and Putin just divide up Ukraine and
then Europe really is on the menu. Then they're at
the mercy of whoever's going to invade Europe beyond Ukraine.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
Tris, what do you think the chances are that this
is successful?

Speaker 22 (57:17):
Well, I think it's fairly low. There's two key issues here.
One is that in Trump's world, this is just another
TV chapter, TV episode in his sort of apprentice style,
and I'm I'm.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
Sure that understands the importance, like the historical importance of
what he's doing.

Speaker 22 (57:36):
Well, I don't know whether he doesn't understand. He certainly
doesn't really care deeply about it. So he's put aside
all of the norms of normal diplomacy. And if I
were the EU people going into this, to Josie's point,
I would stage manage this to within an inch of
its life. So you go straight into the room, you

(57:58):
get down to tintax. One of the other great pieces
advice I heard over the weekend was actually to Zolynsky.
So one of the things that Putin does, he is
a fantastic speaker of English, he's fluent in German. But
what he does is he always works through an interpreter,
because what that does in those big meetings is it
just slows everything down. So so the advice to Zelensky

(58:21):
was use an interpreter, because you're going to be able
to slow everything down. I think it's fantastic that the
EU is going with Zelensky to support him this time,
and I think symbolically that's really really important. But there
is absolutely no way to guarantee what's happened going to

(58:43):
happen out in the back of this, and one of
the problems with the Trump team. Trump won't take briefings.
He isn't properly prepared for these meetings and the groundwork
that you would normally expect going into these meetings. So
normally you'd go into these meetings, you would know what's
going to happen. And it's really the kind of symbolism
in the pictures story that goes with it. No one
knows with Trump's team what on earth is going to

(59:04):
happen next?

Speaker 20 (59:04):
What makes hang on?

Speaker 3 (59:06):
Josie, I just need to take a break, and I
want you one quick thing afterwards, hanging a tack, it's
called a.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
Hip the huddle with New Zealand South Beast International Realty,
the ones for unmatched results.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
Back with the huddle, Josie, what was your one quick thing?

Speaker 23 (59:21):
Just to illustrate how extraordinary this moment was, so putin
walks down, he gets the red carpet and the clap,
the handshake with Trump. If he had landed in New
zeal the flyover the flyer one hundred countries, he would
have been arrested because there's an ICC International Criminal Court
basically a arrest at first sight ruling on him because

(59:42):
he's a war criminal. But the other thing I quickly
wanted to say was Russia is very weak at the moment,
and I think, as you say, Trump doesn't really analyze
this very politically. Russia has lost Syria, you know, I said, Alasad,
I sell Basha Alasad, it's been dumped or it's dumped Iran,
the Gulf States are shifting to towards the US. It
has an economy the size of Spain. So really, you know,

(01:00:04):
Trump is treating it is if it's some sort of
Cold war equal to the US, and it isn't. So
he just doesn't get the politics well.

Speaker 22 (01:00:11):
But that brings us back to the theories about what
hold Putin has hold on him because moody pictures. Otherwise,
it just doesn't it actually doesn't make sense what's happening.

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
So there are some who are connected to the White
House Josie who reckon that potent's got some Epstein files
or something like that, and they get together at these
meetings and he just flashes flashes fine and Trump and
he's like, do you remember this?

Speaker 23 (01:00:37):
And frankly, if they were moody pictures, we will be
relieved and breathe a sigh of relief. They're going to
be worse than that, aren't.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
They mostly well you know who knows. I mean, I
love a good conspiracy theory, so I'm deep in this one.
Do you think, Trish, that David Cymore has made the
right call leaving the bike helmets as mandatory?

Speaker 13 (01:00:54):
I do.

Speaker 22 (01:00:56):
I went to a very interesting speech the other day
and one of the points that came out of it
was how mired in very bad old regulation New Zealander is.
But because of the slowness of our parliament and the
legislative process, and because a lot of those old regulations
will have to be removed through legislation in Parliament, it's going.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
To be years and years before we get through it.

Speaker 22 (01:01:19):
So the reason I speak to that is I don't
think getting rid of regulations around bike helmets. If you
put if you lined up all of that regulation that's
just on the priority list, it's it seems to me
to be ridiculous, and I think that's the line that
the new Ministry for Regulation needs to carefully traverse. I

(01:01:40):
would like to see a priority list of legislation with
a waiting about how damaging it it is and its impact,
and then to see that list work through thoroughly. When
you get random things like this that don't really seem
to make sense, or they're not they're not even low
hanging fruit. I mean, they're not even a ball ble
on the tree, are they. I just don't think it

(01:02:01):
looks good for that ministry and the important job it's
got to do.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
Yeah, so the right call then to just dump it.
What do you reckon, Josie.

Speaker 23 (01:02:08):
Yeah, they've got to pick their battles a bit better.
There's a bit too many of these sort of symbolic gestures,
like taking reversing the Marti word on passports. It's like
no one was bothered about that, and no one's thinking,
oh my god, we must get rid of helmets. Although
I'm like you Heather, as a mum, I'm strapped on
helmets to my kids when they're young, and now they're
in their twenties. I mean I virtually want them and

(01:02:30):
bulletproof fests like RoboCop going around. So of course, as
parents were going to do everything to keep them safe
if they don't keep phoning my iPhone on I'm phoning
up for proof of life every day. So you could
say that if you take the helmet mandatory helmet away,
that most people will do what's safe anyway, and put
the helmet on, and people who don't want to. The

(01:02:50):
problem you've got is e.

Speaker 9 (01:02:51):
Bikes, right?

Speaker 23 (01:02:52):
Are e bikes mopeads or are they?

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
What about the lime scooters? Everybody gets absolutely absolutely ham
med at the weekend on them and Whio got in
the almetsh an't they?

Speaker 19 (01:03:02):
Yes?

Speaker 23 (01:03:02):
But enough about my son who ended up in a
and E drunk at three am.

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
Well there you go, hey guys. Oh by the way,
by the way, Trisha, are you going to read Grant's book?

Speaker 22 (01:03:13):
I think it's one that you will not find on
my bedside table, along with Cinda's book. I feel like
they're ones. I just sort of get them summarized from
I'll read it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
Thank you. You can be my human shield on that one.
What about you, Joseph, I'll read the chat GPT version.

Speaker 23 (01:03:30):
I'm just a bit sick of this sort of tendency
of politicians to publish books to tell their side of
the story, rather than it being something we're all demanding.
Oh look, he was finance minister. He's got an interesting
story to tell. But you can't publish a book and
then not appear at a public royal commission in the same.

Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
Freek Sister thank you, Trishas and JOSEPEGANI huddle this evening,
seven away from Sex.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
It's the Heather Duplasy Allen Drive Full Show podcast on
my Art Radio powered by News TALKSBI.

Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
Here there is Zelenski wearing a suit tomorrow. Absolutely not,
absolutely not. This is the biggest mesing. This is the
biggest meeting. So he's got to absolutely remind them that
they're all there for the wars. He's got a war
that he's got, you know, he'll have a range, like
he's got his dress uniform, he's got all the stuff.
So he's just got to wear his best war uniform. Hither,
that was an over abundance, over abundance of emotive estrogen.

(01:04:20):
Thank you. It's a hot take, isn't it. Okay, here
we go, Contact Energy. This is what I need to
tell you about. So if you feel like you're being
if you're feeling a bit grumpy about what you're paying
for electricity and gas at the moment, you're not gonna
like this these numbers I'm about to give you. Contact
Energy has just reported full year net profit up forty
one percent, revenue up twenty percent, underlying profit up seventeen percent.

(01:04:45):
Full year dividend thirty nine cents per share. So if
you bought shares in Contact, happy days for you. We're
going to talk to Nikolais. Oh, by the way, actually
I should say Shane Soley Harbor Asset Management, because we're
full noise into reporting season, whole bunch of businesses of
report today. He's going to run us through the bangers
at about twenty five past six, and Nikola Willis is

(01:05:06):
going to be with us very shortly. Grant Robertson's book.
So I bumped I was out at the shop today.
I had to go get some milk and I bumped
into somebody I know who knows things about things, and
he said to me, oh gosh, have you heard about
Grant Robertson's book. And I said no, I haven't yet,
and he said, oh, jez. Apparently he goes hard on
David Cunliff. They really hate David Cunliffe or the lawyers.

(01:05:26):
I'm totally reporting gossip to you. This is just I'm
not gonna lie. This is just gossip. It's just tittle tattle.
Apparently the lawyers had to go over They were freaking
out about the two chapters on David Cunliff. Anyway, I
don't really understand. I don't really understand the hatred because
if you've read just Sinda's book, you'll know she goes
hard of all people on David cundlif like the heaps

(01:05:48):
of time wasted on him, and then apparently Grant as well.
And I don't really know why they hate him so
much because he wasn't really the source of all of
their problems. I mean, he was the source of some
of their problems, and he was you know, he's annoying,
but he's not that bad. He's not bad enough to
have to dedicate like your big this is your big
contribution to history, and you're gonna put two chapters in there. Anyway,
I'll read it for you. I'll let you know how

(01:06:09):
it goes. Another bit of information on the markets for
you quickly. A to milk company has bought the Poconoa plant,
the Yashili plant. Bought it for two hundred and eighty
two million dollars sold at steak in the Toda Valley.
Milk to open Dairy Country Open Country Dairy twelve months
to due net profit out of tax up twenty one percent.
There you got and We're into it. Nicholas next.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
Keeping track of where the money is flowing. The Business
Hour with Heather duplessyl Ands for Trusted Home Insurance Solutions.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
News talks that be.

Speaker 3 (01:07:00):
Even in coming up in the next hour. Shane Soley's
going to get us started on reporting season. We'll get
you across Convisa's big news and Gavin Gray will do
the UK for us right now at seven pass six.
And of course Nikola Willis is the Finance Minister. Hi Nikola, Hi, Heather,
how was London? It was great.

Speaker 24 (01:07:15):
You know, when you're overseas you appreciate what's wonderful about
New Zealand. And I met with some of the people
who lend money to New Zealand to invest in New
Zealand and they had two pretty clear messages for me.
Number one was, please stick to this plan of being sensible, reliable,
responsible fiscal managers. That's why we like you and that's

(01:07:36):
why we lend to you at good rates. Number two, Wow,
New Zealand, you are lucky. You live in a safe
part of the world. You are making things that the
world wants to buy. You're a country that's going to grow,
and that's why we want to invest in New Zealand,
so very reassuring.

Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
Did they give you any ideas well?

Speaker 24 (01:07:53):
They were very clear that they think that our agricultural
sector has big prospects, particularly in value added food, where
they think can consumers will continue to want more sustainable products.
They'll clear that our tourism proposition is one that they
can see growing, and that our tech firms show up
very well. I was in New York and I met
with the Zero team there and they said that it's

(01:08:14):
not just them doing good stuff in America, that actually
a number of tech firms are turning up with export
opportunities into the United States, and they think New Zealand
has some pretty special source. Our firms are clever at
what they do.

Speaker 3 (01:08:27):
Why was Luxon really not on that phone call overnight?
I don't think it's because he was sleeping.

Speaker 24 (01:08:33):
Which phone call you're referring to.

Speaker 3 (01:08:34):
This is the overnight phone call with the Coalition of
the Willing, the one that happened at one am.

Speaker 24 (01:08:39):
I can't speak to that. I haven't talked to him
about it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
Either, do you think.

Speaker 8 (01:08:42):
I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
You know the man right, You know him very well
because you work with them all the time. He's the
kind of guy. If there was an if there was
an awkward time zone, like there's an awkward call at
an awkward time one am, he would get up and
do it if it was important, isn't he?

Speaker 24 (01:08:55):
Absolutely? But he's also a diligent person who takes advice
from his officials. So I haven't seen what that advice is.

Speaker 3 (01:09:01):
I don't know what the background conspiracy theory. But the
reason I'm asking you this is because I think that
actually the reason he wasn't on that phone call is
because it's an anti Trump phone call, and we don't
want to be in the andro Trump camp.

Speaker 24 (01:09:12):
In my experience, conspiracy theories and politics are almost always wrong.
What is much more likely is the benign, boring, practical
reality that it was at a bad time.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
Okay, why are we going to get hig Yondae to
build the fairies?

Speaker 24 (01:09:26):
They are able to tender on the replacement theories, but
we're certainly not in a position to guarantee that they
will be doing didn't.

Speaker 19 (01:09:35):
We given that?

Speaker 13 (01:09:35):
We?

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
I mean, because we now know that we put two
hundred and twenty two million dollars into high Yonda for
the break fee in the deposit, why didn't we just
use that deposit and switch what theory we wanted and
say we don't want the big ones anymore, we want
some mediate ones.

Speaker 24 (01:09:46):
Well, we did look at doing that either. Of course,
Kyonda's specialty isn't doing really big ships, and so initially
what we said is, why don't you just repurchase the
stuff you've already got and turn it into smaller ones,
And they said, we worry about that because that will
create a liability for us, because you're actually asking us
to do something completely different from what we embarked on.

(01:10:07):
And they would have been unprepared to give us the
kind of liability guarantees and insurance that we needed for
those smaller ships with repurposed kit. So then it just
becomes a question of under what conditions would they fully
insure ships. And that's why they've been invited to submit
in a new tender. Of course, they haven't asked us
to give them the full price of the original ships.

(01:10:30):
We did manage to get some of that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
Now, do you regret canceling those big fairies because we
have ended up Once you tally up how much we're
put into the deposit and then the break fee and
then the infrastructure costs and stuff. We've spent six hundred
and seventy million dollars, we've got nothing for it.

Speaker 24 (01:10:46):
Well, no, because quite simply, if we'd forged ahead with
that really broken, chaotic idea, it would have ended up
costing billions and billions of dollars, far more than the
cost of the now resized, more practical aprodiges.

Speaker 3 (01:11:02):
We take a can at least, I mean, look, it
would have been extremely expensive, but at least at the
end we would have two really big fairies and all
of the infrastructure. But now what we've done, and sure
it'd been expensive, but now we've just like literally frush
six hundred and seventy dollars seventy million dollars down the toilet.
We've got nothing for it, and we're going to have
actually medium sized stuff.

Speaker 24 (01:11:22):
I doubt that very much. The plans were not progressing well.
They'd become tied up in all sorts of complication. There
was a very reasonable reality that the port side infrastructure
would not have been built in time for the fairies
to have arrived, and that they therefore wouldn't have been
able to be used. There were still questions being asked
by the harbor Master and picked in about whether or

(01:11:45):
not they would allow those large ships to have passage
through the Tory Channel. There were questions about how they
would operate. What we could see was an impending disaster.
It was very unlikely that those ships would have arrived
and been used in good time. It was incredibly likely
that we would see further cost blowouts, further complications, further

(01:12:05):
problems into the future. We've now got a project underway
which will deliver fairies that are suited for the purpose
with port infrastructure that is needed, and it won't be
a gold plated plan that goes wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:12:18):
Have you got a gas meeting tonight?

Speaker 24 (01:12:22):
I meet with all of my colleagues regularly on a
number of issues, and energy policy in New Zealand is
one that's yes.

Speaker 3 (01:12:29):
Come on, you've got a meeting yourself. Chris Bishop, Christopher
Luxen and Simon Watts have a meeting in this hour,
the six o'clock.

Speaker 24 (01:12:36):
No one really cares about meetings. What they care about
is in New Zealand right now, too many people are
paying too much for electricity firms.

Speaker 3 (01:12:45):
But why are you having a meeting?

Speaker 24 (01:12:46):
You guys, listen, because we're not going to sit back
and have a situation where businesses across the country have
to close their operations because they can't access the energy
they need. We're not going to have a situation. We're
because the last government band gas exploration, we run out
of gas and run out of electricity. We are actively solving.

Speaker 3 (01:13:05):
So are you discussing the Frontier Report in this meeting?

Speaker 24 (01:13:09):
I've discussed the Frontier Report many times, but again for
your listeners, what this is about is how do we
make sure that we're actually getting enough new electricity generation built.
We know acknowledging it can't all be wind, it can't
all be sola, it can't all be hard.

Speaker 3 (01:13:24):
But is this are you guys getting along with it?
This has been like you know, we've had We've had
a couple of winters and nothing has been done. So
are you guys going to get a riggle on here?

Speaker 8 (01:13:32):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:13:33):
Are we going to ration gas?

Speaker 4 (01:13:36):
Well?

Speaker 24 (01:13:36):
Of course it's always been the case in New Zealand
that when there are gas shortages, agreements are forged about
how guests can be redistributed. You saw that last year
with Method X, and those conversations are always ongoing.

Speaker 3 (01:13:51):
All right, hey, Nichola, thank you. As always appreciated and
welcome back home. That's Nikola Willis, the Finance Minister. Fourteen
past six.

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
It's the Heather duplessy Ellen Drive Full Show podcast on
my Heart Radio empowered by news dog Zebbi.

Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
Here the gas meeting be advised. Marwi Field shuts on
December twenty sixth for good method X will shut down.
For good Port Tarannuka will be hurt as well as
the region. Look that's from Dennis. I don't know if
that's true. Anything is possible with gas at the minute,
but please note that Nikola Willis did not rule out
that we're going to have to ration gas. And remember
that was something that Shane Jones Rose raised last week

(01:14:26):
as a possibility that we would have to ration gas.
The fact is we're going to have the ration gas
if we do it, whether we do it with the
government doing it for us, or whether the market just
rations gas for us, as in those of us who
can afford to buy gas by gas away that which
is exactly what happened the other week right Contact Energy
bought the gas that that business wanted that has now
had to had to what is it agri whatever, what

(01:14:51):
is it called balance contract? Contact Energy brought balances. Gas
balance doesn't have anymore. That's the market basically rationing the gas.
So we're going to have to do it because look,
here's the thing. If you were using gas, you need
to start thinking right now about what you're going to
do instead, because there will not be gas soon. It
will run out, and what pitdlely amount will be there
be very expensive and brought by people with deep pockets.

(01:15:11):
Eighteen past six Shane Sally Harbor Asset Management with us. Now,
Hey Shane, hello Heather. All right, so we've got a
big week obviously for the New Zealand company profit results
A two contact freightways. What did the market make of them?

Speaker 25 (01:15:24):
Yeah, so you're bang on the thirteen companies reporting profits
this week and we're obviously got five annual Shield of
meetings kicked off today a two A profit result slightly
against expectations, slightly higher that. The big news was they've
announced their acquisition of your Shilly's Poco, a dairy processing
plant for two hundred and eighty mel. They're selling Matari
Valley milk to Open Country for one hundred mel. They're

(01:15:45):
losing about one hundred and thirty.

Speaker 8 (01:15:46):
Mil on that deal.

Speaker 25 (01:15:47):
But They have actually announced a good high single digit
revenue growth for the next year, and they've also talked
about returning three undred million the special dividend once they've
done the plant transactions. Stop Pray is up two point
six percent to eight ninety five Contact good solid result
in line with market expectations. Again, financed year twenty six
guidance top of the market range, so that's positive. Share

(01:16:11):
price was up about one percent, which is over one
point three percent nine five freightways a result in line
with market expectations. Management was saying, hey, it's been pretty
tough challenging out there, but we continue to see this
improving volume of the last six months. They think that's
going to continue. The momentum is going to continue and
to financial year twenty six NEARSHEP price or freightway shap

(01:16:31):
rods up one point six percent to eleven seventy four
over the overall, pretty good start. New Zealand share market
app zero point six percent, lead by Infanto A two
in Contact.

Speaker 3 (01:16:41):
Yeah, and what else are you looking for this week?
What are you interested in?

Speaker 25 (01:16:44):
Yeah, tomorrow we've got mercury. The other another the electricity
generators INFTWOS that comes out with an your shield A
meeting Wednesday Fletcher Building in Spark. Those two will be
very closely watched. Both have had a few issues Thursday
Ork on the Airport Fisher and Pipeliarchi at Heartland Scaler
up Sky City. So pretty tiring day on Thursday. And
then Friday we get new ze on Stopper Shanes inside

(01:17:05):
x in Sky TV's a pretty rapid week of results.

Speaker 9 (01:17:09):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:17:09):
Obviously another big thing is happening this week, which is
the Reserve Bank meeting on the OCI. Did we get
some some interesting data points out today?

Speaker 25 (01:17:16):
Yeah, it was interesting, different conflicting data points today here
that First, up, we had the Benz Business dees on
performance of Services and index for July. It was up
slightly to forty eight point nine up versus Dune forty
seven point six.

Speaker 8 (01:17:30):
Good.

Speaker 25 (01:17:31):
You know that means things are less bad because of
reading below fifty still means the services part of their
climb is shrinking, right, we're still contracting, so less bad
but still bad.

Speaker 8 (01:17:40):
Secondly, we had the Reserve Bank and ZEE. They've come
up with a new series.

Speaker 25 (01:17:43):
It's a business expectations survey and it showed inflation expectations
across businesses up slightly on the last month, unemployment rate
expectations down slightly. Back on inflation, businesses that talk about
two point six four percent inflation expectations for the next
two years. That's where that RBNS is tiger bends so
they can cut. Finally, the INSI Shadow Board, this is

(01:18:05):
the shadow Arabians in board. They have voted on a
zero point two five percent cut to three percent on Wednesday.
But even within the board there was a bit of descent.
There's two of the board members said no change, five
cent point two five percent and one said a half
a percent. The markets expecting twenty five basis points on Wednesday,
so it'll be a bit of a surprise if they

(01:18:26):
don't get at quarter of a percent cut.

Speaker 3 (01:18:28):
Absolutely, Shane as always, thank you so much. Talking to
you Yain next week, Shane soally Harbor Asset Management. And
by the way, Wednesday, Fletcher and Spark are going to
be on the show. I've already locked them in for that.
Baby Bunting has reported to like, why are you talking
about because I have a baby, so I'm really interested
in all this baby retail stuff. I'll tell you what,
you don't take my advice on investment, But you want

(01:18:50):
to put your money into baby stores because there's no
I mean, I was gonna say there's no end of that,
but actually the birth rate's falling, so maybe you don't
want to. But I have spent a small fortune at
baby stores single handedly could have provided your dividend for you.
Baby Bunting has achieved positive earnings in New Zealand for
the first time. This is Australia's largest baby store. They
opened their first store here in August twenty twenty two

(01:19:11):
and they've they've got four already. They've got another six plan.
I think the fifth one is supposed to open in
Auckland this year. As I say, first time a chief
positive earnings. They're operating earnings before interest in taxes only
one hundred and twenty five thousand New Zealand dollars, but
better than I think because last year they made it
about four million dollars loss in Australian dollars. So it's

(01:19:32):
looking good six to twenty two.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
Whether it's macro microbe or just plain economics, it's all
on The Business Hour with Heather Duplicy Allen Dans for
Trusted Home Insurance Solutions News talks.

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
We're going to be chatting to the Shareholders Association about
the Convita News Conveta. Might we might lose it from
the share market, might be brought privately, so we'll get
the latest on that. Six twenty five was just talking
to the German because there are babies all around this
world that we're in at the moment, and we were
talking about spending money and stuff, and she was saying
that once upon a time somebody trying to sell her

(01:20:07):
on a bundle for a PRAM. Do you know how
much a she's shocked by this that the same thing
happened to me. Do you know how much PRAM costs?
If you go like pram, like maybe double seeds or
single seeds or lay down capsule thingy for the baby
when they're small, little capsule that you put in the car,
you know, all that kind of jazz cup holder for
you little tray underneath. Maybe if you'll really flash you
get those like city wheels and then you can upgrade

(01:20:29):
them to the big wheels, you know, for I don't know,
if you're off roading with your brand, do you know
how much that costs? It's like seventeen hundred dollars seventeen
hundred dollars for a pram. Then I was saying to her,
yoh yea, I bought the Mocker chairs the high chairs.
Do you get the Mocker chairs. They're really great for kids,
and they look nice and you can have them as

(01:20:50):
like a like with a little front thing what is
it called, you like a tray, and then as they
get older, you take that off and then you lower
the seat down and it's their seat until they're like
nine or ten or whatever and you get rid of
it finally do much that costs. But the Mocka is cheap.
The Moka is like one fifty. It's based on the
stockare from some Scandinavian country. Do you know how much
the stockare costs. It's like four hundred and fifty dollars
for a chair. Four hundred and fifty dollars. This is

(01:21:12):
why there is money. There's money and baby stuff. You
just need to come up with something that we need
and then we'll just throw cash at it. Anyway, here's
some show biz news for you.

Speaker 9 (01:21:23):
But it's the Reclai.

Speaker 19 (01:21:24):
This is not me telling you.

Speaker 9 (01:21:26):
It's by American Egle Chance.

Speaker 8 (01:21:27):
Sydney's twenty has very keen.

Speaker 9 (01:21:29):
You see what I did there?

Speaker 3 (01:21:31):
Yeah. So, despite an army of new fans, Sidney Sweeney
has bombed at the box office this weekend. Her American
Eagle ad turned heads left and righting conservatives said they
would support her no matter what. After be BuzzFeed outed
her as a registered Republican. But her new film is
called Americana made only eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars
at the US box office and it's in its first weekend.
The movie is a crime drama about a wannabe country

(01:21:53):
singer who gets caught up in a black market wall
between two rival and gangs.

Speaker 5 (01:21:58):
Dollars.

Speaker 4 (01:21:58):
I'm good at that, Ashley. I didn't know you were
sooner country music.

Speaker 9 (01:22:04):
Here is that?

Speaker 8 (01:22:07):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:22:08):
Film debut in over one thousand theaters. For the entire weekend,
each theater made eight hundred and fifty dollars showing this movie.
That's not very good. Eight hundred and fifty dollars. You
couldn't even buy couldn't even buy a pram With that.
Sydney might have more success selling jeans than selling movie tickets.
At the moment, it would appear maybe the culture war
thing has backlashed for her who knows News is next,
and then we'll do con Beta news talks.

Speaker 9 (01:22:29):
That b.

Speaker 1 (01:22:37):
Everything from SMS to the big corporates. The Business Hour
with Heather Duplicy, Allen and Mas for Trusted Home Insurance
Solutions News dogs that'd be.

Speaker 3 (01:23:00):
We've got UK, sorry, Gavin Gray out of the UK
with us in ten minutes time. If you've watched The
Day of the Jackal, you might be interested in the
stat A Ukrainian sniper has just claimed the longest distance kill.
Took out two Russian soldiers from a distance of four
k's and has supporting four k's is a really? I
mean you can that is a that anyway, I don't

(01:23:21):
need to kind of over egg it. You understand it,
you know distances, you've got supporting footage for it happened
August fourteen, so just mid last week ish and was
using a I don't know what this is, but for
people who do know, you might be interested in it.
A fourteen point five millimeter alligator rifle using artificial intelligence

(01:23:41):
under the guidance of a ua V complex. No idea,
but anyway that made it happen. Previous claim to the
longest sniper kill was another Ukrainian who took a shot
at three point eight k's twenty four away from seven.

Speaker 1 (01:23:53):
Heather duplessly out.

Speaker 3 (01:23:54):
So, a business associated with billionaire Mark Stewart has made
a takeover offer for troubled Honey Export con The offer
is to buy all of the shares for eighty cents each.
That's about fifty six point four million dollars in total.
The conveter boarder supporting the office, saying this is the
best way to get the business back on track. Oliver
Amanda is the CEO of the Shareholders Association and with
us Hey, Oliver good evening, Heather sounds like a good

(01:24:16):
deal for shareholders.

Speaker 20 (01:24:17):
Do you agree, Well, it's a deal for shareholders the
I mean, certainly. All it reflects is just how much
has changed a convisa over the past ten years. The
share price the business was ten years ago, it was
probably ten to twelve dollars. I think it picked at
about twelve dollars during twenty sixteen, and that just reflects

(01:24:37):
what's happened in the market since then. And you've seen
this this glut of Manuka honey flood the market that's
had an impact on margins. More recently, that's effected the company.
That's probably really creating this type of outcome for shareholders
because it's probably says more about the company's debt levels

(01:24:59):
than it does about shareholders.

Speaker 3 (01:25:01):
Wow, okay, So is that the fall from twelve dollars
a share down to about fifty cents? Is that mainly
or completely because of the flooding of alternatives into the market.

Speaker 20 (01:25:13):
Look, that's likely to be the case. Yeah, So you
saw that there's low barriers to entry into the market.
You've seen a gluts of monoca honey producers and supplies.
We saw earlier this year we saw King Honey tipped
into liquidation, which was owned as a subsidiary by another
INSITTEX listed company. So yeah, that impacts obviously margins, but

(01:25:36):
it also meant that a lot of the supplies, like Conveter,
are carrying significant amounts of inventory and that stock that
that's going to be funded by something or someone, And
that meant that in Conveter's case, debt levels went up
as well. So you've got higher debt levels and then
that's compounded by reduced margins and losses. All of a sudden,

(01:25:58):
some of those called bank covenance started things that banks
look at to make sure their debts are safe. They
start to look pretty shaky. So the company has been
working really hard recently to try to stabilize the business,
cut costs, cut inventory levels, and negotiate with its banks
in terms of saying, hey, we need some relief here

(01:26:20):
to get us through this particular cycle. The board, they've
obviously received this offer. I've obviously felt that that was
probably represents better and more certain value now for shareholders
compared to what the execution risk might be in future.

Speaker 9 (01:26:35):
Is it just me?

Speaker 3 (01:26:35):
I mean, tell me if I'm just if I'm imagining it,
But it feels like there have been quite a few
takeover offers lately.

Speaker 20 (01:26:41):
You're not imagining it, And I think the one interesting
thing for me is that whenever there's a takeover, of
course yet maybe it's good for shareholders, but actually that
means that someone else is seeing value in the business
for whatever reason.

Speaker 3 (01:26:53):
But it's obviously sorry Caroen.

Speaker 20 (01:26:57):
Marks to it owns another honey business. There's clearly some
synergy there that he's seeing in a you know, by
looking at the operations of these two businesses and putting
them together.

Speaker 3 (01:27:07):
Yeah, I mean, how do you feel about that?

Speaker 19 (01:27:09):
Though?

Speaker 3 (01:27:09):
In terms of business is being taken off the market.

Speaker 20 (01:27:12):
Well, we don't love it. And if there was a
pipeline of businesses coming into the market, we feel a
bit better about it. Yeah, but ultimately takeover is the
ultimate sanction. You know, if a business isn't performing for
whatever reason, then actually or or the sentiment around it
is poor, the future outlook is poor, then obviously that
does start to attract interest. And yeah, there's been some

(01:27:34):
probably it's not just this year, of the last two
to three years, it's probably been heightened activity in our market.
You know, we've seen likes of Push Pay Go, We've
seen our Veda group disappear. The currently i think Vital Technologies,
a small Wellington based company, it's un to takeover offer
by Tate of christ Church. So yeah, look there there's

(01:27:57):
it's ultimately the arbiter of shareholder value. So takeovers definitely
play a role market, a really important role. But what's
missing at the moment is that sort of front end
activity to bring companies into market. And we think there's
a lot more work required to get that balance right
between private and public and the regulations that apply to
each to make sure it's the level playing field.

Speaker 3 (01:28:17):
Oliver. While we've got you, how good is A two
looking at the moment?

Speaker 20 (01:28:22):
Well, yeah, AA two is that the pole are opposite
to what we've just described, certainly so today that they've
announced that the purchase of the Shelley Milk plant at
Pocono fo hundred naty two million dollars, and it's it's
kind of in an easier position that they're in a
good position to do this given the fact they have

(01:28:43):
one point one billion dollars of cash sitting on their
balance sheet, and that's up from nine hundred and seventy
odd million last year.

Speaker 8 (01:28:51):
I think.

Speaker 20 (01:28:52):
So this is a business that generates plenty of cash,
but it has traditionally been capital light, so they haven't
invested much in plant equipment to support the sale of
their product into China. So this does mark a bit
of a step change for them. But had the investment
in Matawa Valley Milk in Southland for some time that
is loss making. Now this is still loss making, at

(01:29:13):
least initially, so they're relying on growing the throughput through
the new plant they've purchased. Through the it is a
broad off as a broader suite of products and output
compared to Matawa of aliy milk and obviously banking on
growing that to actually improve the efficiency of the plant
and the amount of products that they can put through it.

Speaker 3 (01:29:32):
Good stuff. It's good to talk to you, Oliver. Really
appreciate your expertise. Oliver Amanda, New Zealand Shareholders Association CEO.
It's eighteen away from seven.

Speaker 4 (01:29:39):
Together loop for s l geez either.

Speaker 3 (01:29:42):
I bought a car, a trailer with a stock crate
and a current wolf in Redgo for seventeen hundred dollars,
the same price as the pram. I remember in the
late seventies pushing a pram across a paddock in Northern
Southland to get to neighbor's place to watch a Test match.
Two kids were in the pram and four big bottles
of year beer, of which one fell out and broke.
Does your new pram hold big bottles if you're going
to the neighbors?

Speaker 4 (01:30:01):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:30:02):
Well, this is one of the benefits of having a
big pram actually is that you can push it up
to the liquor store and then put the bottles in
the bottom and push it back. It's not a great like,
I don't know why. It's you feel very uncomfortable about it.
But you're not obviously gonna get drunk right then and there,
or even drunk at all, because you've got babies around
the house. All you gonna have is, you know, like
Friday night, big night, two beers and one little sip

(01:30:23):
of whiskey, you know. But somehow when you go into
a shop and you're like, Hi, this is my seven
month old. He's going to have that bottle of gin please,
and that whisky and the yeah, that whisky, you'll have
those three, you just feel like a raging alco and
check it on the pram if you're like, OT's got
to be called immediately. There is a bit of blowback
in the UK about a chap who works for the

(01:30:45):
Reform Party. This is Nigel for Veraja's party. Young guy
names Jack Anderton ran Faraja's TikTok account, which was incredibly successful.
He has He's aired some views about what Britain should
and should not have done in World War II, and
basically has argued that Britain should never have fought the
Nazis world War two. He says more than a million
British lives have been lost since World War One in

(01:31:08):
wars and battles that have never once been fought by
British men on this island. Fighting in both the World
Wars ensured the UK was no longer a great power.
He wrote. We impoverished ourselves for decades. We didn't finish
paying the loans off to America until two thousand and six.
Our economy stagnated, We lost an empire. We're pushed around
by America and Germany, a country we beat has been

(01:31:28):
richer than us since the nineteen seventies. Alternative history is interesting,
he says. If Britain had not fought in World War
one and two, it would not have had to rely
on America for economic support, and it would have had
the independence to act accordingly. Britain would have could have
developed India, Cypress, Fiji, Malta. Since Lucius Seychell's the Bahamas, Australia, Canada,
South Africa, Ireland and New Zealand. In the coming meritocracy,

(01:31:51):
perhaps Britain could regain some of these nations. Can't wait.
Can't wait also, obviously, as you can imagine, making an
argue about a previous war when there's a current war.
Doesn't want Britain to be involved in fighting for Ukraine.
We'll go to Britain next quarter two.

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
If it's to do with money, it matters to you.
The Business Hour with hither Dup c Ellen and Mares
for Trusted Home Insurance Solutions newstalks 'b either.

Speaker 3 (01:32:19):
If Britain decided not to have fought in World War Two,
would that mean they would have been German? Now, yes, Barbara, probably,
I think he's not factoring that. And if you've got
the Germans standing over the channel looking at you, the
coming for you, and so you're going to be German too,
So there will be no Britain. You'll be speaking that language.
Thirteen away from seven. Gavin Gray, UK correspondent with US. Now,
Heykevin either had it right well, speaking of wars, do

(01:32:40):
we expect anything to come out of this meeting like
a we actually going to have something solid out of
the White House overnight?

Speaker 18 (01:32:46):
I don't think so personally. But look, this is all,
you know, all complete projection of what we think is
going to happen. But there is a long list of
European leaders going to this meeting. In fact, it's almost
quicker to tell you who isn't going. But among those
who are are the European commissioned President Ursula Vondalan, the
UK Prime Minister, the French president, the leader of Germany,

(01:33:08):
the leader of Italy, all heading along along with NATO
Secretary General Mark Rutter. Interesting that in the last few hours,
Donald Trump's saying that you know, it's down to Zelenski.
If he wants peace, he can get it today sort
of thing. And I have this strong suspicion that the
Europeans have been invited almost as a sort of potential
blame game, that if nothing comes around, that the Europeans

(01:33:31):
will be told that they've been blamed for this because
they were demanding too much out of Russia. And Donald
Trump was saying, with are you get on with it?
That's one theory They could be there, of course to
a company and to make sure that President Zelenski doesn't
get ambushed or hijacked again in the White House, has
happened of course last time he was there. But you

(01:33:52):
know there's optimism as well. Perhaps genuinely they really do
think with this security guarantee, that's what they could work
on with Donald Trump. The future of Ukraine once piece
has been established. There's a lot at stake here and
I think the world will be hanging on for the
result of the meeting. But as I said, I think
people are beginning to think this is early steps rather
than big decisions.

Speaker 3 (01:34:13):
Yeah, totally. Now what are we seeing, you know, the
plan that has emerged as having come out of that
Alaska meeting, basically Pusan's demands. Do we see that as
Putin's opening gambit or is that kind of what we
have to work with.

Speaker 21 (01:34:26):
No.

Speaker 18 (01:34:27):
I think that's a sort of an opening gambit at
least that's the hope, quite simply because there's Russia wants
to claim territory in Ukraine that it doesn't even occupy
as yet. So there's an argument you might say, well,
that's what they've managed to win, you know, in the
violence of this war, so let them keep that for
the sake of peace. But they're also after areas of

(01:34:49):
the Dombas, the Eastern regions, the eastern sort of states
as it were, that they also want the whole of,
and they don't currently occupy that. There are even reports
of what have been described as suicide squad so just
two or three Russians going beyond and into Ukrainian territory,
into enemy lines as it were, for them and painting

(01:35:10):
and planting Russian flags everywhere, so that from satellite images
they're getting this idea that actually the Russian advances are
much greater than they actually are, something that I know
Ukraine has been saying, look this is they don't run
this bit, They've just stuck a flag there. So lots
of sort of different talk about what can be done today.

(01:35:31):
But as I said, the inclusion of the Europeans is
something that will delight the leaders, I'm not sure the
actual process of getting a negotiation will.

Speaker 3 (01:35:40):
Kevin, thanks very much, really appreciate you.

Speaker 8 (01:35:41):
So I met.

Speaker 3 (01:35:42):
We'll talk to you in a couple of days. That's
Kevin Gray, aw UK correspondent. Nine away from seven.

Speaker 1 (01:35:47):
It's the hither tupla See Alan Drive Full show podcast
on iHeartRadio powered by Newstalk Zibbi.

Speaker 3 (01:35:55):
By the way, I thought, geez, I love irony. This
is so ironic. Six away from seven Auckland Council's not
happy because someone has done some art installation. The art
installations happened at Takomitti Tunga Square, which is down there
by britam Art. And I don't spend a lot of
time down by Brita art, so I've confirmed with ants
who does that. In fact, that area is all pedestrianized

(01:36:18):
as I thought, So the whole thing to Komittiitunga Square
is pedestrianized. And somebody has taken the liberty of overnight
popping up art installation all over it by placing about
one hundred road cones all over it, and the council
is not happy about this. This person has put a
sign it says come get your cones. Each cone has
a QR code attached. You do the QR codey thing.

(01:36:39):
It takes you a website explaining the art. The art
is described as embodying city mismanagement and creative rebirth and
transforming urban neglect into monumental art. And they reckon they've
harvested abandoned traffic cones from various Auckland streets. The irony
of Auckland Council not enjoying oad cones all over the

(01:37:01):
show is not lost on me at all. The installation
the person whoever the website right is obviously giving you
the information. The website said that the art was supposed
to be up for twenty four hours. However, Auckland Council
has confirmed it will be tagging the art installation down.
If only Auckland Council and its various bodies like Auckland
Transport could be this efficient with actually removing road cones

(01:37:24):
from the road, maybe not putting them out in the
first place, I would thoroughly enjoy that very very much.
So anyway to you Auckland Council now Ants has been
sitting on this for like hours. It is not a tautology,
says Ants to say. Overseas countries, No.

Speaker 16 (01:37:40):
It isn't, absolutely not. Why not, Well, because the example
we were using was the Prime Minister's one am in
the morning, right, wow, one am in the morning is
the tautology because in the morning is wasted. One am
is always in the morning. You can't have one am
if it's not in the morning. Yes, but overseas countries
you're talking about all countries other than the one you're
currently in. So countries can be countries without being overseas

(01:38:03):
countries in that at least one country, New Zealand is
not overseas. So if I say overseas countries, it's not
a complete waste.

Speaker 3 (01:38:10):
Okay, So in some instances it will not be a tautology.
But in many instances where for example, let's say that
you're Chris Luxon, you say I was on the phone
with other leaders of overseas countries.

Speaker 16 (01:38:23):
Okay, all right, yes, in that case it is you're right, okay,
in that case it is a.

Speaker 3 (01:38:28):
You should say with other countries of other countries. Also,
do you think that when I mean we can say
other overseas countries? But if they are in Europe, what
do they call other countries? Do they go overseas countries
or do they just go other countries?

Speaker 16 (01:38:41):
Do they even have a word for overseas?

Speaker 3 (01:38:43):
And like this is there a world outside?

Speaker 16 (01:38:46):
Is there an overseas I've genuinely never thought about that before?

Speaker 7 (01:38:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:38:49):
Or Africa?

Speaker 16 (01:38:50):
For example, shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd
to finish the show tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:38:56):
This is a sad one.

Speaker 16 (01:38:57):
Unfortunately, Ronnie Rondell Junior has died. If you're wondering who
that is. This song shine on Your Crazy Diamond was
off the Pink Floyd album Wish You Were Here, and
that one famously has two guys on the front. They're
shaking hands and business suits and one of them is
on fire. Bonnie Rondel Jr. Is the stuntman who was
the guy who was on fire. He did it because
he was a stuntman, so they had like a fire

(01:39:18):
suit on, so he was genuinely set on fire but
had the suit protecting him from all the fire and stuff,
but still burned off his part of his eyebrow and
his mustarch.

Speaker 4 (01:39:27):
So absolutely, and he was in a lot of movies
as well.

Speaker 16 (01:39:30):
Leitha Weapon how the West was one the matrix James Bond.
So I had a long career as well.

Speaker 3 (01:39:35):
Nowadays you just ai that up. A life was hard
on the seventies clearly, but we've just done him out
of John.

Speaker 16 (01:39:41):
Oh yeah, I mean you can do it in about
five seconds now.

Speaker 3 (01:39:43):
Thank you for that. Ants. See these are the things
that bothers ants, things like tautologies. Anyway, this is the
wonder of our team. We have these, we have ants.
Enjoy evening. See tomorrow News took ZB.

Speaker 1 (01:40:15):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive. Listen live to
news Talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.

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