Full Show Podcast: 23 October 2025

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Opinionative, informed, unapologetic, The Mic Hosking Breakfast with a Veda, Retirement, Communities, Life,
Your Way, News Talks, Dead be.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Morning and Welcome Today good news for Kiwi fruit. Don
McKinnon ahead of the Bolger funeral, The EUS in town
to fire up our relationship, which is good? The New
New Zealand or In New Zealand CEO gives his first
interview after Rate this Morning. Joe mckinnons in Rome of course,
Rod Little joins.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
In from Great Britain, pasking where is what?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Seven past six acc staff I noted joining today's striketh on.
It's almost a telethon esk by now, isn't. It's got
the how big can it be? Type of vibe about it.
Radio New Zealand ranner what you Need to Know feature
kind of like the stories you see ahead of the
All Blacks and the Warriors games. What time has kick off?
How much hot chips are? What's the weather forecast? A god,
of course is not on the striker's side today, with

(00:48):
a very bad day for a lot of the country.
Is the much hyped second Front rolls over the nation.
It's always a test of resilience. I think isn't it
resilience and determination the weather? Can you be bothered striking
and being wet? How much this does the ink on
your placard run? Stuff like that, ACC, of course, are
the posted child of public service dysfunction, which does raise
the question are they hopeless because of lack of funding

(01:10):
or are they just hopeless? They've had reports into them.
One said it was a gossipye culture. All I know
is there billions in the red and there doesn't seem
to be a very obvious novert turn around plan. What
I also know is the strike, of course, will achieve
nothing except there will be more to do on Friday,
unless you're a teacher who's having a teacher only day,
which means there'll be more to do on Tuesday. ACC

(01:30):
strikers don't like the work from home rules, which are
down to two a week. Of course pre COVID there
were none a week, which simply shows how quickly slack
habits form. They also argue, and this is the teachers
and the nurses as well as ACC, that they should
be offered more money to cover inflation. Now I've got
no idea where all this has come from. Work is
about value, not the economics of the day payers based

(01:51):
on output and demand and revenue covering inflation is simply
cost plus accounting. It's doing the same thing for ever
more amounts of money. Follow that to its logical conclusion,
and everyone's broke. But overall, ACC staff seemed miserable, and
that's no state to be. We all have good days
and bad days of work, of course we do. But
ultimately work should be fun. It should be challenging, it

(02:11):
should be surprising, It should be enriching and rewarding. ACC
seems like none of that, and a strike will solve
none of that.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
News of the world in ninety seconds.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Are missing in Britain right now, the government gang grooming
inquiries and crisis as any number of inquiry members quit.

Speaker 4 (02:29):
These two individuals, mister Speaker, have spent decades decades are
standing up for those who have been abused. I'm sexually
exploited and I absolutely think they're the right people to
take this fall raveling.

Speaker 5 (02:43):
She doesn't have more experience than the survivors. The fact is,
just a few weeks ago he was standing there telling
us he had full confidence in the best friend of
a convicted pedophile. So it is no surprise that people
have no confidence in what he is saying.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
This bloke is one of the people who pulled down.

Speaker 6 (03:00):
Signed in protest at the political interference with the developing
child Exploitation and Online Protection Center. I didn't stay, I
didn't remain quiet. I didn't go along to get along
to make sure that I'd get a gong or something else.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Meantime, and called a fifteen year old who have killed
another kid at school at lunchtime is off to the
big house.

Speaker 7 (03:20):
The minimum term which I impose in your case is fifteen
years and one hundred and six days. There is no
guarantee that you will in fact be released at the
end of that period.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
The in state side news from the Varnce family vance
I the VP still's breaking peace in the Middle East.

Speaker 8 (03:40):
We have a very very tough task ahead of us,
which is to disarm the mass, but rebuild Gaza, to
make a life better for the people in Gaza, but
also to ensure that their mass is no longer spread
to our friends.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Is meantime Varnce two, who's JD's heart brother. He's running
for maya of Cincinnati, where the police chief has just
been stood down.

Speaker 9 (03:57):
One of the biggest things we have to do is
simply allow the to do their job. You know, this
litigation that's happening between the police chief and the mayor
is happening because we're seeing trickle down in confidence from
the mayor's office. That's basically tying the hands of our officer.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Finally, Google has developed the next step beyond the supercomputer
while we gots the quantum computer, which by the way,
is the brainchild of one of the nobil A Prize
winners the other day. He designed the algorithm. It allows
the quantum to perform thirteen thousand times faster than a
regular computer. Quantum computer is still about five years away,
they say. Google thinks though, they will be able to
create unique data to feed into the AI models to

(04:33):
make them more powerful. So when you can get one
at Harvey Norman, I'll let you know. Meantime, that's news
of the world in nineteen Japan. What can I tell you?
Exports four point two percent. Semiconductor exports were a big
part of that picture. Imports up three point three percent.
I think that's reasonable. Meantime, the UK inflation you think
ours is bad, this is worse three point eight And
that raises the question, hmm. Bank of England. What about

(04:56):
those cups? So watch and wait twelve past six.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
The Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio, call
it by News Talks.

Speaker 10 (05:07):
That'd be.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yesterday that the guy in Grassier, Paul and Grassier, who
was going to be nominated for the Office of the
Special Council under Trump's nomination, he was going to be
in front of the Senate on Saturday, and he sent
out a text that had a lot of people worried
about his brain power. Anyways, withdrawn from that, so that's over.
And I note that Walmart this morning that the tremendous
user of these h one b visas, you know, this

(05:31):
one hundred thousand dollars thing that Trump slapped on them
as a result of that, they have two thousand of
them currently, so allegedly they can't find Americans anyway, the
point being they've paused that because they can't afford it,
or claim they can't afford it. Fifteen pass your partner's Andrew.

Speaker 11 (05:47):
Kellah, good morning, very good morning, Mike.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
So the dairy we got.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
There in the end, thank the Good Lord. And it
seems it sort of could have been bad. It's not
as bad as it we thought it might have been.
Is that fair, Yeah, that's fair.

Speaker 12 (05:57):
We're just revisiting it, really in the spirit of making
sure all the listeners are well and listens they are
well informed with correct information. We did make the assumption
yesterday that the individual asset prices were correct, and I
was quite worried about the reported fall and whole milk powder.
Those individual product prices weren't right. They were corrected later.

Speaker 11 (06:15):
In the day. So here's the right numbers.

Speaker 12 (06:17):
The global Dairy Trade index fell one point four percent.
That is a continuation of weak outcomes, but it's a
relatively benign fall.

Speaker 11 (06:26):
Eight out of the last ten auctions.

Speaker 12 (06:27):
Have resulted in the lower Global Dairy Trade price index,
so there's obviously a supply demand thing out there. Still
reasonable amounts of demand apparently, but just just lots of supply.
Those individual product movements are smaller than we reported yesterday.
So wholework powder was down two point four percent, skillmut
powderfl one point six percent, a very small fall, and
butter zero point eight So the quantum of move mike

(06:50):
smaller than we initially thought, less likely to effect forecast
farm gate milk prices.

Speaker 11 (06:55):
Let's hope for uneventful auctions from.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Here, not particularly good for were in New Zealand. I
couldn't find much good on that, could you.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
No?

Speaker 11 (07:02):
I think towards the end of the program yesterday you noted,
didn't you, that Air New.

Speaker 12 (07:05):
Zealand had announced a loss. Just looking a bit more detail.
In August, Mike, Air New Zealand provided guidance that earnings
before taxation for the first half of the twenty six
financial year are expected. We're expected to be similar or
just slightly less than that reported in the second half
of twenty twenty five, that number thirty five million.

Speaker 11 (07:25):
Yesterday they provided an update on that they were now
in behind. Here.

Speaker 12 (07:29):
They were expecting a two to three percent lift in
revenue across domestic and US bound bookings. Now that has
not materialized, and the thing is they can't even see
it in their forward booking profile. It's yet another example, Mike,
of the sort of economic equivalent of waiting for god ot.
I mean, the whole country has been waiting for economic

(07:51):
salvation this year was just hasn't arrived. So there's fifty
million dollars of anticipated revue that hasn't come in. Unfortunately,
on the other side of the profit and loss. Their
engine lease costs have also been higher, so they now
expect a loss before taxation for the first half of
the twenty six financially in the range of thirty to

(08:12):
fifty five.

Speaker 11 (08:12):
Million, so pretty disappointing.

Speaker 12 (08:14):
They do caution against extrapolating that that sort of outcome
that run rate into the second.

Speaker 11 (08:20):
Half of the year.

Speaker 12 (08:21):
So in other words, they've got higher costs, they've got
subdued demand.

Speaker 11 (08:25):
I think you're talking to the CEO. It's a tough,
tough gig for the incoming CEO.

Speaker 12 (08:30):
It's interesting that they're also doing a share buy back
at the moment at the same time that they are
losing money.

Speaker 11 (08:36):
So few things to talk about there.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Talk to me about you will talk to me about
AI and power because I'm fascinated and this and how
we're going ever going to do it as a country.
But generally it's a conversation globally.

Speaker 11 (08:46):
Yeah, actually, so I want to sort of talk.

Speaker 12 (08:48):
It's almost this is almost a cautionary tale of hype
might because there's definitely pockets of hype in the US
and global share markets at the moment, and overnight we've
seen evidence of this with things like the meme stocks.

Speaker 11 (08:59):
I can't leave.

Speaker 12 (09:00):
We're talking about this again, Crispy Kream. Apparently the retail
sharehold retail punters are all into that. Again, hype is
creeping into other places. Well, I find myself talking about
AI a lot at the moment. I'm no AI experts,
I'm learning, but I do often mention that there's pockets
of hype here as well, but also these downstream impacts,
and one of those is power generation. AI is hungry

(09:21):
for power. One company in the US has really ridden
that wave. It's a company called Oplow. Now, the reason
this is interesting because there's also this backstory. It's involved
in nuclear power. We've talked about nuclear It's also backed
by Sam Altman of Open I Fame, Open AI fame.
But it also has very close ties to the Trump administration,
the US Energy Secretary. Now, from a perspective of hype

(09:44):
mic this company has no revenue, no license to operate,
no binding contact to supply power.

Speaker 11 (09:52):
But what do you think it's worth?

Speaker 12 (09:53):
And it's listed on the York Stock Exchange twenty billion dollars, which,
if you want to see a definition of hype, here's
some hype and the share price in the last twelve
months has written written something like depending on where you
start one thousand, five hundred percent. But this is the
cautionary tale. In the last few days, all of a
sudden confidence is gone that they're going to be able

(10:16):
to do what they say they're going to do. Share
price has fallen by a third. So you know, I
was sitting on a plane the other day. I was
listening to people behind me talking about buying and selling shares.

Speaker 11 (10:25):
There's a lot of that going on at the moment.
There's a lot of hype.

Speaker 12 (10:27):
Listen to mister kelliher be careful out there, people be careful.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Good numbers play the Yeah, the.

Speaker 11 (10:34):
US market's under a bit of pressure Day twenty two
of the.

Speaker 12 (10:36):
Shutdown and Netflix down about ten percent, a bit of
a tax issue in Brazil. But also even though they've
got a strong performance in the background, a lot of
this is already reflected in.

Speaker 11 (10:48):
These valuations anyway.

Speaker 12 (10:49):
The Dow Jones down three hundred points forty six, six
hundred and twenty two, that's two thirty percent, the S
and P five hundred down points forty six points, sixty
six eighty nine, and the NASDAK down three hundred and
thirty eight points.

Speaker 11 (11:02):
That's one and a half percent.

Speaker 12 (11:03):
Twenty two thousand, six hundred and thirteen forty one hundred
up one percent ninety five one five small move in
the neck A four nine three oh seven. Shanata comps
also barely moved three nine one three The OSSI's yesterday
lost a point seven percent nine oh three. Oh the
clothes and ends it. It's fifty down just over half percent.
Thirteen thousand, three hundred and six Kimi dollar point five
seven four nine against the US point eight eight four nine,

(11:26):
Oussi point four nine four seven, Euro point four.

Speaker 11 (11:28):
Two ninety nine against the pound eighty seven point two four.

Speaker 12 (11:31):
Japanese yet gold slumping four thousand and fifty eight dollars
down seven or eight percent, and Brent crud sixty two
dollars and seventy two cents.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
So you tomorrow, mate, Andrew Kella, he's sure and partner's
task Buigg give Ai Meta and Blue Owl. No, I've
never heard of the mine. That doesn't matter, but they've
done a deal, and that deal for Ai in a
project center that deals worth just the twenty seven billion
dollars meantime, Laboobo. If you can't afford gold Tulli. You
can have filled la booboo. They've got the many la
boo boos and they're going off. At the moment. Global
revenue for the three months to the end of September

(12:01):
two hundred and fifty percent increase. America is up twelve
hundred percent. Europe's up over seven hundred. The stock market
value for the company, which is popp Tart of course,
is now running at forty six billion dollars six twenty
one and a half. Edwin News Talk to.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
The Vike Hosking Breakfast Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered
by News Talks at.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
B interesting that Lebubu is doing so well because Mattel isn't,
and they had a big miss yesterday. Their revenues down down,
sales are down some six percent. It's all to do
with the tariffs. Less than forty percent of Matel's product
will be sourced from China. They're trying to change it all,
but it's a problem for them. So Labuobuo they don't
seem to have a problem that Mattel does. Then I
note overnight that GM hot off their result yesterday, which

(12:49):
was quite a good one bar the ev division, which
is a disaster. But they're now claiming by twenty twenty eight,
so we're only about two years away that their Google
Gemini artificial intelligence is going to be rolled out their vehicles.
That's get it gets rolled out next year. But over
the next three years they're going to launch their eyes
off driving. This is what they're claiming. So it's different
to auto pilot. This is eyes off. This is like

(13:11):
you don't even need to do a thing. You can
you can sit in the boot if you want. And
this thing's apparently going to drive it.

Speaker 13 (13:17):
Like kidnap yourself, yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
And tie yourself up in the boot and then go
poop poop all the time your car's eyes off driving.
Do you believe any of that's going to happen?

Speaker 14 (13:25):
Six twenty five trending now quit chemist's warehouses and celebrate
big brands and biggest seatings.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
Speaking of the state's compo time at the White House.
So the President's got on to Pam Bondi told her
to demand demand that the Justice Department cough up four
hundred million dollars why for the damages of course, the
damages payment the Trump wants for that federal and all
those and federal investigations into them. So we're talking about
the Russia investigation, Russia, Russia, Russia, as well as the

(13:51):
classified documents case that was the rate at Mari Lago.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
I don't know what the numbers.

Speaker 15 (13:55):
I don't even talk to them about it. All I
know is that they would owe me a lot of money.

Speaker 10 (14:00):
But I'm not looking from money. I'd give it to charity.

Speaker 15 (14:02):
Now with the country, it's interesting because I'm the where
that makes a decision, right and you know that decision
would have to go first my desk, and it's awfully
he's ranged to make a decision where I'm paying myself.
In other words, did you ever have one of those
cases where you have to decide how much you're paying
yourself and damages?

Speaker 11 (14:20):
But I was damaged very greatly.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
And any money that I would get I would give
to charity.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Okay, well, we'll see where that goes. He's off to Japan.
Apart from anything else, he's going to make the new
prime minister in the next couple of days, so it'll
be interesting to see where that goes. By the way,
reports this morning that Dizzy's alive. They thought Dizzy was dead,
but now Dizzey's alive. Dizzy's the bloke in Victoria. Mike
Bush's in charge of that. Mike Bush. By the way,
update joh on that Steve gave us the scoop yesterday
that Bush was in big trouble in Victoria for the helicopter.

(14:45):
So that developed yesterday become a major story in Australia. Anyway,
back to Dizzey, they thought he was dead. Now they
think he's alive again. He's cross border. He's cross border.
They don't know what border and where, so another way
down the slightest idea already is but they I do
think he's getting help. So that's very Tom Phillips. So
they now think Daisy is alive. That started an August.
By the way, news for you next Hered News Talk, zed.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
B you're trusted Hove for news, Sports, entertainment, opinion, and
Mike the mic asking Breakfast with the Defender embraced the
impossible news.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Tog saed B and Camilla were back in Rome and
they would be just recently for the previous pope, of course,
but they're they're back this time to pray with the
new Pope, which will be the first in five hundred years,
so Joe with us on that shorty meantime at twenty
three to seven are big win for Zespriy and China.
So they've been successful. They're in court against a couple
of defendants involved in the unauthorized production, sale, and marketing

(15:41):
of that gold three Kiwi through so the defendants ordered
to remove two hundred and sixty hectares of the stuff
and pays Esbury one point two eight million dollars in damages.
Jason to Brake, of course, as the Zesbury CEO is
back with us, Jason Morning Morning White.

Speaker 11 (15:53):
How are you very well?

Speaker 2 (15:54):
Indeed? How much of the stuff goes on legally each
year around the world?

Speaker 16 (15:59):
Uh?

Speaker 17 (15:59):
Well, yes, China is the main area we see it.
There's about seven thousand hectares or just over that currently
in the ground in China. We've continue to monitor around
the world, but China is the main area we're seeing
it at the moment.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
And how do you monitor do you have people on
the ground or does somebody dub somebody in or will.

Speaker 17 (16:16):
Look you know, some of it's through our distribution network.
We hear it for our customer network through other growers,
but also in China we've obviously got a reasonable presence
on the ground there that are monitoring it, but also
just keeping open engagement with the industry to understand what's
happening there as well.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
So if the seven thousand hectares there and you've just
won two sixty, you've got a way to go.

Speaker 10 (16:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (16:36):
I mean this is a small element of how much
is there, but it's more of a landmark in terms
of winning seed law case. And it really does show
that China is starting to move around protecting IP rights
not only for trademarks but also plant variety rights in
this case. So it's a good move in the right direction.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
That's what is going to ask. So this is precedent
setting and it's got a chilling effect, as they say
in legal circles.

Speaker 17 (17:01):
Yeah, and it does also recognize that China is taking
more seriously around protecting particularly international company's IP rights, and
that makes it good for investment in China going forward
as well.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
And so that's a recognition on their part that their
reputation internationally is not particularly flash in this area and
they might want to do something about it.

Speaker 17 (17:21):
I think they're continuing to mature in that space. That's right.
We've seen a lot with our trademarks, so zespre trademarks
on gold trademark and they've been taking a lot of
action on that and now obviously with plant variety rights,
so it's continuing to mature in that space.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
Does this cost you one point two eight million in damages?
I mean one, do you actually get the money and
do they actually rip the hec tears out? But does
that cover your costs?

Speaker 17 (17:43):
So we've also had costs that we incurred a water
to us through this as well. So there's obviously the fine,
there's the costs incurred, but also the main thing for
us is the deterrent around pulling the fruit out of
the or the pulling the vines out of the ground
and not being able to sell the fruit good.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
We've got those numbers the other day, by the way,
we haven't andy on since then. The I mean, you
guys are it's just laughing, isn't it. I mean, how
much more can you grow?

Speaker 17 (18:08):
Look, we've got pretty strong growth ambitions, partly because we
have got strong demand around the world for naturally nutritious
product like ours. We've also got a lot of growth
markets that we're sort of really focused at the moment.
So look, there is more growth ahead of us. We
continue to work through that, but we're going to make
sure that we keep doing it at a high value level.

(18:29):
We don't want to erode the value of our returns either.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Couldn't agree more? Nice to catch up, appreciate it. Jason
to break who's the Zesprit CEO with us this morning?
Quick question, Mike, how can ten thousand health workers strike?
I don't know that that's the figure, but I'll believe
you in part complaining of unsafe conditions, while on the
other hand, say that vital services remain open, the public
will be safe. Does that seem ironic? Duncan Yes. And
though they reduce services, obviously, if you just wander on

(18:51):
in with a crook ankle, you're not going to get
seen today. A lot of management step in. It sort
of exposes the size of the health system of this country.
There's a true mendous number of people who aren't actually
on the front line. So they can reduce services, put
management into cover the bases, and buy and buy and
large they'll get through the day. Twenty two.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
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by newstalksp.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
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(20:23):
the switch today. Pasking year Bush, he didn't do well yesterday.
Steve Price alerted it us to it. So he took
the helicopter. Mike Bush, I speak of once police commissioner.
He and our Victoria's police commissioner. He's apologized took the
Victoria Police air wing helicopter. Wrong decision, quote unquote, the
wrong decision. We should have looked harder for a commercial flight.

(20:44):
While there will be no or word no impacts on
our operational capacity, community safety, your financial cost of the
Victoria Police. As the flight fell within our contracted ours
with the air wing provider, it creates a poor impression
at a challenging time for our organization. So lesson learned.

Speaker 14 (20:59):
Hopefully forty fart international correspondence with ends and eye insurance.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
Peace of mind for New Zealand business Rome Joe mckinna,
how are you great, how are you, Mike?

Speaker 2 (21:10):
Very well? And do Charles and Camilla that there only
there the other day for goodness sake with the back end,
and this will be a big deal, I mean first
first time in five hundred years, as I mean. So
that's history, isn't it.

Speaker 18 (21:19):
Yes, So there's going to be a special ecumenical event
with the King, the King, King Charles and Pope Leo
of course, and inside the Sistine Chapel tomorrow they'll be
praying together, first time since King Henry the Eighth, who
remembers King Henry the eighth. But this is pretty exciting
and they've just landed. The King and Queen have just

(21:40):
landed in Rome this evening, looking very relaxed in the
photos and the images that I've seen. They will make
this historic visit to the Vatican tomorrow. His Majesty will
have private talks with Pope Leo before going into this
event in the Sisteine Chapel, and then after that they
will go to Saint Paul's outside the walls, a papal basilica,

(22:04):
where he will be honored with a special chair that's
been made in his honor.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Well that event specifically, aside if he wandered around Rome.
Would he draw a crowd to the British royals a
thing in Italy? That's funny you should say that.

Speaker 18 (22:19):
I don't know that he would be immediately recognized on
the street. Having said that, he is quite a unique
kind of appearance, isn't he. I think there's a bit
of interest in the royals coming here. There's always interest
in Italy because we, of course no longer have a monarchy,
so there's always interest in royals when they come into Rome,
and fascination with the British monarchy exact.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Now. Tell me about maloney in the EU and the tariffs.
So this is a problem with being in a club
of twenty seven. Of course, you got to toe the
line until you don't. So what's she trying to cap
with Trump?

Speaker 3 (22:51):
Well?

Speaker 18 (22:52):
Yeah, she caused it a little bit of outrage over
the last few days because it looked like a social
media post from Trump suggested that she was pursuing a
direct trade agreement separate to the EU with Washington to
try and secure a deal decrease the lower the tariffs

(23:14):
that are being imposed. I don't know that's really achieved
very much, but she's got to face her colleagues in
Brussels tomorrow, so I don't think it's a terribly exciting
moment for her. This social media caption said that Georgia
or Maloney was challenging the EU and seeking a direct
trade deal, so not a good look for her.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
So what would I mean? I mean, why would you
know this? But I mean Mozzarella. So if she did
a deal with Mozzarella directly with the US as opposed
to broad based European goods, can you do that? Or
you know, the rules don't allow you to do anything individual.

Speaker 18 (23:49):
I think you can secure an individual deal. I don't
know what the rules are specifically, but it seems to
me that if you can do a deal, you can.
I think we'll find out more in the next few days.
But it's certainly still an issue of great concern in Italy,
particularly for pasta and wine and all those agricultural goods.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
As you mentioned, for Bottrella three years.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
I find it hard to believe she's been there three years.
I reckon she's been one of the great modern political surprises.
I give you this view from the other side of
the world. For what she was painted as some sort
of rabbid nut job of the right. She's actually done
pretty well, hasn't she.

Speaker 18 (24:25):
She's done an extraordinary job of straddling all the different
interests across the political spectrum and creating this image, this
international image that we've seen, building alliances with people who
are very controversial like the US President Donald Trump, and
somehow navigating the complexity of those relationships while still portraying

(24:50):
herself as a very strong and popular leader. That doesn't
mean she doesn't.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
Oh, she was just giving us the Maloney Special and
the future of because what I wanted to ask it
was is she more popular internationally than she is domestically?
Is it our system yet again? Is it the choice
here if we can have lights in the studio or
the WhatsApp working? It's it's not both things. It's that

(25:16):
how it works.

Speaker 13 (25:17):
It's not what it's that, but yeah, it's everything's connected
to everything, mate.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
As yeah it'll be for it's as the one in,
one out, one in thing is too funny for words.
So the migrant it's not just the one in, one out.
So the one in one out I go to the
UK and France here this is the illegal migrants. So
the one in one out is stupid enough as it
is because you're dealing with literally a handful of people.
You've got thousands going into Britain illegally by these small

(25:42):
boats every year. So they signed Macron and Star assigned
that stupid one in one out thing, And ever since
I got signed in July, so far forty two people,
I mean forty two people have allegedly gone the one
in one out. Anyway, the funny thing this morning is
one of the blokes, one of the outs, has come back.
So it was one and he was in and then

(26:04):
they rounded him up and he was an out and
now he's beckoning again. Ten minutes away from seven.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
The light hosking breakfast with Bailey's real estate news talks.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
They'd be answer me this.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
So the reason we lost Joe is someone was trying
to ring Joe. So you're on your phone when somebody
rings you, your connection drops out. And at the same time,
general motors are going to do eyes off driving. I mean,
give me a break. And that's before my light. So
if you think so, I've had this light thing in
the studio for how many weeks? Months, six weeks, so

(26:38):
anyway the.

Speaker 11 (26:39):
Lights go out, it's got to be longer than that.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, I reckon it's longer than that, but I was
trying to be nice about it anyway, So I moaned
one day and ago, these lights are old there, crap
fixed and put some new lights in. So they do,
and the new lights start breaking down almost immediately, and
so then I say, well, let's get some must be
under warranty. Well there's no warranty where we got the
lights from, straight from Timu anyway. So I'm sitting here

(27:01):
in the dark, and it's taken literally weeks to how
many people does it take to change the light bulb?
Well it doesn't really matter how many people, it's how
many weeks anyway, So they do one, so one's back,
the other one isn't anyway. They can only because the
lighting system in this building. Listen to this, with the
stupidest idea in the world. The lighting system in this building,
this was what what do you call this? An eco building?
Was going to save the world. Apparently eco building. Anyway,

(27:25):
You've got to turn off all the lights in the
whole building to change the lights in the studio. Have
you ever heard anything so stupid in your life? So
we got to wait for the week end crowd who
work in the dark anyway, So they're working in the
dark and Jason Pine wouldn't even know the difference. So
we turned all the lights in the building out to
put the one light back in the studio.

Speaker 13 (27:41):
I saw them in here one day working on it.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Rubbish.

Speaker 13 (27:44):
No, no, no, it did not.

Speaker 10 (27:45):
I did.

Speaker 13 (27:46):
There were three people too, Interestingly, two of them were
wearing high Viz.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Did they have a ladder?

Speaker 13 (27:51):
Yes, there was a ladder.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Do they have scaffolding?

Speaker 13 (27:54):
No scaffolding and then and no cones as far as
I could tell, no warning signs or anything like that.
But why only two of the three in high Vers.
The person who wasn't wearing high Vers had a laptop.
They sat on the floor and they were gaming. That
was a she oh to your sexiest there she yeah,

(28:17):
as she was doing something with the laptop while the
high Verse guys were going up. And actually one of
the high Vers guys just appeared to be sort of
supervising and everything else.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
Did we have a stop going to get in the studio,
which we had to stop go five minutes away from seven.

Speaker 3 (28:29):
The ins and the ouse.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
It's the fizz with business Faber, take your business productivity
to the next level.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
And here's the thing. The lights still not faxed. Lonely
Planet this morning have got one of their annual lists.
I'm glad we don't have much time left for this
because this is a stupid list. Best travel in twenty
twenty six lists. Right, So you're looking forward to something,
you know, specific, something interesting. Well, what are they recommending.
They're recommending the North Island. That's it. Nothing specific in
the North Island, just the whole North Island. Just go

(28:58):
visit the North Island experiences. We make the list on
the experiences. They recommend go star gazing in the wire wrapper.
That'll be nice. Also, sampling some of the country's finest wines.
Sampling wines in a wine region's really not a list.
It's not a thing. You don't get to be the
Lonely Planet to go where do they grow the wine?
Why don't you sample the wine and the wine region?
What a stupid thing. Across the ditch the Flinders Rangers

(29:20):
out back of South Australia is a destination. Quite a
lot of outback, not really specific as they just go
to the outback in South Australia experiences. The Bathing Trail
in Victoria. Never heard of it or savor the exciting
food scene in Melbourne. So, in other words, go to
a cafe in Melbourne. When you're in Melbourne, go eat
some food. This is lonely planet. But what a load

(29:41):
of crap. And then got to the book where I
have to cover the strike shortly. I don't know that
I'm going to make them, make them mind you. I'm
not the CEO of their New Zealand, and Nikkel Rabishanka is.
And he starts his job with the opening interview his
tenure with the Mike Hosking Breakfast, having given us the

(30:02):
update yesterday on how things aren't going that well, so
we'll talk to him after eight. Meantime, the news is
next here on the Mike Hosking Breakfast.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
The newsmakers and the personalities, the big names talk to
Mike the mic Hosking Breakfast with Bailey's real estate finding
the buyers.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
Others can't use togs.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
He'd be only seven past seven, so almost like a telethon.
Today's strike action has been built up to a mass
hysteria type crescendo. They claim the biggest industri real action
of forty years, an estimate of one hundred thousand nurses, teachers,
medical stuff, as well as the aggrieved places like ACC.
David Seymour, Deputy Prime Minister, of course, but also Associate
Health and Education is with us, good morning, good morning.
How much of this is genuine grievance versus how much

(30:45):
of this is making a political statement against the government
they don't like.

Speaker 16 (30:50):
We'll put it this way. I don't think that there
would be a member of our cabinet who doesn't want
to pay nurses, teachers, doctors as much as possible. On
the other hand, it seems to be a disconnect between
what some of these unions and the union leadership are
demanding versus the reality that most New Zealanders, including those
who have to pay the taxes to fund these services,

(31:13):
are actually facing. They seem to be demanding things that
aren't a reality for most of those people who pay
the taxes and actually need the education and health services.
I mean, you take a look at nurses start on
seventy five thousand under one offer they've received. By next year,

(31:33):
a starting nurse would be on eighty six after going
up a step and getting an increase that's been offered.
On the other hand, you look at teachers, you know,
fourteen and a half percent in the last three years.
These are not the kind of conditions that most New
Zealanders have faced, and so I think there needs to
be a question of are these guys facing up to

(31:54):
the reality that all New Zealanders face right now trying
to solve problems, which is what the government is trying
to do, fixing one thing after another or making a
political point, and that I think is where a lot
of the frustration for people in the government but also
in New Zealand is up and down the country are facing.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Well is it? Because if you believe that poll yesterday,
which I actually don't because I think it was opted
in at only four hundred, but I mean the majority
of people actually back the strike. They think they've got
a case. Your argument that you just outlaid as landed flat.

Speaker 16 (32:22):
I think if you were to ask people should doctors
and teachers be paid more or nurses, of course they
would say yes. On the other hand, if you put
it to them, should we be demanded to give payoffers
that are completely out of proportion with what most people
in the New Zealand economy have faced in the last
three years, then they would say, well, actually, I'm not

(32:43):
sure that's fair.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
No, you have spent the government have spent the best
part of the last week saying come back to the table,
come back to the table, come back to the table.
Have they responded the unions responded to that in any way,
shape or form.

Speaker 16 (32:54):
Well, it's been mixed, but you can see from the
fact the strike's going ahead even after forful this morning
the Public Services Commissioner said, Look, we're prepared to work
through the weekend. We think we're there with the teachers,
but they're not at the table. They're striking. So I
think that tells you everything you need to know.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Roche is on holiday. Is that a thing in your
mind or not?

Speaker 16 (33:16):
Well, I don't know his full personal circumstances or what's
led to that, so I shouldn't comment on it. But
he's made it clear that he's available. I see he
was available being interviewed this morning, so he may be
across the ditch, but he's still very much on the job.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Where does this go post today? We will go back
to work, probably not tomorrow for the teachers, but by
tuesday we'll get back then. What we just do, what
carry on?

Speaker 16 (33:40):
Well, at some point these union organizers are going to
have to face the reality we'd like to pay as
much as we can, we also have to balance the
needs of all those other New Zealanders who actually pay
the taxes, who almost universally haven't had increases in anything
like what they're asking for. And at some point when
that real sinks and we can get back to fixing

(34:02):
what matters and living our lives in New Zealand. But
the idea that's, you know, because you know, like something
you can make a political pantomime like they appear to
be attempting. I just don't think that will wash.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
All right, appreciate time. David Seymour, who's the Associate Health
and Education Minister today? Do you believe the poll yesterday
the Torbert Mills Pole four hundred people? I think was
often but but on I can't even remember the number
because I wasn't that interested. It was about sixty sixty
five percent allegedly supported the strike. When you broke it
down for people who support the coalition versus people who
don't support the coalition. People who support the coalition, it

(34:34):
was even stevens And of course most of the support
came from the other side of the camp eleven past seven, Mike,
I'm sick of these strikes. Call their bluff. Next off,
it should be a pay cut. The country can't afford
it anyway they earn as much like teachers are pushing
their luck. It has got to a fascinating thing, or
a fascinating stage, or a fascinating time. As far as
I can work out that those numbers that David gave

(34:54):
the early Day numbers were interesting. But when sixty six
percent of teachers are on a six figure salary in
a country where the average salary is seventy two seventy
three thousand dollars, at some point someone's got to go,
wait a minute, is this reasonable? Anyway more on this
before the half hour is out. Now. The other thing,
speaking of money, there seems to be a great deal

(35:15):
of consternation around the eighteen month at the moment four
point four to five. So as I think, ASB started
at B and Z followed up yesterday, what we're building
or what the banks are building up to, is the
anticipation of at least twenty five points for November from
the Reserve Bank. So just understand how this works. Because
a lot of people are still laboring under the idea
that when the Reserve Bank makes an announcement, as they

(35:35):
will next month, all the banks then follow suit. What
the banks are doing is building this in already. They're
anticipating the twenty five. It's probably it. After twenty five,
there is no more. So what we're getting to or
heading towards, is probably going to be as good as
it gets mortgage wise. So B and Z just to
give you a flavor, six month at four seven nine,

(35:58):
two years at four to four nine, four year at
four nine nine. The five years down by forty basis
points to four nine nine. I reckon, here's my pack
before this thing's over, and it'll be before Christmas. I
don't know where it's going to be in terms of length,
but someone's going to come in at a three three

(36:19):
nine nine. Come back and talk to Don McKinnon at
a moment thirteen past.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
The Mike Asking Breakfast Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered
by News Talks at B.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
The new CEO for Any New Zealand, Nicol Rebishanka, started
this week. His first interview was this morning after eight
o'clock and after yesterday's update. He has got a big,
big job in front of him. So look forward to
meeting him after eight sixteen past seventh. Friends and family.
Of course, today farewell Jim Bolgia funeral is going to
be held at the local Catholic parish and Capiti. Sir
Don McKinnon will be speaking. He's with us.

Speaker 7 (36:49):
Don.

Speaker 10 (36:49):
Good morning to you, Good morning to you, mate.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
A lot of very nice things have been said about
Jim Bolder, and I suppose rightly so over these last
few days. Have you been pleased to hear them?

Speaker 19 (36:58):
I have been pleased here of them because certainly at
the time that he was Prime Minister, he never got
those kind of accolades on a continuous run. And what
you've been hearing recently is pretty much the man as
we knew him.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Indeed, you helped out, I wonder, and I mean you
won't agree with me necessarily publicly, but I mean the
fact that you never wanted to roll them knife and
be the boss. I mean you were a good combination,
won't you.

Speaker 10 (37:24):
Well? I hope so, I hope so.

Speaker 19 (37:25):
And I still say that if any leader has a
deputy whose aspirations for the leadership are very strong, you
will have a permanent destabilization.

Speaker 10 (37:35):
And that's not a good thing for the country.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Chris Flinlayson wrote very nicely about him the Herald yesterday.
He concluded that Fraser aside bold, you would be right
up there, would that be your assessment?

Speaker 19 (37:47):
Well, I certainly say so, And I agree with someone
else who said a couple of years ago that of
the five farmer prime ministers, he was certainly the best
of all of them because he just had a broader mind.
It wasn't just about farming, it was about the whole country.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Yeah, it's one of them. It appeals to me personally,
this idea that you can leave school young but still
rise to be the leader of the country. I mean,
that's a fantastic thing for New Zealand. I just wonder
if it was a time and place thing and it
wouldn't even be remotely possible today.

Speaker 19 (38:20):
Well, I hope it is possible, because you know, people
that have a pretty good IQ.

Speaker 10 (38:26):
I suppose inherently.

Speaker 19 (38:28):
They're capable of learning every day of their lives and
if they are in the right environment, it may not
be a formal education environment. If they're in the right
environment and they continue learning, they are curious, they want
to know things, they ask questions, They've got every chance
of rising to the top.

Speaker 10 (38:46):
I think it's worthwhile adding my.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
Got to be kidding.

Speaker 19 (38:51):
I mean so with Paul keating in Australia, none of
them had a university degree.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
No exactly is it fair to I think you will
alluded to it. Is it fair to observe that at
the time he wasn't loved and maybe that the fullness
of time have allowed a number of people to come
to a slightly different conclusion that they might have had
at the moment.

Speaker 10 (39:12):
I think you're right.

Speaker 19 (39:13):
Some prime mierists all love more than those I think
David Lnger is loved by many. I wouldn't say he
was a great prime minister at all. No, the bulger
that we knew wasn't seen the same way by the
general public.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
No. Is the weather going to be a thing today?
I mean with all these read alerts and you've got
to stay home in public transport is not on. How
come a thousand people are going to be able to
turn up the capital case.

Speaker 19 (39:36):
I think a lot of people will have second thoughts
about wanting to go unless they know they're going to
get inside the building, or they've got a seat somewhere
that's safe.

Speaker 10 (39:45):
They may have second thoughts, but look that's fully understood.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Yeah, good on, you're done. Nice to catch uppreciate it
very much so. Don McKinnon, former Deputy Prime Minister, who
will be speaking at the Bulger funeral today. Mike, I'm
a former teacher and a former school principal and ongoing
on and remember the teacher's union. I'm embarrassed about the strike,
as indeed you should be, Mike. It's not about wages
for the nurses. It's about understaffing. What rubbish to stop
saying that. If it's about understaffing, don't ask for money.

(40:11):
Say I'll forego the money to hire more staff. But
you're not going to say that, are you. I mean,
of course it's about understaffing. Everyone's understaff everyone's stressed, everyone's miserable.
No one likes their job. Is there anyone in this
country that actually like apart from me, that likes their job.
Because it's always not about understaffing, then don't ask for
more money, Mike. My friend's daughter's twenty three, a nurse
at Auckland Hospital. I was shocked to learn you into

(40:33):
one hundred and five thousand dollars. Many people don't do
anything like that. That's true. I don't deny, you know,
I'm good on them. If they can earn one hundred
and five thousand dollars as a nurse, fantastic. I wish
nurses we running two undred thousand dollars a year. But
there's a twofold problem here. One is that we're broke
is a country and we can't afford it. Two is
this cost accounting business we've got going whereby we just

(40:56):
need more money because the price of butter went up,
and because butter went up, we need more money. And
if you keep doing that, you're going to run yourself broke.
It's not how the economy works.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
Seven The Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show podcast on aheart
radio cow it by News.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
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Take your business productivity next level. Get your business running
on the business fiber past. Get twenty four already. Ah

(42:22):
the lament borold Radio New Zealand's obituary of the CRD
makes you weep climate related disclosures. Here was their headline yesterday,
New Zealand guts climate policy. It bragged about to the
world that's your headline. What's misleading about that headline is
the government who gutted it isn't the government who bragged
about it. They're two different governments as for the gutting

(42:44):
and the world leading, world leading in what? In what sense?
We were simply the first to the line with a
pointless idea the first country if you believe this government
that made it increasingly hard to get foreign money invested
into our country because they just produced another hurdle all banks,
insurers and list companies.

Speaker 11 (43:00):
What.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Four it's very labor, isn't it just to rope everybody
in whether it's relevant or not. Why didn't they make
us all write climate reports about ourselves. I mean, we've
all got a climate footprint. Airlines, sure, lot of emissions.
Tell us about them in your annual report. I get
that issues through insurance companies. Surely they would have done
it anyway, given that's basically their business. But turners good
on turners, you know, as in the cars as in TENA,

(43:22):
raise relevant issues. One, it wasn't similar to Australia, way
easier in Australia. We were hobbling ourselves too. They opened
themselves up to prosecution. This is directors and things like that.
Three it cost a fortune to get someone to write
all the mumbo jumbo that for many companies wasn't remotely necessary.
Even MB wrote a report saying the cost of all
is nonsense. Were prohibitive, but don't worry as long as
we're world leading. What labour never understood and no doubt

(43:44):
they still do now, is putting the cost of business
up is counterproductive. Having our competitors outpays us because we're
bogged down is counterproductive. And even if we all wrote
glorious page page page page page after page about our
foot prince in climate intent, what difference did any of
it make to the environment. What got changed or saved

(44:07):
or solved? The tragedy was too much of the media
got sucked into clearly still does sucked into the fields.
I mean, all you had to do was say, look,
it's a world first and then mix the words in
climate world first, and you had them hook line and
sinker asking Mike, it's the timing of the teachers strike

(44:27):
that's winding me up right at a time when the
kids are prepping for NCEEA seriously and this is the
time they need maximum exposure to teachers and guidance to
set them up. Well, that's the problem with the unions.
Of course, the unions aren't about the kids. Heaven forbid,
they're about themselves and maximum effect. That's why they used
to go on striking the bad old days with the
fairies on score holidays, and that's why teachers do it

(44:47):
close to exams. Well, he might. The Primary Principles Collective
Bargaining Group settled last week very fair offer in these
economic times. Over five hundred and twenty five primary principles
are part of this. Our leaders negotiated in good faith.
I just want to get on with the job and
help kid succeed. And if you were listening to Erica
Stamford in the House yesterday, as Willow Jenne Prime blattered
out another one of her union based questions, Erica quite

(45:09):
rightly said, well, it can be done, has been done.
But the trick to it all is you got to
actually be at the table and when the government says,
come to the table and let's negotiate, you can do it.
You have done it and there's your example. But that
then leads to the question do they actually want to
Is this about solving anything or is it just about
drawing attention to yourself. Now there's a bloke in the
country at the moment. He is out EU and Wall

(45:30):
it's the EU ambassador or EU Ambassador's to New Zealand.
We've not done this before at a high level. Apparently
get together with the EU and look to extend our FTA.
So we'll give you some more details on that in
the moment.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
Credible, compelling, the breakfast show you can't miss. It's the
Mic Hosking Breakfast with a Vita, Retirement Communities, Life Your
Way News, Togstead be.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Got to the political story of the day. You can't
write it, you can't make it up, and it's as
it comes. I'll come to that in just a couple
of moments. But just developing, it's been announced by the
Secretary of War Hig Seth that they've blown up another
one of these drug vessels. What's interesting about this is
and they don't delineate. They say the Eastern Pacific, so

(46:14):
I don't know what that means because the Pacific's quite
big anyway. It's their eighth strike. They're saying it was
a designated terrorist organization. They were narco trafficking in the
Eastern Pacific. They shot the thing in international waters. Both
terrorists were killed. No US forces were harmed in the strike,
so all the others the note of this, as all

(46:36):
the others were in the Caribbean. This has now moved
to the Eastern Pacific, twenty three minutes away from Eightes.
So flakeship man and I guess you could say in
our relationship with the European Union. Today we've got EU
officials in the country meeting with our political and business
leaders for the first ever joint business summit. Now the
focus is on maximizing our FDA strengthening bilateral tires. Lawrence

(46:56):
Meredith is the EU ambassador to this country and as
with it's Lawrence morning to you.

Speaker 20 (47:02):
Good morning mate.

Speaker 21 (47:03):
Great to be back on the shoff.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
Given our relationship, this is sort of odd that we
haven't done this before, isn't it.

Speaker 21 (47:09):
Well, we've just got a new free trade agreement, been
in fourth almost eighteen months, so we thought this was
the best opportunity to turbo boost it.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Your sense of that agreement and what's changed materially from
the EU's point of view.

Speaker 21 (47:23):
Well, I think it's a big change because, as you know,
in a moment of trade turbulence, their opinionion has actually
taken trade tariffs off trade with New Zealand, and that's
been a big boost for New Zealand exporters with an
extra billion dollars in the first twelve months. That's twenty
eight percent up.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Do you see it? I mean I look at the
China Deal as one of the original free trade deals,
of course, and that has grown with this country exponentially
over the years. Do you have high expectations of major
growth between US and the EU?

Speaker 10 (47:53):
Yes?

Speaker 21 (47:54):
Absolutely, and that's why we're having this summit and we're
going to be looking at five big issues. Of course
the agri agri tech piece, but also infrastructure building out
the Prime Minister's infrastructure investments some in March, and investing
in innovation in areas like clean tech, deep tech and AI,
and also aerospace and defense, which are phenomenal here in
New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
How on the radar is a place like New Zealand
for a place like the EU.

Speaker 21 (48:19):
Well, it's a really high up because if you look
at President vonder Lyon's political guidelines when she came into office,
it's one of only four trusted partners namechecked along with Australia,
Japan and Career. So definitely on our radar.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
Good attangibles coming out of this or is this just
to get together and you know, let's see how it goes.

Speaker 21 (48:37):
No, absolutely, and you'll have seen that there's the big deal.
We've got Nile Brown from Dawn Meets in Ireland coming
across fresh from investing in Alliance So's and we've got
the infrastructure giants of Vance and we Build and also
Bessic Swapack who are building the christ Church Stadium. So
we've got some big players over from Europe.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Good stuff. Enjoy yourself, Appreciate it very much. Lawrence Meridith,
who's the EU investedor this particular country. Twenty minutes away
from eight Michael Hill, the head of the New Zealand
and the new CEO of the New Zealander Nicol Ravishanka,
who started the job this week and giving us first
interview after eight o'clock this morning. A lot of questions
about in New Zealand of course, and he's got a
big job in front of him. But Michael Hill related
matters yesterday gave the market a bit of an update

(49:18):
and this is just once again a reminder of where
we are in the world. Unfortunately so subdued consumer demand.
We've heard this about a million times, they claiming across
Australia and New Zealand, which is true persistent inflationary pressures.
We've heard it all, put pressures on margins, blah blah blah.
But here's here's the key to this, because they're an
unusual company in the sense they've got very specific markets
and we can compare ourselves directly with what's going on

(49:40):
in those markets. So in Australia, do they see growth?
And remember, of course, Michael Hill, it's it's discretionary spending,
it's feel good spending, it's gold's diamonds, it's getting engaged,
it's happy times, it's you know, all of that sort
of stuff. One point two percent growth in Australia very good.
What about Canada four point four percent growth in Canada
very good news? And how about New Zealand down five

(50:01):
point five So that's a direct comparison with where we're
at with at least where we're at with Australia and
unfortunately Canada. Nineteen to wait.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
The Vike Asking Breakfast Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio, Power
by the News talks.

Speaker 22 (50:17):
At b.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
Sexteen to wait. One of the reasons the ACC people
are joining the strike today is they don't like the
work from home deal. So they it's down or the
ACC want it down to two days a week. Remembering,
of course this was all invented during COVID. It used
to be no days at home, and then during COVID,
for obvious reasons, people started working from home and then
suddenly they decided they never wanted to come back. Anyway,

(50:40):
it's very interesting case in Australia at the moment, and
Westpac had lost it. They've been in front of the
Fair Work Commission. Now. The key to this and the
reason it probably won't work here, is that they ping
them on Section sixty five at the Fair Work Act.
So I don't know whether we've got a section sixty
five at the Fair Work Act. But anyway, what had
happened was this woman had decided who move a long
way away from her work office because she started working

(51:04):
at home. She works in mortgage operations, and they decided
westpact that she report to the office at least a
couple of days a week. Her name's Carleen and so
she'd been there more than twenty years, which is the
sad part of the story. I guess she's eighty k's
southwest of Sydney. She moved eighty k's southwest of Sydney,
and she's then claiming it took roughly two hours to

(51:24):
travel from school. And the key was the school. She
wanted to be able to drop her kids off at school,
and so she and the kid was at a private school,
so she moved closely to the private school so she
could drop a kid off at school. And then they
said can you come back to the office, and she went, now,
I'm busy dropping that kid off at school eighty k's
away and it takes me too long to get to
the office. Now where it got slight, I think got

(51:44):
slightly tricky. She had been approved for flexible work conditions,
but then Westpac changed their minds, so I think you're
probably in front of something like a fair Work Commission.
Get a bit of sympathy on that. But also they
quoted the section sixty five of the Fair Worked Act
formal request for flexible working arrangements. So the present Westpac
present circumstances had arisen because of life choices and preferences

(52:07):
of the applicant and without the consent of west Pack.
So in other words, you know, move as far as
you want, but don't then say, look, I've moved miles away,
and I can't come to the office anymore anyway. The
point begging, they've lost Westpacket have lost. So that's now
a warning to them too. If you're gonna start getting
people back into the office, you're gonna have to have
a reasonably good reason. Now, funniest political story of the day.

(52:28):
You can't make the stuff up. The bill that was
going nowhere anyway. This is the Right to Repair Bill,
Merrima Davidson's Right to Repair Bill. Right. So, on the surface,
it had a kind of hokey old world good vibe
about it, in the sense that, you know, would you
like to be able to go along to Harvey Norman
and buy a few bits and bobs to repeat your
transistor or your lamp or your toaster.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Beyond that, was it ever realistic?

Speaker 21 (52:54):
No?

Speaker 2 (52:55):
And so she put this bill in the House and
I can't remember who it was. I think it was
New Zealand first who initially supported it, and that would
have given them the numbers to actually pass the bill. Now,
the problem with passing the bill, of course, and forcing
retailers to stock bits and pieces for parts that they
may or may not ever sell was it was course,
it was hopelessly inefficient and they were never going to

(53:17):
do it. And all that, in reality was going to
happen is that they weren't going to import a whole
lot of stuff into the country, because why would you
bother anyway? New Zealand first, if I'm correct in saying
it was them, changed their mind once they worked out
what I've just argued is the case. They suddenly realized
in the real world it's not remotely going to work,
so they pulled their support. So this was going nowhere anyway,
but it's in the house, and yesterday it got to

(53:39):
second reading. Now, the problem with second reading is you
need the person who sponsored the bill to be in
the house. Guess who wasn't in the house. Marrama wasn't
in the house, and everyone went, where's Marramah for the
second reading? And Marrima wasn't there, and she wasn't there
to be seen because she had underestimated the speed at
which the legislation would progress through the house so speedy

(54:03):
and so so fast she couldn't get back in time.
So what happens when the sponsor's not in the house,
of course, as they say, is no one here. They
go right in the bin. That's the end of that.
So a whole year's worth of work is up in smoke.
So a bill that was going nowhere anyway is now
up in smoke. Officially needs to be pulled once again
from the biscuit tin because she couldn't even organize herself

(54:24):
turn up on time. That's the sort of business acumen
that you're potentially going to be electing to run this
country next year. Good luck with that. Eleven Away from
eight the.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
Mike Costing Breakfast with a Vita Retirement Communities News togs had.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
Be it's away from it. We've got our new wood
Energy strategy and action plan. But you didn't know that.
I mean on a busy day of weather and of
course strikes, I bet you didn't know we had our
wood Energy Strategy and action plan out. The idea is
to fire up no pun intended, the bio energy sector.
Wood energy, they argue, could replace forty percent of the
fossil fuel by twenty fifty. That's your equivalent apparently, of

(55:00):
three hundred thousand tons of coal from Huntley.

Speaker 17 (55:02):
So.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Brian Cox is the executive officer of the Bio Energy
Association and is with us Brian Morning good morning. Twenty
fifty is still a long way off. Where's the industry
as a whole at as we sit here in twenty
twenty five.

Speaker 20 (55:15):
It's been really developing quite fast, but we need to
go faster and this is what the government did yesterday
is a little step in the way. But we've got
to do a lot more because we've got such an
opportunity which we're missing because we're just too slow about
doing it. But we've got the biggest resource energy resource
in the country is in our forest.

Speaker 12 (55:35):
Yes it is export Is it just wood?

Speaker 2 (55:38):
I'm reading a lot about Fonterra and they're flipping some
of their furnaces to what we call biomass. Is wood
biomass or is that completely different?

Speaker 20 (55:45):
No, same thing.

Speaker 10 (55:46):
It's just.

Speaker 20 (55:48):
Two words saying the same thing.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
Okay. So the difficulty with biomass once again, correct me up,
I'm wrong. Is I saw a documentary and when wouldn't
didn't provide the heat they wanted, they started burning tires,
which of course is not what you want because they
are good with heat. So do we have an issue
here or not?

Speaker 3 (56:05):
No?

Speaker 20 (56:05):
Absolutely not. Is that we export in our log energy
to other countries and we could be used at ourselves
here now they have to proceed up. You put into
a boiler, you make the heat, make eltricity, or you've
made heat. It's just a matter of you just got
to do it.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
If I run a commercial anything on coal, do I
have to convert or do I just have to stop
using coal and put wood in?

Speaker 20 (56:32):
Well, it depends on your boiler. But a lot of
the boilers, and some of these are the Fonterra ones,
which they've already done where they were on coal, and
what they've done is they've flipped them into biomass in
that case generally in a case of a wood palace.
But there's a range of different wood fuels that you
can put in. There's some are just woodship and ups,

(56:54):
but palettes is the sort of a type end range and.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
The heat is still the same as coal, better wors Oh.

Speaker 20 (57:01):
No, it's not as good and the cover of your
value of coal is much higher, so you do need
more bio mass. But on the other hand is that
it's a renewable domestic fuel and we've got plenty of it.
And as more and more people have converted from coal
or gas to using wood, is that the market has

(57:23):
been responding and we're getting more and more picked up
from the forest. You know, you drive past and you
see all this debris left on the floor of slash.
Sure that could be picked up and put into a work,
But if there's no way to use it, like what
happened in entire rafty is you know, you don't pick
it up because for what purpose. So we've got to

(57:44):
get so that people want to use it, and then
people will pick it up and then it won't go
onto the beach as it like Tollier Bay.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
If we started, if we just use wood tomorrow instead
of coal, would we need to plant a lot more forests?

Speaker 11 (57:56):
Oh? Absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
So we got all the forests, We got all the wood,
all the forest, all the trees we need.

Speaker 20 (58:01):
We could do with more. If we went to our
full potential, then we need to expand more. But we
are so far away from that, and so we're talking
principally about the residues. So when you cut down a tree,
they take the logs out, they take the good timber
of that, and they leave a lot behind. It's that
bit that they've leave behind that we're using at the moment,

(58:22):
and we'll be able to do that for a long time.
But then once we've used that, what do we do then, Well,
some of the low grade logs that are going to
China are real low grade, and we can get better
value by preturning them into energy here and using it ourselves.
So as a no brainer that we should be using
what we've already got and we're currently wasting all right.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
Brian Nice Insight Price appreciated Brian Cox's executive officer at
the Bio Energy Association. Winston's been on about that forever,
not processing or not adding value to our logs in
this particular part of the world. Interesting. I'm reading yesterday,
by the way, in related matter, Sam Whitelock's farm, which
I told you about what a week you go two
weeks ago in Hawks Bay. It's near Rissington, And so

(59:04):
there is some concern on social media, isn't there always
that it's going to get sold off and it's going
to be a forestry conversion anyway. Tony who's from Bailey's Rasmussen,
he's got the listing, he says, with the red meat
prices at the moment, the it's productive lands, beautiful land's
going to stay in the stay in the red meat
business largely the numbers should stack up better for sheep
and beef. He says, we're the current returns we're getting

(59:27):
and the TS restricts land conversion these days. Anyway, he
isn't expecting international buyers. He thinks local. He's got good
local interest. Highly likely it's going to be a New
Zealand purchaser. So there's a good news story. One beautiful farm.
Two Sam Whitelocke, three stays unconverted. Four to a New

(59:48):
Zealand buyer. You don't hear that good news every day
in the media. You do get for goodness sake, right
the new A New Zealand CEO, big job in front
of him will introduce you to him in a couple
of month after the news which is next to your reviews, talk.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
See over again, asking the questions others won't the mic
asking breakfast with the defender, embraced the impossible news talks.

Speaker 11 (01:00:13):
He'd be so on past eight.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Our National Airline has a new CEO. National VERBT Shanker
was the news industry digital officer replaces difficult days the
company short on planes and engines, of course, and a
reputation at times from an unforgiving public. This I understand
it is this first interview as CEO. So he's with
this very good mine to you, war great pleasure and
the warms. Congratulations on the job. Do you or did

(01:00:36):
you join the company five years ago with a view
to running it or it's happenstance?

Speaker 23 (01:00:42):
Do you mind if I use your platform very quickly
to mention one.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Thing, Oh, here we go, we're going to sale on
here now.

Speaker 23 (01:00:50):
A lot of our staff listened to your show, and
the last couple of days we've been dealing with some
terrible weather and today is probably the worst of it.
So I just wanted to give a shout out and
to our customers. Will do everything to keep you guys
safe in these conditions. It's a tough business. And just
to go back to your question, No, I didn't join
too with aspirations to necessarily be CEO. I'm completely honest.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
With what did you join by why of a company
five years ago? And what does that company look like
now that you're running it five years on?

Speaker 23 (01:01:23):
Yeah, the call I got was to was to sort
of join the company to be part of the rebuilt program,
rebuilding the airline back out of COVID I joined during
the second lockdown, and you know, I often describe this
to people and say, airlines were never designed with a
with an off switch. They're sort of perpetual motion machines.

(01:01:44):
You've got to keep them going all the time. And
so when we turned the airline off, basically, by and large,
turning it back on has been the most complex thing
I've done in my career. But it's also been the
most rewarding. And each time we went about the rebuilt
process and where and had to deal with another crisis,

(01:02:05):
one crisis after another. You know what's been most rewarding
is our focus has been to never waste that crisis.
So we've been busy investing in the long term health
of the business, in physical infrastructure, a lot of digital work,
and in our people.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
I don't even know that I want to go here.
But you talk about closing the aligned down, not everybody
during COVID did close the air line down globally. Of course,
I wonder if us closing as a country, our relined
down was a mistake.

Speaker 23 (01:02:36):
We have taken a lot of lessons actually out of COVID,
and some of that you're seeing in our current financial
performance in hindsight, one of the things we would have
done differently is some of these more critical, very specialized roles,
we would.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
Have held on to them for much longer.

Speaker 23 (01:02:52):
You know, it takes six years to retrain an aircraft engineer,
for example. Once you let go of a lot of
that capacity, building it back an innodinate amount of time.
That's why this game around, even though demand's been low,
we're holding much more capacity in some of those very
critical capabilities, and I think that's the right thing to

(01:03:15):
be doing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Also, I don't know whether it was part of your
job in any way, shape or form, but the airline
went to the government of the day and got what
I seem to think was one of the worst deals
in the history of financial deals ever. And there's a
market out there for good money for aviation companies who
wanted to borrow. You guys went and borrowed from the
government and paid a price for that. Do you regret that.

Speaker 23 (01:03:35):
It's before my time? Makee to be honest with you,
and I haven't. You know, I've heard that narrative, But
there were some incredibly intelligent, capable people working this problem,
and you know, I think that narrative may be overly.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Simplistic, the perfect storm scenario. So you bought a series
of planes from a company that couldn't deliver your engines
went wrong. It's still an issue long term. You've got
ongoing scrapes with them and and your head COVID. I mean,
you couldn't have orchestrated a bigger calamity if you set
out to orchestra one.

Speaker 23 (01:04:10):
Could you tough circumstances? Yeah, you're right, But you know,
New Zealand relies on aviation quite a bit more than
most countries around the world. About fourteen to sixteen percent
of our GDP relies on it. I mean, if you
contrast that with the United States, which is a you know,
a very mature and a significant aviation market, but four

(01:04:34):
percent of their national GDP relies on it. And that's
for obvious reasons.

Speaker 10 (01:04:38):
Right.

Speaker 23 (01:04:38):
We're a fairly large, sparsely populated country in the middle
of nowhere, far away from everywhere else, and we need
the airline. So this is tough circumstances for air New Zealand.
But it's not lost on us that that creates a
lot of strain on New Zealand and so we have
to work damn hard to resolve them rather than feel

(01:05:00):
sorry for ourselves.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Given you are now in charge, and given what you
told the market yesterday, what state is the company in
right now?

Speaker 23 (01:05:09):
The company is in a fantastic state.

Speaker 10 (01:05:11):
You know.

Speaker 23 (01:05:11):
The fundamentals of the business are in real good shape.
We've been doing a lot of work around investing in
core infrastructure, as I've mentioned to you, and it's a
complex business, like all of us. We bet on the
fact that we had bottomed out from a sort of
economic standpoint and things were coming right, and that's taken

(01:05:34):
longer than we would like. We also bet on the
fact that taking the word of our key suppliers that
we have our engines back and those both of those
things are taking a bit longer now. What I'm not saying, Mike,
is that we don't have work to do. You know,
there is always work to do to improve your business,
and we've got extensive plans to do that. But the
fundamentals of the business are very strong.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
Have you been lit down by aeroplane supplies and engine supplies,
I mean fundamentally let down.

Speaker 23 (01:06:02):
They've struggled with the same things that we've had to
struggle with. Restarting the aviation system has been more complicated.
You know, your titanium suppliers are in regions where there's war,
for example. You know you've lost your engineers because we'd
built this highly globalized network of labor and parts, and

(01:06:22):
those things are, as we all know, a bit wobbly
at the moment. So I'm not sure I want to
necessarily throw them under the bus. But you know, it's
been a while since we've come out of COVID. We
all need to sort of get on with it, and
they are. Last week, actually, I was with our board
with the CEO of Boeing Group and the CEO of

(01:06:44):
the global Boeing Global Aviation Business, and they gave us
most of their day. And we're a small airline, a
very small customer. We have great relationships with them, and
they are coming right. They're starting to build more seven
eight sevens in their factory in Charleston.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
Good all right, Nickel robershank In the new CEO of
in New Zealand more on a moment. Thirteen past eight.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
The mic Asking Breakfast Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio, powered
by News Talks.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
It be News Talks. It'll be sixteen past eight. Nicol
Robershanker is the New Air New Zealand CEO. One of
the most contentious things you'll deal with, and you'll be
well aware of it, given you're not new to the company.
Is this business of regional New Zealand and you rip
people off and it's nine million dollars to fly to
Tamuru and it's unfair. How do you address that?

Speaker 23 (01:07:29):
I get that flying is very expensive. It's as expensive
as it's ever been. One of the reasons for that
is the costs of running an airline has gone up significantly.
Just to give you one stat we spend about four
million dollars a day on fuel. A day on fuel

(01:07:49):
costs have gone up about forty five percent. One of
those costs is our own internal labor and that's gone
up about twenty six percent since nineteen so at or
just below inflation. But spare parts are more expensive, aircraft
more expensive, and you know. The more sinister issue, as

(01:08:11):
you know, and it's it's been Greg's passion project and
it will continue to be mine, is the aviation system
costs that have gone up significantly, including our landing charges.
So what we're trying to do is not pass all
of it to the consumer because we get that air
travel is expensive, and our recent market guidance is proof

(01:08:32):
of that. But we'll continue to try and optimize costs
and we'll continue to fight for long term interests of
the consumer. But in certain situations, Mike, there is probably
a need for us to look at sort of situational
subsidies for some of these routes. I've spent a bit

(01:08:53):
of time studying what happens in Norway, for example. You know,
there are communities that rely on air travel quite significantly.
There are very very sub subeconomic you know, our competitors
have no interest in going anywhere near those places. We
do because we don't have a transactional relationship with New Zealand.
But we need to make sure that we continue to

(01:09:14):
keep those communities connected.

Speaker 2 (01:09:15):
So the subsidy comes from where the government or.

Speaker 23 (01:09:17):
You well, at the moment, there is none and so
we're you know, the shareholder is by you know, it
ends up subsidizing, I suppose, but it needs to be
more of a systematic conversation about what does air travel
mean to the local GDP of the regions and how

(01:09:37):
do we continue to support that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
That's encouraging if I take you what you would and
what you said to the market yesterday. You are losing money.
You expect to lose money. So if you got all
your planes, and you got all your engines, and you
got what you said before about the company's structurally being
in a sound place, one would you be making money?
And two how much.

Speaker 23 (01:09:59):
National flac car particularly New Zealand. So in New Zealand,
so air New Zealand. Because we are a small market,
our success is inextricably linked with New Zealand's success. So
the other variable I'd throw in there is the New
Zealand economy. If all of those conditions are true, of

(01:10:20):
course we would be making money and a sustainable airline.
And New Zealand needs a sustainable airline more than most
countries for the reasons I pointed out earlier. Should be
making reasonably somewhere between eight to ten percent EBIT margin
and about fourteen percent return on invested capital. That would

(01:10:42):
be at a sort of six billion dollars of revenue,
about four hundred and eighty million to six hundred million dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:10:48):
So let's bpak to the good or though it's pre COVID,
that was the number roughly right, roughly.

Speaker 10 (01:10:52):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
It was sort of the number.

Speaker 23 (01:10:54):
And to put that in context, you know, last year's
profit one hundred and thirty million dollars or just under
wouldn't buy you half a seven eight.

Speaker 11 (01:11:02):
Seven, could you be?

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
I mean, I know you won't want to answer this,
but does having a government with the stake they've got,
is that good for business or not? Or should you
be sold?

Speaker 23 (01:11:13):
That's a question for the shareholder and the board. But
if you want my opinion, because I've got one, I
love this country and given what's happening to geopolitically and so on,
I think an airline is critically important.

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):
For New Zealand to be owned by New Zealanders, well, for.

Speaker 23 (01:11:32):
New Zealanders have to have some agency in that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
So either floated or owned directly by the government, whatever
way you wanted. Well, the only thing I'd argue with
is because we're running out of time. The only thing
I'd argue with when you talk about the New Zealand economy.
You're right, but to the extent that we've seen it
all over the world. People travel and we travel. Yes,
you don't seem to be benefiting from that the way

(01:11:55):
other airlines are. Some airlines globally are fantastically profitable because
we've all gone nuts post COVID. We have gone nuts.

Speaker 23 (01:12:04):
You know, we as New zealand as aren't traveling to
the United States as much, for example, because they're dollars
a week and politics may or may not have a
role in it, but you know, we need to we
need to acknowledge that. And just to be clear, Mike,
I think companies like Air New Zealand can't be victims
of the you know, economy.

Speaker 17 (01:12:23):
We have a.

Speaker 23 (01:12:23):
Massive role to play to influence the outcome. And one
way we're influencing the outcome is going to places like Asia,
going to places like the United States and trying to
convince the recession proof rich citizens of those places to
get here and spend their money not once, but make
New Zealand a repeat, you know, destination for their holidays.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
How long are you here for?

Speaker 23 (01:12:46):
I think, you know, one of the things Greg's done
is really created room for growth and having a good
succession plan in place. Working for Air New Zealand is
honestly truly one of the great honors and privileges in
my life. But I have a huge responsibility to then

(01:13:07):
make sure someone else is ready to take that over.
So as soon as a good succession plan is in
place and we've sort of navigated through the next chapter,
I'll get out of the way and give the next
person I go.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
We will talk to you again, hopefully soon. Appreciate it
very much. Nicole rebishankin the new CEO of The New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
A twenty two The mic Hosking Breakfit with The Defender
and News Togs Dead b.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
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Use that code breakfast breakfast for a free gift. Read
the label, take only as directed. It's all from about
Health at about health dot co dot NZ. Asking might
be in New Zealand. CEO. Sounds very genuine, but only
time will tell him. He's up for the job, obviously,
but we wish him well. Fantastic interview with Nicol Mike.
Such an educated, informed and honest person. I didn't see

(01:14:36):
the same understanding of the business with Greg. Best of luck.
Sounds like an interim fix it man, a manager in
between two leaders. So there you go. Can't win them all,
can you? News for you in a couple of moments.
This gang grooming inquiry seems to be blowing up on
the government's face in Britain at the moment. So we'll

(01:14:57):
get the update from Rod and also some interesting news
on the pending budget this morning as well. Rod Liddle
from the United Kingdom. After the news, which is next,
you would use talk z B.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
Opinion, edit, informed, unapologetic, the mic asking breakfast with Bailey's
real estate finding the buyers.

Speaker 3 (01:15:16):
Others can't use togs headb.

Speaker 2 (01:15:17):
Mike here in New Zealand CEO, breath of fresh air,
give the man a meddle, what aon absolutely awesome attitude.
Mikey in New Zealand CEO came across as competent, factual
and understanding, answered pointy questions and usual CEO manner, but
with a bit more depth than we usually receive. Thanks
for the appropriate interview. Thank you, Mike. Great interview with
the New Zealand CEO. He sounds well across the business

(01:15:38):
and the operating environment. There we go. If I was
interested in a report card on that, I'd be feeling
pretty good about it. Twenty three minutes away from.

Speaker 14 (01:15:46):
Nine International correspondence with Ends and Eye Insurance, Peace of
mind for New Zealand business to the UK.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
We go and Rod Little's with us. Roderick, good morning.

Speaker 22 (01:15:55):
To you, Good morning to you, Mane.

Speaker 2 (01:15:58):
This grooming gang inquiry seems from the side of the
world to be a calamitous miss, is it.

Speaker 22 (01:16:05):
Yes, it has been exactly as bad as you were.
As you paint it. And it's as bad as that
because it was set up opportunistically by the government to
try and deflect attention away from what everybody wanted, which
was a proper judicial inquiry with a judge leading it.
It has been a catalog of disasters. It's destroyed the

(01:16:30):
reputation of the of the rather gobby but very popular
at one point Labor chair Chess Phillips. And so far,
you know, we've had four of the people who survived
abuse the hands of Asian rape gangs all have resigned

(01:16:51):
from the from the from the inquiry itself, and now
it's very worst. That bloke who was expected to take
over as chair, Jim Gamble, a former head of Child
Exploitation and Online Protection Center, has also stood down, talking
about political opportunism. So it's it's it's it's it's a

(01:17:12):
it's a wreckage.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
So in so just a bank. What is the problem
is what that it's a stitch up. It's not real.
They don't believe in it. It's going nowhere? Is that
is that the cracks of it?

Speaker 22 (01:17:23):
Yeah, that's roughly it. That it's not going to be
taken seriously enough. And then it's got a predetermined outcome.
If you remember, the Labor government did not want a
national inquiry at all under any circumstances, because they knew
it would offend their very large proportion of voters who
are Muslim. And indeed it will, I will have thought

(01:17:46):
if he was going to do its job properly. And
so they fought tooth and they will not have a
national inquiry. Finally gave in when the Commons went berserk
and said you've got to do this and and but
but did it in a way which was well short
of what any of the survivors were after.

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
This story has had no coverage in this country at all.
And I can't work out why the Tel Aviv thing.
And it's the Europa League, isn't it.

Speaker 22 (01:18:18):
It's just the Europa League, So what one step down
from there from the European Champions League here?

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
How did they let them? I mean, how do you
ban people because they're Jewish going to football?

Speaker 22 (01:18:30):
It's it's it's remarkable, remarkable, and they had a shock
to House of Commons, shocked the Prime Minister. But don't
forget we're talking about Birmingham, where the police and council
are aware that thirty percent of the people living there
are Muslim and some of them are very angry Muslims.
But it seems as well well basically aston Villa were
to pay to play Maccabee Hyper Maccabi tel Aviv rather

(01:18:54):
in the the Europa Cup, and the decision was taken
by the Midlands Police in conjunction with West Midlands Council
that Maccabee Tel Aviv fans would be banned from attending.
Of course, an awful one of those fans of people
who live in this country well, who support them from

(01:19:14):
Afar usually so quite clearly on the other side of
the fence, Zara Sultana, who's one of the co founders
of the very very left wing Your Party with Jeremy Corby,
has said that Maccabee Hyper fans shouldn't really be banned
from going to the match. They should be arrested if
they set foot in the country as been complicit in

(01:19:35):
the genocide of Palestinians. That is the level of hatred
and vitriol which Jewish people in Great Britain I'm afraid
are getting every day done.

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
Really, how does it get resolved? I mean sure of
them being able to go to the match, like you know,
you're allowed to because it's a free society. Sure, how
do you resolve.

Speaker 22 (01:19:54):
Well, it may resolve itself by Maccabee tel Aviv saying
they don't want their fans to go because they fear
their safety, which is which is another possibility. But as
far as I could see, all of the authorities investigating
with us say that mcabee Televi Evans should be allowed
to gain and they were trying to work towards a

(01:20:16):
resolution which will get them there.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
Unreal. I'm still really I got your inflation number this morning,
which is jeez, we thought we were bared at three year.
At three point seven, I'm looking forward to Rachel's magic
that she calls a budget coming up as your national
date yesterday hit a record setting two point nine pounds.
How does she dig herself out of this? I mean
there's I just don't see anything in your economy that

(01:20:38):
fills me with a level of confidence i'd be looking
for if I was the chancellor.

Speaker 22 (01:20:43):
Tax rises is the answer, and I was just going
to put up income tax. I would have thought quite
possibly on both the top two rats of income texts.
That's I said. What she will say, so indirect contravention
of everything that she said during the lead up to
the last election. She will try she will try to

(01:21:04):
pretend that she's also cutting welfare benefits, but they will
continue to grow and grow and grow because she can
make no meaningful cutting them. When there is a Labor
majority in the House, it just won't get passed through
and so it will go from bad to worse. This budget.

(01:21:24):
I cannot remember people dreading the budget.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28):
Yeah, I get that, ye all right, might go, well,
we'll see you next week. Appreciate it very much. Rod
a little out of out of Britain this morning. By
the way, it's been a pole. I gave you the
pole the other day in Britain, the Yugas in England
and farage and reform are going to bolt home in
a way that you thought that pole can't possibly be accurate.
Not as dramatic but interesting. Nevertheless, they vote next year,
so it's more relevant. In Wales and the poll out

(01:21:50):
yesterday Reform I've got a seven point lead over Labor.
This is both in research thirty percent up five for reform.
Just a growth from June Labour on twenty three, so
thirty to twenty three, Playedcomery. The Welsh Party twenty two
Conservatives eleven, Greens nine. Now what's interesting about that is

(01:22:11):
they tried to extrapolate out the numbers into seats because
first past the post, of course, it seems that reform
would have thirty seven, the remaining fifty nine will be split,
and so therefore no one would deal with reform. So
you're into that scenario that you've had in places like
Holland where the leading party can't form a government. Popular

(01:22:34):
but not popular enough to form a government. Sixteen two The.

Speaker 1 (01:22:38):
High Asking Breakfast Fall Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News Talks at b.

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):
Is this unfair? Let me ask you this. Thirteen to nine, Mike,
we have a high profile mayor, Ken Laban. I know
Ken Kim's a good bloke. He was commentating the rugby
league at Mount Smart last weekend. Continuing this commentating career
while mayor of one of New Zealand's biggest cities doesn't
seem right, doesn't it. You realize what mayors do, don't you,

(01:23:05):
babr All, he'd be grateful for a bit of something
to keep himself occupied. I mean, couldn'tess sake? Was it
Michael Laws years ago? Was he the mayor of Napier
or wherever he was was long I know he was
to he said it was a part time job at
the best. You know, now, next time we get Erica
on the program, I'm needing to talk to her about
this business. So this goes back once again to the primary.

(01:23:27):
Back at the start, it was the Prime Minister and
the change of rules for the eighteen to nineteen year
odds on job seeker and how there were people crying
out for workers, and then you know, half the media
went about the place trying to tell us there were
no jobs, and you know, these poor people couldn't possibly
find a job of their life depended on it. And
then yesterday gave you the example of the engineering logistics
industry in general that was one hundred and fifty seven
thousand short and we needed more people into it. Otherwise

(01:23:50):
we're importing people now this morning, and can tell you
about the bus drivers. So we've got a looming driver shortage.
Apparently the government needs to review. They claim the post
grade level English language require it's for residency. Now many
of the people in the country, of course, who are
bus drivers, come into the country from offshore and they
come in for a residency path. About twenty percent of
the urban public transport driver workforce is on a temporary

(01:24:11):
work visa. Those visas expire apparently next year. Stanford, they say,
she says we should find New Zealand drivers. Well, of
course we should, but they would argue, I'm assuming we
can't find any. So once again we're back at this
weird intersection where we've got over one hundred thousand people
without a job, and we've got people looking for people
to do jobs, but we magically somehow can't find them.

(01:24:34):
Truck drivers they're problems as well. Now part of the
truck driver thing is they're arguing that they and they
cited a bloke he'd come in from South Africa. His
only language is English, but he's failing the test. So
you've got to score six point five on the specific test,
the IELTS general or academic test. Now he claims he

(01:24:56):
speaks English, he's from South Africa, but he keeps failing
the test. So it's four hundred dollars a test he's
done at six times, so two and a half thousand
dollars later, he's no better. Often because he count passed
the test, he doesn't get to be a resident. So
he's back off to South Africa, and all the other
people who've come into the country to drive a bus
back off home where they came from. So either we go, well, look,
if you can't speak the language to our understanding, then

(01:25:18):
forget it and we get local drivers, or we can't
get local drivers. We need to bring one or the other.
But there's a looming problem, so don't say you won't warned.
Ten away from nine.

Speaker 1 (01:25:28):
The make Hosking Breakfast with Bailey's real estate news talks.

Speaker 2 (01:25:31):
They'd be so excited to tell you about Bailey's more
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(01:26:37):
Z asking now, Zelensky is claiming this morning he agreed
with Trump to freeze, like stop the war right now
and we'll talk now. Zelensky claims he agreed to that.
It's now being reported this morning that Moscow didn't, isn't won't.

(01:26:58):
So Russia continuing demand full control of Donbas before they
go any further. So you get the sense that Trump
has been completely enoughughly stitched up and that Putin is
just playing him like a puppet, and never the Twain
shall meet. So I don't know now where this goes.
Because Trump keeps threatening that bad, bad things are going
to happen. He keep saying bad things are going to happen,

(01:27:21):
and bad things aren't happening. And Europe, I don't know
how many meetings they want to have about the stuff
they're going to do that never really eventuates or comes
to anything. We might have tomahawks or tomahawks. You don't
want tomahawks. Tomaks are very bad. And so with everybody
just sitting on their hands and having meetings and Trump
making phone calls and we're going to have this meeting

(01:27:43):
in Buddha Pesta. Whoops, No, we're not. Pretty much Putin's
running the show here, and until somebody changes and actually
does something apart from talking, Putin's going to continue to
run the show. Five minutes away from.

Speaker 1 (01:27:55):
Nine trending now with Chemist where House Green safer every day.

Speaker 2 (01:28:01):
Netflix are back with a new documentary. It's about Eddie Murphy.
They're on a roll. I mean, how many did they
just pick a comedian and make a documentary about them
get the same people. In fact, they've probably got Dave
Chappellen for seven hours and said, Dave, now we're going
to do a doco on it. We're gonna do a
doco on Jamie. We're going to do a doco on Kevin.
Thoughts on Kevin, thoughts on Jamie, thoughts on Eddie. I
think that's how it works anyway.

Speaker 13 (01:28:20):
Yeah, I put on this different colored shirt.

Speaker 2 (01:28:21):
Yeah, guess what Netflix are calling the doco about Edie Murphy.
They're calling it Eddie Murphy.

Speaker 3 (01:28:29):
I've done so many different types of things.

Speaker 11 (01:28:32):
Good morning, my neighbors.

Speaker 3 (01:28:35):
He had that appointment with destiny.

Speaker 1 (01:28:39):
He changed the way we view comedy.

Speaker 11 (01:28:44):
Who took all the money shreck shreck.

Speaker 3 (01:28:49):
They've never seen a young black person take.

Speaker 11 (01:28:52):
Charge share now.

Speaker 2 (01:28:54):
He had the number one movie comedy special and pop song.

Speaker 6 (01:28:58):
That was unprecedented, marapot from stand up coming to big
screen sex symbol.

Speaker 3 (01:29:03):
That's what they said. I don't see it's.

Speaker 10 (01:29:06):
The best show on television.

Speaker 3 (01:29:07):
There's ridiculousness.

Speaker 11 (01:29:09):
I love that he's setting around watching ridiculousness. That's hilarious.

Speaker 2 (01:29:14):
As long as they've got some clips of Beverly Hills
Cop that's as good as a gone Who's in it? Oh,
wouldn't you know it? Dave Chappelle's in it, and Chris
Rock and Jamie Fox and Kevin Hart and Jerry Sidefeld. Incredible,
almost like they've got a formula. It's out Netflix. They

(01:29:35):
got is a Brazil I can't remember. It's some South
American country. They got a tax dispute with it at
the moment. So the result yesterday wasn't quite as good
as some had thought. But the numbers are reasonable and so.

Speaker 13 (01:29:47):
Markets didn't think so. No, the deck down like two
and fifty.

Speaker 2 (01:29:51):
Unless you say you've invested in AI. I mean, if
Netflix said, look, we're going to open an AI, they've
ever going to gone nuts. But they don't do that anyway.
Back Tomorrow Morning with Joe Parker among others, as always,
Happy Days.

Speaker 1 (01:30:03):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
News Talk Set B from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio

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