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May 18, 2026 100 mins

On the Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive Full Show Podcast for Monday, 18 May, 2026, former Finance Minister Ruth Richardson on why we can't buy back the BNZ as Winston Peters suggests.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis reveals part of her pre-Budget speech will be on setting a target of reducing the number of public servants to 1% of the workforce.

We talk to chief victims adviser Ruth Money about why removing character references for sex offenders' sentencing is a good thing.

And on The Huddle, Trish Sherson and Josie Pagani discuss whether taking "weed" helps you exercise.

Get the Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive Full Show Podcast every weekday evening on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The only drive show you can try the truck to
ask the questions, get the answers, find a fack and
give the analysis. Heather dupericy Ellen, Drive with One New
Zealand and the Power of Satellite Mobile News Talk ZV.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good afternoon, Welcome to the show. Coming up today, Former
Finance Minister Ruth Richardson on Winston's plan to buy back
the B and Z. Erica Stanford on what that one
hundred and thirty one million dollars will buy for maths
and reading and international experts. International relations expert rather Robert
Patman on whether we should help Ukraine develop drones.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Heather Dupericy Ellen, Oca, here's.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
A question for you.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
If you really like Winston Peter's idea of buying back
the B and Z, here's a question why. What is
the problem that you think will be solved by buying
back the B and Z? Do you think that the
banks are ripping you off because they're owned by the
Aussies and if only one of them was owned by
us again, then they wouldn't rip us off. Go and
have a look at the home loan that Kewibank offer

(01:01):
offers right now. They're basically the same as if not
higher than what the Aussie owned banks are offering. Do
you think that this might help competition, in which case
I'm going to ask you the question, how does taking
B and Z and Keywi Bank and then combining them
into one bank so that you have one fewer bank
out there help competition. Do you think it's going to
stop one point five billion dollars in profit heading over
to Australia and that will make us richer? Yep, your

(01:23):
logic is good on that one. But first we're going
to have to borrow huge amounts to buy the bank
and bay huge amounts of interest. So that'll take about
ten to twenty years before we start seeing those profits
flow into New Zealand rather than into the interest payments
on the debt. And that is at a time when
two credit ratings agencies have warned us that we cannot
keep taking on more debt or they're going to downgrade
us next year, making all of our debt more expensive. Now,

(01:45):
this is not even to mention the fact that we
can't be sure that B and Z will return that
much profit if it's run by the New Zealand government
rather than by private interests. In fact, I would say
the opposite may be true. We can probably take the
view that it will not run as well if we
owned it again, because that is generally what happens with
publicly owned assets. They go the way of the public service.
They get bloated, unproductive, and undisciplined, which may explain why

(02:06):
B and Z collapsed back in nineteen ninety when we
owned it and hasn't repeated that since being in private ownership. Now,
I see this policy as just a classic nostalgia play
by Winston Peters, who knows that there's a voter base
out there who think that life would be really good
if we could just go back to nineteen ninety two.
I suspect this policy will be the first one that's
on the cutting room floor in coalition negotiations. This is

(02:27):
going to be the first thing that Winston Peters let's
go of because it's too expensive and he knows it.
So don't get attached to this policy because I cannot
see this happening.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Heather Doopers the l.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Nineteer six sext understand a text fees applied Barrys, Soapa
is going to talk us through that. Love to hear
what you've got to say about it. I suspect most
people love this idea anyway, onto something else. The National
Party says if it is re elected, it will scrap
good character references for sexual offenders facing sentencing. Now, this
is where a sex offender's families or associates testify about
their good character and then the judge takes those references

(02:59):
and account when they decide on a sentence. Samira to
Garvey from the Law Association told Mike this morning they're
getting rid of these. Reference is not a good idea.

Speaker 5 (03:07):
The government is trying to tell the public that good
character reference makes a massive difference in terms of sentencing.
That's far from the truth. Judges already done put a
lot of emphasis on that good character reference unless they
see it as completely irrelevant.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Ruth Money is the chief victim's advisor and is with us. Hi, Ruth, Hello,
why do we need this.

Speaker 6 (03:30):
Well, because it's a farce. You know, you are a victim.
Someone has been found guilty or has pled guilty to
sexually abusing you. And let's remember that half, almost half
of the sexual violence in New Zealand is perpetrated against
our children. Never the case for any sexual offending. I
can just go to the golf club and get old

(03:50):
mate to write me a character reference which is completely
irrelevant and actually not based on anything that the crown
or the police have told him. Written me as his
mate a letter.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
In case it's just a letter from your golfing buddy,
the judge is going to discount it and that's going
to throw it away.

Speaker 6 (04:09):
Well, you would hope so. But there have been a
number of cases where sexual offenders do get good character
references and get discounts for the good character references. And
what I have been saying in my advice is it's
an oxymoron to have a person of good character rapeer child.

(04:31):
It just it doesn't work.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Okay, give me an example of a discount.

Speaker 6 (04:36):
Well, anything can anything can be applied.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
So what will happen is no, No, give me an example
of where somebody has got a discount that you're aware of.

Speaker 6 (04:44):
Oh, I'm not sure I can name things because there
were suppressions around those cases. But what I can say,
even last week, for example, with the Kerrang Hackey road
case where three people had assaulted a backpacker, there were
good character references. There was about a twenty percent discount given.
Now that wasn't all good character references, but everything was

(05:07):
combined to give that person a twenty percent discount.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
With most people was a portion of the discount because
of good character.

Speaker 6 (05:18):
Yes, I understand that is exactly what happened.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
You understand. Look, I'm pressing you on this ruth because
when I I've called around about this and I can
get no evidence that this is happening, that there are
I can't get, and even talking to you, it's all couched,
and I understand, I can't talk about its suppression. I
have no clear example, and I'd love one. I have
no clear example where a really bad person has done

(05:42):
a very bad thing and then because their mate has
written them a good character reference, they've got a discount.
So are we sure this is happening or are we
just yes, we're making up a policy for something that
isn't a problem.

Speaker 6 (05:56):
No, we are not making an example for it is
a problem for victims and survivors to sit in a
court and hear what a good bloke that person.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Is and it's not that is not a good that's
not a good argument. Give me an example of a
discount that has been applied for good character.

Speaker 6 (06:18):
I'm actually just trying to pull up my readings document.
I'm really sorry, No, that's okay.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Would you like listen rather than making you do this
on air, because it's not fair on you. Would you
would you like to maybe email it through to us
or come back to us later in the show, because
the show obviously goes on until seven o'clock so we
can address it later on.

Speaker 6 (06:36):
Well, I am super happy to do it in a second.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
We while you're doing that, can can you can? I
just ask you this question. If a judge is given
good character right, if a judge has got somebody with
a letter or verbally making a reference, are they obligated
to take it into account or can they choose to
dismiss it?

Speaker 6 (06:57):
Sorry, I'm just trying to find my No, they and
choose to dismiss it, so they're not obligated to consider
what has been presented in front of them. But what
what the process is is there's no due diligence given
for anybody to write those things. So a defense lawyer
or has or her client can procure a good character

(07:20):
reference which can be beat which can yep, and the
judge may or may not consider it.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
Okay, have you found you thinks?

Speaker 6 (07:29):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (07:30):
I have.

Speaker 6 (07:31):
I'm sorry, I'm just been running up and down the stairs.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
I have to go into a different room for this information.

Speaker 6 (07:39):
I really did. I'm sorry. I didn't know that. You
know you wanted my cases. Okay, so here I am.
So Christ churchman convicted sexual offending against a young girl,
maintains his innocent so he this person is Blear Hunt.

(08:01):
Christ is just at court. Jury found him guilty of
eleven charges sexual connection with young person, five and decent
assaults against young people.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Probably a.

Speaker 6 (08:14):
Yes, properly a creep, premeditated grooming. Has Casey described him
a man of good character and offending as a significant

(08:35):
fool from grace. Judge Kevin Phillips rejected the idea of
Hunt's good character, stating he lost it when the offended
first began and did continue three.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
He's a tough old Judge Kevin Phillips, Okay, listen, that's
that's actually not helping your argument. That's that's the opposite
of our's ruth. I'm going to give you a chance, though, because,
as I say, the show is going for another two
hours and three quarters. So come back to us when
you find the examples that that are relevant.

Speaker 6 (09:03):
Here's one here, yeah, here. So Luke Stainton, former youth
leader at a Bapton Baptist church and todoer, convicted of
sexual connection with a fifteen year old girl, who was
sentenced to two years three months imprisonment. During the sentencing,
the judge applied to ten percent discount for his good character.

Speaker 7 (09:22):
Rape.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Isn't it that stat Rape? Isn't it? I mean that's
not Paddy fiddling, isn't it? How old was he? Because
if it's fifteen and seventeen, it starts to get wooly
here and kind of a bit awkward. What's his name again?
I'll google it.

Speaker 6 (09:38):
He's twenty five years old?

Speaker 2 (09:40):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (09:41):
So he appealed the sentence, arguing the discount for good
character should have been higher, citing cases where discounts are
up to twenty five percent have been applied. The appeal
judge agreed with the sentencing's judge approach, but added a
further ten percent due to his age. He was twenty
five years old at the time, therefore was reduced upon appeal.

(10:02):
So we've got even more good character discount upon appeal.
I can listen another one ruth constantly, yet go on
quickly yep, short time, sixty six years old. He's been
sentenced a fifteen year old. Good character was accepted. The
judge stated both men who assaulted that person had amazing references.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Okay, cool, I've got another one herein no no, Ruth's
lord gee nine year old. Okay, I've got to go
to sport. I mean, it sounds terrible to say that,
but Ruth, thank you, Ruth money chief victim's advisor.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Seventeen past four.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
It's the Heather du Bussy allan Drive full show podcast
on iHeartRadio powered by News Talk z.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Be Heather, I like Winston's idea of buying back the
BNZ because it means profit will flow on shore domestically
as opposed to offshore, which is a fair point. But
remember it's going to take probably a couple of decades
and a lot of money to make that happen. In
lots of money, just in the ongoing interest payments we
have on our existing debt.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Sport with Generate for award winning performances, Generate Kiwisavor dot
Co dot NZD.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Jason Pine sports talkhosters with us Piney, Hello, Hello, how
was that magic round?

Speaker 8 (11:11):
Then?

Speaker 9 (11:11):
Unbelievable unbelievable. Yet just got off the plane about an
hour ago with a few a few fairly dusty Warriors fans.
I would say coming back, but man, what a weekend.
If you're a league fan, it needs to be on
your bucket list. Look, I had an idea of what
it might be like before I went over there, but
nothing prepared me for Sunday and the Warriors takeover of

(11:35):
Caxton Street and of sun Corpse Stadium. It was just
absolutely astonishing. And for then the team to go out
there and bounce back from the loss of Tanner Boyd
to put forty on the Broncos in Brisbane where they
haven't won against the Broncos since twenty eighteen astonishing. But
everything wrapped around at the Magic Round experience. They have
absolutely nailed it over their heather. It is one of

(11:58):
the great example of fan connection I have ever seen
in any sport.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
How do you reckon Luke Metcalf is feeling today.

Speaker 9 (12:05):
Well, I think it's probably he needs to get his
boots on. He Look, he'll obviously have to play no
tannor Boyds, so so Luke Metcalf's your your man in
the seven Jersey and look, Heather what if he guides
the Warriors to a Grand Final and goodness me to
a first ever NRL premiership and then he signed with
the Dragons for next year.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
It's going to be hard to go to the sucky
losing team, isn't it.

Speaker 9 (12:30):
Yes, I don't think anybody wants that. So yeah, no,
interesting little dynamic for Andrew Webster to handle now. I
mean Tomati Martin was good yesterday too, so there's another
option there. But yeah, Luke Metcalf, this will be a
very interesting piece of man management for Andrew Webster.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah too, right, it will. Piney listen. Sorry, I've got
to cut you short because we just had a very
long conversation before with somebody else. So worth to go,
Jason Pine and Sports Talk cost. Come back to Luke Metcalf.
I've got some good news for you potentially on that
for twenty two on.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Your smart speaker, on the iHeart app and in your
car on your Drave home. It's Heather Duper c Ellen
drive with one New Zealand had of power of satellite
mobile news talks.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
Be you can't have done much research into character discounts.
Sir James Wallace had eighty nine good character references, which
the judge relied on heavily and sentencing. Thank you rob
lest you had your notes to hand, it was handy. Now,
Luke Metcalff, do you reckon? He regrets as tantrum. I
mean talk about timing. How is that for timing? So
he goes sit sego packs a tantrum, gets permission from

(13:29):
the Warriors to go and have a chat to someone else,
signs a contract on Thursday with the Dragon's crappiest team
in the NRL. Sunday they need him again at the
Warriors because Tana Boyd's gone down anyway. The good news
is so there's a bunch of good news in this.
The good news is Luke Metcalf is obviously with the
Warriors until the end of the year and Tana's out
for the end of the year, so that's covered for now.
Other good news is that Luke Metcalf actually has ten

(13:52):
days to walk back his contract. This, I'm told by
the sports team is standard in all the NRL sports contracts.
So they sign the contract and then they've got ten
ten days to change their mind. Now, if you do
your sums on this, it means he's got onto it
because he signed it, I think on Thursday, which means
he's got on till Sunday to change his mind. The game,
Oh guess who they're playing this weekend as well as

(14:13):
if this doesn't get better, the Dragons. The Dragons that
he's supposed to go to, we're playing on Saturday. We're
gonna play the Dragons on Saturday, and then he can
make this decision by Sunday. Anyway, it doesn't sound like
by the way Andrew Webster made it sound like, it
doesn't sound like Luke Metcalf will be playing this weekend.
But anyway, we'll see how it goes. Might have to.
Isn't it just such a good lesson in not making

(14:34):
rash decisions but sleeping on something for in his case,
maybe a couple of weeks before you actually go and
sign on the dotted line. Anyway, We've got the big
education announcement this afternoon from Erica Stanford in the Prime Minister.
It's one hundred and thirty one million dollars in budget
spending on improving students reading, writing, and maths for primary
and intermediate age kids. It's gonna buy basically thirty six

(14:55):
additional maths intervention teachers a new Times table and division
check at year five hands on matts resources and games
for all zero to year zero to eight classrooms, Maths
hubs for the teachers so they can learn how to
do maths, which is quite a handy idea. Learn how
to do the maths before you teach the maths. New
writing workbooks for years four and five, Digital Writing two
of all years six to eight students and blah blah blah. Anyway,

(15:15):
Erica Stanford's going to be with Imagine the teachers are
going to be the predominant costs there. Talk to her
after five. She's going to be with us, but we
are off to Australia next. And Barry Souper standing by
for politics news talks.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
It'd be.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Easy, hard questions, strong opinion here the dup cell and
drive with one New Zealand tendh of power of satellite
mobile news talks.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
It'd be last sum.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
What is the likelihood of the unions not being happy
with the new maths and literacy money? Quite high, I
would say, wouldn't you? Because I looked at it and
the thought, oh, this looks like more work for the
tea because now you've got new workbooks now you're going
to have to familiarize yourself with the new work books.
Now you've got all this, you've got to go into
your own little hub and learn about the maths. So

(16:09):
I can't see that's going to go down very well.
Birth rate has fallen to an historic low. For the
year to March, we had fifty seven twenty seven live births.
Same time last year it was fifty eight thousan five
hundred and thirty nine, So we are down. People were
down by fifteen hundred and twelve live berths, which means
our fertility rate is now one point five to three
births per women. In last year it was one point

(16:30):
five to eight. So not enough babies. So if you
if you're sitting here going don't like migrants. If you're
like Yep, Winston's right, David's right, Chris Luxon is right,
don't like migrants. You better start having babies because we
need migrants, because I'm not having enough babies. Twenty four
away from five.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
It's the world wires on newstalks, they'd be drive.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Donald Trump says Iran had better get moving fast to
agree to a peace deal. The US and Israel are
reportedly preparing to resume military strikes on Iran. Here's US
Senator Lindsay Graham.

Speaker 10 (17:00):
I think we had a while on deal making.

Speaker 11 (17:02):
I would encourage the person to look at reducing Orion's
military capability even further.

Speaker 12 (17:07):
They've been dramatically weakened, but they're still targets that could
weaken them more.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Who has declared the abola outbreak in Uganda and Congo
a health crisis of international concern? Eighty deaths in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo have been linked to the outbreak.
Here's the Congolese health minister.

Speaker 13 (17:23):
Now we realize the first person fell ill in late
April and died. The body was repatriated to a nearby town.
It was the return of this body to a mining
area with a large population that caused the Abola outbreak
to escalate.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
And finally, the hot new healthy eating trend in the
USA is Biblical eating. Now, this is where you try
and mostly eat foods that are mentioned in the Bible.
As you'd expect, loaves and fishes feature heavily in Biblical diets,
as well as milk and honey.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
International correspondence with Ends and Eye Insurance, Peace of mind
for New Zealand business.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
That's obviously a bible written by a Catholic, by the way,
resident Catholic member of the team, right, Oliver Peterson ABC
Perth Radio Drive presenters with us Ali get ahead. Yeah,
I'm surprised the budget's not going down that well and
you're part of the world with the voters not at all.

Speaker 14 (18:15):
In fact, it's become a really social media sensation.

Speaker 10 (18:18):
Lots of small business owners have been.

Speaker 14 (18:20):
Putting up these AI generated memes with their new silent
business partner Anthony Albanesi taking forty seven percent of their
business and doing sweets bugger all. It's actually quite funny
you see it from anybody running a little cafe, perhaps
a plumbing business or whatever it might be.

Speaker 10 (18:36):
It is popping up everywhere. In the polls today.

Speaker 14 (18:38):
There's if you actually out, there's a news poll, there's
a freshwater pole, there's an Essential pole, and all of
the polls are indicating that this budget has not gone
down particularly well with the Australian public.

Speaker 10 (18:50):
They do vary from pole to pole. For example, the Essential.

Speaker 14 (18:53):
Pole now has Angus Taylor is the preferred Prime Minister
over Anthony Albanesi. But there seems to be a certain
trend that the one nation vote continues to surge if
there were.

Speaker 10 (19:02):
To still be a federal election.

Speaker 14 (19:03):
Hell today though there's not enough to top all the
Albanesi government. But this isn't one of those budgets Heather
that he's going to disappear.

Speaker 10 (19:11):
You know, people get ready in the budget, then move on.

Speaker 14 (19:14):
This budget's going to have a real stench about it
now I think for a good three four weeks. It
kind of reminds me of the Work Choices budget that
Tony Abbott put out there when he was the Prime Minister.
I just would say to continue to watch this space
because business both big and small, and obviously older Australians
who are very influential to their children and potentially their
grandchildren are really starting to arc up. So it's too

(19:35):
early to call it, but watch this space and you
may end up seeing there being some sort of walk
back on this from the Prime Minister rand in the
Albanesi in Jim Charmers or even does the Prime Minister
throw the treasure out of the bus.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Do you really honest? I mean, because they have made
such a big song and dance about what a transformative
budget this is. If they walk that back, that is
massive egg on their face.

Speaker 10 (19:57):
Isn't it?

Speaker 15 (19:58):
Sure is?

Speaker 14 (19:58):
But you already look at the that's just gone the
clearance rates now that there's a lot that goes into this.
Don't get me wrong, I'm looking at it simplistically potentially
at the moment, because we've had interest rates go up,
there's still a lot of uncertainty, but all of a
sudden over the weekend, the clearance rates weren't quite there
for auctions, particularly on the East Coast. There's a lot
of property analysts who also are quite unsure whether the

(20:19):
proposed changes are going to have the desired effect of
actually creating additional properties being for sale for Australians who
can't get into the housing market. So maybe they tried
to bite off too much more than they can chew.
Maybe they should have gone to an election with this
to really start to have that level of analysis, and
I suppose feedback from the Australian people on just how

(20:41):
far they wanted to go. So look, it's really an
interesting mood in Australia at the moments. And when you
just read the tea leaves, I don't think everything is
it might have been written in pencil. Put it that way,
but I don't think the ink has dried yet or
it's been covered over.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
With pen interesting. Okay, now listen, is it possible that
tobacco taxes may actually go down?

Speaker 10 (21:01):
Well I doubt it, but it is being flagged.

Speaker 14 (21:04):
So look, a packet of cigarettes in Australia it's just
over few What's a pack of cigarettes in New Zealand
it's about fifty bucks?

Speaker 2 (21:09):
Here for this idea, I've no one.

Speaker 14 (21:11):
Look I don't either, but the black market's taken over,
like as simple as that.

Speaker 10 (21:15):
In fact, some of the things.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
He's going on in your part of the world though,
with the fire bombings and stuff.

Speaker 14 (21:19):
Correct, it's huge and if you like, the war on
illegal tobacco has been lost. And there are even some
of the you know, the big multi national cigarette companies
who are now starting to say that they're not going
to even sell cigarettes through our major supermarket chains because
it's not worth it. You can go to an almost
any convenience store anywhere in any city in Australia and

(21:41):
you can you can buy the black market cigarettes by
giving the nod nod, wink wink or you know, you know,
the secret handshake.

Speaker 10 (21:46):
Whatever it is.

Speaker 14 (21:47):
And so the legal packet's there for fifty five dollars.
The illegal packet's there for about twenty dollars. What are
you going to buy the twenty dollars packet because you
can't tell the difference either.

Speaker 10 (21:55):
Et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 14 (21:56):
Now there is talk about reducing the tobacco excise, which
would bring the legal packeted cigarettes down to thirty dollars. Again,
no header, if there's a thirty dollars and a twenty
dollar packet, it's still going to go over the twenty
dollar packet.

Speaker 10 (22:07):
So it's a lose lose situation.

Speaker 14 (22:09):
But as you say, organized crimes in the thick of this,
the fire bombings that are happening in Melbourne in particular,
and the Australian Federal Police has simply just said, basically,
there's not much more we can do.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
I had a look on online for you to answer
your question. Benson and Hedges Classic reds twenties forty nine
dollars fifty all right, so.

Speaker 10 (22:26):
About the same price. Crazy there are there about it.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
That's like two hours work on the minimum wage. It's nuts. Hey,
thank you, Ollie, appreciate it. That's Oliver Peterson ABC, Perth
Radio Drive presenter eighteen away from.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
Five here the duplessy Allen.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
Now, if you were listening on Friday, you will have
heard we finally had tape face on. We just thought
we can't hold this back anymore. Let's get him on.
By the way, he calls himself Bennie the tape Face,
as in benedict ONNG. That is his nickname for himself,
Bennie the tape Face. I know this because he's gone
on the Facebook and he's written he's written what I
would call a dissertation on our exchange on Friday. He's

(23:02):
finally spilled because remember I got bored. I was like,
I'm not going to sit here, and it's like Ruth Money,
except Ruth actually just finally got the information out. Benny
wouldn't tell us what the information was. I was bored
of this, so bye bye bye to you. So anyway,
he went away and took some legal advice and maybe
had a bit of a m bit of a think
about it, and so he hit there. He spilled the
tea on Facie. This is what he's written. I was

(23:22):
on the cusp of being declared a warrior for our
great city of Dunedin by my favorite broadcasting media personality,
Miss here the Duplacy Allen, and so I recognize I
cannot disappoint her link to the interview blah blah blah
blah blah. So therefore, following too mentioned and inquired, I'm
just reading it for batim. I don't know what it means.
Following to mention and inquired on in the above radio

(23:45):
and podcast interview with Miss Duplasicy Allen, the legal action
against our Dunedin City Council from the alleged conduct of
our council CEO Sandy Graham was by colon former council
Deputy CEO Miss Lee and Mash, whose deputy CEO role
was restructured last year. The legal action was disclosed to
all elected members at a non public meeting on twenty
eight January twenty six. Anyway, he then goes on to

(24:07):
say they were made to sign confidentiality agreements and he
didn't sign it, and so he's even be told after
the fact that the legal thing has been settled and
he wants to now know how much for well, that
is I'm sorry that is what we wanted.

Speaker 16 (24:20):
To know too.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
I mean it could be five dollars in which case,
Why are we wasting all this Facebook time on it
and good radio time talking about this non event? Anyway,
Now you can imagine the consequences if I had permanently
disappointed missus duplisy Allen instead of only temporarily disappointing her.
You assume too much, Bennie the tapeface. I remain disappointed. Instead,
next week ends in me staff, we'll look at the

(24:43):
interview podcast, downloads, page and visits and say whoa, And
then they will call miss Allen. I think that's me.
That's only half my sooner but anyway and say, hey,
you're Benny the tapeface didn't disappoint Here's the true warrior
after all. He, by the way, has been suspended today
from all comittees and subcommittees. So remain disappointed. We need

(25:03):
the figures, please, Benedict.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Quarter two Politics with centrics Credit, check your customers and
get payments.

Speaker 3 (25:09):
Certainday.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Erica Stanford, Education Minister with us after five it's thirteen
away from five and Barry Soapers with us Alo, Barry.

Speaker 17 (25:15):
Good afternoon, Heather.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
All right, So Erica Stanford, would you make of it?

Speaker 17 (25:18):
She's such an enthusiast, isn't she that? Particularly about education.
She clearly loves the portfolio, and you'd have to say
it's done pretty well in it as well. These statistics
over the past two years have changed quite considerably, and
she was asked today whether the teachers would be feeling

(25:41):
overloaded with this new series of packages that she's announced,
one hundred and thirty one million dollars worth, and she's well,
the ideas essentially came from the teachers themselves. They're not compulsory.
They don't have to do it. So if you get
the trade union whinging about teachers being overloaded, the teachers
don't have to carry out these changes. But for the

(26:02):
betterment of their children, if they are genuine teachers, that's
exactly what they will do, and not being compulsory. To
that end, Stamford paid tribute to those at the school
front line.

Speaker 18 (26:15):
At least eighty five percent of teachers have changed their
teaching practice and literacy and maths. That is an enormous
achievement in a very short space of time. So all
of the teachers and the principles out there have worked
so hard to implement these changes. Your professionalism and your
dedication to your students is reflected in these early results.
We did not expect to see results like these so early,

(26:37):
and it is one hundred percent because of the work
that you have done in the classrooms.

Speaker 6 (26:42):
Of that, we thank you.

Speaker 17 (26:43):
See that's quite entast enthusiastic. I mean, it's interesting when
I was thinking about the importance that education has played
with some governments. I remember the back to David Longi.
He appointed himself Minister of Education and Prime minister he was,
of course, you know, he brought in Tomorrow's schools. They
lasted for quite a while, but in the end they

(27:05):
sort of faded. But tomorrow Schools, it's still their concept.
Their concept is exactly the same. It's not quite what
it was that when David Longi.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
Bought it in.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Do you like Winston Hanker for nineteen ninety two, when
we still owned the v n ZAD Do you think
all of those were the good old days?

Speaker 17 (27:21):
They were, well, of course they were the good old days.
You know, there was the financial boom of the eighties,
the rogenomics period, and essentially though when the B and
Z was involved in that financial issue, and during the nineties,

(27:42):
particularly after nineteen eighty seven, they were making bad loans
and you know, Peters of course, is essentially just doing
what he does best, filling town halls, largely preaching to converted.
But the sermon from the pulpit yesterday didn't wash with
the Prime Minister, who was adamant it just simply won't happen.

Speaker 12 (28:05):
I just wanted to think about the proposal on the table,
which is a proposal to go by a private company
for a minimum of at least thirty billion dollars, of
which would mean that we would go into the market
and borrow more money at a time when New Zealand
has doubled its borrowing as a percentage of the economy.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
Thank you to labor.

Speaker 12 (28:24):
You know this in many ways as a labor nationalization policy.
If you think about it, that's what's been proposed. So
I'm just saying to you it isn't going to happen.
It makes no sense.

Speaker 17 (28:31):
So there you go. That's off the table as far
as he's concerned. It's interesting, isn't it.

Speaker 4 (28:36):
Though.

Speaker 17 (28:36):
The Kiwi Bank that was brought in after the bn
Z was sold to the National Bank of Australia for
this very reason that New Zealanders wanted there. The funds
from the bank will remain in this country and that
was old Jim Andersen's idea. It was implemented by Michael
Cullen who was gregg drag kicking and screaming through the

(28:57):
front door. He didn't like the idea. But bank is
growing quite considerably now and obviously looks as though it's
going to get more capitalization. But look the B and Z.
You remember, it's interesting when Winston says they want to
buy it back, because in that ninety ninety election leading
up to it, Jim Boulder said there'll be no if

(29:18):
no but snow maybe he's superannuation surtax introduced by the
lave of government. It'll go well. When they looked at
the box of the B and Z it was three
hundred and eighty million dollars. They had to cough up
for that, and after several more interventions they got up
to a billion dollars. So that's what happens when you've
got a bank. Maybe it was controlled by the government.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yes, because it's government. Nothing that the government runs runs
as well as when it's violently run.

Speaker 17 (29:45):
Well, we've seen that happen. We although Kiwi Bank is
doing you know, better than certainly what the B and
Z was doing, at one point, Qewe Bank is tiny,
tiny compared to the B and Z. I remember being
very disappointed when it was sol done. It was the
people's bank, and people were proud of the Bank of
New Zealand. So there's a lot of nostalgia there with

(30:07):
the Bank of New Zealand. But you know, it just
went by the wayside. Airs did a lot during that time.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
And now it's been run really well and it's doing that. Barry,
thank you very much appreciated. Barry Sober, Senior political correspondent,
And we are obviously going to talk about this in
the program. We've got Ruth Richardson with us just after
five on exactly the subject. At away from five.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
Here yourself think it's the mic Hosking Breakfast.

Speaker 11 (30:31):
To Zealand first promised one thousand dollars for each baby
born to put into a Kiwi saber as well as
buying back the B and Z.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
How much is a bank cost, Well, if you.

Speaker 4 (30:39):
Look at the expert announcements over the last few years,
it's can be a range between seven and a half, two.

Speaker 13 (30:44):
And twelve and maybe fifteen, but possibly much less than that.

Speaker 11 (30:48):
It doesn't address the hero and now the here and
now is the bank is not for sale.

Speaker 13 (30:52):
Well, the here and now the bank will be for
sale because we tell you on Telli NAB and one
our bank back and we're peared to take what reasonable
about it.

Speaker 11 (30:59):
Now that the NAB is going to tell you to
get stuffed. They're not interested. It's a profitable bank, then
don't want to sell you the bank. It's not for
sale back Tomorrow at six am the Mic Hosking Breakfast
with a Vida News Talk ZB.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
Tell you what The politics in the UK is getting
even more interesting, if that's possible. Andy Burnham, who's one
of the guys who's being is bassically basically getting rushed
into the House of Commons in order to be able
to take over from Keir Starmer. He had originally said
that he was going to campaign on reversing Brixit. He
has now changed his mind, apparently according to the Telegraph,
and he's retreating from that position so he doesn't want
to rejoin the EU anyway. We're going to have Gavn

(31:32):
Gray with us as per usual, in about a couple
of hours time. He'll talk us through it. We're an
article in the New York Times suggesting that there is
a growing group of people out there who are using
cannabis before they do any exercise, which is counterintuitive because
it's supposed to be a bit like mong on cannabis, right,
But apparently what they're doing is it's for some people
it gives them energy, which probably suggests, I don't know,

(31:56):
what is that, ADHD, what is That's? That's odd, isn't it.
It also for some people reduces their anxiety, which maybe
about being in a class people looking at you. I
don't know. And for some people it obviously it gets
rid of the chronic pain that's preventing them from exercising.
Dave Lettale, who runs Butterbean Motivation, is going to be
with us in twenty minutes time, see if this is

(32:17):
a thing hither As an accountant, I cannot understand Winston
Peter's desire to buy the B and Z. Why doesn't
the government simply add more capital, borrow another five billion dollars,
put it in KEII Bank, and make it work properly,
rather than the good will to have paying goodwill to
a foreign company. Bruce, you raise a really good point.
It's because I think what Winston's doing is the classic
fudging the numbers stuff, so he reckons the Benz's only

(32:38):
worth seven and a half billion and other people, and
of course the Prime Minister is over inflating it. He's
got thirty billion. I mean, I think it's probably judging
by what people are neutral commentators are putting it somewhere
between sort like thirteen and twenty. But that's because so
basically to answer your question, five billion dollars to make
Keiwi bank bagger or seven and a half billion dollars

(32:59):
to buy our whole bank. You can see how he
gets there anyway. Ruth Richardson on that next news talk zbay.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
How aren't you I need you Olga hi.

Speaker 19 (33:12):
Need?

Speaker 3 (33:14):
It's beautiful, says it.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
Oh, the only drive show you can trust to ask
the questions, get the answers, find the fat and give
the analysis. Here the duplicy Ellen Drive with One New
Zealand and the Power of satellite Mobile News Talks V.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Afternoon. Winston Peter's proposal to buy back the B and
Z has certainly divided opinion. Our text machine is loving it,
but commentators in the National Party are not. Nikola Willis
has called it extremely reckless. Claire Matthews from Massy University's
Business School says Winston's dreaming, and Brad Olson says the
announcement was headline grabbing. The former finance minister and current
chair of the Taxpayer's Union, Ruth Richardson is with us.

Speaker 20 (33:57):
Hi, Ruth, well, hi and very to talk to you
on this subject.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, I'm not sure that you would love this, do you.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
Well?

Speaker 20 (34:06):
It's vintage Winston because when it comes to economic matters,
he's typically angry, he's simplistic, and he's wrong. I mean,
he's harbored decades of hate for the B and Z.
It's fair to say he's probably got a B and
Z obsession. Now he reaches for a policy that's reminiscent
of a Soviet era. You know, he's going to nationalize.
His plan is to nationalize the bank. I mean that's

(34:27):
bound to end in tears. We came close to bankruptcy
on the back of the B and z's poor management
when I was in charge, and now Winston's ruinous policy
threatens to do the same again.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
What is your primary problem with the buyback of the
B and Z. Is it the fact that we would
have to take on enormous debt when we can't or
is it the fact that we haven't got a good
history of ourselves as a country running the b Z.

Speaker 20 (34:53):
Well, both a, we don't have the means to do it.
But there are two reasons in addition to that. First,
it is a policy that is inherently bankrupt itself. The
idea that the crown could run a bank which has
got great risk it is not borne out by the evidence.

(35:14):
But the second thing that worries me most is the
blow to our reputation. I mean, it makes New Zealand
look like a tin pot country where populist politicians feel
free to nationalize private businesses. And yeah, I kind of say,
well why stop at banks? I mean supermarkets will worth
foreign owned and the sector could do with more competition
or energy contact, energy land and international investors.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
But you're running through his policy manifesto right. He's planning
to break up the supermarkets. He is planning to renationalize
a couple of the gent tailors, if not all of them.

Speaker 20 (35:46):
As I say, he's got a fixation with Soviet style policies.
And as we found with the bn Z and Ares,
the Soviets found they failed policies and they're bound to
end in tears what do you what do you.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Think would happen if Winston actually went through with all
of his policies in the manifesto, And there's no history
that he would nes like he doesn't do it, so
he's probably not gonna. But if he broke up a
supermarket chain, if he renationalized some gen Taylor's, if he
brought back B and Z, what would that do? Do
you think to offshore investors regard for New Zealand, I.

Speaker 20 (36:16):
Think they run a mile and those that are lending
to us would exact a ruinous level of interest rates
to pay for the privilege of using their money in
a country that was completely mismanaged. It's a real irony,
isn't it. You know his is unsound on economics as
he is sound and foreign policy. I mean, I wish

(36:38):
he'd be sound in both, but he's not.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Ruth, thank you very much, appreciate it. Ruth Richardson, former
Finance Minister. By the way, it's been pointed out that
it might actually breach Buying the B and Z against
the NAB's wishes might actually breach the closer economic agreement
that we have, closer economic relations agreement that we have
CEO with Australia. Neither party this is Article fourteen. Neither
party makes appropriate or national as a covered investment, either

(37:01):
directly or indirectly through measures equivalent to expropriation or nationalization,
except A for a public purpose, B in a non
discriminatory manner. Seempt on payment of prompt, adequate and effective compensation.
Probably some regal words there, but may actually be breaching
at five to eleven.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
Together do for Sea Allen.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Right to the education announcement, the government has announced it's
going to spend one hundred and thirty one million dollars
on improving students reading, writing and maths. It's made the
pre budget announcement as part of what it calls generational
reforms and primary and intermediate education. And the Education Minister,
Erica Stanford is with us Erica Hello, Hello. So is
this basically buying teachers and textbooks?

Speaker 10 (37:38):
Not at all.

Speaker 21 (37:39):
This is phase two of teaching the basics brilliantly. You
will remember the curriculum reform, all of the structured literacy resources,
the million maths books that went into the hands of
young people. This is phase two of that. We told
parents and we told teachers we would continue to invest
every year in more professional learning and development for teachers,

(38:00):
but teaching practices, more classroom resources like hands on math
kits and tactile resources for young people. More tutoring programs
to catch up. So if you've got a child in
year nine or ten and they're behind in mathematics, there
will be now a tutoring program to help them catch
up to where they need to be. This is all
about doubling down on our efforts to make sure that

(38:21):
more young people are at curriculum.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Do you think the teachers are going to thank you
for this, because there is the chance that they look
at this and go, oh, look, it's extra workload. We
have to learn these textbooks, we have to do extra training,
and they already reckon they work too hard.

Speaker 21 (38:37):
I hope that parents and students will thank me. I've
already had messages from Principles have responded to the email
that I set out saying, you know, thank you for
the investment. They're really excited about it. But in the end,
my focus is on parents and children and raising achievement.
And parents can feel confident that no matter where their
child is at school, it doesn't matter. It's the same curriculum,

(38:59):
the same teaching, expert teaching practices, the same resources and
the same results, and that's what matters to me.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
Listen, Erica on another subject, to see there's a headline
that less than half of the five year old's past
new phonics tests after their first year of a full
year of schooling last year. What's that about.

Speaker 21 (39:15):
Well, welcome to sunlight on our problem. You know, this
would have been in the shadows before, but now we
know the scale of the problem, which is why I
put forward today our Read to Succeed Reading Action plan
to invest more in this area. And isn't it great
that we're all talking about Are the execution kids to read?

Speaker 3 (39:34):
Are they?

Speaker 2 (39:34):
Are these the kids who have done the phonics lessons
that they're supposed to be doing or haven't.

Speaker 21 (39:39):
That some of them will have depending on when they
started they had. They may have had some of their
education doing phonics and some not. It just depends on
when they started school. But this is our baseline either,
this is the baseline. This is where we're at now.
We've just got a push to go further and harder.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
Brilliant, Hey, thank you very much, Eric, I appreciated Erica
Stanford Education Minister ever dupless if you haven't got your
tickets to the Grand Final this weekend for Auckland Football Club,
I don't like your chances. You may have to go
black market. You may have to beg borrow and steal.
Don't steal. You may have to beg and borrow because

(40:16):
unfortunately you can't get on the website. So if you
try to get on the website now to buy some tickets,
it's going to chuck you off and say there's an error.
There is no official statement yet from the club to
say that they're sold out, but it's starting to look
like this, maybe a bit like it's choker. They're busy
selling the last of the tickets by the looks of things.
And this is remarkable because we've been watching this since
about twenty eight past four. The tickets went on sale.

(40:36):
At four twenty eight past four. One of the sports
boys walked and said, or it looks like they sold out.
Oh no, it looks like the sold out and he
reckons that he had had kind of that vibe ten
minutes earlier, so eighteen past four, so it's sold out
like that by the looks of things. Anyway, stand by
worth giving it a go. If you could just get
on and maybe get one, but yeah, otherwise I think
you're out of luck. Right, let's talk about people doing

(40:59):
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(42:00):
Hever do whether I have an eight year old son
and a six year old daughter equally good smart kids.
My son did the old curriculum and we were so
impressed with how quickly he learned to read. But both
have been blown away with our daughter's results from structured literacy.
It's truly incredible. Told you knew it. That's from Craig
eighteen past five. Now, as I was telling you earlier.
If you believe the New York Times, there is a

(42:20):
group of people out there turning to marijuana to help
them exercise in pot friendly states in the US, the
gym go is are reporting that they're using small amounts
of cannabis ahead of their workouts for energy, anxiety and
pain relief. Dave Letelli, as the founder of Butterbean Motivation,
is with us. Hi, Dave, Hey, how's it going good? Mate?
Are people doing this here?

Speaker 4 (42:41):
When ants rang me about this, I couldn't believe it.
And you know, normally in our health programs we're trying
to get people off drugs. So I phoned a friend
to find out about this, because I mean, the last
time I use weed, I didn't want to leave the house.
I was so paranoid twenty odd years ago. I just
can't I couldn't imagine. I surely this is lies. Maybe
it's I mean, there's a lot of money being made

(43:02):
off the medicine or marijuana these days. Maybe it's then.
But anyway, I found a friend, an expert who's currently
in recovery, and I said, bro, surely, surely this is
not a thing, as Dave, this is a thing. Last
time we took some gummies. Apparently it's the gummies. I
took some gummies at six thirty pm at boxing training,
and the next thing you know, it's ten pm. We're

(43:23):
still going so wow, Okay, he goes, don't ask me
what we've done. But we trained for those hours. Okay,
So apparently it's a thing.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
Who knew? Apparently I was.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Going to say to you, maybe if they kind of
just dose, like maybe you did too much and so
you moned out and got all weirded out and didn't
want to leave the house, and maybe if you just
do a little bit it helps you to get through.
But gummies. I don't imagine gummies give you a little
bit they sound like especially four hours later, that sounds
like a hell of a dose that he took.

Speaker 4 (43:52):
Yeah, apparently it's the gummies where you get the if
they He had some name for it, but I couldn't
quite remember. Maybe we're all doing it wrong.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
Da.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
This doesn't seem like a good strategy though, because you're
going to go, you go boxing for four hours, you
wiped out for the rest of the week.

Speaker 4 (44:05):
Yeah, I mean it, it is. It sounds ridiculous to me,
and I mean meth myth has its benefits too, until
you lose everything you own.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:13):
Yeah, so it's a down a slippery road, I think wild.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
Okay, so what would you say to somebody who was like,
you know what, I've got sore knees. I'm just gonna
I'm just gonna have a little, a little smoke on
the blunt well head.

Speaker 4 (44:25):
I've had nine kny operations and you just do what
you can, you know. It's I had a boxing match
on the weekend. Don't ask me why I came out
of a time, but I had a boxing match to
raise some funds for charity.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
Did you win and one.

Speaker 4 (44:37):
My knee popped out last Sunday and went back in
on Monday, and I managed to get through the fight.
And you know that was with no just just a
couple of old tar and got me through.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
Check you out, Okay, thank you, I appreciate it. Dave
Dave Lttelli, Butterbean Motivation Founder. It did occur to me
halfway through that chat with Butterbean that it is quite
wild that we're talking about blunts and exercise on the
biggest drive show in the country. But anyway that happened,
it's not a good idea. Five to twenty one, the.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
Day's newspakers talk to Heather First, Heather dupic Ellen, Drive
with One New Zealand and the Power of Satellite Mobile.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
New Stork said, me got the huddle standing by going
to be with a Shortley, Tris Sharson and Joseph Bigani.
When I say shortly, I do, of course mean fifteen minutes.
It's twenty four past five. Now sex offenders now, I
don't like a sex offender, and so, like you, I'm
pleased to see they're not going to be able to
use all of their philanthropy and good connections and mates
at the golf club writing nice letters to get a

(45:34):
sentencing discount if the nets get reelected, and ban those
good character discounts. But and this is a big butt.
I am worried about this policy at the same time
as kind of liking it, because this feels to me
like a classic example of fixing a small thing when
there is a much bigger problem that actually really does
need to be fixed. The problem is not judges giving
sex offenders discount for good character. The problem is judges

(45:57):
giving everyone discount for anything, and lots of discounts. I mean,
we've had examples of rapists given discounts of up to
seventy five percent. We've had discounts asked for by the
defense of I think also of a rapist of up
to one hundred and ten percent one hundred and ten percent,
so they're asking for a discount that actually exceeds the
actual maximum sentence. There is something going on with judges

(46:18):
where I feel like they've lost their bearings on the
gravity of the stuff that they're dealing with every day.
Maybe they see too much of it, Maybe they're desensitized
to what it is that they have in front of them.
To you and I, the concept of a rape is
horrific and frightening and should be punished to the maximum
possible degree. But to judges it feels like it's another day,

(46:39):
another dollar, another massive discount. Already, the nets have tried
to put the brakes on this stuff by capping sentencing
discounts at forty percent, and now this is another attempt
to tie the hands of judges. But at what point
do we stop trying to tie the hands of judges
and instead just go to the judges, front them up,
and demand that they better reflect what we consider to
be reasonable sentences as a society. I also, actually, by

(47:01):
the way, have some concerns that scrapping good character discounts
altogether will be bad for our edge cases, for people
who are not out and out creeps but get caught
in an awkward place, like a statutory rape. She's fifteen,
he's seventeen. It's kids making mistakes. An historic case where
he says it was consensual, so he says it wasn't
it happened forty years ago. It's the only blemish in
a good life. Banning good character is going to catch

(47:22):
out on the edge cases. Very few cases, but it's
going to catch out some otherwise good people in a
bid to tie the hands of soft judges. Maybe we
should just be dealing with those soft judges.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Would Heather do for sea ol So read a couple.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Of things over the weekend about the public service that
I feel like I need to draw to your attention.
Damian GROANNT, who obviously writes a wonderful column First Stuff,
has written a piece about Craig Stomo stowbo sorry, resigning
from the FMA. It's towards the end where he gets
the public service, which is really interesting. He says, it
is time we confronted the reality that our public service
is neither politically neutral nor readily controllable by those that

(47:56):
we elect. One major complaint of ministers in the current
is the obstruction of the civil service. If they are
returned to office, restructuring the deep state must be a priority.
And then so that's here in New Zealand. Then I
get sent this article by somebody who I know. Former
cabinet minister sends me an article from the BBC is
it harder than ever to be prime minister? And it

(48:17):
gets to this point, if prime ministers arrive at number
ten Downing Street with less experience than in the past.
Some MPs say the civil service is failing to support
their prime ministers adequately, claiming that Whitehall can be obstructive.
Every government seems to come in and this is quoting
Baron as Cavendish, former head of David Cameron's Policy Unit.
Every government seems to come in and is astonished that

(48:37):
things are so difficult to do. Many labor ministers have
said to me that they might actually agree with what
Dominic Cummings, former Boris Johnson adviser said about parts of
the civil service needing reform, and they talk about the
fact that asking the civil service to do anything takes
far longer than it should do, pulling that lever just
never actually get things done, and the civil service kind
of privately admits in some cases that they actually opt

(49:00):
try to obstruct what a government is trying to do. Anyway,
it begs the question, if this is happening in the UK,
if it is clearly happening in New Zealand, is it
actually time for us to have a look. In his mind,
the judges have a look at the civil service and
reform them as well. Nikola Willis is with us after six.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
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 the power of satellite
mobile news talks.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
That'd be.

Speaker 8 (49:37):
A Heather.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
I remember when Erica stand Because was getting into her
education portfolio stride. We knew a young fellow cat at
the ministry. I think that's a fellow at the ministry.
But I liked fellow cat anyway, a young fellow cat
at the ministry who said things that she was doing
would never happen. I'm so glad Erica won that trial
of strength. What did I just say about the public servants?
They try to obstruct the stuff, don't they. Anyway, the

(49:59):
huddle's going to be with shortly. We've got Tritius and
Joe Spagani this evening right now. It's twenty four away
from six now. There is a thing called rain anxiety
and it's on the rise in New Zealand. It's the
fear that every downpour could bring flooding or a landslipe
that threatens you home. And iig survey, iag aig, oh lord,
IAG get it right. Found seventy three percent of people

(50:19):
in the Hawks, they feel anxious about the weather. Fifty
seven percent of us feel like this nationwide. And Professor
Holly Thorpe is the Associate Dean of Health at the
University of Waitituckle Whitekatle who's been looking into this high Holly,
good evening. Well, I've got my letters all around today.
I don't know what's going wrong now Listen why people
feel like this? Have they got trauma from past experiences
or something.

Speaker 8 (50:40):
That's what we've found in our research in the Hawk's
Bay and tight Arthitech, Gisborne. We did this big study
after Cyclone Gabrielle and repeated weather events in Gisborne, and
we found that people who had experienced these very traumatic
rain events and sometimes multiple events in a row. Yeah,
they were really what's impacting their mental health? The rain, anxiety,

(51:01):
the stress, the worry, the new kinds of experiences of
vulnerability were affecting people across the community.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
And is this if they had like are they still
in the same place that had been flooded, had they
moved house or you know, had they changed their circumstances.

Speaker 8 (51:18):
Yeah, it was really interesting. It wasn't have a whole
spectrum of experiences here and everyone that we spoke to
the one hundred and forty three people that we spoke
to across the regions were experiencing rain anxiety. Obviously, those
people who had had their houses demolished had been involved
in the recovery efforts, very stressful, very traumatic, you know,

(51:38):
forms of PTSD going on, and their experiences were very
long lasting months and months afterwards and sometimes years. But
even people who didn't wasn't directly impacting their homes, people
who were cut off from roads, who'd had the kind
of the job and securities just you know, worries about

(51:58):
their home and the future. So everyone across the community
was experiencing these effects across a whole spectrum though.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
And it affects the kids then as well, doesn't it.

Speaker 8 (52:10):
It affects the kids absolutely. So we heard from parents
who their kids jump in the bed at night when
it starts raining heavily because they've had these experiences. They've
seen their grandparents's homes destroyed, or they've had their own evacuations,
or they've seen the stress and the home that it brings.
When the powers cut out, when the tally communications are
cut out, when the roads are cut off for weeks.

(52:32):
It's absolutely impacting across our communities and our kids too.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Hey, thank you, Holly, really appreciated Professor Hollythorpe, who's the
Associate Dean of Health at the University of White Cuttle
It's twenty one away from.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
Six the Huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty, a
name you can trust locally and globally.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
All of us. This evening we have Trish Sharson of
Sheerson Willis PR and Josephgani Child Fund Chief Executive. High ladies.
Hello now, because you are the one working the buttons, Trish,
I see you being a little head girl reaching over
there and help Josie with her button.

Speaker 22 (53:01):
Which is the boss that's helping out a mate?

Speaker 2 (53:03):
Yeah, to go first?

Speaker 22 (53:04):
Who knew you had to turn the microphone on?

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Do you know I've been doing it for you this
whole time? No, this whole time, I've just been she'd
been managing herself. But I've just been like, I.

Speaker 22 (53:12):
Get paid to turn the button on, just get paid
to talk. Technically nine, doesn't it where it's right? We're
all about personal responsibility. Turn your own micon Division of labor.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Okay, you go first, Trish ban Z do you want
it back.

Speaker 6 (53:27):
Absolutely not.

Speaker 22 (53:29):
I mean, if I just think New Zealanders be warned
we are entering the year of silly Sundays that every
Sunday from one political party or another to varying direct grease,
there will be nutso stuff coming out. But you know,
putting all that aside, I think that there was something

(53:49):
that happened last week that I think is important for
the election campaign. Three leaders Hipkins, Luxon, and Peters all
came to Auckland, the election battleground, and tried to stake
out the fighting ground for the election. Luxeon gave what
people have said is the best speech of his career
so far, and I would agree with that. Hipkins gave

(54:13):
a speech and I think it sounded like he was
either reading meeting agenda notes or he is waiting for
the calendar invite for the.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
Election to start.

Speaker 22 (54:23):
Peters got up on Sunday and he did the three
things that the others didn't do. One is he had
a villain, a symbol, and a fight. So the villain
is the Aussie banks, the symbol is the Bend's ed
and the fight is for economic sovereignty. And he's appealing
to those new Zealanders who think that they have lost

(54:44):
control of the country and Winston is the only one
to get it back. Now. It is absolutely nuts policy,
and I would say to anyone who thinks that's a
great idea, just look at how politicians have been unable
to manage and run properly the things they are responsible for,
i e. Police, education, health, welfare, look at any of

(55:06):
the big things.

Speaker 6 (55:07):
It's a shamble.

Speaker 22 (55:08):
The idea now that because politicians can't fix those tough issues,
they are going after private sector businesses is absolutely crazy. Well,
said Josie well So, one of the things I think
politically that they did wrong at the weekend Winston Peters
in New Zealand. First was they buried what would be
a really popular policy that actually probably all of us

(55:30):
would agree on, which is to give one thousand dollars
key we savor to every child at birth, you know,
to invest in savings. That's something that you know, actually
we probably will be talking about that, whereas now we're
talking about this controversial issue of do we buy back
And said one thing I would say, I heard Barry
talking to you, Heather and saying, you know, should never
have been, should never have been you know, it was

(55:52):
a last we made a terrible mess of it, had
to sell it. Well, I don't think it should ever
have been sold.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
We sold it.

Speaker 22 (56:00):
They actually paid back that debt and not only did
they pay it back, they paid back fifteen percent interest
on it too, So that doesn't get told. So it
wasn't a complete basket case Trish. And also the key
point I would make why I don't think we should
buy it back. I mean a it's not for sales,
so it's like me saying I want to buy sky City.
It's not for sale. But also we have a bank,

(56:22):
we have Kiwi Bank, and you know, actually that's done
really well. That's something where as a as a as
a publicly owned bank initially, and I was there at
the very beginning, and this will appare you all, but
one name we thought of for Kiwibank was the People's Bank,
so that you would hate that.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
That were you going to have a sickle?

Speaker 22 (56:41):
I was going to say, Ruth Richardson, who appears to
be HARKing back to the dancing costacks.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
Going to be sort of like a really nice bright red.

Speaker 22 (56:48):
It's going we read, and you'd have to join the
party to have a bank account there. But yeah, no,
so it's Kiwi Bank. But I think, you know, to
several things a bank could do. I mean they are
putting some more capital into it. They could you know,
go put some government funds and use use the government
bank with set of billion dollars.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
Let's say you put ten billion dollars into Kiwibank. It
would have such a massive impact as opposed to what
twenty twenty billion dollars to buy back.

Speaker 22 (57:15):
Forty billion dollars or the other thing. That's finally, the
other thing I say is that there's a real gap
there for Kiwibank to own being the sort of infrastructure
bank of New Zealand. Yeah, the government put money into
all the Regional Bank of New Zealand. So we've got
a bank. We call it Guinee Bank. Let's just make
that really really work. It's already working really well. It's
one thing the government's done that does work. Element or
let's stop. I mean, when this has been in politics

(57:38):
for a very very very long time, and this is
not an ageous comment, but let's stop pretending that the
same old solutions from the past are going to work
into the future. There are businesses out there now working globally,
and I'm talking about the likes of the neo banks
who they will once they come into New Zealand and
they get a foothold, they are going to deliver competition

(57:58):
on a scale.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
It feels like thirty years ago.

Speaker 22 (58:01):
Policy can one thing just a minute, No, that has
never been before. But to pack up on Josie's point,
this is what Winston does. He doesn't care that, you know,
the big, chunky policies aren't be debated. He cares that
he has now had twenty four hours of talkback with
his name up in lights. That's what he's doing with

(58:22):
these announcements. Let me just say on the Key We
Saver point, because Heather knows I am deeply passionate about
this and have been supporting the work of Fraser winneray
on Kee, we save two point zero. The difference here
is again, this is a party that's just picked up
a headline. Oh it's the it's the Key We Saver
from birth. What we need with Key we Savor, which

(58:42):
Fraser has set up the whole apprehensive policy that's thought
through and that has wide support, which it does so quickly.
I want to say, because I heard Ruth Richardson talking
about this and saying, oh, this is Winston being Soviet,
as if he's some kind of communist, and it was
kind of HARKing back to the dancing Cossacks of the
seventies in the National Party. But she's looking at it

(59:03):
through a very past lens.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Right.

Speaker 22 (59:06):
The way to look at this is we don't have
enough competition, yes, in this country, bringing under the hen monopoly.
So it's the banks, it's the supermarkets. And the idea
that you would do something that created more competition in
banking is a very future focused idea. It's not a
dancing Cossack idea.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Okay, guys, just take a bit all I see you
want to go again.

Speaker 22 (59:24):
Try I'm just going to say one thing very quickly. No,
but how this is where this thing is illogical. On
the one hand, you're saying buy back one Ossie bank
to make a big New Zealand bank, and then when
you're on the supermarket debate, you're saying, break it up,
break up the one New Zealand major competitor that we have.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
All right, we're taking a break fourteen away from six
coming back to them.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
The huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty, the only
truly global brand.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
Right, you're back with the hud aletrition, Josie. Now, Josie,
what do you think of the scrapping of the good
character references for the sex offenders?

Speaker 22 (59:58):
Oh? Look, I get it. I get that. You know,
you've got you've got victims in court who feel like
they're just being victimized all over again when they have
to hear that the person who abused such a good guy,
you know, it takes as nice to their dog, or
you know, donated to a charity. And I think the
bottom line is that people get pissed off about this

(01:00:20):
because the sentence should fit the crime, not the character.
And that's the problem, right, It's such a good way
putting it. Yeah, I thought so. I thought about that line.
But I do also worry about it in the same
way that you do, that that they have to be,
as you called it, those edge cases where you have
to judges have to have some discretion to be able
to say, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Actually, judges have ruined it for all of us. They
are just liberally applying the discretion to him.

Speaker 22 (01:00:45):
That's the problem, right. The problem isn't the rule and
I don't. I wouldn't want to see judges not have
that ability to be able to do a good character judgment,
and of course that you know they don't. They can
ignore good character judgments. So I think this is the
wrong solution to a different problem.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Yeah, I agree. Okay, what do you think, Trish.

Speaker 22 (01:01:06):
Well, I think it's interesting to remember that when it
comes to sexual offenders there outward good character and reputation
is often how they manage to gain trust and access
and silence from the kind of deliberate from their victims.
I don't think it should be a mitigation. I also
think on the government side, you can't overclaim what this is.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Right.

Speaker 22 (01:01:28):
It's a justice reform, it has not in any way
a prevention strategy, and we still need all of those
good things happening in the courts. Like the courts are
still they're clogged, they're too slow. That's very hard on victims.
But I also feel that I've got an uneasy bob

(01:01:49):
each way on this one. It doesn't it doesn't quite
stack up for me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
Yeah, quite right. Now, what do you think, Jose? What
I've noticed I thought this was quite interesting is a
lot of commentators aligned with the National Party and now
saying Luxeon was misinterpreted when he took this tough line
on migration. Is this business is getting annoyed and talking
to the National Party, how annoyed they are, and they're
trying to soften it now.

Speaker 7 (01:02:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 22 (01:02:12):
Also, it's just not it's not a good line anymore
to say that Luxel was misinterpreted, because that's we've seen
that with the with the Iranes comments he made, so
it doesn't reflect well on him if that's if that's
his excuse, I think I think what's happening is that
National is a tendency. Well we've just talked about one, right,
the good character rule. They're sort of clutching at things

(01:02:34):
that we didn't think were particularly big problems. We might
have other problems with this justice system. It's sort of
like they've gone, you know, government should mow my boom
or something, or government should lots of little one and
now we've got this one. They've suddenly gone out on
immigration where they've said nothing original at all. We all
agree that we want the best immigrants, and so I

(01:02:56):
feel like they're kind of clutching at things and really,
you know, there's nothing here we would disagree with yeah,
bysiness getting annoyed Luxelon. I don't know about that. I
did feel uneasy when I heard this part of the
speech and the words social cohesion number one. I don't
think we've got the data to back up. And someone

(01:03:16):
writing on the weekend said, you know, look at the
IPSOS monitor pole. This is nowhere near it. We have
talked on the show about yes, there are these issues
in places like the UK, but that is far more
pointy and they've had huge numbers. And I thought I
would have felt much more comfortable and confident around this

(01:03:37):
being in the speech if it was a discussion actually
about what is New Zealand's population strategy, which is a
far bigger and more constructive conversation, and it draws everyone,
and it's to your point, are we having enough babies?
It draws, and are we getting the right people here
with skills?

Speaker 6 (01:03:54):
And I was thinking.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
About this recently.

Speaker 22 (01:03:56):
With the way the world currently is, we are one
of the highest values countries in the world to market
ourselves to people who really want to come here. But
I think setting this up and putting that social cohesion
word in here, I think that's the wrong way.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
To approachate we're so out of time. I'm sorry.

Speaker 22 (01:04:17):
We'll keep going out.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
I had seven Away from six.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
It's the Heather Duper Clan Drive Full Show podcast on
my Art Radio powered by News talks be.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
Oh my godness, the number of people who text in
and I didn't even see it that they smoke the
weed before they go for a run. Heather having a
smoke before a run works a treat.

Speaker 15 (01:04:37):
Hither.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
I used to have a small bit of an edible
before I went for a long bush run. You find
a rhythm and all of a sudden, it's been three
hours and you've run thirty to forty k's through the bush.
I'm off it now, but it made me love running
and fitness again. We do crazy things to ourselves, don't we,
just to get the met you can I mean, look,
you can do that. You can do that yourself. You
can win that mental game yourself. It's just because I

(01:05:02):
have to live. I have to live like a nun
because I have little children. So I'm just encouraging that
kind of like that, just that that real clean living
for everybody else, because what I am being now is
superior because I am forced into my my my clean livings.
You know I can use this umjet. I'm not gonna
let this on, going every opportunity to just lord it

(01:05:24):
over you about how I don't do drugs, I shall
use now. By the way, speaking of drugs and weird
stuff again, did you see the story about this kiwe
who's been busted and got in trouble in Italy for
diving into Rome's Trevy Fountain. It's caused all kinds of drama,
Like the guy's been fined huge amount of money. When
I say huge, just about like a few hundred dollars
or whatever, and is not allowed to be there anyway.
It turns out they've done a bit of an internatural

(01:05:46):
turns out it's not the first time that he's done this.
He has done it maybe three times before. So he
did it this year. He's just done it now. He
did it maybe last year. There are no photos to
prove that he did it last year, but he fits
the description for the guy who did it last year
and caused all of this angst in Italy. There are
photos of him doing it in twenty twenty four, and
there are photos of him doing it in twenty twenty two.

(01:06:07):
You should go and look at this just so that
you can see the state of the person that is
representing us in Italy. It's heavy us to look at,
especially when it's got a shirt off. And also they
can they keep describing him as a thirty year old
New Zealand man living in London. No way, this ol
makes thirty like that's a lot of heavy drinking that's
made him look prematurely old. He would, I reckon he'd

(01:06:29):
have a five in front of his number anyway, with
a bit of booze gray on it. Go have a
look at it.

Speaker 15 (01:06:34):
It's weird.

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
It's weird what we get up to when we live overseas.
Nichola willis with us next.

Speaker 3 (01:06:42):
What's up? What's down? What were the major calls?

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
And how will it affect the economy of big business?
Questions on the Business Hour with the head the duplicy
Allen and Mass Insurance and investments, Your futures in good hands?

Speaker 3 (01:06:56):
Used talks'd be.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
Even in coming up in the next hour. Ukraine wants
us New Zealand to buy some of their drones. International
relations expert Robert Patman on whether we should He's with
us after half past Shane Soley on Friday Saloff on
the offshore markets and Gavin Gray's with us on Andy
Burnham backtracking and on the old EU claims it's seven
pass six. Nicola will as Finance Ministers with us hig Nicola, Hi,

(01:07:20):
how much do you reckon it would cost to buy
back the b n Z.

Speaker 16 (01:07:23):
Ah, Well, it depends. If you look at its book value,
it's thirteen billion. But when you've got someone saying, no
matter what, I'm going to buy it, then you're going
to charge as much as you possibly can for it, aren't.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Herold has worked it out maybe as much as twenty
four billion dollars.

Speaker 16 (01:07:36):
Yeah, exactly, by any cost that is far, far too much.
I'm all for rowing key we Bank making it more
competitive with the Aussie banks, and I accept that requires
new capital. But this is a bit of a jumper
shark moment for Winston PEG's so it's not comparedible with
and affordable set a government book.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
Let's assume the most likely thing happens after the election
and you go into coalition negotiations with New Zealand first
and act. This is the first thing that gets dropped right,
because this is just nonsense.

Speaker 16 (01:08:04):
I think sometimes politicians are seeking attention rather than results
and this might be one of those occasions.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
Okay, Now on the subject of debts though, are we
getting stung by the rising cost of debt servicing at
the moment?

Speaker 16 (01:08:18):
Yes, we are. Our debt servicing our interest bill is
costing around nine billion dollars a year, which is a
heck of a lot of money, and that's why we're
on such a mission to get the debt curve bending
down so that that interest bill is taking up less
of your taxpayers money each year.

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
Nine billion sounds about what it was beforehand.

Speaker 16 (01:08:37):
So has it gone up, Well, it will continue to
go up in the years ahead as debt grows, and
that's partly why we're always so concerned about it in
the interest rate position, because when interest rates go up,
that affects our debt servicing cost as well.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
Yeah, what I'm talking about is it's being reported in
the Herald today that there isn't much as much demand
for longer term government bonds and that is pushing up
what it is costing in terms of national debt.

Speaker 16 (01:09:02):
Well, we've continued to have very good demand for our
government bombs. In fact, the coverage ratio, so how many
people are bidding for our bombs versus how many we're
selling has actually increased in recent times, so there's no
shortage of people wanting to buy our debt. But there's
no getting away from the fact that internationally interest rates
have been rising and that affects the costs now and

(01:09:24):
into the future. And of course it's not just about
what you're paying right now. It's the fact that you're
always beholden to the rest of the world and if
there are financial jitters elsewhere, we could suddenly find that
interest bill going up a lot higher.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Did you read Domian Grant's article at the weekend calling
for reform of the public service.

Speaker 16 (01:09:40):
Well, he is going to like my speech tomorrow. I've
got a pre budget announcement and one of the key
things I will be announcing is our next steps to
transform the public service. We think that just as every
business and household in the country is always working to
get more value for money, we need to too, and
so there's three key things that we've agreed to as

(01:10:02):
a government need to change. First, we've got too many
ministries and departments. Depending how you count it, there's around
forty two. In a country like Finland, it's more like twelve.
So we need to amalgamate agencies. Number two, we need
to join the digitization and AI revolution. Actually, a government

(01:10:23):
needs to get into twenty twenty six and prepare for
twenty thirty six. And too many of our systems are
old fashioned. There's huge efficiency and improvements in service delivery
to be got from digitization. And number three, Actually, public
servant numbers got so out of whack under labor are
They leapt from about one percent of the working population
to one point two percent. We want to bring it

(01:10:44):
back down to one percent. So we're going to set
a target for that reduction to be achieved by twenty
twenty nine. So we agree much more work to get
more value out of the public service.

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
Okay, one percent of the workforce. If you're going to
try and get it back to one percent into the workforce,
how many public servants do you need to fire?

Speaker 16 (01:11:04):
Well, it's it's up over sixty thousand now and we
need to get it down below sixty thousand. And I'll
be releasing figures tomorrow and you're welcome to attend my
speech either. It won't be far from you. It's in Auckland,
it's on the north shore.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
I'm just loving, I'm just loving the irony of the
fact that you were on the show about a month
ago saying, O, you fired all this back office stuff
and you have frontline stuff, and now are youre telling
me you're going to fire some back office stuff.

Speaker 16 (01:11:28):
Well, we have made great progress since we came into government.
Not only have we delivered better results across everything from
reducing violent crime to the social housing wait list, we've
done that also while reducing the number of policy analysts, managers,
the consultancy fee across government. So we have made good progress.
But it's time to double down and make even more progress.

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
Why can't it can't we get the numbers down to
where they were pred Cinder when she really which she
and Grant really went hard, and that was about forty
seven forty eight thousand, wasn't it.

Speaker 16 (01:11:58):
Yeah, they started off at forty seven thousand and they
ballooned it out about sixty five thousand, so huge growth.
To get a sense of it, the first thing they
did was got rid of the cap on the back
office the last national government had. And what you saw
was that the numbers of people in those back office
roles exploded by forty percent, and overall the public service

(01:12:21):
grew at about three times the rate of the private sector,
so completely out of control. Our government's done a lot
to rain that back in, but we agree with you,
there's more work to do, because after all, we're not
spending our money, we're spending your money.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
But why can't you why can't we get it back
to the forty seven forty.

Speaker 16 (01:12:40):
Eight Well, i'll talk to that in my speech tomorrow,
which is that we do accept will continue to have
a growing population. We'll have growing demands from the public
for the delivery of public services that they expect, you know,
will include continue to incarcerate people in our prisons, deliver
welfare SUPs ought to families, so those things will continue.

(01:13:03):
But absolutely we can do more of that using digital tools,
being more efficient. We don't need as many departments to
do it, and we've got some awesome public servants. They're
smart cookies, but ultimately we got to tie them in
bureaucracy a lot at the moment.

Speaker 2 (01:13:15):
So we can clean it up now on the government departments,
you've mentioned amalgamation, but would you consider cutting some departments altogether.

Speaker 16 (01:13:24):
Well, that's two ways of coming at the same problem.
If you look at the example of the MSERT agency,
which Chris Bishop's creating that merges the Housing Department, the
Environment Department, parts of transport, and parts of internal affairs.
So in effect, some of those entities don't exist anymore.
But what you've got is one joined up agency that

(01:13:46):
delivers all of the decent things those agencies were delivering
in a much more coherent way. So we want to
do more of that approach of saying, well, what actually
would make more sense to come together under one umbrella
and one agency and would actually lead to a better
service to the customers it's trying to serve and would
be more efficient.

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
Now I love all of the sound of this, right,
I love it, So I don't want you to think
that I don't love it, but I do want you
to explain to me why you would keep something like
the Ministry for Women where no one needs that anymore,
and we can just get rid of it, and they're there,
you go, there's few hundred staff, you don't need a
few tens of staff or whatever.

Speaker 16 (01:14:22):
Well, look, the approach we're taking is we're saying to
the public service, right, the destination is fewer departments and
less money being spent, and we're going to have a
sinking lid on that money that you're spending on administration
come back to us, which with what the logical mergers are,
and I would not be surprised at all. Heither if

(01:14:44):
the proposals that came back suggested, yeah, we still need
some of the functions delivered by the ministry form of affairs,
but maybe we can do that in an amalgamated entry.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
Happy days, Nicola, thank you. This is the best news.
Nicola willis Finance Minister. So we're all going to turn
in for that speech to Worro. I'll tell you what.
If it was a Friday, I'd probably have a drink,
but it's not. Let me give you the numbers enz
itex fifty down one point to celebrate, by the way,
not a drink of misery. A drink of it would
be bubbles.

Speaker 3 (01:15:10):
It wouldn't be what.

Speaker 23 (01:15:11):
Were you talking about with the Queen living?

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
That's right, but it's because it's not a Friday. I'm
clean living because it's a Monday.

Speaker 23 (01:15:18):
Right, So the clean living stops Thursday at midnight, doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
Yeah, that's right. No, you can have a little bit
of a tree day. But you know what, I'm going
to have a couple haulocks as celebration. We'll talk about
that later on. Anyway, here's the numbers down one point
This is N six fifty down one point five six today,
a SX fifty down one point one six so far. Today,
a barrel of Brent crude is costing you one hundred
and eleven US dollars. That's up one and a half
percent today. And one New Zealand dollar is worth fifty
eight UNS cents eighty two cents, fifty euro cents, forty

(01:15:42):
four UK pencil, ninety three yen. It's sixteen past six.

Speaker 1 (01:15:46):
It's the Heather Duper c Allen Drive Full Show podcast
on my Heart Radio, powered by news dog Zebbi.

Speaker 2 (01:15:55):
Heather as an aucklander in Wellington for the week. When
heading to a four pm meeting, I was amazed at
the number of people leaving work. If it's an eight
hour day, one hour lunch, they would have to have
started work at seven am. Funny how well into the
city fitness is the busiest time is seven am. It's
taking the piss. Thank you. Nineteen past six. Shane Solely
harbor Asset Management is with us. Hello, Shane, Hey here
that hey, what happened with that sell off in the

(01:16:16):
offshore markets on Friday, did it affect us?

Speaker 7 (01:16:19):
We assume the shoe market ran into the bond market.
Bond yields coverment bond yeards increased. We've obviously seen oil
prices back up, and what we saw was consumer price
inflation and producer price inflation in the US above expectations.
So that's many investors and started to think about does
the US federal reserves start increasing rates and hither At

(01:16:41):
the start of the year, people were thinking they're going
to cut rates. Now we're thinking about how hard and
fast they're to go long term bond years. This is
the ones that's got account when we're valuing investments like shares.
The US ten year bonds up above four point six percent,
thirty year bonds above five point one and that is
increasing the hurdle we need to invest in shares. US
bonds up half a percent since the start of the

(01:17:03):
Middle East conflict. So yeah, US market was now on
led by tech and that's quite sensitive to the bond years.
Could be a bit of profit taking seven percent rally
in seven weeks. Locally, our tenure bonds up eight basis
points to four point eight four and we had quite
a broad sell off in the zone market. Sheer market
down one point six percent, led both Fisher and Pubal

(01:17:24):
Healthcare A two orpen airport. But there was not a
lot of green on the screen today either can go.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
What about the Chinese data that we got the economic data.

Speaker 7 (01:17:33):
Yeah, again probably didn't help the market. So they're quite weak,
weaker than below expectations. Export data okay, but domestic consumption
pretty weak. Their fixed acid investment, this is about investing
and capital works. That trunk quite sendim that leads down
one point six percent for the first four months. That
was a surprise, well below expectation. Retail sales also missed

(01:17:57):
they were only up zero point two percent, and industrial
production and it was slower than expected, only out four
point one and so yeah, pretty weak numbers relative to expectations.
There was an interesting statement by a spokesperson from a
Chinese National Bureau of Statistics saying China needs to implement
more fiscal policies, a bit more stimulus and open up
the taps of monetary policy. And me here in New

(01:18:18):
Zealand's given China as a big trade partner, that might be
quite helpful.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
Yeah, Now, what about the PSI and the PMI because
at first blush and neither of them look that flash.

Speaker 7 (01:18:27):
No, And so performance of Services Index and the performance
of Manfacturing and index Performances of Services Index is out today.
That's about three quarters of the New zeal economy. It's
all the services businesses. By definition, it was actually less bad.
It was a less bad data point. Today it was up.
It was at forty eight point nine, which is up
on one point seven on the previous month. It's still

(01:18:50):
below fifty, so it says we're still contracting, but not
as much as we were. And the bright spot was
new orders, so people buy and getting inmentary and I
think that went up to fifty one point two, so
above it's expanding. Maybe that's a bit of inventory hoarding
the heather, I'm a bit anxious about that. The good
news is last week on Friday, we had the PMI
Purchase Performance and Manufacturing Index fall to just above fifty.

(01:19:12):
You can bind the two. We're about forty eight point six,
so it still suggests we're at a bit of a
soft contraction in the Xeon economy. Not a big surprise
to a lot of people who be listening in a
course but when we blend that with the consumer price
inflation going up about three point four, it's looking a
little bit stagflationary and that creates a difficult trade off
for the Rezero Bank next week with their monetary policy statement.

Speaker 2 (01:19:35):
All right, hey, Shane, as always, thanks very much, madam,
talk to you in a week, Shane solely harbor asset
management six two EF.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
It's to do with money. It matters to you. The
Business Hour with Heather Duplicy, Allen and Mas Insurance and investments.
Your futures in good hands, the news talks.

Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
That'd be reason I was asking Nikola Willis just apropos
the chat we had with her. How good is that news?

Speaker 3 (01:19:58):
Though?

Speaker 2 (01:19:58):
Tomorrow public servants, I'm sorr here for that anyway. Why
I was asking her about the debt servicing costs is
that the Herald is reporting that it's gone up quite
a lot, just globally. They say last week the United
States government sold thirty year debt five percent for the
first time since twenty two thousand and seven, so basically
twenty years. In Britain, thirty year government borrowing costs that

(01:20:19):
are at their highest level since nineteen ninety eight. The
problem is there isn't much demand for longer term government
bonds ten twenty thirty years because the boomers who normally
buy them aren't buying as much of them, and it's
obviously an aging thing. Like if you're in your seventies,
what do you want to buy thirty year bonds for?
Do you know what I mean? Anyway, as Nicholas says,
we haven't got that problem. Everybody wants our bonds. Apparently

(01:20:41):
six twenty six.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
There's no business like show business.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
Now, Ronda Rowsey has made one of the craziest returns
to sport ever and it all lasted less than twenty seconds.
So the former UFC superstar returned to the MMA cage
for the first time in ten years to face fellow
pioneer Jenna Karana. This was all for Netflix's first ever
live MMA events, then way deeper into the live sport
matches anyway. The fight was put together by YouTuber turned

(01:21:08):
boxer Jake Paul, who walked out to a chorus of
booze from the crowd before the main event had even started, which,
to be fair, is pretty standard for Jake Paul these days.
But the bigger talking point was Gina Carano because she
was one of the best, the biggest really female stars
in combat sports Anne Hollywood. Once she appeared in The Mandalorian,
she was in Fast and Furious and so on. But
in recent years she's become a really controversial figure. She

(01:21:30):
was fired by Disney after a series of pro Trump
social media posts that sparked backlash. So the fight was
being hyped as a cultural war showdown for the Ages,
and after all of the build up, it was almost
it was over, almost immediately Rowsey came out. She was
really aggressive, She grabbed Krano, she locked her in her
famous armbar, and then she forced the tap in just

(01:21:51):
seventeen seconds. Fans were not happy because the match wasn't
being pitched as an exhibition, given Carano having fought professionally
as seventeen years, maybe it should have been. Through all
the speculation about whether this was the start of a comeback,
Rowsey says, strictly just a one off. But a seventeen
second victory is a pretty good way to go out,
Isn't it not bad at all? All Right, I haven't

(01:22:12):
even told you about the haulics. I'm going to tell
you about the haulocks. But first of all, we need
to deal with Ukraine. Should we buy Ukraine's droves They
want us to Robert Patman on that shortly News talks.

Speaker 3 (01:22:21):
Beat approaching the numbers and getting the results.

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
It's Heather duper c Allen on the Business Hour with
mass insurance and investments. Your futures in good hands. Used
talks had been noo.

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):
This is not great news for the royals. There are
a bunch of police officers who are responsible for protecting
the royal family at Windsor Castle and they're being investigated
because apparently they fell asleep on their posts, which be
highly embarrassing if something had happened. So anyway, Gavin Gray
will be with us in ten minutes to us through that.
It's twenty five away from seven. The Ukrainian ambassador says
he wants New Zealand to buy drone technology off Ukraine.

(01:23:07):
Ukraine's approach New Zealand and also Australia to try to
strike a deal which would see their tech added to
our weapons arsenal. They've already struck four similar deals so
far with Germany, Canada, Norway and Japan.

Speaker 15 (01:23:17):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:23:18):
Robert Patman is an international relations professor at Otago University
and with us.

Speaker 15 (01:23:22):
HI Robert oh Good Evening. Heall, so, what are the.

Speaker 2 (01:23:25):
Ukrainians up to? Are they seeing this as making money
off their expertise.

Speaker 15 (01:23:31):
I don't think they're up to anything. They're doing what
most countries do when they've become a world leader in
drone technology, and their drone that the drone technology they
produced has been, from a newseue point of view, a
bit of a number eight wire production. That is to
say that they improvised under extreme circumstances of the Russian invasion.

(01:23:52):
And I think what was striking is that, of course
they went to the assistance of some of the Golf
states following Iran's retaliatory strikes on Golf States, and they've
signed a number of deals there. So I think what
they're trying to do is what most countries would do,
which is capitalized on becoming a world leader in a
particular area which is becoming crucial for conflict. I mean,

(01:24:14):
drones have revolutionized war as we know it now.

Speaker 2 (01:24:18):
If I read it correctly, it sounds like the Ukrainian
ambassador has approached our government now on a number of occasions,
maybe as many as three, and they still not had
any luck with us. Is that weird from US.

Speaker 15 (01:24:28):
No, I think we're just pondering the decision. I don't
think there's any you know, the government said that a
decision was they had received an approach in December and
they were still considering it. You know, the government is
pledged to spend up to two percent of GDP on defense,

(01:24:51):
and this is a big increase, and I think they're
trying to make sure they spend that money wisely. I
do think what the Ukrainians are doing is symptomatic of
the fact that many new players middle powers, such as
Ukraine and Sweden are becoming. They're producing military equipment which
is cheaper and certainly competitive with the sort of military

(01:25:13):
equipment that US and China are producing.

Speaker 2 (01:25:16):
Should we bind rose? I mean I saw one analyst
said we should chuck a billion dollars at it.

Speaker 15 (01:25:22):
Yeah, I mean doctor del k KLINI I think made
that recommendation, and I can see where he's coming from.
I'm not sure world wars around the corner, though. I
think we should be looking seriously into doing this because
it seems to me that drones have you know, they
have multiple uses, and it seems to me that that

(01:25:44):
would be smart looking forward, linking up with countries like
Ukraine and Sweden using their technology, diversifying our defense links
and maximizing our defense capabilities I suppose would be the ideal.
But look drone technology. If you look at ninety percent
of Russian casualties in the last few months have been

(01:26:07):
caused by drones, so there's no doubt about it. Drones
have revolutionized our thinking about war, particularly things like tanks
and naval vessels, which increasingly look very vulnerable with this technology.

Speaker 2 (01:26:19):
Well quite right. So if we are spending all of
our money on frigates, for example, would we not be
making the mistake of investing in what is essentially old
technology and very vulnerable technology when it's moved on and
we should be putting our money in this well.

Speaker 15 (01:26:33):
I don't think it's either or. I think what you're saying, though,
is that a correct balance has to be struck. How
that balance is managed is obviously for the defense planners,
but it does seem to me we can't ignore the
fact that war has been revolutionized by drones and there's
no going back. You can't put the genie back in

(01:26:55):
the bottom.

Speaker 8 (01:26:55):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
I was under the impression though, that we were actually
also very good at making drones. Was I wrong?

Speaker 15 (01:27:01):
We are, yes, and we've got for the last ten
years we've been involved in the production of drones. We've
got a number of small companies here which are highly accomplished.
I think in a sense the two things are not
mutually exclusive.

Speaker 14 (01:27:17):
Heather.

Speaker 15 (01:27:18):
By linking up with Ukraine, that may well provide lots
of opportunities for companies which were already very, very accomplished
in that area. If you see what I mean, as
I understand it, Ukraine are offering drones which are militarily orientated,
whereas we many of our companies have not just been

(01:27:40):
in the you know, their drone technology has been less
military focused, as I understand.

Speaker 2 (01:27:46):
Tell me, Robert, what are we because you made who
you quoted before said basically we need to get chuckol
billion dollars at the drones because there's going to be
a world war. But realistically, are we actually going to
end up in a situation where we are fighting to
defend ourselves in New Zealand Because the most likely thing
that's going to happen in our part of the world
is China takes Taiwan, and where I'm going to be
able to stop that.

Speaker 15 (01:28:05):
So what's the risk to us, Well, my crystal boar
is no better than anyone else's. I don't think world
war is around the corner myself. Lots of them. I've
heard the Foreign Minister saying this is the most dangerous
situation the last eighty years. I disagree. There were far
more dangerous situations during the Cold War. People were memories
of the Cold War sixty two, Cuban missile crisis, etc.

(01:28:28):
There are least three occasions in the Cold War when
the world was teetering on the brink of nuclear armageddon.
We're not facing those sort of threats at the moment.
Having said that, there's lots of alarming situations both in
Ukraine and now in Iran, so there is definitely the
potential for uscualation. But you know, with regard to New Zealand,
I do think it makes sense to boost our defense

(01:28:51):
capability irrespective of the prospect of war, because increasingly security
problems have to be sold by on a multilateral basis
and we need to be able to bring something to
the party if we're going to make a contribution to
secure our environment.

Speaker 2 (01:29:07):
Good stuff. Hey, thank you very much Robert for taking
the time to explain it all to us. It's Robert Patman,
international relations professor at Otago University. It's eighteen away from seven,
Heather dup, How good is this? I just got a
text from Leo. Hither I just got a ticket as
a possible and then I look back, because we can
do this on the text machine, we can look back
at what Leo's been texting me. Leo text me at

(01:29:29):
five point thirty three and said, hither, I've been trying
since four o'clock. There are no tickets available. So this
is the Auckland FC. Right Auckland Football Club Grand Final.
Hither there are no tickets available, so I guess it's
a sell out, which is great news for Auckland. One
last step, best Leo. And then Leo got a ticket.
Good on you, mate, that you know what that is.
That's perseverance in stickability. You're waited for an hour and
I don't even know how long you've been trying already

(01:29:49):
out before that, so good on you. By the way,
I'm just watching replays because obviously don't do this, don't
don't go watch the TV news boring, but I've got
it on on the tally and I just watched it
on both Poor me, because I just watched it on
TV three and then I watched it on TV and
Z afterwards. And it's the clip of Tanna Boyd busting
his leg mate. It's hard to watch a that was

(01:30:11):
grim hard to watch the first time, definitely hard to
watch the second time, and now for the third time
for me. But do you know what I loved, which
I think, which I actually does warrant mentioning, is that
when he busts his leg and he is clearly in
some considerable amount of pain and unable to hold himself up,
one of the Brisbane Broncos walks up behind him and
grabs him under his armpets to hold him up. How

(01:30:32):
good is that? I mean, I suppose these dudes do
play with each other a fair bit. That came out wrong,
didn't They play against each other a fair bit, So
it's to be expected they know each other anyway, Lord,
Sorry about that. Sorry, not sorry anyway. Listen, food Stuffs
just on the supermarkets. Food Stuff's announced it's it's I'm

(01:30:53):
gonna launch its own rewards program because it hasn't had
one up to now. From what I can tell, I mean,
tell me if I'm wrong, but Woolworth's has got the
Orange car what's that everyday rewards or whatever, and so
Foodstuffs has decided to launch its version of it. It's
called Club Plus. The Plus is very in at the
moment and TVNZ Plus, Disney Plus. It ended up plus anyways,
a Club Plus and you're going to be able to

(01:31:14):
use it at the New World and the Pack and
Save and the four Square, and then it's going to
earn you some dollars, and they've got a way of
calculating it, which really is so boring that I don't
even I just go whatever, you know, whatever. Anyway you
earn the dollars, then you can use the dollars in
any of the stores. By the looks of things, so
if you're predominantly shopping at Pack and Saving, then you
pop into accountdown, I think you're going to be okay.
This is the way it looks. And I'm happy about
this because I occasionally love a bit of four Square

(01:31:36):
and I've never had any rewards from the four Square.
So now I'm going to get my rewards. I'm going
to get one of these little cards and trade all
of my data, all of my data for a few
cheap dollars sixteen away from seven.

Speaker 1 (01:31:47):
Whether it's macro micro or just plain economics, it's all
on the business hour with hand the dup clur and
mas insurance and investments, your futures in good hands.

Speaker 3 (01:31:58):
Us talks heavy.

Speaker 2 (01:32:00):
So I'm in a dysfunctional relationship with Sam, the producer
who doesn't let one single minute go by, where if
there's an opportunity to remind me that I am an idiot,
he will do it, and he has text me You're
going to get eaten live by the text machine for
forgetting the New World club card. Weren't you a New
World shopper before it burnt down?

Speaker 3 (01:32:20):
Lol?

Speaker 2 (01:32:21):
So yes, I forgot about that red card. It's been
a while, like when did that shot burn down? It'd
be like eighteen months ago, wasn't it. So I've forgotten
it exists. But also how about me saying that you
can use the rewards to then go to countdown, which
is the other guys. It's just that it's just.

Speaker 23 (01:32:38):
It's important for producers to keep the host's egos like
firmly on the ground and you keep everything's very diligent
in that role.

Speaker 2 (01:32:46):
Yeah, so what happens is we also get free counseling
at work where like and this is the employee assistance program, right,
lots of work, lots of people get this at their
workplaces where you can go and get three thank free
counseling sessions a year, and I have to sort of
space them out every four months so I can take
all of like my By the time I get in there,
Sam has basically reduced me to a whimpering miss. And
I go in and they just for an hour, they

(01:33:06):
just tell me nice things about myself to make me
feel good. Then I'm good for four months and he
can sort of use me as his punching bag again. Anyway,
ens does this fear? But two twelve away from seven
Gavin Gray UK correspondents with us l Ogevin Hi, now
tell me why has Andy Birmingham backed away from this
business of brixit as a bed for him?

Speaker 19 (01:33:24):
Yes, because the Mayor of Manchester needs to become an
MP in order to be able to fight for the
leadership of the Labor Party and therefore to become Prime Minister.
But the seat in which he's fighting, Makerfield and Greater
Manchester did at the referendum for Brexit vote heavily in
favor of Brexit, roughly two to one, and now suddenly

(01:33:47):
the future of Britain, either in or out of the EU,
is being debated again. Why Well, because the other front
runner in this potential leadership challenge, the former Health Secretary
West Streeting, said it was a catastrophic mistake for the
UK to leave and under his leadership, he sees Britain.

Speaker 3 (01:34:04):
Back in the EU.

Speaker 19 (01:34:06):
Now, of course we had a referendum to come out.
Is he saying he would just do it or is
he saying that we would have another referendum? But he
has said that's what he would do if he was
in charge. That means people are asking, of course, the
Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, what would you do, as
the other leadership contender in this likely contest. Well, we

(01:34:27):
know he's a huge European supporter and in the past
he has said he thought it was a mistake and
believes now he says there's a case for joining the
EU in the long term. But he says he's not
advocating that in this particular by election that he will
be fighting Why because, of course it might lose him
a lot of votes and all of a sudden. The

(01:34:48):
EU and our relationship with the EU is front and
center of this leadership challenge if when it happens, and
that is not something that's particularly useful for Andy Burnham,
his supporter saying, it is a shame that the leadership
rival has now brought this into the mix. But do
you know what, I'm a bit of an old cynic.
Perhaps this was done deliberately by west streeting to put

(01:35:10):
Andy Burnham in a difficult place.

Speaker 2 (01:35:12):
Quite right, you may well have read that very well, Gavin.
What's this business about these police officers falling asleep outside.

Speaker 19 (01:35:18):
Windsor amazing accusations? So as you know, of course, Windsor
Castle is a very prominent royal residence and the royals
do stay over there occasionally and uniform Rold protection officers
patrol the walls of the castle, the estate, the perimeter.
It's a huge estate, six hundred and fifty five acres.

(01:35:40):
But it is being reported that actually some of those
who are meant to be protecting the king while he's
asleep were asleep themselves on duty and not at their posts.
It is being reported, but not confirmed, up to thirty
officers are under investigation. A formal probe has been launched
by the Director of Professional Standards within that section of

(01:36:02):
the police. The Royal family have been involved, not made
any being informed, but not made any comment on this,
and it is said those who the finger is being
pointed out are under investigation and the decision on whether
they'll be put on restrictive duties at the moment is
anticipated in the next couple of days. Either way, this
is highly embarrassing if it's true. And this, as I said,

(01:36:25):
first appear there's a report in a paper and has
since absolutely gotten mad with people were saying, hang on
a minute, the King's asleep and the people meant to
protect him are asleep. That is not a good way
to go, not at all.

Speaker 2 (01:36:37):
Thank you very much, Kevin, really appreciate it. Gavin Gray,
UK correspondent. I've been meaning to tell you about the haulocks.
So by the way, I'm getting inter and alive on
the text machine. Hither the New World already has a
rewards card, thank you Jay. Hither New World has club card.
They're transitioning to Club Plus. It can be used to
peck and so do you know what I find? Thank
you Colin for a complete rundown of what's happening. What

(01:36:57):
I find fascinating is how into this we are, like
it is actually a news story. When they go, Hi,
we've got a rewards program. Yeah, you can't earn that much.
You can use in all the stores, Yeah, in North
and south Land, and we go, oh my gosh, get
to know all the details, like Sam's been a good,
good while today, just boning up on the details because
he's a back and slave shopper. We are an interesting lot,
aren't we. Anyway? On the Harlcks, So do you remember

(01:37:19):
on Friday I was telling you there's all these old
wives tales that have been proven to not just be
old wives tales but actually truth. You could argue old
wives tale equals truth. And in the case of milk
before bed, it is so. I said to my mum,
who's my old wife? Said, Mum, apparently you need to
drink the hallloks. She said, I drink the horlocks ow
damb So she came to the house and gave me
a drink of horlocks. I know, I'm in my forties.

(01:37:42):
My mom comes and gives my horlocks. She gave me
a hallocks last night five hours straight, no wake up.
It knocked me out. It's true. You got to drink
the harlics before bed. It's amazing. Thanks Mom. Seven Away
from seven it's the heather Toople.

Speaker 1 (01:37:57):
See Alan Drive Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News Talk ZEDB.

Speaker 2 (01:38:03):
Here they have a gummy. No gummies are apparently for
exercise now. By the way, they've started the auditions for
James Bond. Names being bandied about. Idris Albert, he'd be good,
Henry Cavill, he'd be okay, Kellyan Murphy nar too weird looking,
Callum Turner, Aaron Taylor Johnson, don't know who he is,
Harrison Harris Dickerson, don't know who he is. And Jacob A. Lordie.

(01:38:24):
Now I'm into Jacobal Lordie, but I have been told
he's too Australian and too tall, but also hasn't he
got a wonderful haircut. This is the hair apparently, Lads,
if you need a haircut, this is the one you
want to go for. It's a bit loose and feathered
and fun and on that subject, well, not on that
subject at all, and it's got something very serious to say.

Speaker 23 (01:38:43):
I was gonna say we've got a sad one to sorry,
not not the easiest segue always. Gary Dooley was a
long time Timesaver traffic presenter here at news Talk zaid Be.
He started up in about twenty fourteen. He'd done other
radio jobs before that, and he stuck with us right
through to right after the pandemic. Unfortunately, bad news over
the weekend that he did pass away. He's been battling

(01:39:04):
with cancer for a few years. Otherwise, if he hadn't
been battling cancer, he would probably still happily be reading
the traffic. He was an incredibly hard worker, Garry he did.
I think it was like a couple of months, possibly
three months in a row without a day off, reading
the traffic because there was nobody else to read the
traffic at that particular time. But just because he was
hard working doesn't mean he wasn't fun. He loved cracking jokes,

(01:39:25):
loved it so much in fact, that he did stand
up comedy and he actually m seed open mic nights
for stand up comedy all over aut and did a
lot of sort of mentoring and making it possible for
the very bottom level of comedy, you up and coming
comedians to break through. I think he won't mind me
saying that he m seed. What was easily the worst
night of open my comedy I've ever been to in

(01:39:46):
my life. Watching him try to manage the night as
comedian after comedian just bombed on stage was just inspiring.
This was his favorite song today off his favorite album,
Siamese Dream by his favorite band, The Smashing Compkins, So Gary,
We're all going to miss. Thank you, mate, and all
the love to.

Speaker 3 (01:40:01):
His wife and daughters.

Speaker 2 (01:40:02):
Yeah, very nice, Thank you as all right, We'll see
you tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (01:40:37):
For more from Hither Duplessy Alan Drive, listen live to
news Talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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