July 17, 2025 • 11 mins
FIRST WITH YESTERDAY'S NEWS (highlights from Thursday on Newstalk ZB) Education? Solved/Youth Crime? Solved/Council Rates? Solved/Alexa? Look After My Dog
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk said B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Used Talk, sed B Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, My beautiful beanies, and welcome to the bean for Friday.
First fore yesterday's news, I'm Glenn Hart, and we're looking
back at Thursday. Remember boot camps that they were going
to sort out youth crime. Weren't they? What's going on
with them? Council versus central government rate caps seem to
(00:46):
be at the top of the agenda. There will they work?
And Marcus is suspicious of Alexa. But before any of that,
open planned classrooms are the latest magic bullet that's going
to solve all our education problems.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
This idea doesn't mean we're going back to the pre
fab the cold, uninsulated prefabs for every class that possibly
you went to school them. If teachers want to open
up space, they can. When they want to shut themselves off,
they can. There is no one size fits all for
every class, and that is the way it should be.
(01:25):
I remember pre COVID, we were talking about bloody open
bland classrooms because in a stunning revelation, the previous labor
government was all for them and teachers and principles rang
in to say that they desperately needed a new classroom
(01:45):
and they couldn't have it unless it was an open
plan design, and they said that doesn't work for our children.
We don't care. We're the Ministry of Education and we
will tell you what to do. No no, no. The
schools no best, the teachers no best, The principles no best.
(02:09):
The thing I really liked about Erica Stanford's announcement was
the flexibility. You know, it's not those prefab classrooms that
many of us were in in the seventies or eighties,
and then you haven't got the huge big back in
the eighties and nineties when you had the open playing classrooms,
(02:30):
there were no space dividers. I don't think they existed.
So for Tip, my mum was one of those teachers
trying to learn in that environment. And also if the
teachers had different styles, she said, it made it really awkward.
She was really lucky that she worked with a new
teacher and an established teacher and they shared the same
style of teaching and discipline and that sort of thing.
(02:52):
But she said there were others within that school who
rarely clashed had completely different styles and it was horrific
for them and for the kids. So I like the flexibility.
This is a good thing. This is a very good thing,
and I want to hear positive, joyous, fabulous response to
(03:13):
this announcement from the Minister of Education, who as one
minister who really understands her portfolio.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I am thoroughly sick of this now. If you've ever
listened to any of the my podcasts in the past,
you'll know that I'm not a fan of school in general,
never was while I was there. In fact, absolutely hated
it and couldn't wait to leave it. And then I
ended up having kids and having to go back there
all the time, and that was kind of like PTSD
(03:42):
every time I stepped onto the school grounds. And now
I feel like I'm being further re traumatized by having
to talk about school even more. Surely most parents are
like I was, and didn't really care what they were
doing there as long as they took the kids away
from them for as many hours a day as possible.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
News talk has it been.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Could have taken them away from me completely and set
them to boot camps. They don't think they had boot
camps when my kids were kids.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
How many times have you heard the Prime Minister say
this government is different because it's going to set targets,
it's going to track progress, and it's going to be
open about its actual results, going to be honest. That's
how we're going to get the country back on track.
This is what we've heard from National and from the
Coalition so many times. And what's more important than turning
around education and getting on top of youth crime, youth justice,
(04:37):
not much, which is why they've got charter schools and
why they've got boot camps. Everybody said, yep, those kids
need sorting out in the case of boot camps, or
those kids deserve more choice in the case of charter schools.
But now this week we've heard from the agencies involved
in these programs and they've decided they won't be telling
the public how many students are enrolled at the new
(05:00):
charter schools, and in the case of the boot camps,
they won't talk about how many of the kids are
actually reoffending. They've given various excuses for this, but none
of them really stack up. The fact is people can't
trust a system or a program that they know nothing
about when you're totally upfront about the results. When you're
(05:21):
not totally upfront about the results, I should say, it
looks like you're trying to hide something. It looks like
when you're trying to hide something, it's bad news normally
that you're trying to hide. So, either the government knows
that charter schools and boot camps are a bad idea,
which I doubt because otherwise why would they do them,
Or they're a little bit scared of failure maybe on
some key programs. We're a year out from an election.
(05:42):
Here's some free advice to you. And I don't know,
to be honest, whether it's the government directed in the
agencies to do this or just the agencies themselves, but
here's some free advice. Give us the truth and we
will make up our own minds.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yeah. Interesting, isn't it that it does feel like they've
gone into people have gone a bit cold on the
old boot camps to me, because that was going to
be the magic bullet, wasn't it a lot? Is this
the government of magic bullets? I just want to keep firing,
coming up with big ideas that are going to solve everything,
and then you give them a lot of hooplar and height.
(06:19):
But then if they don't quite solve everything down the track,
would just keep that use called syd right central government.
Chris Bishop versus the councils. I think he's trying to
rain them in and surprisingly they don't want to be
rained in.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
The fact is the idea is in place in Australia.
Melbourne and Sydney have rate caps, but individual councils can
apply for exemptions. In a Melbourne that meant that some
councils imposed ten percent rates, so it didn't work there.
But they do not have rate caps and Brisbane and
Brisbane has the lowest rate increases in Australia. So why
is that successive councils have kept the debt low. They've
(06:59):
had smart, long term plans with cross party support, so
that's one thing. They have a Suburb's First policy, so
that improvements are made where people actually live. Eighty five
percent of their budgets spent on this. It's cheaper than
grand CBD projects. And they like public transport. A record
two hundred and ten million dollars is being spent this
year on it, which is a lot cheaper they say
(07:20):
than building roads roads roads. But of course here public
transport or alternative transport options are the first to be
cut in hard times. We hate a cyc away and
because of their resident friendly, suburban centric approach combined with
a fiscal prudence, they have some regal room. Senior citizens
in Brisbane get the most generous rebates in the country,
cutting their rates in half, and then Brisbane can pursue
(07:42):
some big stuff. They're going for the Olympics, but here
they show some balls as well, conning the redevelopment of
the Gabba because the business case didn't measure up. Rate
caps are good slogan policy. It sounds like a simple
answer to a complex situation, but they didn't work in
Sydney and Melbourne. In fact, they're suffering from what's called
RPES catch up. If you defer projects, then eventually you're
(08:04):
going to have to do them and someone's going to
pay for them fung. I know we will find that
out when the Opera House will eventually have to have
millions spent on it to fix it up. They've deferred that.
The reason we're in the hole is because of false
promises of low rates by previous mayors and councils that
has resulted in a rates catch up. Wellington Water. Does
that sound familiar to you, That's exactly what happened there.
(08:26):
We don't actually need rate caps, but what we really
need is sensible, long term, fiscally prudent governance. Look for
that next election, but it's as rare as a unicorn.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It is. There's sort of a general theme in the
podcast today. It's very general about transparency and accountability to
the people in power. You know, put the rates up.
At least show us exactly where that money is going,
and then I think people probably won't resent them quite
(08:59):
so much. And if it means that I have more
than one rubbish spind on my route where I walk
the dog, I can probably handle paying a bit more rates.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
To be honest, news talk has it been.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
It's nothing worse than ever to walk around with a
bag of poo in you're in a pocket. Let's finish
up here talking AI. In fact, this AI has been
around for quite a while, Alexa and I've said that now.
And if you're playing this through a speaker, that's really confused.
You're speaker. If you've got Alexa done it again now,
(09:35):
and then Marcus did it too.
Speaker 6 (09:37):
I've spent two minutes thinking about Alexa, I don't like
it at all. Freaks me out that would be in
your house.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
I think some people are just too clever ayre using
it for all sorts of things. But anyway, goodness, the
future is.
Speaker 7 (09:51):
Here, isn't it welcome? Have named my AI assistant Barry.
He's really embraced it. Someone was convicted of murder after
Alexa recorded it. And someone talks to their dogs. We're
not at home. People are big on communicating with their dogs,
aren't they. A lot of people will leave the radio
for the dogs when they go to the house. Oh,
(10:14):
they like the voices, they say. I don't know how
I feel about broadcasting to dogs. Probably should taylor the
show a bit more to today.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Definitely. Interestingly, we often leave out music playing for the
dog just so he doesn't feel too lonely. There's not
enough dog scentered playlists on Spotify, because if there were,
I would tell Alexa to play then that is usually
(10:45):
what the music's playing out of. By the way, and
Alex have powered speaker. Alex has been around for a
long time. She's still not that clever, and often you've
got to double explain exactly what you wanted to do
and then she still doesn't do it, and when I
say she, mine's actually a guy. I've changed the voice.
I haven't called it Barry, but I've changed the voice.
(11:10):
A voice felt uncomfortable ordering a female AI around, and
I feel much more comfortable getting a bloat to do
my bedding. I feel like once the robot overlords start
telling us what to do, then I'll change the voice
back to the female version of the voice, I think,
(11:32):
and then it'll be more comfortable as well. But it
hasn't happened yet. No robot apocalypse just yet. I'll let
you know when it happens.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Us Talk talks it Bean for more from News Talk
said B. Listen live on air or online, and keep
our shows with you wherever you go with our podcast
on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk said B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Used Talk, sed B Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, My beautiful beanies, and welcome to the bean for Friday.
First fore yesterday's news, I'm Glenn Hart, and we're looking
back at Thursday. Remember boot camps that they were going
to sort out youth crime. Weren't they? What's going on
with them? Council versus central government rate caps seem to
(00:46):
be at the top of the agenda. There will they work?
And Marcus is suspicious of Alexa. But before any of that,
open planned classrooms are the latest magic bullet that's going
to solve all our education problems.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
This idea doesn't mean we're going back to the pre
fab the cold, uninsulated prefabs for every class that possibly
you went to school them. If teachers want to open
up space, they can. When they want to shut themselves off,
they can. There is no one size fits all for
every class, and that is the way it should be.
(01:25):
I remember pre COVID, we were talking about bloody open
bland classrooms because in a stunning revelation, the previous labor
government was all for them and teachers and principles rang
in to say that they desperately needed a new classroom
(01:45):
and they couldn't have it unless it was an open
plan design, and they said that doesn't work for our children.
We don't care. We're the Ministry of Education and we
will tell you what to do. No no, no. The
schools no best, the teachers no best, The principles no best.
(02:09):
The thing I really liked about Erica Stanford's announcement was
the flexibility. You know, it's not those prefab classrooms that
many of us were in in the seventies or eighties,
and then you haven't got the huge big back in
the eighties and nineties when you had the open playing classrooms,
(02:30):
there were no space dividers. I don't think they existed.
So for Tip, my mum was one of those teachers
trying to learn in that environment. And also if the
teachers had different styles, she said, it made it really awkward.
She was really lucky that she worked with a new
teacher and an established teacher and they shared the same
style of teaching and discipline and that sort of thing.
(02:52):
But she said there were others within that school who
rarely clashed had completely different styles and it was horrific
for them and for the kids. So I like the flexibility.
This is a good thing. This is a very good thing,
and I want to hear positive, joyous, fabulous response to
(03:13):
this announcement from the Minister of Education, who as one
minister who really understands her portfolio.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I am thoroughly sick of this now. If you've ever
listened to any of the my podcasts in the past,
you'll know that I'm not a fan of school in general,
never was while I was there. In fact, absolutely hated
it and couldn't wait to leave it. And then I
ended up having kids and having to go back there
all the time, and that was kind of like PTSD
(03:42):
every time I stepped onto the school grounds. And now
I feel like I'm being further re traumatized by having
to talk about school even more. Surely most parents are
like I was, and didn't really care what they were
doing there as long as they took the kids away
from them for as many hours a day as possible.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
News talk has it been.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Could have taken them away from me completely and set
them to boot camps. They don't think they had boot
camps when my kids were kids.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
How many times have you heard the Prime Minister say
this government is different because it's going to set targets,
it's going to track progress, and it's going to be
open about its actual results, going to be honest. That's
how we're going to get the country back on track.
This is what we've heard from National and from the
Coalition so many times. And what's more important than turning
around education and getting on top of youth crime, youth justice,
(04:37):
not much, which is why they've got charter schools and
why they've got boot camps. Everybody said, yep, those kids
need sorting out in the case of boot camps, or
those kids deserve more choice in the case of charter schools.
But now this week we've heard from the agencies involved
in these programs and they've decided they won't be telling
the public how many students are enrolled at the new
(05:00):
charter schools, and in the case of the boot camps,
they won't talk about how many of the kids are
actually reoffending. They've given various excuses for this, but none
of them really stack up. The fact is people can't
trust a system or a program that they know nothing
about when you're totally upfront about the results. When you're
(05:21):
not totally upfront about the results, I should say, it
looks like you're trying to hide something. It looks like
when you're trying to hide something, it's bad news normally
that you're trying to hide. So, either the government knows
that charter schools and boot camps are a bad idea,
which I doubt because otherwise why would they do them,
Or they're a little bit scared of failure maybe on
some key programs. We're a year out from an election.
(05:42):
Here's some free advice to you. And I don't know,
to be honest, whether it's the government directed in the
agencies to do this or just the agencies themselves, but
here's some free advice. Give us the truth and we
will make up our own minds.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yeah. Interesting, isn't it that it does feel like they've
gone into people have gone a bit cold on the
old boot camps to me, because that was going to
be the magic bullet, wasn't it a lot? Is this
the government of magic bullets? I just want to keep firing,
coming up with big ideas that are going to solve everything,
and then you give them a lot of hooplar and height.
(06:19):
But then if they don't quite solve everything down the track,
would just keep that use called syd right central government.
Chris Bishop versus the councils. I think he's trying to
rain them in and surprisingly they don't want to be
rained in.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
The fact is the idea is in place in Australia.
Melbourne and Sydney have rate caps, but individual councils can
apply for exemptions. In a Melbourne that meant that some
councils imposed ten percent rates, so it didn't work there.
But they do not have rate caps and Brisbane and
Brisbane has the lowest rate increases in Australia. So why
is that successive councils have kept the debt low. They've
(06:59):
had smart, long term plans with cross party support, so
that's one thing. They have a Suburb's First policy, so
that improvements are made where people actually live. Eighty five
percent of their budgets spent on this. It's cheaper than
grand CBD projects. And they like public transport. A record
two hundred and ten million dollars is being spent this
year on it, which is a lot cheaper they say
(07:20):
than building roads roads roads. But of course here public
transport or alternative transport options are the first to be
cut in hard times. We hate a cyc away and
because of their resident friendly, suburban centric approach combined with
a fiscal prudence, they have some regal room. Senior citizens
in Brisbane get the most generous rebates in the country,
cutting their rates in half, and then Brisbane can pursue
(07:42):
some big stuff. They're going for the Olympics, but here
they show some balls as well, conning the redevelopment of
the Gabba because the business case didn't measure up. Rate
caps are good slogan policy. It sounds like a simple
answer to a complex situation, but they didn't work in
Sydney and Melbourne. In fact, they're suffering from what's called
RPES catch up. If you defer projects, then eventually you're
(08:04):
going to have to do them and someone's going to
pay for them fung. I know we will find that
out when the Opera House will eventually have to have
millions spent on it to fix it up. They've deferred that.
The reason we're in the hole is because of false
promises of low rates by previous mayors and councils that
has resulted in a rates catch up. Wellington Water. Does
that sound familiar to you, That's exactly what happened there.
(08:26):
We don't actually need rate caps, but what we really
need is sensible, long term, fiscally prudent governance. Look for
that next election, but it's as rare as a unicorn.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It is. There's sort of a general theme in the
podcast today. It's very general about transparency and accountability to
the people in power. You know, put the rates up.
At least show us exactly where that money is going,
and then I think people probably won't resent them quite
(08:59):
so much. And if it means that I have more
than one rubbish spind on my route where I walk
the dog, I can probably handle paying a bit more rates.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
To be honest, news talk has it been.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
It's nothing worse than ever to walk around with a
bag of poo in you're in a pocket. Let's finish
up here talking AI. In fact, this AI has been
around for quite a while, Alexa and I've said that now.
And if you're playing this through a speaker, that's really confused.
You're speaker. If you've got Alexa done it again now,
(09:35):
and then Marcus did it too.
Speaker 6 (09:37):
I've spent two minutes thinking about Alexa, I don't like
it at all. Freaks me out that would be in
your house.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
I think some people are just too clever ayre using
it for all sorts of things. But anyway, goodness, the
future is.
Speaker 7 (09:51):
Here, isn't it welcome? Have named my AI assistant Barry.
He's really embraced it. Someone was convicted of murder after
Alexa recorded it. And someone talks to their dogs. We're
not at home. People are big on communicating with their dogs,
aren't they. A lot of people will leave the radio
for the dogs when they go to the house. Oh,
(10:14):
they like the voices, they say. I don't know how
I feel about broadcasting to dogs. Probably should taylor the
show a bit more to today.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Definitely. Interestingly, we often leave out music playing for the
dog just so he doesn't feel too lonely. There's not
enough dog scentered playlists on Spotify, because if there were,
I would tell Alexa to play then that is usually
(10:45):
what the music's playing out of. By the way, and
Alex have powered speaker. Alex has been around for a
long time. She's still not that clever, and often you've
got to double explain exactly what you wanted to do
and then she still doesn't do it, and when I
say she, mine's actually a guy. I've changed the voice.
I haven't called it Barry, but I've changed the voice.
(11:10):
A voice felt uncomfortable ordering a female AI around, and
I feel much more comfortable getting a bloat to do
my bedding. I feel like once the robot overlords start
telling us what to do, then I'll change the voice
back to the female version of the voice, I think,
(11:32):
and then it'll be more comfortable as well. But it
hasn't happened yet. No robot apocalypse just yet. I'll let
you know when it happens.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Us Talk talks it Bean for more from News Talk
said B. Listen live on air or online, and keep
our shows with you wherever you go with our podcast
on iHeartRadio
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