February 17, 2026 • 12 mins
FIRST WITH YESTERDAY'S NEWS (highlights from Tuesday on Newstalk ZB) The Cost of Nice Things/The Right to Shuffle Off/Mums Are Older/Return of the Toll/Sexbots Sound Great
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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 said, be you Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hello, my beautiful beanies, and welcome to the bean for Wednesday.
First of yesterday's news, I am Glen Heart. We're looking
back at Tuesday. Youth in Asia back in the back
in the spotlight thanks to Act again, motherhood, mums are
getting older. Ok, We're going to talk bridge tolls and
(00:44):
six spots at the end of the podcast. Not all
at the same time, I don't think. But before any
of that, how to reign and government spending did just
sort of counteract it with more taxes since to be
what's happening in Australia.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Well, there's a report out from The Australian this morning
that they're considering taxing more. Remember they already have a
capital gains tax, the thing that we don't have, but
Labour's promising to introduce here. But they have a discount
on it for assets that are held for at least
a year. So hold it for more than a year
you get a discount. Once you flick it off, you
get half off your tax. Now the Treasurer apparently has
(01:22):
been keen on getting rid of this discount and is
not ruling out doing so again. That would bring the
crown an extra ten billion dollars in revenue a year.
You can see why that might be useful to them.
So when parties here say they'll solve our problems with
new taxes, is that the end of the story, or
does the insatiable beast come back for more. This is
(01:44):
the problem that is unique to government. In private business,
as you well know, you only put prices up so
high in order to cover your costs. People have choice
about what they buy and they might put you out
of business if you don't adapt. So you cut your costs,
you innovate, you change to remain competitive. Governments don't have
(02:05):
to be competitive. They can raise taxes pretty much indefinitely.
And the problem with some of them is it given
the chance, they bloody well would wouldn't they.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Tricky, isn't it. I mean, we want infrastructure like some
of the other big flash countries, but.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Who pays for it?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I think that is? Is that what taxing is about?
I don't know. It's all got a bit complicated, hasn't it,
News talk ze been. Actually it doesn't get much more
complicated than deciding to end it all when there's no
reason to carry on because of health. I'm talking about
(02:50):
the end of life Bill and amendments, proposed amendments to it.
They got really stuck into this with Gary Show yesterday.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
He says this would force the doctors and care facilities
into more conscience conflicts. He says doctors have to use
ethical judgment or time, but the bill sends a message
they're just supposed to do what the state tells them,
and there'll be a real risk it will force ethically
minded people out of medicine. I cannot see it as
(03:21):
the state dictating. How is the state dictating? The state
has put a framework in place to ensure that it's
only the person who wants assisted dying who can make
that request. They have to go through hoops before they
can be granted that request. It's not automatic. They are
(03:45):
really strict criteria, and doctors don't have to administer end
of life injections or however it is they do it.
I'm assumis injections. They don't have to perform the act
that will take a life. They can say no, I
don't believe in it. I would rather save a life
(04:08):
then end it. Not for me. I'll give you the
name of a doctor who does believe in it. So
how is the state dictating. It's not telling doctors they
must kill their patients. It's not telling people they must
die if they have a long term degenerative disease. As
far as I'm aware, it's about a person's choice. And
(04:32):
on the ethic side of thing, why is it ethical
to keep a person alive when they don't want to
be but they don't fit that six month criteria. Alex
Pink is perfectly within his rights to choose not to
take an early exit. Doctors are perfectly within their rights
to say they'd rather save lives than end them. And
(04:54):
I want to continue to have the right and have
it improved to be able to call it quoits when
there is no longer any value for me to be here.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Fascinating call it early on and curious show yesterday off
the back of that who seems to know a lot
of people who had shuffled off voluntarily. It seems like
everybody she knew had done it. She was the last
one were standing, it was, but she certainly sounded like
she knew a lot about it, including things like, hey,
(05:26):
you know, doctors and other medical professionals don't have to
be involved. If they don't want to, you can just
hand that off to somebody who was prepared to help
people through the whole process. So yeah, people get very
carried away with the rhetoric around us. They don't they
You's talk side now at the other end of life,
I eat birth. Apparently that's happening to mothers at a
(05:53):
later stage in their lives. It happened to this mother
for example. Either.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
So last year, fourteen percent of births were to mums
younger than twenty five, fourteen percent. In nineteen ninety five,
which is one gener ago, it was double that. It
was twenty eight percent of births to mums under twenty five,
And in nineteen sixty, which is two generations ago, it
was forty six percent of berths, nearly half of the
berths to mums under twenty five. There are now more
(06:21):
babies born to mums older than forty than there are
to mums younger than twenty five. And I'm one of
those mums. I was counted in late last year's data.
Last January, I was forty. I had a baby now
in retrospect, I reckon, if I could do my life again,
it would probably have been better to have my kids
about a decade younger. Your knees at forty are not
what your knees were at thirty. You don't want to
(06:42):
run around after them. They want you to run, but
you don't really want to run anymore. You feel more
tired at forty, though, you also realize the value of time.
If I have my kids at forty and they have
their kids at forty, I'm going to start being a
grandmother around the age of eighty, which means I'm not
going to have that long left right, I'm not going
to be able to see my grandkids get married and
have their kids, which is one of the joys of life.
(07:02):
I would imagine. Leaving it late means you miss out
on a whole bunch of stuff that previous generations had.
But then, on the other hand, there are upsides to
leaving it a bit later. You're a better person at
forty than you are at thirty. You're more in control
of your emotions, which is a really big thing to
teach your kids. You become a better parent, I feel
like more importantly, and I reckon. This is why so
(07:23):
many mums are leaving it later. You're more financially secure
by your late thirties. You've got yourself a house, you've
paid off a decent chunk of it, you have an
established career. Your partner's income is helpful. It helps to
pay the bills, but you're not dependent on it in
the same way that your grandmother was on her husband's
And I think that's the reason that the age of
mums will not ever go back down again, because mums
are more financially independent than they were two generations ago,
(07:45):
which means that they have choices, and the choice that
they are making is the one you're seeing in the data.
The choice is to leave. The kids are a lot later.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Nowadays, more and more people are finally heeding my advice
to never ever never, never, never ever, ever, never ever
ever never had kids. We're just going to solve so
many problems by following that one simple raw us all sitting.
So if we actually got a plan for a second
(08:13):
half a crossing in Aukland there this has sort of
passed me by, but of course it involves tolls. But
can you put tolls back on something that you've taken
tolls off.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
When they build a new bridge, or when they start
building a new bridge, they will probably put tolls on
the old bridge. Otherwise everyone will keep going on the
old bridge because it's free, and no one on the
news Bridge on the new bridge. So it's looking like
tolls will be back on the Harbor Bridge to the
north Shore. I mean, jeepers, I don't know how exciting.
(08:46):
It won't be like the olden days. There won't be booths,
it'll be some electronic wizardry. But yeah, if you are
a north Shore person and I know you're listening, how
are you feeling about that? I just love it because
it seems something familiar and old. But if you've got
something to say about that, let me know. Oh eight
hundred and eighty ten eighty nine nine two to text,
(09:09):
love to hear from you. Good bad? Do you have
an opinion? Because I am certainly curious and slightly excited.
So yeah, tolls on the Harbor. I imagine it'll be
five dollars because I feel like twenty cents feels like
five dollars now. I feel the things you could buy
(09:31):
for twenty cents would cost five dollars. That's how much
it'll be. I would imagine probably cost you're ten dollars return.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Marcus shouldn't just bandy stuff like that about say things
like that out loud, because because it'll come true. That's
very worrying to me. I think at that point, I'm
just going to have to check it. In this job,
I've got to come across the bridge every day, and
I can't. For some reason, I can't do it at home.
I don't know why I can't do it at home,
(09:56):
but I've been told I can't do it at home.
It's probably because if I did it at home, I'd
wag up everybody at home. They probably in cahoots with
the management here as if don't let them work your hard,
you'll wag everybody up five twenty two in the morning
talking into a microphone for a preten radio show news
Talk z it Bean. You think the technology would be there,
(10:19):
I mean, after all, we've got sex spots.
Speaker 7 (10:21):
Are you already the type person that was just willing
to give up agency of just basically you're plug me
into the matrix now type person there?
Speaker 5 (10:29):
I think there's a big element of that.
Speaker 7 (10:30):
You're you're the type person that was given the option
to leave the matrix or stay in the matrix. When
you were told you in the matrix, would say, just
leave me in, leave me in the leave me in
the pod.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
You're not part of the resistance.
Speaker 7 (10:40):
My pa did a lot for me. Why can't AI.
My brain can be busy on other more interesting or
rewarding things. But you probably had a relationship with your pa.
Maybe sexual no nations.
Speaker 5 (10:52):
It happened a lot in the eighties.
Speaker 7 (10:54):
Yeah, in the nineties, although I did read a thing
recently about that this is off topic, but what I'm
saying is that you would interact with them, and you'd
know about their family, and you know about their life,
and you maybe invite them out for dinner or lunch,
and they would become a person that was in your life.
You'd go to a Christmas part with your with your pa.
You'd buy them a present, they'd buy you a present.
It was It was a human interaction, and human interactions
(11:16):
are what humans need their mental health.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Right.
Speaker 7 (11:19):
But speaking of having relations with AI, it was interesting
the study of bead where it's like the average human
makes love to their partner about I think it was
three times a month there and maybe I don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
It must be must be nice.
Speaker 7 (11:40):
But people with AI six spots, it was up a
round fifteen times get very lucky, kind of unlucky and
lucky in a way.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
But yeah, it's not the pinnacle of achievement, really is
it isn't?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
It sounds like way better. I don't know, And I
will say I take yes with that comment about that
we need human interaction for our mental health. I feel
like my mental health improves dramatically when I when I
(12:17):
have less human interaction. The less human interaction I have,
the better I feel about life. I'm probably in the minority,
and that's not including this.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I love interacting with you, of course, and let's interact
again tomorrow. I'll see you then.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
News Talking Talking's it Bean. For more from News Talk
set b listen live on air or online, and keep
our shows with you wherever you go with our podcasts
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 said, be you Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hello, my beautiful beanies, and welcome to the bean for Wednesday.
First of yesterday's news, I am Glen Heart. We're looking
back at Tuesday. Youth in Asia back in the back
in the spotlight thanks to Act again, motherhood, mums are
getting older. Ok, We're going to talk bridge tolls and
(00:44):
six spots at the end of the podcast. Not all
at the same time, I don't think. But before any
of that, how to reign and government spending did just
sort of counteract it with more taxes since to be
what's happening in Australia.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Well, there's a report out from The Australian this morning
that they're considering taxing more. Remember they already have a
capital gains tax, the thing that we don't have, but
Labour's promising to introduce here. But they have a discount
on it for assets that are held for at least
a year. So hold it for more than a year
you get a discount. Once you flick it off, you
get half off your tax. Now the Treasurer apparently has
(01:22):
been keen on getting rid of this discount and is
not ruling out doing so again. That would bring the
crown an extra ten billion dollars in revenue a year.
You can see why that might be useful to them.
So when parties here say they'll solve our problems with
new taxes, is that the end of the story, or
does the insatiable beast come back for more. This is
(01:44):
the problem that is unique to government. In private business,
as you well know, you only put prices up so
high in order to cover your costs. People have choice
about what they buy and they might put you out
of business if you don't adapt. So you cut your costs,
you innovate, you change to remain competitive. Governments don't have
(02:05):
to be competitive. They can raise taxes pretty much indefinitely.
And the problem with some of them is it given
the chance, they bloody well would wouldn't they.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Tricky, isn't it. I mean, we want infrastructure like some
of the other big flash countries, but.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Who pays for it?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I think that is? Is that what taxing is about?
I don't know. It's all got a bit complicated, hasn't it,
News talk ze been. Actually it doesn't get much more
complicated than deciding to end it all when there's no
reason to carry on because of health. I'm talking about
(02:50):
the end of life Bill and amendments, proposed amendments to it.
They got really stuck into this with Gary Show yesterday.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
He says this would force the doctors and care facilities
into more conscience conflicts. He says doctors have to use
ethical judgment or time, but the bill sends a message
they're just supposed to do what the state tells them,
and there'll be a real risk it will force ethically
minded people out of medicine. I cannot see it as
(03:21):
the state dictating. How is the state dictating? The state
has put a framework in place to ensure that it's
only the person who wants assisted dying who can make
that request. They have to go through hoops before they
can be granted that request. It's not automatic. They are
(03:45):
really strict criteria, and doctors don't have to administer end
of life injections or however it is they do it.
I'm assumis injections. They don't have to perform the act
that will take a life. They can say no, I
don't believe in it. I would rather save a life
(04:08):
then end it. Not for me. I'll give you the
name of a doctor who does believe in it. So
how is the state dictating. It's not telling doctors they
must kill their patients. It's not telling people they must
die if they have a long term degenerative disease. As
far as I'm aware, it's about a person's choice. And
(04:32):
on the ethic side of thing, why is it ethical
to keep a person alive when they don't want to
be but they don't fit that six month criteria. Alex
Pink is perfectly within his rights to choose not to
take an early exit. Doctors are perfectly within their rights
to say they'd rather save lives than end them. And
(04:54):
I want to continue to have the right and have
it improved to be able to call it quoits when
there is no longer any value for me to be here.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Fascinating call it early on and curious show yesterday off
the back of that who seems to know a lot
of people who had shuffled off voluntarily. It seems like
everybody she knew had done it. She was the last
one were standing, it was, but she certainly sounded like
she knew a lot about it, including things like, hey,
(05:26):
you know, doctors and other medical professionals don't have to
be involved. If they don't want to, you can just
hand that off to somebody who was prepared to help
people through the whole process. So yeah, people get very
carried away with the rhetoric around us. They don't they
You's talk side now at the other end of life,
I eat birth. Apparently that's happening to mothers at a
(05:53):
later stage in their lives. It happened to this mother
for example. Either.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
So last year, fourteen percent of births were to mums
younger than twenty five, fourteen percent. In nineteen ninety five,
which is one gener ago, it was double that. It
was twenty eight percent of births to mums under twenty five,
And in nineteen sixty, which is two generations ago, it
was forty six percent of berths, nearly half of the
berths to mums under twenty five. There are now more
(06:21):
babies born to mums older than forty than there are
to mums younger than twenty five. And I'm one of
those mums. I was counted in late last year's data.
Last January, I was forty. I had a baby now
in retrospect, I reckon, if I could do my life again,
it would probably have been better to have my kids
about a decade younger. Your knees at forty are not
what your knees were at thirty. You don't want to
(06:42):
run around after them. They want you to run, but
you don't really want to run anymore. You feel more
tired at forty, though, you also realize the value of time.
If I have my kids at forty and they have
their kids at forty, I'm going to start being a
grandmother around the age of eighty, which means I'm not
going to have that long left right, I'm not going
to be able to see my grandkids get married and
have their kids, which is one of the joys of life.
(07:02):
I would imagine. Leaving it late means you miss out
on a whole bunch of stuff that previous generations had.
But then, on the other hand, there are upsides to
leaving it a bit later. You're a better person at
forty than you are at thirty. You're more in control
of your emotions, which is a really big thing to
teach your kids. You become a better parent, I feel
like more importantly, and I reckon. This is why so
(07:23):
many mums are leaving it later. You're more financially secure
by your late thirties. You've got yourself a house, you've
paid off a decent chunk of it, you have an
established career. Your partner's income is helpful. It helps to
pay the bills, but you're not dependent on it in
the same way that your grandmother was on her husband's
And I think that's the reason that the age of
mums will not ever go back down again, because mums
are more financially independent than they were two generations ago,
(07:45):
which means that they have choices, and the choice that
they are making is the one you're seeing in the data.
The choice is to leave. The kids are a lot later.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Nowadays, more and more people are finally heeding my advice
to never ever never, never, never ever, ever, never ever
ever never had kids. We're just going to solve so
many problems by following that one simple raw us all sitting.
So if we actually got a plan for a second
(08:13):
half a crossing in Aukland there this has sort of
passed me by, but of course it involves tolls. But
can you put tolls back on something that you've taken
tolls off.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
When they build a new bridge, or when they start
building a new bridge, they will probably put tolls on
the old bridge. Otherwise everyone will keep going on the
old bridge because it's free, and no one on the
news Bridge on the new bridge. So it's looking like
tolls will be back on the Harbor Bridge to the
north Shore. I mean, jeepers, I don't know how exciting.
(08:46):
It won't be like the olden days. There won't be booths,
it'll be some electronic wizardry. But yeah, if you are
a north Shore person and I know you're listening, how
are you feeling about that? I just love it because
it seems something familiar and old. But if you've got
something to say about that, let me know. Oh eight
hundred and eighty ten eighty nine nine two to text,
(09:09):
love to hear from you. Good bad? Do you have
an opinion? Because I am certainly curious and slightly excited.
So yeah, tolls on the Harbor. I imagine it'll be
five dollars because I feel like twenty cents feels like
five dollars now. I feel the things you could buy
(09:31):
for twenty cents would cost five dollars. That's how much
it'll be. I would imagine probably cost you're ten dollars return.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Marcus shouldn't just bandy stuff like that about say things
like that out loud, because because it'll come true. That's
very worrying to me. I think at that point, I'm
just going to have to check it. In this job,
I've got to come across the bridge every day, and
I can't. For some reason, I can't do it at home.
I don't know why I can't do it at home,
(09:56):
but I've been told I can't do it at home.
It's probably because if I did it at home, I'd
wag up everybody at home. They probably in cahoots with
the management here as if don't let them work your hard,
you'll wag everybody up five twenty two in the morning
talking into a microphone for a preten radio show news
Talk z it Bean. You think the technology would be there,
(10:19):
I mean, after all, we've got sex spots.
Speaker 7 (10:21):
Are you already the type person that was just willing
to give up agency of just basically you're plug me
into the matrix now type person there?
Speaker 5 (10:29):
I think there's a big element of that.
Speaker 7 (10:30):
You're you're the type person that was given the option
to leave the matrix or stay in the matrix. When
you were told you in the matrix, would say, just
leave me in, leave me in the leave me in
the pod.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
You're not part of the resistance.
Speaker 7 (10:40):
My pa did a lot for me. Why can't AI.
My brain can be busy on other more interesting or
rewarding things. But you probably had a relationship with your pa.
Maybe sexual no nations.
Speaker 5 (10:52):
It happened a lot in the eighties.
Speaker 7 (10:54):
Yeah, in the nineties, although I did read a thing
recently about that this is off topic, but what I'm
saying is that you would interact with them, and you'd
know about their family, and you know about their life,
and you maybe invite them out for dinner or lunch,
and they would become a person that was in your life.
You'd go to a Christmas part with your with your pa.
You'd buy them a present, they'd buy you a present.
It was It was a human interaction, and human interactions
(11:16):
are what humans need their mental health.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Right.
Speaker 7 (11:19):
But speaking of having relations with AI, it was interesting
the study of bead where it's like the average human
makes love to their partner about I think it was
three times a month there and maybe I don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
It must be must be nice.
Speaker 7 (11:40):
But people with AI six spots, it was up a
round fifteen times get very lucky, kind of unlucky and
lucky in a way.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
But yeah, it's not the pinnacle of achievement, really is
it isn't?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
It sounds like way better. I don't know, And I
will say I take yes with that comment about that
we need human interaction for our mental health. I feel
like my mental health improves dramatically when I when I
(12:17):
have less human interaction. The less human interaction I have,
the better I feel about life. I'm probably in the minority,
and that's not including this.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I love interacting with you, of course, and let's interact
again tomorrow. I'll see you then.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
News Talking Talking's it Bean. For more from News Talk
set b listen live on air or online, and keep
our shows with you wherever you go with our podcasts
on iHeartRadio.
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