Full Show Podcast: 27 February 2025

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
In New Zealand's home for trusted news and views, The
Mike Hosking Breakfast with Vida, Retirement, Communities, Life Your Way, News,
togs Head, Been and Well.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Term Today, Good news on the tourist Spend, Bad news
on the Way. We treat Twin's insights into our power
industry as one company post the worst result ever. We
go to the Gulf which teams off today. Talk with
Andrew Webster in Vegas ahead of to kick off of
the season. Check In with the Pope with Joe Say Hardy,
Hi to our.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Mate Rod little bit pasking.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome to the day. Seven past six. Now, the word
was when Zelenski first saw what the US wanted in
a minerals deal, he screamed so loudly the US envoy
was left shaking. But here we are a couple of
days later and he's on his way to Washington to
sign it off Saturday our time. There's a lot of
chaos in the White House, mind you. As we've said
earlier on this year, there was a lot of chaos
last time, and mainly everyone survived. But what we observed

(00:49):
twenty sixteen through twenty and what sadly too many are
failing to remember is that broadly the chaos is deliberate
and what starts out as nutty ends up with something
resembling normalcy. The world has been tipped upside down. We
read America has left NATO and Europe and now backs Russia.
Has it or has it simply applied enough pressure and
doubt in order to bring a bloke to the table

(01:10):
to cut a deal, Depending on what's actually in that deal.
Where does this leave europeay I mean, is Europe's still
happy to have handed over all it has handed over
seemingly for little more than solidarity with a neighbor. Or
do they now look at the multi billion dollar transfer
of wealth to America as a missed opportunity. What I
think we know about Trump is he's not interested in wars,
He's interested in deals. He has the advantage of being

(01:31):
in charge of the biggest military operation on Earth. He
doesn't need to fight, he just needs to imply he can.
If the minerals deal is as reported to this point,
Ukraine has guarantees of sorts on security given Americas in
the business, of course of protecting their newfound interests. The
American economy gains it sends a rare earth message to China.
It sets a precedent for American cooperation anywhere on Earth,

(01:51):
and it's a mass of political win. This arrangement could
have been done at any point, But that's the art
of the deal, isn't it. It wasn't until Trump did it.
I mean, yes, he had to call Zelenski a dictator,
so yes, he wouldn't have a country left freak Europe out.
But if you can end a war in a month,
and I'm not saying he has, but he might. As
unconventional as the approach may be, history will record the result,

(02:13):
not the method.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
What news of the world in ninety seconds.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
We still don't know what they have agreed to read
the minerals, But is it directly tied to a peace deal?
Was Zolensky's working hard?

Speaker 4 (02:24):
Without future security guarantees? We will not have really just
fish and we will not have really satisfied.

Speaker 5 (02:34):
What Trump's spoken involved.

Speaker 4 (02:36):
And if we don't have it, nothing will work.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Now back in Washington, very big win for the Republicans
as well. This is the big, beautiful bill and the
budget got over the line first time.

Speaker 6 (02:46):
We are going to deliver the American First Agenda We're
going to deliver all of it, not just parts of it,
and this is the first step in that process.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
DM's are furious House Republican bus it resolution.

Speaker 7 (02:58):
We'll set in motion the largest medicaid cut in American history.
Children will be devastated, families devastated.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Then down down south in Florida, Governor DeSantis, who is
time limited, will leave office midterms next year. A little
bit upset the Trump is endorsed a blood called Byron
Donalds for the Governor's rice when Ron's got a bitter.

Speaker 7 (03:20):
Idea, she's somebody that has I think that the intestinal
fortitude and the dedication to conservative principles that you know,
anything we've accomplished, she'd be able to take to the
next level.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Who is she? It's his wife, old Byron not having
any of that.

Speaker 8 (03:37):
My focus would be on making sure that every child
has the tools available to them to be proficient in
math and reading, in writing and in reasoning. Those are
the things that are going to take our state from
being great now to being even greater.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Than the Lifties in Scotland who are also having a
boat next year. Starting to read a little bit about
this broad move this scene to the right all over Europe.

Speaker 9 (03:57):
It's important that those of us who are repulsed by
the politics of Forage and the far right come together
to give the leadership and stress the importance of the
values that we hold there about our society.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, the problem with the Scottish society. I don't know
if you've looked at it lately. Finally, the World's Top
one hundred Best Coffee Shops that lists out Toby's Estate
Coffee Roasters in Sydney is your winner. Now. It was
Judge the Beast based on quality of the coffee and
the food, sustainability practices, customer service, public and expert reviews.
Now they as it turns out, Toby's are all over the place,

(04:34):
including Fitzroy and Melbourne. Their flagship, by the way, next
time you're in Sydney is in the Westfield Mall Pitt Street.
Then you've got Proud Mery Coffee in Melbourne. They also
met it in the top five in the whole world.
You're going to find them in Oxford Street, Collingwood Rocket
Coffee Roasters in Hamilton. That was our best, only sixty second,
I'm afraid to tell you. Use the world in mighty Yeah,

(04:54):
that vote I mentioned a moment ago on the budget.
The big, beautiful budget is not to be underestimated. This
was the first test for the speaker. Mike Johnson got
it across the line on round one two seventeen to
two fifteen. They only lost one Republican in it, so
that's he's a fiscal hawk. Guy called Thomas from Kentucky.
He wanted more cuts and go crazy, but nevertheless the
cutting four and a half trillion, and that's got the

(05:14):
Democrats upset. But the important point was could they get
something substantive through and the answer is yes. Twelve past six.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
The Mic Asking Breakfast Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio, power
by News Talk Zippy.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Time for your first fun factor of the morning. The
World Economic Forums twenty twenty five Future of Jobs reports
that suggests forty one percent of employers globally are planning
to downsize and replace you with AI. If you're in America,
it's forty eight percent. Fifteen past six and j Am
I will Pandreck callaher. Good morning, Very good morning.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Mike.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
You found a little bit of life in the inzidex.
Thank the good Lord.

Speaker 10 (05:54):
I did hey before we launched into that. I'm in
Christis this morning. I know you have any fondness for Christis.
But taxi driver pole down there. Everyone's talking about tourism,
the taxi drivers yesterday. Never been busier? Who are telling me?

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Never been busier? And if you're going to be a tourist,
why wouldn't you be a tourist in christ You.

Speaker 10 (06:11):
Yeah, that's cool. It's very course not as hot anyway.

Speaker 5 (06:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Are you're looking over the Hagley Park?

Speaker 10 (06:16):
I am actually yeah, I know where you are.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
I know where you are. I know the sort of
places you stay. Mate, right, I talked to me. What
happened you yesterday? Yeah?

Speaker 10 (06:23):
A bit of a sigh of relief, Mike from Investors
insects bounced back yesterday after what's been a challenging couple
of days. That recovered one hundred and forty five points,
about one point two percent. A couple of interesting comments,
big bounce back here from some of the property names
and put names like Investor. They were the biggest rise
of yesterday property for industry argacy. And I think I
said yesterday that the selling had been pretty indiscriminate. And

(06:46):
I look at a company like Investor, I mean, which
really bounced back well, it owns large format retail properties.

Speaker 5 (06:53):
Absolutely nothing to.

Speaker 10 (06:54):
Do with the retirement sector, you know, because remember it
was all the catalyst was that that Ryman transa and
it fell like eight or nine percent bounds back ten percent,
so some of that selling was a little hard to understand.
A little lighter on results yesterday, I did want to
pick up on Scales Corp, Mike, because it's a sort
of export related company that's not dairy related, and I

(07:18):
think we do need to keep an eye on X
dairy stuff.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
And it was a good result.

Speaker 10 (07:22):
And the Apples are going well, Mike, the old Dazzle,
they're going pretty good. Scales have three divisions, Global Proteins,
which is pet food and the Horticulture, which is the
Apple's business orchards, et cetera. And Logistics, which is relating
to air and sea freight. Underline earning is ninety one
point seven million, goodlift from the previous year which was
around sixty seven million. Net profit after tax on an

(07:45):
underlying basis forty percent rise from the previous year fifty
three point six million, so good numbers. Strong result from
the pet food, Global proteins area, Horticulture returning to sort
of more normal levels. Has been a challenging couple of
years for the Apple industry. They had a big major
transaction there from boss Stock. Apple volumes are improving. As

(08:06):
I said, good to see logistics record results benefiting there
from freight volumes increasing. And so despite the carnage that
we've seen recently around some company results that their share
price was up two percent yesterday, So better day on
the internet.

Speaker 5 (08:20):
Good.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
What are we expecting from in video given deepseak, etc.

Speaker 10 (08:24):
Well, I think let's just talk about anybodeo. I don't
normally talk about US company you needs ahead of the event.
We normally just wait and see and give you read
on the outcome. But the Nvidia are reporting after the
US market closes, so mid morning here this time around, mate,
this is a pivotal result and the outcome could really
set the tone for subsequent Magnificent seven company trading. And

(08:46):
we spoke yesterday about the weakness in the Magnificent seven
so far this year and stark contrast to how important
their performance has been in last year, particularly driving sort
of overall US share market performance. Can't ignore Tesla recently
make that share price down significantly from its descend behind.
In fact, down twenty six percent so far in February.

(09:09):
In video, result represents an opportunity for mag seven to
get their mojo back. I think the market would like
to see in video address the Deep Seek issue following
that recent release of the seemingly very cheaply made sort
of AI query product, when the Mag seven are spending
billions of dollars on AI development, and questions being asked
as to quite what the economic payoff is going to

(09:31):
be of that capital spend. You know, in video, market
capitalization over three trillion US dollars plummeted after that Deep
Seak announcement. It has bounced back. It actually the the
the analyst sort of expectations that I've read are all
saying that this result is going to be okay, So
we wait and seeous. As I said, the share price

(09:51):
has recovered since then, and hopefully it's hopefully we don't
have a market moving result in.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
The negative sense. What are the numbers so Sea of Green, Mike,
we like to see this.

Speaker 10 (10:03):
The dal Jones is up seventy two points forty six
forty three thousand, six hundred and ninety four, the S
and P five hundred up about three quarters percent. Five thousand,
nine hundred and ninety eight and the Nasdaq up one
point two two percent nineteen thousand, two hundred and fifty nine.
All of Europe looked pretty good last night. The FOOTS
one hundred up point seven eight percent eight seven three six,

(10:25):
The nick A fell quarter percent thirty eight thousand, one
hundred and forty two. Shanghai competed up one percent three
three eight oh. The Aussi's had a small fort yesda
eleven points eight to four oh. The close there, and
as I said, we gain one point one eight percent,
the n SX fifty closing it to twelve thousand, four
hundred and fifty two.

Speaker 5 (10:43):
One key.

Speaker 10 (10:43):
Well up, we'll get you point five to seven eight
against the US point nine oh three to zero against
the Aussie point five four two nine euro point four
four nine six pounds eighty five point two one. Japanese
yen gold is trading at two thousand, nine hundred eleven dollars,
and Brent Grud continues to moderate. We shall say seventy
two dollars and ninety six cents.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Where are you going for breakfast?

Speaker 11 (11:04):
Ah?

Speaker 2 (11:04):
I got a work, Mike got the time, I am
going mirow okay, if you Mayfair is a good place.
You've been to the Mayfair. I haven't, Okay, I haven't.
On my recommendation, see you tomorrow, appreciate it and enjoy
you doing christ your change with cal Jmiwealth, dot Co,
dot Z, pask Ab and bev which you probably won't know.
It didn't really matter, but they're selling a lot of
booz three point four I mean they're the biggest in

(11:26):
the world, is my point three point four percent increase
in fourth quarter revenue. That's Budweiser and Corona and Stalar,
Artwire and all that other watered down bollocks. Walworth's here
are good overall. In Australia, they took a hit, but
sales here at Wilworths are up. Milk Runs now available
in seventy six stores. You're liking milk Run, let me
know about that. I'm not impressed. We use it a bit,

(11:47):
but we're I'm not sure we're going to continue to
do it. Six twenty one, you're at newstalk z BES.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
The Mike Hosking Breakfast to Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio
powered by News Talks.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
At b There we go Milk Runs a life Saber
Mike were running small business. Milk run makes it easy,
saves me time. Mamma was always happy with her delivery
and food goodies. Well, you can't argue with that. It's
all go for Trump. At the moment I mentioned the
minerals deal which will be signed on Saturday, I mentioned
the big beautiful bill which got through His first cabinet
meeting is just about to start in his best friend

(12:25):
Elon's there.

Speaker 12 (12:26):
Elon is here to give you summary of what's happening.
Some of the things they've found, some of the horrible
things they've found. Some of the theft and fraud and
we call it waste and abuse, but a lot of
fraud and probably some fraud that we're not going to
be able to prove this ride. But when you hear
the names and the places where this money's going, it's

(12:47):
a discrease.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Now, hold on, hold on. Before all of that, Elon's
got to warm up the room with his humor.

Speaker 13 (12:53):
It's just for myself. A hubble tech support here, because
that is actually that is almost a literal dispersion of
the work that the those team is doing. Is helping
fix the government computer systems.

Speaker 12 (13:08):
Many of these systems are extremely old.

Speaker 5 (13:11):
They don't communicate.

Speaker 13 (13:12):
There are a lot of mistakes and the systems, the
software doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Trending now Chemist Warehouse, the Real House of Vitamin.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Nellie Baldwin is back in the news. He was approached
by a comedian called Jason's Scoop. Now scoop and personates
Trump and approaches celebrities. He's done it with Robert Denier
Helen Mirren anyway, So Jason approaches Baldwin outside his house
in New York.

Speaker 14 (13:33):
Alex, I will offer you a total pardon because I.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Want to be friends, right, I want to be friends.

Speaker 14 (13:39):
I will give you a total pardon for murdering that
woman if you kiss the ring, kiss the ring. Alex
kissed the big beautiful ring.

Speaker 15 (13:46):
Come on, Alec.

Speaker 14 (13:47):
He did that impersonation to me. It was not too hot,
not too good. But look, we're back in office.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
You lost.

Speaker 14 (13:55):
Kanala lost is somewhere getting intoxicated. And that's okay. Sure
you realize look at how much?

Speaker 10 (14:03):
Sure, sure you got a camera the ring.

Speaker 12 (14:05):
No, it's the reg you realize My kids live in
this building, right, but I want you nurse.

Speaker 10 (14:10):
We love the children.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
We're doing great deals for the children.

Speaker 10 (14:13):
Okay, Okay, all right, Alec Baldon.

Speaker 14 (14:18):
Alec Border ladies and gentlemen class act, believe me.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
So the reactions mixed combination of baldwhen getting a little
bit angsty over the business of threatening to kill them. Mind,
you can understand it's anger because the other reaction is
the sky is a complete not a knob. And to
be fair, the impersonation is not actually even that good.
Meridian came to the party. This is power. I'm fascinated
with power, as we should all be at the moment,
because we're heading into yet another winter with not enough

(14:43):
of it, and the renewables aren't working, and we know
they're not working, and we're bringing in coal like this
now tomorrow, and we're pumping Huntley back up and the
whole thing's just fascical. So Meridian come out yesterday with
the worst ever result because guess what, it didn't rain.
Then they went, oh, no, we'll use the Yes, they
didn't have any of that either, So things aren't going
too well for them. So anyway, and inside into the

(15:05):
energy market. After seven thirty meg Time News, this.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Next setting me agenda and talking the big issues the mic,
hosting breakfast with the Range rover Villa designed to intrigue
and use Tom's.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Dead b Mike Soilliam spins out and sets the second
fastest time hit us with the details. Well, I can
do that. This is the if one testing Lawsons in
the Red Bull for the first time officially mixed morning
is the official report. Fifty eight laps, a lot of laps.
In fact, fifty eight lapses longer than the bar Rain
that's all in bar Rain. This is longer than the
Barrain Grand Prix. The Grand Prix is fifty seven laps.

(15:38):
So he did a big morning couple of sessions. He
had all the morning session, nothing in the afternoon because
there's only one car. The using so verstap and got
the afternoon session. He will Lawsen get the car all
day tomorrow. For Day two, though second fastest time in
the opening session behind Antonelli and Toonelli in and of
itself is an interesting story. Don't look at the times
too much. It depends on what sort of programs there are,

(16:00):
whether they want to run fast, whatever the case may be.
Eventually he finished eighth best for the day. Norris got
the best time in the afternoon session ahead a Rustle.
He did appear in control of the car. The car
is very, very twitchy, and that's a setting that the
stapp and likes, and that's why Pia has had so
much difficulty driving it. He briefly lost control. Heart in

(16:20):
the mouth moment was the headline, which was complete crap
because if you look at the video, he barely spun
it and he controlled the spin so he was fine.
So all in all, day one if one season pretty
good twenty two to seven. I watch am I being
nigh to be optimistic about this? He seems to have
passed the worst or am I literally just making out Jo?

(16:41):
I've just got this bible about it, So I'm looking
forward to catching up with Joe on that meantime. Back
here now, the report for you that informs us that
a child abuse and state care is going nowhere good.
Last year, five hundred and seven state care incidents were reported,
which is up on the year before. In Independent Children's
Monitor has found nearly nine percent of kids who end
up and O ring a Tamari's care of abuse. We'd
love to talk to our ring at Tamariki, but they don't.

(17:03):
They don't like to talk to people about it because
it's all be embarrassing as far as I can work
out anyway, child matters CEO Joan Searle is with us
Jane morning.

Speaker 16 (17:10):
Good morning mate.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
I find all this very very depressing because I've been
going on for years and god knows how many interviews
I've done on it over the years. Are we ever
going to get our act together here or not?

Speaker 17 (17:20):
Well, this report brings no surprises at all and still
showing ordering it to Moniki isn't doing what it was
designed to do.

Speaker 16 (17:26):
It's a big ship to turn around, Mike.

Speaker 17 (17:27):
But this report shows these leadership issues.

Speaker 16 (17:30):
There and his basic systems issues.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
So we could start there is the key in who
they hand the kid to. I mean, surely we can
ask a simple question, why would a government agency hand
a child over to somebody who was going to hit them?

Speaker 17 (17:46):
Well, as you've said, really concerning that so many of
the children in Kia are suffering abuse and neglect and
it's just unforgivable. It is a key. So the workload
is one thing, the workload of their social workers. If
they don't have the time and the resources to do
their job to place these child and monitor them, that
is going to bring these results that we're getting and
I think if you want to look great through about
this report, it's got failings on multiple levels, but we

(18:08):
need to start with the workload of the social workers.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
Okay, are you seeing any signs of the so called
turnaround that's been going on now for several years of OT.

Speaker 17 (18:17):
Well, this report and I think it's a pretty good snapshot,
shows a few highlights, and there are some good social
workers don't work, but any progress is very very slow.

Speaker 16 (18:25):
We still have leadership issues.

Speaker 17 (18:27):
We still have systems issues, computer and it issues. You know,
when you've got any organization that's got these things, it's
not going to deliver results. So to answer your question,
do I I do? I see some good work and
some good work discussed. We know what we have to fix.

Speaker 16 (18:41):
Progress is very very slow.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
Are they a little bit trapped in the sense that
I'm assuming there's an extremely limited number of people who
will want to take on kids, and therefore you're sort
of stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Speaker 16 (18:51):
Is that fair or not finding good placements?

Speaker 17 (18:53):
It's very tough, that's completely fair. And you know it's
a very hard job to find placements for these children
and they need intensive sut and Kia so that is
one of the issues.

Speaker 16 (19:03):
But we can do better than what we're doing.

Speaker 17 (19:05):
I mean, as you said, over five hundred children suffering
abuse in Neglik, they're in our care in this country's
kre So that is just.

Speaker 16 (19:11):
Not a good enough standard.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
All right, we'll get you on again. I'm sure Jane
appreciate your insight. Janes cyl who's the child mat of
CEO ninety minutes away from seven Pasky. So this dose thing,
we're back to the cabinet meeting, which by the way,
hasn't even started. Trump's just explaining how the world is
working before all the people sitting they're all lined up
next to them on one side is HeiG Seth on
the other side as Marco, who must be thinking, I

(19:34):
really like being overseas dealing with other people rather than
sitting in this room. Anyway, what Musk who's there, And
of course he's gone through no confirmation whatsoever. Wasn't elected
by a single person. But he seems to be spending
a lot of time explaining stuff and.

Speaker 13 (19:47):
Taking a lot of plat and getting a lot of
death threats. By the way, I'd like to stick a mark.
But if we don't do this America will go bankrupt.
That's why it has to be done. Confident at this point,
not got a word, you know, like I made, wouldn't head.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
This's Gouty's alight of would have done that.

Speaker 13 (20:09):
We can actually find a twenty dollars and servings that
would be a roughie fifteen san puppets for seven twenty
dollars page.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Now, the interesting thing about those two fold interesting things.
One most of the people that worked from Quick yesterday,
so he's got a recruitment issue. And the second one,
I was watching a very interesting piece yesterday they discovered
who the so called head Elon Musk is not the
official head of DOGE. The official head of DOGE is
a woman whose name I can't remember, but it doesn't
matter because you've never heard of it. She's just she's

(20:37):
just a bureaucrat that they've made the head of DOGE. Now,
the problem was they wanted to talk to the head
of DOGE, this woman but I think the name is Linda,
and they wanted to talk to Linda. But Linda's currently
on holiday in Mexico, so I don't know what we're
hang on. Has she got a list of five things
that she's done well. One of them is going on
holiday to Mexico eighteen to seven.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
The Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered
by News Talks.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
At b I remember there's enormous pressure on them to
place children back with extended family, many of whom are
dysfunctional themselves. That's seven double A. That's what that's all about,
and Karen Shaw and the battle goes on. Of course,
they did need to before the cabinet meeting started. I
need to deal with the letter.

Speaker 12 (21:21):
The letter asks some simple questions like what have you
done lately? And they can answer that because I can.
I can tell you everything I've done for the last
long period of time, a lot more than a week.

Speaker 18 (21:33):
And in many cases we haven't gotten responses. Usually that
means that maybe that person doesn't exist, but that person
doesn't want to say they're working for another company while
being paid by the United States government.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
International correspondence with Ends and Eye Insurance.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
Peace of mind for New Zealand business.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
We'll be away from siven. Let us go to Italy
and Joe mckennabury, good morning to you.

Speaker 19 (21:56):
Good morning Mike. You might hear behind me some noise
because I'm in the Vatican press room at the moment
for the latest update.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
Fantastic, weally updated. I'm reading in front of me at
the moment. Looks positive, doesn't it.

Speaker 19 (22:07):
It looks very positive. There's a slight improvement in the
Pope's condition. According to the Vatican, the latest CT scan,
his third of his lungs since being admitted to hospital
on February fourteen, shows what they call a normal evolution,
which sounds like some improvement there of his pulmonary condition,
the renal insufficiency, the problem he had with his kidneys

(22:30):
seems to have receded, and he's had no respiratory crisis
in the last forty eight hours.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
Indeed, if you go back a couple of days to
where he was and where he is now, I mean,
I think there's reason for real hope, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yeah, there certainly is.

Speaker 19 (22:45):
However, I did speak to a geriatrician at another Italian
hospital today, not where the Pope is currently being treated,
and he said he could be there for another week
to ten days. Pneumonia is much more complicated in the elderly.
Absolute rest is essential, and because this is a man
that loves human contact and loves to be active. This

(23:06):
could be you know, a real problem for him. She's
coming out of that.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Yeah, well, we wish and well obviously, and we'll stay
in touch with the story. As far as the Zelitski's
on his way to Washington Saturday our time, we've got
some sort of minerals deal. Apparently the some debate star
is on his way to Washington. They're talking about boots
on the ground and peacekeepers and all that sort of stuff.
So as far as this is concerned Ukraine, where is
Italy at.

Speaker 11 (23:30):
Well?

Speaker 19 (23:30):
Prime Minister Georgia Maloney has been a little bit nuanced,
i think in her response, but we did see a
strong response today saying it's not possible to have lasting
peace in Ukraine unless Kiev gets the guarantees that it
won't be invaded by Russia. Again, she was meeting with
the Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Christensen in Rome. I think
she's been reluctant to commit Italian troops and it seems

(23:54):
like she's trying to be friends, as we've said before,
with both the EU and President Trump at this point.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Okay, and then you she is busy at the moment
because the head of the UAE is there, and this
looks to be very good business.

Speaker 19 (24:08):
Yes, Prime Minister Maloney has had a strategy to pursue
stronger ties with golf countries, and it looks like she's
signing a deal with the United Arab Emirates. They're talking
about that country investing forty billion US dollars in Italy
after this bilateral summit that we had in Rome on Monday.

(24:28):
Under her watch, Italy has lifted the arm sales embargoes
for the UAE imposed by previous governments due to the
war in Yemen, and so it looks like she wants
to go full steam ahead, and this would involve deals
related to energy and talations. I think for the most part.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Okay, are you still waiting for the Vatican update or
it's just been given.

Speaker 19 (24:50):
We've had a written update, and the head of the
press office, Mattio Bruni, is just giving a more detailed
update right now, but essentially we know that he's made
it's a slight improvement.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Good, good, good good. All right, I'll let you get
back to the appreciator very much. Joe McKenna, who is
at the Vetican this morning, by the way, just back
to Trump very briefly. Fox as in the television network.
They put out their ratings this morning, and any Trump
administration is always good for Fox. In general, they're number
one overall and have been for a number of years now,
but this month has been their biggest audience in the

(25:22):
history of Fox. Up fifty percent on last year. They
got sixty eight percent of the twenty five fifty four
year olds, which is a monumental number. They've averaged a
little bit over three million viewers in primetime each night. MSNBC,
who were hemorrhaging at the moment, they weren't a weird place.
They're laying some people off at the moment at MSNBC,
and what's the name Rachel Meadow. She packs it. She

(25:43):
goes on a show, packs a massive sad about her
own company, laying everybody off, and starts whining and bitching
about it, and so there in meltdown. Anyway, they've got
a million viewers versus Fox's three, which is down sixteen percent. CNN,
who are also hemorrhaging staff at the moment, they're down
three percent. They've got an average of five one hundred
and fifty. That's about what we have. And just think,

(26:04):
just think about it. C and Na's Global. They got
an average of about five hundred. We got a little
less than five hundred thousand. But but you know, we're
in New Zealand.

Speaker 5 (26:12):
It's such a good point.

Speaker 20 (26:13):
They're terrible. We should be doing better.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yeah we should. Yeah, what's the matter with us? We
need to doze ourselves anyway. The Fox Fox are enjoying
the Trump administration. Ten minutes away from seven.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
The Makehosking breakfast with Bailey's real Estate news dogs.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
They'd be the final comments from Trump before he gets
underway with his cabinet meeting. I'm not going to make
security guarantees beyond very much. I don't even know what
that means. But the guarantees are implied because the Americans
will have mineral interests in Ukraine. That's your security guarantee.
We're going to have Europe do that because he's talking
boots on the ground. Of course, we're talking about Europe

(26:49):
as their next door neighbor, but we're making sure everything
goes well. He doesn't think Putin had any intention of
settling the war. I think he wanted the whole thing.
When I got elected, we spoke, and I think we're
going to have a deal. So it looks like it's
coming to some sort of culmination. So we follow the
great deal ofmentarant. Meantime, Old Mark, who's been up in China,
as in Mark Brown, the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands,

(27:09):
who's written by the way to Christopher luxeb in a
very nineteen ninety three sort of vent. Anyway, Mark's back
and he faced his vote of no confidence in the Parliament.
He won at thirteen to nine, So that was never
going anywhere. Winston has been up in China. It didn't
seem to He didn't seem to raise the cook So
I read the communicator. The cooks didn't seem to be

(27:30):
a topic of discussion. They didn't discuss the ships. The
ships are interesting because the Australian Navy looks increasingly asleep
at the wheel and we look increasingly good. But anyway,
more on that later five minutes away from seven, the.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
Ins and the Outs, it's the Bears with business timer
take your business productivity to the next level.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
And then this fascinating new insight into India as well.
For BBC's running this this morning. There's a new report
from venture capital firm Bloom Beaches and it found that
of the one point four billion people who live in India,
most of them don't have any money. The vast majority
of them don't have any money. More than a billion
people have literally no money to spend on anything outside
of the necessities. In fact, there's only one hundred and

(28:12):
thirty to one hundred and forty million people, which is
just the size of Mexico, who actually are what they
call the consuming class. So then simple terms, domestic wealth
is extremely limited. So everyone goes, oh, there's one point
four billion people in India, Yes, there are, but they
haven't got any money. So they've got about three hundred
million people who call or part of what they're calling

(28:32):
the emerging or aspiring consumers. But they're reluctant spenders and
they've only just started to spend their discretionary income such
as it is. And the trouble with that particular group
is it's shrinking, isn't getting any bigger, which essentially means
the wealthy are getting wealthier, but no one else is
joining them. So if you're wealthy already, you're going to
get more and more wealthy, but no one's you know,

(28:55):
the pies not growing. So the top ten percent of
Indians hold fifty seven point seven percent of the country's
wealth compared with thirty four percent in nineteen ninety. So
the richer getting richer. Bottom half has seen their share
drop from twenty two to fifteen percent. So businesses are
catering more and more to the wealthy. And the way
they're doing that it's the old iPhone thing. I know,
you've got an iPhone thirteen, but you really want a fourteen.

(29:16):
And now you've got a fourteen, you want a fifteen,
and so it goes. So they're just selling them more
of the same stuff. And affordable homes is a good example.
Just eighteen percent of India's overall market compared with forty
percent five years ago. So you build the flash house
as not the affordable homes, because no one's gotten your
money for an affordable home anyway. Now, bit of moaning.
Not overly happy about this, I got to tell you.
I mean, we were bitching and moaning, weren't we about

(29:37):
the ram raids and the retail crime, and oh if
we had some powers to do something about it. Well,
now we are going to have those powers, and the
first thing we do is moan some more. What's the
matter with us new Zealand. We'll look at that, and
also tourism people aren't back, but spending is so and
that might be some good news, so we'll look at
that after the news as well.

Speaker 11 (29:58):
For you.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
The Breakfast show, Kiwi's Trust to Stay in the Now,
the Mic Hosking Breakfast with Bailey's Real Estate Finding the buyers.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
Others can't use togs dead b seven.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
So some push back to the announcement that we're telling
you about this time yesterday over the so called citizens arrest. Basically,
any one of us will be able to stop arrest
or restrain those who we see wandering off with the
free beer or television or backing the demio through a
front door. Some we're Police Association President Chris car Hills
with us, Chris, morning to you make are we sitting
ourselves on fire needlessly? Here? The reality is this, You

(30:31):
and I aren't going to do this. It's really for
security guards, isn't it.

Speaker 21 (30:36):
Well, well, I mean look at Deeries, for instance. They
don't have security guards. They have shopkeepers and family people,
and there's going to be an expectation that they do,
especially if they're working for some boss who thinks they
should do it. But even security guards. You look at
some of these security guards, they're not really highly trained.
They're not highly equipped to think of police officers. You know,

(30:58):
we've got all the equipment and all the try still
had assaulted every day, some really seriously. So I don't
mean to be the humbug. I get why people think
on the facebook's good idea, but when you peel it back,
it's prutty, risky stuff.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah, but the critical thing you're missing here is you
don't have to do anything about it. If you don't
feel equipped or trained, or you're behind the counter at
the dairy and you're scared for your life, you don't
need to do anything, are you. It's not forcing you
to do something, it's just giving you the option.

Speaker 8 (31:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 21 (31:25):
I think it's easy to say that. But if people
make decisions that without all your full facts in front
of them, and then things turned to pass, the mean
you might think you're dealing with a fourteen year old
choplift or you I'm going to deal with him suddenly
he's got two mates, or suddenly pulls a knife. These
sorts of things just escalate. That happens.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Now, what about that? What about the guy's been in
the news. The poor bugger in the news who was
in the jewelry shop and went after the person without
the law got a hammer through his head. Now, if
that had happened post the law, you'd be going, oh
my god, look at the law. It's a disaster. And
yet it happened anyway.

Speaker 21 (32:00):
Yeah, and that's why it looks good on the face
of it, because we all get frustrated watching these people
walk out the door. But the challenges is it worth
the risk. I can give you the examples where people
have been seriously injured or even killed because they thought
it was a good idea to try and hold an
offend into account at the time.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
But if they did, then if they did it, then
the law is not going to make any difference, is it.

Speaker 21 (32:24):
Well, well, the law will encourage more people to do it.
I think that's my real concern. But people will think
this is what they should do, and it's not just
retail unless they change the law completely. It's just lowering
the offense. So you're going to get people doing it
with boy racers who really drive people nuts. Well, that's
another you know, people with cars. It's just another risk.
I just don't think it's been thought through the other thing,

(32:45):
like is trying to get the balance of a rockery.
What's reasonable is a real legal issue. I mean, we
have police officers charged renually with assault because the people
think it's been an unreasonable use of force. Don't have
a public any that, right.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah, the difference from there. Think you've probably got a
very good point there. Actually, Chris will be interested to
see what they come up with. Appreciate your time as always,
Chris car Hill, Police Association President, get your feedback. Shortly
ten past seven s from China. Foreign Minister Winston Peters,
of course, meeting his counterpart overnight, had a word about
the ships in this part of the world. Our geopolitical
analyst Jeffrey Miller's back. Well, this's Jeffrey. Very good morning
to you.

Speaker 11 (33:18):
Good morning.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
I read the communicator. They did the usual diplomatic dance,
didn't they at the end of the day, am I right?
I don't know if you saw Seymour, yesterday's Deputy Prime minister.
He's been briefed on what we did. Militarily speaking, it's
the Australians who appear to be sleep at the wheel.

Speaker 11 (33:32):
Yeah, there's an awful lot going on. Mike, I think
when you look at mister Winston Peter's statements after this
meeting and reading between the lines, it looks like it
was a pretty tough conversation, a pretty robust exchange of
views with one ye and Winston Peters has said it
was a failure that the Chinese did not give more
notice to New Zealand. So it sounds like it was a,

(33:54):
as I say, a pretty tough encounter.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Which is all we can say. And if they want
to do it, they'll do it because there's no international
laws being broken and they're an international waters. Is this,
in your view, a deterioration of relations or the new normal?

Speaker 11 (34:09):
A great It is a difficult situation to be in,
and it's one I don't think News even wanted to
be and I don't think necessarily China necessarily wanted the
relationship to be at this point right now. That said,
I think it is helpful to have these robust discussions.
I think we're all better off when there is more dialogue,
and certainly the statements that came out and the characterizations

(34:30):
from Chinese state media as well, emphasize the need for
further dialogue in the future. Remember this visit by Winston
Peters to Beijing was also a set up visit for
Christopher Luxin to into Beijing later this year, and I
think that would be very welcome. We need more diplomacy,
more de escalation, more dialogue.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Couldn't agree with you. More nice to have you appreciate it.
Jeffrey Jeffrey Miller, geopolitical analyst. It's twelve minutes past seven,
asking Mike, why do all of these organizations talk like
the new citizens' wrest law means you have to detain
all criminals simply giving you the option. I couldn't agree
with you. I mean, it's like we went nuts yesterday.
I think, Mike, we're just listening to the wrong people.
It's just proof you can always find somebody whinging about something.

(35:08):
I think there's something in that morning, Mike. Why does it?
Where does it say in the new bill that shopkeepers
and staff must confront and detain shoplifters? I couldn't agree more.
It doesn't say anything. I take the point around reasonable force,
but there's lots of interpretation around the law where police
have to make decisions as to whether delay charges or not.
So there's nothing new on this, Mike, struggling with the

(35:30):
resistance to the new citizens arrest. I recall firms providing
security to supermarkets, bemoaning the fact they had no legal
rights to restrain Exactly. I've got more on this before
seven thirty. But that's exactly the point. The reality is
you and I aren't going to do anything about this.
It's for security guards. Mike. You say New Zealand's winging
as usual. It isn't New Zealand. It's the negative nelly

(35:51):
media who put a negative lens across everything. I got
that impression yesterday. There is a default position in some
aspects of the media at the moment, who whatever the
announcement is, it's their first port of callers. Who can
we find to winge about this? And off they go,
And that's why they've got so many problems. Thirteen past seven.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
The Mike Asking Breakfast Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered
by News Talks.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
A'd be you're hot on this, Mike. If I owned
a security firm, I'd be training my team and gearing
them up for the hard work ahead required. Now the
little criminals will think twice about their intended consequences. I
tend to agree. I've got more to say on this
in just a couple of moments, Mike, Do these retailers
want to be part of the solution or not. They
just need to contract decent security guards, properly trained, instead
of the idiots wandering around looking at their phones all day. Mike,

(36:36):
was that the same Chris negative Nelly who poo pooed
banning gang patches. But they've got to be very careful.
The police union, of course, on what you know, they've
got to be on the right side of this because
most of the election was fought on the economy and
crime and we wanted something done, and now that something's
getting done, we're moaning. Perhaps the police, Mike, are concerned
about actually having to turn up to petty crime. Easy

(36:58):
to complain, Mike, but at least use this government is
trying to do something. I would love to hear the
alternative with the alternative, of course, was your demio three
walls and the endless stories about ram rates. Now other
matters seventeen pass good news from tourism spending is almost
back to what it was pre nineteen sixteen point nine
billion dollars in the year to March total. If you
added all up, it's up fourteen point six percent to
forty four and a half billion dollars, a lot of money.

(37:20):
Tourism New Zealand boss Renee demoshes back with us. Rene,
very good morning to you.

Speaker 22 (37:25):
Good morning Mike.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
So we don't need the people, We just need their wallets.
That's what this boils down to. Is it quality not quantity?

Speaker 23 (37:31):
Well, we want both, Mike.

Speaker 22 (37:33):
Look, I think there's plenty of capacity and we actually
want both. But it is a good news story. You know,
those are that's a pretty big growth number. Six billion
dollars of growth in tourism spend in the year to march.
You know, that's a significant uplift from a major expert.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
I'm glad to hear you say plenty of capacity because
I was watching the news last night and they managed
to find yet another moner who was saying that, you know,
the infrastructure can't cope and it's all too busy, and
it's is it or not.

Speaker 22 (37:58):
Well, Look, I think it's important we've got to promote
New Zealand year round. But if you think about it,
as we talked about previously, we're at about eighty five
percent of the visitor numbers that we were pre COVID,
so that so there's definitely plenty of capacity, and especially
when you look at year round, you know, we still
have quite a lot of people that come in the
summer months. How do we also encourage people. It's a

(38:19):
big focus of ours of people to come in between
March and November and not just between December and.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
February shoulder seasons. We're now back to the second largest exporter.
And know this is tourism. How far short of dairy
are we because once upon a time you guys were
neck and neck and occasionally beat them.

Speaker 22 (38:36):
Yeah, I mean it's usually one of one or the
other that's number one or two. It's driven a little
bit by commodity pricing of the area. That can be
a fluctuator and in our case, the recovery of tourism.
I don't know exactly how short we are, but i'd
say that at six billion growth a year on year,
we're accelerating fast. So you know, it's great to be
back to number two tourism export. I think we'll continue

(38:58):
to see strong on growth in the sector for the
year ahead.

Speaker 24 (39:03):
I heard somebody sorry, carry on and that's really important
because what the numbers also show is actually in that
same period, domestic has been declined by two and a
half percent, So it's really important that international tourism is there.

Speaker 22 (39:16):
Really Bolses the economy.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Couldn't agree more. I heard somebody earlier on in the
station suggesting, we're expensive.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
How is it?

Speaker 2 (39:22):
How can we be expensive when I hand over fifty
five US cents for a dollar and forty five p
for a dollar.

Speaker 22 (39:30):
Yeah, Look, the exchange rate out of the US certainly helps.
But look, New Zealand is by no means a cheap destination.
You know, you have to travel quite a long way
for most of the world, you have to take quite
a long time, and you do have to spend quite
a lot of money. So we're a premium destination. I
don't think we're cheap, but you know, having a good
foreign exchange rate with the US dollar and with a

(39:51):
pound that certainly helps because it just lowers the barrier.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Very good to be able to have a compositive conversation
about tourism. Rene, appreciate your time. Tourism New Zealand CEO.
The money is flying Americans really has become a real thing,
Thank the good Lord, because the Chinese aren't coming back
and we've got the visa issue, and they travel seemingly domestically,
and if it's not literally domestically, it's within the immediate region.
And I don't know that they're ever necessarily coming back
in the numbers they were once coming back, and so

(40:15):
it's encouraging to see tourism as is up and running
to a degree anyway, financially speaking, now back to this
business of arresting people in a moment seven twenty.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
The Mike Asking Breakfast Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio, how
it By News talks EV.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
When we talk about the QWI dream, many would agree
owning a home is a big part of that. SBS
Bank they've been helping Kiwis achieve that particular dream for
one hundred and fifty five years now. Are so good
at it? Are SBS They've been judged Canstar's best bank
for first home buyers not once, not twenty twenty two,
twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four. So if you're looking
to buy your first time or have first home buyers

(40:53):
in your life, whether it's the kids of the grandkids,
SBS Bank should be that first part of court. So
what makes them so good, Well, their product got the
SBS First Home Combo, which has got some very impressive
inclusions like a heavily discounted interest rate, get a cash
back offer, contribution towards SBS insurance, home policies, money back
into an SBS Wealth, Saber Wealth Keiwi, Saber, a lot

(41:14):
of savings there for first home buias and of course
the first home lending. An eligibility criteria applies. So for
all you need to know about SBS Bank's terms, fiesian charges,
you go to the website. So if you're ready to
follow those awards are to a great home loan, you
search for SBS Bank. It is the bank with heart
Hosking seven twenty three. The trick, and we fail at

(41:37):
virtually every time, is to not get bogged down in
the MINUTII. There are not prizes for coming up with
dumb scenarios to try and catch the idea out amending
the law to allow greater use of locals to grab
a scumbag and hold them till the coppers arise is
a good and it's a welcome idea and that the
government are making tangible and positive progress if you think

(41:58):
about it anywhere at all. It's on the crime front,
More people are in jail, more people are being rounded up,
more of us feel safe, the police feel better about
doing their job or being allowed to do their job,
and the citizens' arrest news is merely adding to that progress.
Coming up with scenarios about criminals bringing bigger weapons to
robberies won't happen the same way. We haven't seen the
gangs give the boot to the coppers over patches at

(42:20):
the Prime Minister's press conference and I urge you to
watch it. At the Prime Minister's press conference this week
with Goldsmith, Mitchell and the Commissioner Chambers, they were asked
about there being more gang members inference being the laws
failing the more gang members, Yes, said Chambers. Police Commissioner Chambers.
There are more gang members because we're putting more groups
on the register and the arrests are not going up

(42:40):
commensurately because gangs aren't flouting the law and retail thugs
are not going to flout this one either. Thugs are
cowards and they're opportunists. They try it on because they
know they can. The moment they know a guard in
a supermarket can jump on top of them, they're not
going to bother the same way they tried to get
work when the traffic light system came in for the
job seeker. Bottom feeders are essentially lazy. If it's easy,

(43:03):
they'll abuse it, or they'll nick it, crack down, games up,
they will give up. This sort of thing should be welcome.
This is what we wanted. See, memories can't be so
short that we have forgotten the madness that filled our
streets just a year or so back. The ram raids,
the gangs that block the road with their intimidation, the
non existent police to round them up, the endless ankle
braceletters who were reoffending. We hated that, We got furious

(43:26):
at that. A year and a half later, the changes happen.
The statistics have turned. Let's not get bogged down in
a petty game of but what if us get Morning Mike?
Are un a security business for twenty five years. Industry
has the capability to provide well trained staff, and the
Security Association has already got a professional trainer development a
five day course that would provide the skill set required

(43:48):
for detention. However, big retailers would actually have to pay
for the skill set instead of going for the cheapest
price and then complaining to get Hopeles stuff. Couldn't agree
with you more? Very good text. Thank you for that. Yeah,
very interesting watching David Seymore yesterday's Deputy Prime Minister. What
a low level affair that was. If you look at
the pictures. I don't know where he was. He was
in Auckland, but if you look at the pictures, he

(44:09):
was next to some sort of strange it could have
been a tarper cloth for all I know. In the
background there was a blank wall where something once hung
which no longer did, so there's sort of like a
couple of stickers there and he's standing in front of
a media assembly which I think amounted to maybe three people.
And then he said any questions, and there were a
couple of lame questions. After about three and a half minutes.

(44:31):
That was that. So the Prime ministerial update. But what
he said was important and what he said I wish
he could have given more details, but he can't. He's
been briefed about something that's happened with the Chinese as
regards the Tasman Sea, the role of our military and
the Australian military. Who knew what when? And he said, basically,
if you knew what I knew about what we'd done,

(44:54):
you'd be really proud and impressed of what we're up to.
So I longed to know, but obviously we can't. What
I did watch also yesterday was a Senate's Senate Committee
Estimates Committee yesterday in Australia where the Australian Navy fronted
up and they looked like a bunch of dumpty doos.
They didn't have the slightest idea what was going on,

(45:14):
and it was us that was informing them, and they
couldn't explain how all of that happened. So the other
ones were the problem, seemingly not us, right, the power
industry winter not going to have enough power, going to
be touch and go yet again? How come more on
this shortly.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
Your source of breaking news, challenging opinion and honored facts,
The Mike Hosking Breakfast with a Vita Retirement Communities, Life
Your Way News togs had been.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
A little bit of rodden about an hour's time, so,
of course the big announcement and Starmer's on his way
to Washington to meet Trump. Of course Macron this week
as well as Starmer, but the announcement came yesterday and
he did it deliberately. Obviously he's going to increase the
amount of defense spending and doing that, he's cutting AID
spending and everyone's gone, oh my god, Aid because of
course USAID is being pulled apart as we speak by Doge. Anyway,

(46:03):
it's very similar in Britain as it is to America.
Two thirds of adults this is a poll. This is
interesting because of course what you'll see on the news.
And I'm not anti AID or pro AD. I'm just
giving you the insight as to how people see it
as far as AID is concerned. When you hear on
the newsuals, hear every AID agency in the world, and
of course there are far too many of them, and
the duplication of services, not to mention the administrative administrative
costs is something well worth looking into. But two thirds

(46:26):
about aults in Britain believe AID spending is too high.
So in fact, what Starmer did yesterday, you could argue politically,
is popular. Fourteen percent think the same about defense, so
in other words, most people in Britain think you should
spend more on defense and you should spend less on aid. Anyway,
the study where did the AID money go? And you've
heard the doze stories will in Britain is a study

(46:47):
of the health of prawns in Bangladesh some of their
aid money study of Health of prawns and Bangladesh. There
is a deal to fund prison transport in Albania using
a Porsche dealerans to support accountability and inclusion in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. So you can see there
might be just a little bit of trimming needed doing.

(47:08):
Twenty two minutes away from eight gets you to the
Gulf in Queen's Town tee off today and to our
friend Andrew Webster in Las Vegas as the Warriors kickoff
for this coming weekend for the season. Now more insights
into our power industries we had towards winter. Meridian reported
in that loss of one hundred and twenty one million
dollars yesterday. Is that bad? Yes? It is. Meridian chief

(47:28):
financial Officer and incoming CEO, Mike Rhones with us on
all of this. Mike, very good morning to you.

Speaker 23 (47:34):
Hey morning, Mike.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
This line you ran yesterday, you took a hit for
New Zealand. Does that spin or reel?

Speaker 17 (47:41):
Oh?

Speaker 23 (47:41):
It's real. Last year last year was tough, largely because
it didn't rain, but we also had an unexpected, unprecedented
shortage of gas at the same time, so we had
to take two hundred million dollars of cover that we
didn't expect we'd need to keep.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
The lights on.

Speaker 23 (48:02):
So you know, what we were trying to say is
we put some curious apply first and we do it again.
I mean, it's part of the it's part of the
territory for US. Droughts, managing droughts part of the territory.
But you know, being a business in the country is
when things get tough, our job is to help manage
those conditions. So that's what we did.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
Would you so manage the conditions you count If you
haven't got any gas, you haven't got any rain, there's
nothing you can do about it. You lose money. Is
your mix all wrong and you're fixing your mix?

Speaker 23 (48:29):
Well, I think that was the problem, that that was unexpected.
The loss of gas was, you know, something we didn't expect,
and I think that is the big challenge we you know,
we rely on gas, we rely on water, but you know,
it's the loss of gas that we think is a
potential structural issue for the country, not just the electricity sector,

(48:51):
and we think it needs a lot of attention.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
So didn't you. I mean, I don't know what you
were doing when Jacinda was running the class, But once
you wandered around and said we're not going to look
for oil gas anymore, did know and to mercury go
Maridian rather go that might affect us.

Speaker 23 (49:06):
We've always said that, you know, alc tricity sector, while
we can become more renewable over time, that we're going
to need gas is a transition fuel. So I think
that's the challenge that we found last year is that
transition fuel has got its own challenges. And you know,
we thought it was going to be affordable. We found
it was unaffordable. It shows through in our result. And

(49:30):
so now we're scrambling, you know, where we thought we
were going to rely on it as a country, we're
scrambling to find or turn its and so we're going
back to you know, things that have been dust or
were dusting things off that been looked at ten fifteen
years ago. And you know, one of the things we
found is that there's a bunch of contingent hydro.

Speaker 25 (49:50):
Storage that sits out there.

Speaker 23 (49:52):
So it's about twenty percent of New Zealand's hydro storage
sits there for these sorts of conditions that doesn't get
touch and we're talking to regulators, you know, our stakeholders
Transpower to see whether we can't open that up to
try and bring energy prices down and deal with the
fact that, you know, we don't have the gas supply

(50:13):
that we thought.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
Why wouldn't they, Why wouldn't they This is interesting, Why
wouldn't they do that? Why would they let it spike
last one to do eight hundred bucks and still not
let get you access to that?

Speaker 23 (50:23):
Yeah, well, I mean it's I might not be the
right person to ask, Michael.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Probably Power company.

Speaker 23 (50:30):
Yeah, well, we think it's a no brainer. So, you know,
we think it'll bring electricity prices down and it'll deal
with the fact that we've got some challenges in the
gas industry. So we think it's exactly what we need.
And you're wearing a conversation with them to try and
do exactly that. Let's not wait for those same conditions
to unfold. Let's open that at hydro storage up so

(50:52):
that we can use it.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
It has it has. Last year's disaster of the season
coalesced the industry in general on the broad idea that
we need to do better than we are.

Speaker 23 (51:05):
Yeah, I mean there's a massive amount of investment that's
going on. You know the challenge that we've got, so
you know, we're going to invest embarks by the end
of this calendar year. You've heard others talk to the
same thing, and that investment's going in. But the challenge
we've got is it takes any calend intensive industry, it
takes a couple of years for that investment to come

(51:26):
to fruition. You know, we're not going to have those
power stations producing energy for a couple of years, So
it's what do we do in the next couple of years.
Given we found that we're not going to rely on gas.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
And we're doing in cold and stuff like that. Can
you reassure me that all of this investment and renewables
is when it comes online. That's it. We've done. We've
sorted our problem out and we're not going to have
the same tedious conversation leading into every winter that we
don't have enough power.

Speaker 23 (51:57):
Yeah. I mean, that's the great news is I can't
show is once fact comes on board, as it allows
us to use the hydro storage. You know, New Zealand's
got a bounty of hydro energy that other countries would love.
And once we've invested in those renewables, we can sort
our hydro storage out. We can drive competitive advantage into
this economy that's durable good because other countries don't have

(52:20):
what we've got.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
And that includes data centers and stuff like that.

Speaker 23 (52:25):
Yeah, if we can invest in more, you know, renewable technologies,
we can invite people to come to the country and
do their business here. And that's I mean, that's basically
the plan is. We've got a bounty of renewable energy,
we've got to get those investments in place, and then
we've got a power system that other people around the

(52:46):
globe will look at with envy because they can't replicate.

Speaker 25 (52:50):
What we've got.

Speaker 23 (52:50):
So we're hopeful of attracting, you know, whether it's data
centers or anybody.

Speaker 25 (52:54):
We'd love them to well.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
I hope, I hope.

Speaker 25 (52:56):
You're right.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
I've got a personal obsession with nuclear and there's a
lot of people go nuclear, and you can do it
a lot more efficiently and in a smaller capacity and
way than you used to be able to do. You
ever see the day that that could even be a
conversation in this country of where just that that ship sailed.

Speaker 23 (53:11):
I think it's a tough one, Mike, I do. I
think it takes so long introduce the regulatory settings and
then invest, and so I think, you know, we're better
relying on the resources that we've got, and you know,
we need to open up this conversation on hydro storage.
It's the thing we've got as a country that other
people don't like. We have it in space. You know,

(53:32):
we've got a lot of water that flows.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
I think this has been used to most people. I
followed this industry, I would argue reasonably closely. I didn't
know that. I didn't know that transpower will holding it back.
And there's a scandal in that, and I don't understand
why there's a scandal, and I don't understand why there's
a Minister of Energy that would be overseeing the scandal
at a point of eight hundred dollars for a spot
price and all the nonsense we went through last winter
and not have done something about that. If you've got

(53:54):
the water and all you can need is access, why
don't we have I mean, how hard can it be?

Speaker 23 (53:58):
Yeah, we think everyone's port Mike. It's just working through
you know it's working through the issues skined unlocked.

Speaker 25 (54:05):
So yeah, well, good luck with it, but.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
Good luck with it. Well, we'll follow up. Who's the
Minister of energy? Off the top of my head, give
it to me now, actually ring them up? Did you
know about that? I didn't know about that. I'm disappointed
in myself that I didn't know about that. But if
we've got all that, and they'll say arts for reserves
for a really difficult day, they couldn't say it's for
a rainy day, because that's exactly the sort of day

(54:30):
they'd want. Come on, what Simon Watts? Simon, I've got
more water than I need. What's what's great? Name from
n Minister of Energy? Yeah, what's he doing? We're gonna
get him on the program fourteenth to wade the.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
Vike Asking Breakfast Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News Talks.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
It'd be Mike ilib next to Lake Dunstan were lucky you.
There are strict rules about dropping the lake level, so
basically the whole lake behind the Clyde down storage not
to be used. Well, of course there are rules. What's
what We've just discovered one thing this country does really well.
If you looked at the productivity of making rules. The
making rules people would be fantastically productive because that's what

(55:12):
they do. And here's another reality check for your BP.
They've announced globally overnight they're going to slash its renewable
energy investments and focus on increasing oil and gas production. Well,
why would that we because the shareholders had a look
at the price, which is only up thirty six percent
this year, Shells up eighty two, Exon's up one hundred
and sixty, and they've gone, how come these guys are
doing so well and new clowns aren't. They went, well,

(55:35):
because we wanted to save the planet. They go, yeah,
but there's no returns in that, mate. So anyway, reality
not that I don't want to save the planet, don't
get me wrong on that. But at the end of
the day, what I'm really really keen on is having
lights in the lounge. Call me, call me old fashioned.
By the way, I've got scandal around the committee representative
paid while not showing up to meetings for two years

(55:56):
by councils, and this should be getting more coverage as well.
The community and run Unger representatives paid four thousand dollars
a year to be on the Canterbury Water Zone Committee.
Speaking of power, Deputy chair receives five thousand. Yeer person
received six thousand twenty three and twenty four. Twenty twenty three,
twenty twenty four, there were fourteen meetings of the Ashburton

(56:17):
Water Zone Committee. Can you believe there's even a thing?
What did you do? I'll tell you what. I'm on
the ash Bourton I'm on the Ashburton Water Zone Committee.
Or are you? Did you turn up?

Speaker 13 (56:27):
No?

Speaker 2 (56:27):
But I got paid anyway, I'm going to tell you
what happened, how much they got, how many meetings they
turned up to and how many they didn't. Later on
got to go to the golf. In the moment though
night away of.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
The Myke Hosking Breakfast with Vida Retirement Communities News togs
had been.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
Looked away from a New Zealand Open Time teeing off
at Millbrook today, one hundred and fourth time they've done this.
Tournament director Michael Glading's Wather's Michael morning, Am I give
me the weather and track for the four days because
she can be beautiful and she can blow like buggery?
What are we expecting?

Speaker 25 (56:55):
I think it's my key. They just give you two
days because they're never right.

Speaker 20 (56:58):
After two days, So the weekend not looking quite so sharp,
but the next two days it's just fabulous, which is
a great way for us to get started, especially with
such a big field.

Speaker 25 (57:07):
Getting everybody through in good weather is just crucial.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
So when you say a big field, this pro amateur
mix of yours, would you argue it's working as a thing?

Speaker 20 (57:17):
I undoubtedly working as a thing.

Speaker 25 (57:20):
There's no question that's working.

Speaker 20 (57:21):
It's one of the one of the many reasons why
I think we've been able to operate with an eight
million dollar budget. You know, we bring in one hundred
and fifty six amaches alongside one hundred and fifty six pros.
It's a significant amount of money that we generate through
our amateur revenue. So and of course also what we
deliver is try and make sure they want to come
back and so far touch what they have.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Yeah, as a tournament in the grand scheme of things,
there's a lot of golf and there's a lot of
sport out there these days. How does it attract people? Still?
Is it attracting people?

Speaker 20 (57:53):
You know what, Mike, The number one attraction is Queen's
Down a let's say to me personally, But it's definitely not.

Speaker 25 (57:58):
It's just Queen's Down.

Speaker 20 (57:59):
Queenstown such an attraction, and you know, I work hard
to get some of the pros to come here, and
if you get them here once, they are.

Speaker 25 (58:05):
Hooked because they just love it. And as you were,
it's the air, as the people, as the vistas, it's
just everything about Queenstown, and people just love it.

Speaker 20 (58:14):
You can see their emergless when they when they sort
of get out of the taxi when they arrive.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
Yeah, exactly, it's a beautiful place. Danny Lee, Are we
making too much of him? I mean, yes, he should
have been here. He is here now. That's good, isn't it.

Speaker 20 (58:26):
It's absolutely fantastic. And he's come here with a really
great attitude and I'm just alighted.

Speaker 25 (58:30):
But he's come back. You know, You're right.

Speaker 20 (58:32):
He's been to some degree a bit of before it
for some time.

Speaker 25 (58:36):
And I think he's really chaffy.

Speaker 20 (58:38):
He says, he said he can't walk anywhere anywhere without
thirty people saying all those to him.

Speaker 25 (58:42):
And I think he's really enjoying that, which is fabulous.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
And what about our old mate Helca. I mean, given
what he's up to these days. You'd have to be
looking at him, wouldn't you.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
Yeah, you'd never count him out.

Speaker 20 (58:52):
I mean he would. Brendan Jones won this torn at
age forty eight two years ago, so there's no way
that that somebody of that advantage is not capable of
winning it, as Steve certainly is, and I think he's just.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
Quietly confident this year.

Speaker 25 (59:05):
He came in a few days earlier.

Speaker 20 (59:07):
In previous years he's sort of just flown and you know,
dusted off the clubs and now he.

Speaker 25 (59:11):
Goes because he does play all over the world, as.

Speaker 20 (59:13):
You know, on Champions Tour, but this is really I
see him in a bit of it's certainly had a
bit of health condition last year he picked up the
cold and he's pretty damn miserable. So I think it's
christ There would be a dream result to have Steve
run up there.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
At the top.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Fantastic go well with Michael Gladding, who's the new Zealand
Open tournament director and Mike have been walking around, been
walking the dog around Millbrook for the last couple of days.
It's looking picture perfect Millbrook. I remember going at the
very beginning of Millbrook when they it was just really
an idea and not a lot more. And I thought,
I wonder what this is going to be, and what
it's turned out to be is absolutely fantastic. It's a
duel in the New Zealand Sporting Crown. Andrew Webster of

(59:50):
the Warriors in Vegas. Yes, this is indeed our year
and he'll tell us why shortly.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
The news again, News Vekers, the mic Hosking breakfast with
the range rovervi La designed to intrigue and use talks
dead be.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
It a seven past eight. You know what we do
this time of year. We remind you the Warriors kick
off as close. This year it's in Vegas, which may
or may not be a good thing. It's against the
baseball bat wielding Raiders. So how they going? Coach Andrew
Webster is with us, goimonning morning.

Speaker 15 (01:00:29):
How are you look?

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
I'm fantastic Vegas. Talk to me Vegas so far? How
much work, how much play?

Speaker 15 (01:00:38):
We landed and we're very social. For the first two
days the players knuckled straight down, got in the training.
Ever since we've trained really hard and really well. I
think the Vegas strips out of their system now and
everyone's so excited looking forward to to chasing two points.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
What about the some jet lag time zones? All of
that is that under control the jet lag.

Speaker 15 (01:01:05):
Myself, I'm not as good as I thought I would be,
but yeah, getting there with it, definitely getting there. The
players obviously got a really good routine, strict routine, so
they're they're finding a lot bad. I thought today they
had a lot of bounce about their training. So that's
always exciting when when you know they're training well. But yeah,
jet lag has been It's not a long time difference,

(01:01:28):
but it's enough to throw you out a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
And the hype and the noise. Have you got a
sense on the ground yet? I mean, is Vegas genuinely
interested in what the NRL are trying to do.

Speaker 15 (01:01:38):
It's hard to e gauge it. Wing our pitches are
not ours in myself with the boys and the NRL
pictures around the around the city, which is cool to see.
It's pretty amazing that they're going to be headlining one
of the acts this week. But I think when we
get close to it, we've got a big street parade

(01:01:59):
with on Thursday night in the old Las Vegas town
and I think apparently that thing you really get to
feel at it's rugby league fever and a lot more
promotions leading up to the first game, I mean up
to the weekend, so I think we'll feel that more
then at that stake.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Now, if you go back a bit in the original
news and the Warriors being part of this, so the
NRL they want to attack the American market. I'm sure
it's all good for the NRL, but as a coach
of a team that wants to win a game of football,
is it a potential distraction.

Speaker 15 (01:02:31):
I definitely found out whether we could be going. I
wasn't interested, but obviously not being selfish, and start realizing
how good this is for our brand to put it
on the world stage. I think it's an amazing opportunity
for our club, but just can't be at the expense

(01:02:51):
of two points. And then I started thinking, this is
a really big challenge for our boys to be able
to enjoy the experience and take it all in, make
sure they're ready to go on the weekend, and so
far so their handle were challenge really well, but as
always you are, you won't know until you get punched
in the face and the game day. But at the
stage they handled it really well, what.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
About those little thing size of the field, shape of
the field, you know, the American stadium, do you do
you think and talk a lot about.

Speaker 21 (01:03:19):
That, Yeah, yeah, we do.

Speaker 22 (01:03:20):
We do.

Speaker 15 (01:03:22):
In our second trial form were fortunate enough that the
markings look filled with the Las Vegas pitch with and length,
and then the fields we train on here are the same.
And then we even before we left, we had three
training sessions on our field at home where we change
the marking. So this just to make sure that we
don't get We're not unorganized. I'm not ready for it.

(01:03:46):
But the biggest thing we find is if here you
got space on the edge to attack, and the next thing,
our attackers are running out of the room, like we
ran out three times today, got pushing the touch back
against each other, just simply not having our bearings right.
So we got to keep working on that.

Speaker 23 (01:04:01):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
These trial games, which I watched both of them, of course,
see the commentary seemed on the first one to be
a little bit negative. That drawer. I didn't think it
was as bad as people made it out to be.
I mean, I'm sure you're unhappy, but it wasn't the
end of the world, was it.

Speaker 15 (01:04:14):
No, it certainly was at the end of the world,
nothing to worry or panic about. I wish we worked better,
but you know, I thought we obviously needed to get
rid of some rusks. I thought the second trial were
very dominant. Obviously wasn't against Melbourne's best team, but I
thought we took a lot of learning in the first
trial and it allowed us to narrow our focus in

(01:04:34):
the next week around our defense. Particularly. Yeah, you saw
it much improved in a much more aggressivetistical performance. But
without that first trial, we wouldn't have known that, because
you think you're going all really smooth when you're training
against each other, you don't really know it until you
face another ral opposition.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
And what do you take out of Melbourne? I mean,
you said that they didn't have much of a side
of course, but then again we had some people missing.
So what's the value, you know, of a trial if
you can't put, you know, the field or the team
on the field that you want.

Speaker 15 (01:05:03):
Yeah, that's true, that's true. I mean the big things
that I took out of it were just I thought
we were very at the start of the game. I
thought we got the start right, We got into a
rhythm with our defense, and I thought our attack was real.
We're very well and where we wanted to be and
how we wanted to get there, and then once we
got there, I thought we then executed our play very well.

(01:05:25):
I thought everyone was on think, but I thought it
all came from saving energy and being more efficient with
our defense, which gave us a better opportunity attack. Well.

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
James Fisher, Harrison for that matter, all the other newbies,
how are they fitting in? Is that working?

Speaker 15 (01:05:38):
Yeah, it's going really well. This is the strengths been leadership,
not so much from talking all the time, but leadership
from his actions, the way he trains. People just don't
want to let fish down. So he's out there doing
extras for ages, and now you've got all these young
guys with him doing it, you know. I mean everyone

(01:06:00):
has always done extras at our club, but it's just
done to a different intensity now, which is really cool.
Aaron Clark is then, he's a new Playoffs and he's
been awesome and he should do really well. In particular
in that Melbourne game he played outstanding. So it's good
for a couple of keywis. Come home to the worry,
come home to his ill.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
Fantastic Hey, listen, I will come and talk about your
camp in just a couple of moments. Andrew webs is
with us from Vegas this morning. More in a moment,
thirteen past.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
The mic Asking Breakfast full show podcast on iHeartRadio, cowered
by news Talks.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
It be sixteen past dight. Andrew Webster out of Vegas. Listen, Andrew,
before you got to Vegas, you had the camp part
of the summer program. Of course, and I'm reading all
about this. There was no television, no phones, and you
played board games all day. What it said about.

Speaker 15 (01:06:45):
We didn't buy him all day. We trained pretty hard
on that. No, we just we just wanted to get
away and go to somewhere. And we went to Saint
Keps obviously high school at the school holidays, so we
had the run of the whole facility and we had
great fields, We had a great gym, we had a
pool for recovery, and then we had dorms, so there

(01:07:07):
was like six to eight in the dorn. We had
a big food hall. We played like trivia at night.
There was only done. They use their phones for an
hour a day that to come get it out of
off from the team manager just to call home and
make sure everything was okay. But yeah, you just found
everyone talking so much more, and at night they started

(01:07:28):
playing board games and started you know, it was almost
like the old days. It was pretty exciting. And as
a result of it, I felt like our connections are better,
a lot closer, because I actually start asking genuine questions
rather than just in between the odd house my social
media going and then putting the head up and having
a probably a fake conversation that the boy said to

(01:07:49):
the reddle one.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
And did you notice a variation in the way they
handled that depending on age or not?

Speaker 15 (01:07:55):
Definitely. The first of all, yeah, it's different. The younger
guys there very keen on obviously the social media side
of it, and that's their life, that's how they communicate.
And then the sort of the older boys were more
worried about just making sure their families were good and
how how were they So there was two different, two
different objectives and why they wanted their phones. But I

(01:08:18):
felt like the first two nights they almost didn't know
what to do. I mean, after dinner, after we played
our Tribua, they almost didn't know what to do. And
then by the last three nights we saw them that
social that happy, and yeah, it was a great experiment.

Speaker 2 (01:08:34):
Now, ultimately, what have you taken out of last year
which should have been better but wasn't to put into
this year.

Speaker 15 (01:08:41):
Yeah, well, on the field point of view, our goal
line defense cively wasn't good enough and our goal line attack.
So that's been a pretty simple focus. The other one
is I don't think you can always assume that you
think we've covered that, We've practiced that a lot. They
we've got that, we've got that covered. We probably we
probably didn't have the same amount of detail and a

(01:09:02):
few things if I'm being honest, but definitely want to
sort out our goal line attack Yetbut to being resilient,
I think there's a lot of detail in that. But
I think there's also when you care for each other
and you've got to go good bond as a group
and you want to actually defend your trolong for your mate.
And then yeah, just our execution next to the line.
We were absolutely rutheless they before and last year we

(01:09:23):
just didn't. We didn't put it together that we should have.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
So the big question obviously is this our year.

Speaker 15 (01:09:31):
I hope. So I'm as confident as I've been in
the last two seasons. Put it that way. So one
year we come out and did it, the second year
we didn't, So hopefully third the charm. But yeah, I'm confident, hopefully, hopefully,
I'm confident every year that it's going to be our year.
But at the moment the boys are giving you no
indication that it shouldn't be our year.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Good on you go. Well, we'll be watching on the weekend.
Andrew Webster, Warrior's coach with us. By the way, it's
an article across the Tasman A talking about this whole
Vaguas thing by trying to crack this market America in
the city with foreign sport that few have heard of
or understand. The National Rugby League is shooting for the moon,
which is probably not a bad way of putting it.

(01:10:12):
The Australian media also reporting as far as they went
through Sydney Morning Herald, this is they've gone through every
team and protected where the season is going to go
for them. Sydney Morning Herald in the very good news
is because they're Australians, they don't quite understand how it works.
They have us with seven wins and coming second to last,
so clearly got that wrong eight twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
Yes, the Mike Hosking Breakfast with the Range rover of
the lawn News togstad b.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
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tasking point Mike Meridian's comment regarding contingent storage as a
red herring. Meridians able to access contingent storage when their
lakes reach a certain level, which coincidentally also triggers an

(01:11:45):
official conservation campaign. That level wasn't reached in twenty four,
so Meridian had no need to access at The key
point is that they want the level lifted so that
the official conservation campaign has started sooner to reduce the
financial cost that Meridian would be subject to. Well, what's
wrong with that? So they want to save a bit
of money? I mean, is that suddenly a crime in
this country? Now, is it? I mean, if we've got
water sitting there, set to go and we're paying eight

(01:12:07):
hundred dollars for the spot price, come on. Now we
come to Shane Jones and Simon Watts a proposal. Listen
to this and see if you understand a single thing
that they're saying here. A proposal by the Electricity Authority
for mandatory non discrimination obligations for electricity. Gent Tailor sends
a strong signal that any advantage being provided to their
own retailers will not be tolerated, says mister Jones and

(01:12:28):
mister Watts. The EA is proposing a progressive approach to
non discrimination obligation, supported by increased monitoring of gen Taylor's
responses and consumer outcomes. If the first step proves insufficient,
the EA could escalate to more prescriptive ways of leveling
the paying field. What does that mean? What does any
of that mean? Proposed steps are one principles based on
non discrimination requirements. What's that mean? Two non discrimination requirements

(01:12:51):
set out in detail. What's that mean? Three? All gent
Tailor's supplied hedge contracts must be traded through a regulated
market on equal terms for all buyers. I understand that
here's the critical line that actually makes sense. It only
took them about five paragraphs to speak English. The proposed
measures send a strong signal that gent Tailor's creating an
advantage for their own retailers at the expense of the

(01:13:12):
affordability and security of New Zealand's energy supply will no
longer be tolerated. This means, in yet more common sense,
in plain language, this means Gent Tailors would be required
to treat independent retailers and generators the same as they
do their own retail ants. All of that's fine, that's fantastic,
and theory, that's fantastic. Let's hope they do it. And
as you heard, if they don't do it, then they're

(01:13:34):
gonna do something even more serious. So but the problem
is this, you can treat everybody. And this goes back
to the whole gentailor thing and whether you should split
these people up. It's exactly the same as the supermarkets.
There are two companies, maybe they need three, Maybe they
need to split the supermarkets up, Maybe they need to
split the gent tailors up. In the power But while
we're mucking around and talking about all of that, what

(01:13:54):
we are more concerned about, surely is do we have
enough water, do we have enough wind? If we have
enough wind, do we have enough propellers, Do we have
enough sun? Do we have enough solar panels? Do we
have enough renewables? Are we just going to continue to
report coal forever? In other words, can we turn the
lights on? Is the answer in regulation of gen Taylor's

(01:14:15):
and rules, or is the answer in the amount of
stuff that we have to produce? The power, And if
we don't have enough stuff, what are we doing about that?
Surely that's the more important point. And if, as the
man from Meridian says, there's plenty of water there and
we just need to get access to it, why aren't
we getting access to it? And why is it we're

(01:14:35):
reliant on transpower, a monopoly government owned and government run?
And where are the EA and all of this? Where's
the electricity authority? And what is it they actually do
when we're watching the spot price as we were last
winter at eight hundred dollars a gig?

Speaker 21 (01:14:50):
What for song?

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
Whatever the hell we call? Let's go to Britain and
rod shortly.

Speaker 1 (01:14:56):
The only report you need to start your day Steel
Breakfast with Bailey's real Estate finding the buyers.

Speaker 3 (01:15:03):
Others can use Togstad b Mike.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
You should ask the generators how much water has been
spilled down the cluth of the summer. It's an unbelievable volume. Yes,
But that's the problem, isn't it. Think about it's all
very well to spill water, but the reason you're spilling
water is you've got more water than you need. Why
do you have more water than you need? Because it's
obviously rained more than you're anticipating. Plus, the demand on
power in the summertime is nowhere near as great as winter.

(01:15:26):
So when you're relying on water i e. Hydro to
run your system, you need to store it. Can we
store it? No? So you spill it in summer. That's
the difficulty. Mike, your commentary power don't make sense. Are
you saying one not enough power? Yes? I am. Two
it's too expensive, Yes I am. Or three transpower eas
at fault. I'm saying all of that. You're all over

(01:15:46):
the place, right, No I'm not. It's not that complicated.
Is there enough power? No, there isn't because we rely
on hydro. It's been the start of a dry year.
We aren't able to store enough of what we've got,
and all of the renewables aren't online enough to the
extent that they can sup apply the demand that will
arrive in winter. Two Is it too expensive? Yes it is.
Why is it too expensive? Because we don't have the supply.

(01:16:07):
The demand goes up, the supply can't match it, hence
the price goes up. Three transparent EA is Are they
a fault? Yes they are? Because what's EA doing? Tell
me what EA are doing? And if the Meridian guy's right,
and they can get access or want access to water
that we've got, but you can't get access to that's
their domain. They're the ones who are in charge of
the rules that are presenting preventing us getting access, not

(01:16:30):
all over the place at all, makes perfect sense, makes
perfect sense in my head, twenty two minutes away from nine,
asking let's go to Britain now, and the mighty Rod
Little's whether it's Rod morning to you?

Speaker 3 (01:16:42):
Good morning, may tayd good.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
I watched with the great deal of interest the increase
in expenditure for defense, which I'm assuming he can take
in his little briefcase to Washington to go, Hey, Donald,
guess what I did, and that'll play well for him.

Speaker 5 (01:16:56):
Yes, but there's no question the Donald Trump's intervention and JD.
Vance's intervention a week or two weeks ago was crucial
in this instance. But it's also possibly true that the
arrival of Trump has kind of imbewed a new realism
within the Labor Party and within the Labor government, and

(01:17:19):
particularly within Sirkia Starmer because it is no small thing
for a labor government to slash its overseas aid budget
by almost half that is no small theme, and he
did it, and he did it without so much as
a by your leave. Frankly, so I think there is
a kind of post Trumpian realism settling in. And it's

(01:17:42):
also true that Sirkia Starmer I think is a far
far better Prime Minister of Great Britain when he is
out of Great Britain than when he's in it, in
that he does have a certain dexterity when talking to
people like Macron and Trump, which is never evident over

(01:18:04):
here when he comes across as a kind of adenoidal automaton.
So most of this stuff has really really appealed to
an awful lot of voters who might otherwise none have
considered voting for it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:20):
It's very interesting you say that I read a poll
out on the show earlier on this morning, because of
course what you hear on the news are all the
aid agencies just sobbing with fear and upset. And yet
the poll suggested that there's the majority two thirds in
fact of Brits think you' spend far too much on
aid as it is, but only fourteen percent think he's
been too much on defense. In other words, they want
more spent on defense, So he's read the room.

Speaker 5 (01:18:43):
Well indeed, but everyone thinks that that. The truth is
that overseas aid is only ever performative. It doesn't give
any benefit to the countries in which it's receiving the
aid apart from two members of the predatory elites. I mean,
one of the things we were spending money on was
was a hundred and ten million pound program to make
the Democratic Republic of the Congo civil service less meritocratic

(01:19:09):
and efficient than it is at the moment by introducing diversity,
equity and inclusion. I mean, you know, you can't. It
is hard if you're a satirist to outdo this stuff.
So no one is losing much sleep over this, apart
from the NGOs, the charities and so on. And it

(01:19:31):
has commended itself to Trump, who's already sort of been
pleased about it. It's still nowhere near what we need,
but it does put us back up there with the
Baltic States in the highest paying country towards NATO.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
As regards the troop is what's he looking to do?
Is he looking to reinforce what Macron was trying to do?
In other words, this is Europe speaking or has he
got his own British message.

Speaker 5 (01:19:56):
I think he's got his own British message as well
as a European world. The British messages we are an
intermediary between you and those low lifes in Paris, Roman Munich.
You know that that we we can, we can, we
can be a kind of bridge between these two countries.
But also he will be quite strong on Ukraine. Uh,

(01:20:19):
probably stronger given the history that the Macron was Uh.
And but but what will be put battery will be right.
You believe Ukraine needs to be supported supported, You know
you support it. I'm not going to so I think
he's got a few difficult questions to answer there. Other
than that, I think he probably emerged from these few

(01:20:42):
days slightly better off than he was. He is quite
good at this foreign diplomacy stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:20:50):
I'm going to be interested to see. And of course,
because we've become fascinated with Ukraine, is he going to
raise terraffs? And the reason I asked this is because
I remember in the early days of the Trump administration,
Trump was ending outside a plane and he goes, there's
terroriffs on everybody. You know, the UK might be different.
We might be able to cutter they or the UK.
Then a couple of days later he goes, there's no exceptions,
so where's britainnett and the tariff debate and can he

(01:21:12):
twist a few arms?

Speaker 5 (01:21:15):
I don't, don't. I don't think we're high up the
gender of the teriff debate. Lastly, because we have a
massive trade deficit with the US. The US has a
trade surplus with US, so I think we're fast safer
there than for example, Germany or France. Uh And that
plays again into Sekia Star's hands. So I think we're

(01:21:36):
better off in that regard.

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
Okay. Then we come to the fabulous BBC in the
Guadza documentary. That's let's turned into be quite the pile on,
hasn't They pulled the documentary? And then everyone everyone wants
a piece of this.

Speaker 5 (01:21:47):
Well, are you surprised the commissioned a documentary which was
reeated by the son of our Mas terrorist After a
year and however many months it is of being told
that they were biased over this issue. It is an
incalculably stupid act. If it was stupidity, which is what

(01:22:11):
people at the BBC tell me it was, and if not,
it was just another example of that bias. It is
a real problem for them, and my guess is it
will see at some point the departure of the director
of BBC is Deborah turns.

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):
All right, man, go well, we'll catch up in a
couple of days, Rod Little, you have a good week
in Rod Little Tuesdays and Thursday. Speaking of the terraces.
By the way, Jim Chalmers, who's the Australian treasure he's
been in Washington, told you about his departure the other
day to try and twist an arm and he met
Scott percent who's the Treasury Secretary. He's left Washington with
no verdict. Scott said, it's not me, it's Donald And

(01:22:50):
so I don't think because you remember a couple of
what was it a week and a half to two
weeks ago, Elbanezy, after being on the phone with Trump
couldn't get out in front of the me you fast
enough going? How am I going? Ha? Donald Trump? And
it's going to be fantastic. And I just thought, mate,
you've been played. You've been played like a fiddle, and
it looks like there are going to be no exceptions

(01:23:12):
or exceptions. Eight forty five.

Speaker 1 (01:23:15):
The Mike Asking Breakfast Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered
by News Talks.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
At B twelve away from a Just to wrap up
that story I alluded to before eight o'clock. So a
committee representative right has been paid for not turning up
to meetings and he's been doing that for two years
and no one's done anything about it. Four thousand dollars
a year to be on the Canterbury Water Zone Committee,
Deputy chair gets five thousand dollars, chairperson six thousand dollars.
For the last two years twenty three and twenty four,

(01:23:41):
fourteen meetings held of the Ashburton Water Zone Committee and
Adapata Rubin, who is the Tahledi representative, didn't attend any
of those meetings, but he received the full eight thousand,
had an apology for four meetings, but was listed absence
without an apology for the last seven Joint Committee of

(01:24:02):
b can in the Ashburn District Council. The ECM Senior
strategy Manager Cameron Smith says both councils were aware that
Reuben didn't turn up, but the committee's future is under abuse,
so they haven't done anything about him. Welcome to New
Zealand twenty twenty five. I mean you literally can't make
that crap up, literally being paid not to turn up.
They know he didn't turn up. He's done nothing. But

(01:24:24):
are we going to do anything about it? No, we're
not defend that. You can't defeenad it anyway. Now, then
we come to this experiment. We're running in the afternoon
between twelve and four. Is it twelve and four or
twelve and three? It's twelve and four this Tyler Matt show.
What's going on here?

Speaker 6 (01:24:41):
You can tell on panting here, my mate's topless. My
computer shut down here the computer shutdown. Yeah, yeah, so
spilled a coffee. We're everywhere, and you know we're in
the my Costing Memorial studio. So you got to You
got to clean up when you make a mess. So
I immediately whipped my shirt off to wipe down the bench.
And yeah, still doing he's wrong. You don't clean up

(01:25:04):
with a mess. What you do is you don't let
those sort of people into the Mike Hosking Memorial Studio
in the first place. And I've told the management this,
and I said, first of all, these clowns are nothing
but trouble. They're going to cause us nothing but difficulty.
And was I right or was I right. So apparently
I only found out about this through because I don't
listen to them. Obviously you found out about this through

(01:25:27):
the grape vine.

Speaker 26 (01:25:28):
Someone spilled their coffee every I'm not sure who it was.
We'll look at the tapes. It was either me or Tyler.

Speaker 6 (01:25:34):
The evidence is there, man, I'm looking forward to seeing
that video.

Speaker 26 (01:25:37):
So we had to move to another studio and try
and piece together a show over there with very little tech.
But we're now back and no one tell Hosking about
this again. Yea, Please don't don't tell Hosking. You see
him out shopping as do mention it because the coffee's
all been in a special stuff that's down and there
these draws here.

Speaker 21 (01:25:53):
He'll never know.

Speaker 26 (01:25:54):
I tried to clean off a special pens and everything,
but it was a coffee again in in here.

Speaker 6 (01:25:59):
It's been given a clean It smells like lemon water,
which he's used to.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
Nobody told so cone of silence everyone. Here's the thing.
I knew about it this morning because I emptied the
rubbish bin because those pigs don't do it, and so
I empty the rubbish pan every morning, and in the
bottom of the rubbish bin are eight hundred and fifty
seven thousand wet towels that they've been.

Speaker 3 (01:26:19):
It's sanitizing the scene of the crime.

Speaker 2 (01:26:21):
Went over, exactly do the clean up the evidence? Idiots?
And how many memos have been written over the years
about not spelling stuff in the studio? How many memos?
I think this officially is a last I'd like to personally,
I'd like to make it. It don't come Monday, but
let's call this the last warning? Shall we? Nine away
from nine.

Speaker 1 (01:26:42):
The Mike Hosking breakfast with Bailey's real Estate Newstalgs.

Speaker 2 (01:26:45):
There'd be someone saying citizens arrest. I might try that
out when the New York is paying or arrest them.
That's what I'm going to do. Quick stats on the
booze I looked up. Are we drinking more or less?
It's an interesting outcome because low alcohol, we don't like.
We're drinking much less of that medium alcohol. This is
beer two and a half, four and a half percent
is down. Above five percent is up a little bit,

(01:27:07):
not much, but a bit. Eighty eight percent of the
beer produced in this country is consumed twelve percent and ported.
So that's good. Wine's down. Fortified wine above fourteen percent
that's your ports and stuff like that. That's down significantly.
Seventy two percent of the wine we drink is produced
here in twenty eight percents, and ported spirits are down
five and a half percent. So I'm not sure whether

(01:27:28):
that's a health kick or whether that's more the economy.
But overall, here's the depressing thing. We're drinking more. So
beer consumption is up four and a half percent, but
wine is down four percent. So therefore we're just drinking
more beer and less wine. But overall we're drinking a
bit more. Spirits are down ten percent.

Speaker 5 (01:27:46):
It's going to say, can you tell me about Bourbon?

Speaker 2 (01:27:48):
Well, that's spirits down ten percent?

Speaker 20 (01:27:51):
What about Sodu?

Speaker 2 (01:27:52):
You go any that down eighteen percent? Are you kittsu
yep down twelve percent? Five minutes away from nine trending?

Speaker 3 (01:27:58):
Now must warehouse the real House of Vitamin.

Speaker 2 (01:28:02):
We've got a new Alexa. So back in twenty twenty three,
I'm sure you remember this because we dedicated the whole
show to it. We took calls on Amazon poach Microsoft's
front man panels pan A. It was the panels pan
a Day. Remember that show. Anyway, he's launched a whole
new Alexa this morning. Do you know what he's called it?
Alexa Plus.

Speaker 13 (01:28:20):
There's about two one hundred and fifty people with me
right now.

Speaker 14 (01:28:24):
They're tech reporters, influencers, bloggers, partners.

Speaker 7 (01:28:27):
It's pretty incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:28:28):
I'm a little bit nervous about it.

Speaker 7 (01:28:30):
We're about to do like digitals.

Speaker 2 (01:28:31):
What do you think can go wrong?

Speaker 14 (01:28:34):
Wow? That sounds like quite an event with so many
eyes on you, It's natural to feel a bit.

Speaker 3 (01:28:40):
Nervous as for what could go wrong. Let's just see.

Speaker 2 (01:28:42):
Murphy's Law is probably sharpening his pencil right now.

Speaker 19 (01:28:46):
Hey, those live demos are where magic happens and where
you'll shine brightest.

Speaker 3 (01:28:50):
Remember, even if something hiccups, it's all.

Speaker 22 (01:28:53):
Part of the show.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
It's a much more natural conversation. I've never heard anything
more natural than what I just heard there. US customers
are going to get it next month, Amazon Smart Speakers,
New Zealand soon enough? What does that mean? Soon enough?

Speaker 5 (01:29:14):
Sam rhades down?

Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
Soon enough, don't worry. When's it coming to New Zealand?
The most critical thing we want to know, when's it
coming to New Zealand?

Speaker 11 (01:29:21):
Sam?

Speaker 2 (01:29:22):
Guys are soon enough? What the hell you should run
the EA? Why don't you run the electricity Authority a
standalone subscription of twenty bucks a month US. It's free
if you're on Amazon Prime. I'm on Amazon Prime, so
that's good, but I don't want that anyway. There's no
new speakers. There's just alexaplus from Panos pan All Back

(01:29:46):
tomorrow morning. Friday Morning's edition to the Mike Hosting Breakfast.

Speaker 13 (01:29:49):
We can ask Alexa to play news DOORSB on your
speaker and she.

Speaker 2 (01:29:52):
Will will share It's okay, you go do that green
and have fun. Back tomorrow, Happy Days.

Speaker 1 (01:30:02):
For more from the mic Asking Breakfast, Listen live to
News Talks at B from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio

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