Today on Politics Wednesday, Mark Mitchell and Ginny Andersen are calling in from airports in Italy and Auckland to delve into the biggest topics of the week so far.
Local body elections are looming – how can we raise the involvement rate?
Plus, a raft of changes to both the earthquake-prone building system and the energy sector were announced in the last two days.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Time for Mark Mitchell, who was at the airport. I
think Mark morning, Good morning morning Mike, and Ginny who's
not quite at the airport but very shortly will be
Is that correct, Ginny?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
That is correct?
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Yes, very good. Are you still in the far side
of the world.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm leaving Rome for Dubai in about eight hours.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Very nice. You're stopping in Dubaier.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yes, because my kids, who'd me on the radio teasing
Mark about going to wild Warty and they want to
go there. Yeah, so they're making me. I've got like
about ten hours there. We're going to a water park
and then we're getting on a flight. So that'll be interesting.
Is it good?
Speaker 3 (00:40):
It will be great kids, Yeah, does The kids will
love it absolutely, world class water park. I'm not going
any were quite as exciting. I'm going to Canberra. I
know Camera gets a bit of a rough rat, but
I actually really like camera. Who you squad Alice City?
I going up there from the Commissioner. We got up
there for a police council meeting.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
So you're going to Camber a meeting.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Why don't you like Camera?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Well, because I went there. I went there once and
I went straight to the I'll tell you what I did, Like,
I went to Canberra and I went to the Sports
Institute and that was that was fascinating and so I
had a good look around that and they did some
wonderful work. Then I went on the hill. If you
know Canberra sort of there's a park and you go
to the hill and you look down on Canberra. That's
quite nice. The actual the actual parliament itself. If you
(01:27):
go to the Parliament, the view from the distance is
not like on the postcard. It doesn't look as grandiose.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Right, So you felt ripped off in terms of the.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
View and the photoshop.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Here exactly that. That's that's sort of all there is
to Canberra, isn't it. Once you've gone on top of
the hill and gone to the Sports Institute and been
disappointed in the Parliament, you can go home, can't you.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Well, the War Memorial is actually a really special place
to go.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yes, actually that's nice.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, Okay. Can I apologize to you, Ginny, because I'm
almost certain that Sam will have before he put your
on air for some do buy chocolate and don't buy
it for him and you don't do duty free orders,
and it's just embarrassing and I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Can't you just get it on New Zealand?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah he can. He gets it in Tiata too, but
it's I don't.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
On the blue market.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
I don't think it's the real thing. Now, Mark, before
you've gone to Canberra, have you voted in your local
body elections?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I have right, so you got your papers and your
sort that. Does it depress you that in your particular
area we've not even cracked ten percent yet?
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah? I think it's just it reflects of where people
are at the moment.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
They're just not that engaged in postal voting as well, though.
It's where it's got to change. I think that when
people are waiting for things to arrive in the mail,
when you don't typically get stuff in the mail anymore,
that's where it falls down.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
What would you do, Jenny, you're in part you're in
government as of tomorrow, would you actually do something about
it or not?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Well? We did a really good inquiry. It was when
Nick Smith was on the Justice Committee and we really
looked at how to run and we looked at online
voting where you could do that and there's still risks
about online you know, it can be corrupted and that
sort of thing. So you can't quite do that. But
I think going in person in voting, they're doing that
a bit. I know, a hat you can go into
the library with your papers or the local council and vote,
(03:16):
but I think you need to encourage people to vote
like they would in a general election, like going in
and voting.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Okay, your government hasn't got anything in mind how they Mark,
apart from sort of overriding the councils at the local
level and doing more from central, central government point of view.
I mean, you're not up ending the system.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
No, No, we're not. I mean, obviously Paul's come out
and announce some changes that there's always a review of
the electoral system after every election, and he's announced some
changes around that.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah, so we're just stuck with the system we don't
like and don't want to participate.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
But do you know, though, Mike, they're just not there
into people voting like that'd rather they just still stayed
home and just their mates come out and vote.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
That's what they're Well, that's true. That, unfortunately is true,
isn't it. Before I get to the break, can I
ask you march people voting? Can I ask you Mark
did you see Cash Patel's three D printed guns? Yes?
What what what they looked at? Were they pistols? Were
they the ones you see in the movies?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
No, they were like sort of the plastic They just
sort of the three D printed from plastic. So O
was gifted one of those as well, which was which
I handed back to police. So but you know, they're
just they just looked like a plastic gun.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So just paint the picture for me. So Cash is
in the room and you did the small talk going on,
and he goes, look, Mike, I wrote you a little something,
and what pulls out a gun?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
It was it was it was a gift that it
included that, but also his challenge coin and a and
a stand that you could that you could put them
both on, so you know, and he I mean, you know,
that visit was really important for us. We've got the
permanent office and now we're we're much closer with them.
This visit camera is all about how can we help
our Pacific cousins and neighbors too that are sort of
(05:05):
dealing with transnational crime and myth so you know, and
and part of that was the gift that he gave us.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, he's right that there should be changes. I mean,
I think Nicole mckee'es talked about it, but there probably
should be changes to an armdate to specifically respond to
the risks that three D printing provides.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I mean, there's no problem there. It just strikes me
as the weirdest gift in the world, doesn't I mean,
if someone pulled out a three D printed gun, what
do you do with that?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
And I'm always amazing, how does it fire without getting
too hot? Right?
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I got gifted when I left the Defender Squad. The
New Zealand and Defenders Squad gave me a plaque with
a you know it was a fake block seventeen on it, right,
So you do receive things like that I made. I
made a real rookie era when I tried to take
it down to Wellington to have my office and I
headed my bag and forgot that it was zero and
put it through the security. A few read lights going
(06:01):
off and yeah, there's a bit happening that I wasn't
the Minister of Police them, thankfully, But anyway, I did
get it safely Dwellington. But you know that's not unusual,
especially a law enforcement to restact your slot.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Then maybe I'm the old one out. I've never been
given a gun ginny the earthquake announcement. I don't know
how up to speed with all this stuff you are.
But the earthquake announcement yesterday, the changes to the rules
and stuff like that, is there anything there that you
would flip? I mean, it strikes me as full of
common sense.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
It does seem like it's a reasonably good balance between
ruskin and cost. But you've really got to get across
all of the detail, and we haven't had the opportunity
to do that yet. But generally supportive of the fact
that if it's going to save people money and a
cost of living crisis, but you just want to make
sure that it's not compromising safety fair.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Enough too, so on that in the spirit of goodwill.
When Luxeon writes an open letter to Hipkins yesterday about
the oil and gas so Hippkins calls that desperate. What
do you see as can you see a major issue
that you too could coaless on that would make a
material difference to this country over a long, longer term
period of time.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well, if there was a genuine agreement to look at renewables,
because that's the that's the long term plan that will
help bring down the price of electricity, but just posturing
like the latest announcement. I've just been reading that in
the break There's nothing in there. I mean, this is
another you know, Nikola gets grumpy, like the supermarkets or
the banks, all the Fontier and butter. You have Nicola
(07:23):
kind of writing a letter or getting cross at someone
and that's that's it. There's nothing else. Yeah, I got
it plane, a concrete plane that's going to bring prices
down for Kiwi's and hoping they're going to find some Guess,
is not that plan?
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Well, I think I think to be me Marke, I mean,
I don't know if you're across this announcement. I assume
you are. You signed it off in cabinet, But I
mean what you're doing is there's a lot of investment
going into renewables. But the announcement itself today, the specifics
are hardly game changing, are they.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Well, we need both, we need a we need to
be investing in renewables and we need to be investing
in all in guess to secure our energy future. In
this touchy and key power prices down and you know,
I felt very sorry for Barbara Edmonds. I was at
the mood of the boardroom breakfast the other day and
one of the questions specifically put to both Nicolas and
Barbara is that to Barbara's will you support the current
(08:15):
government's policy around we have to continue expiration for all
in gas? And she turned around and said no. You
could audibly hear the growing in the room, because these
are the people that are running our big businesses that
require energy, that will go out of business if the
energy is too expensive, and you've got labor still entrenching
themselves and are.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Going They're going out.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Of business because of the because jobs gone correct, because
of the cost of power, because of the policy settings
that you guys had in the previous government. You're dead right.
You had awful policy settings, energy policy settings, and we
are picking up the tab for that now and we're
coming out. We're saying, as a country, we need to diversify,
we need to have renewables, but we need to have
(08:57):
all in gas as well.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
And you got support. So that has been twenty years
since we found any new Guess again, if we found
some tomorrow, it'll be ten years before you get it online.
So that's not going to fix the problems we've got
now and when need a better plan than Nicola writing
a shitty letter at someone and saying stop it because
(09:19):
we've all heard that one before and it's tired and old,
and there is no cre the country.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
The country wants, the country wants to bipartisan approach to this,
so there's some certainty. So it allows the companies that
actually need to make a major investment to find that
all in guests to make that investment. And by the way,
if you are so sure there's no all or guess
out there, why do you keep fanning the exploration of it?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Well, good luck finding it. I'm hopeful like you. Let's
let's let's hope there is somebody will take ten years
before it's online.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Have you found have you found Ginny? Just quickly? Have
you found the euro ruinous? Are you coming back to
the country largely bereft of funds?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
It is bleak. I have to say, exchange rate for
New Zealanders it's really and.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Even new Mark at eighty seven cents Australian. I mean,
you're going to be working hard to be going out
for dinner. You're shouting the lads tonight, a few beers
and a few states, probably the beer we meet.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
We meet up with Mike Bush, who's doing a great
job as the new commissioner of Victoria. But of course
they've had a very tough time at losing two of
their police officers recently, so I'm sure we'll catch up
and have a view with that.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
So hi to Mike for me. I like him, He's
one of my foe. It's nice to see him make
Mitchell and Jenny Anderson fly home safely and good luck
at the water park. Jenny Anderson Mark Mitchell.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
For more from The Mike Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks it'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
Time for Mark Mitchell, who was at the airport. I
think Mark morning, Good morning morning Mike, and Ginny who's
not quite at the airport but very shortly will be
Is that correct, Ginny?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
That is correct?
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Yes, very good. Are you still in the far side
of the world.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm leaving Rome for Dubai in about eight hours.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Very nice. You're stopping in Dubaier.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yes, because my kids, who'd me on the radio teasing
Mark about going to wild Warty and they want to
go there. Yeah, so they're making me. I've got like
about ten hours there. We're going to a water park
and then we're getting on a flight. So that'll be interesting.
Is it good?
Speaker 3 (00:40):
It will be great kids, Yeah, does The kids will
love it absolutely, world class water park. I'm not going
any were quite as exciting. I'm going to Canberra. I
know Camera gets a bit of a rough rat, but
I actually really like camera. Who you squad Alice City?
I going up there from the Commissioner. We got up
there for a police council meeting.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
So you're going to Camber a meeting.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Why don't you like Camera?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Well, because I went there. I went there once and
I went straight to the I'll tell you what I did, Like,
I went to Canberra and I went to the Sports
Institute and that was that was fascinating and so I
had a good look around that and they did some
wonderful work. Then I went on the hill. If you
know Canberra sort of there's a park and you go
to the hill and you look down on Canberra. That's
quite nice. The actual the actual parliament itself. If you
(01:27):
go to the Parliament, the view from the distance is
not like on the postcard. It doesn't look as grandiose.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Right, So you felt ripped off in terms of the.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
View and the photoshop.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Here exactly that. That's that's sort of all there is
to Canberra, isn't it. Once you've gone on top of
the hill and gone to the Sports Institute and been
disappointed in the Parliament, you can go home, can't you.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Well, the War Memorial is actually a really special place
to go.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yes, actually that's nice.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, Okay. Can I apologize to you, Ginny, because I'm
almost certain that Sam will have before he put your
on air for some do buy chocolate and don't buy
it for him and you don't do duty free orders,
and it's just embarrassing and I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Can't you just get it on New Zealand?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah he can. He gets it in Tiata too, but
it's I don't.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
On the blue market.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
I don't think it's the real thing. Now, Mark, before
you've gone to Canberra, have you voted in your local
body elections?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I have right, so you got your papers and your
sort that. Does it depress you that in your particular
area we've not even cracked ten percent yet?
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah? I think it's just it reflects of where people
are at the moment.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
They're just not that engaged in postal voting as well, though.
It's where it's got to change. I think that when
people are waiting for things to arrive in the mail,
when you don't typically get stuff in the mail anymore,
that's where it falls down.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
What would you do, Jenny, you're in part you're in
government as of tomorrow, would you actually do something about
it or not?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Well? We did a really good inquiry. It was when
Nick Smith was on the Justice Committee and we really
looked at how to run and we looked at online
voting where you could do that and there's still risks
about online you know, it can be corrupted and that
sort of thing. So you can't quite do that. But
I think going in person in voting, they're doing that
a bit. I know, a hat you can go into
the library with your papers or the local council and vote,
(03:16):
but I think you need to encourage people to vote
like they would in a general election, like going in
and voting.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Okay, your government hasn't got anything in mind how they Mark,
apart from sort of overriding the councils at the local
level and doing more from central, central government point of view.
I mean, you're not up ending the system.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
No, No, we're not. I mean, obviously Paul's come out
and announce some changes that there's always a review of
the electoral system after every election, and he's announced some
changes around that.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah, so we're just stuck with the system we don't
like and don't want to participate.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
But do you know, though, Mike, they're just not there
into people voting like that'd rather they just still stayed
home and just their mates come out and vote.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
That's what they're Well, that's true. That, unfortunately is true,
isn't it. Before I get to the break, can I
ask you march people voting? Can I ask you Mark
did you see Cash Patel's three D printed guns? Yes?
What what what they looked at? Were they pistols? Were
they the ones you see in the movies?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
No, they were like sort of the plastic They just
sort of the three D printed from plastic. So O
was gifted one of those as well, which was which
I handed back to police. So but you know, they're
just they just looked like a plastic gun.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So just paint the picture for me. So Cash is
in the room and you did the small talk going on,
and he goes, look, Mike, I wrote you a little something,
and what pulls out a gun?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
It was it was it was a gift that it
included that, but also his challenge coin and a and
a stand that you could that you could put them
both on, so you know, and he I mean, you know,
that visit was really important for us. We've got the
permanent office and now we're we're much closer with them.
This visit camera is all about how can we help
our Pacific cousins and neighbors too that are sort of
(05:05):
dealing with transnational crime and myth so you know, and
and part of that was the gift that he gave us.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, he's right that there should be changes. I mean,
I think Nicole mckee'es talked about it, but there probably
should be changes to an armdate to specifically respond to
the risks that three D printing provides.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I mean, there's no problem there. It just strikes me
as the weirdest gift in the world, doesn't I mean,
if someone pulled out a three D printed gun, what
do you do with that?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
And I'm always amazing, how does it fire without getting
too hot? Right?
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I got gifted when I left the Defender Squad. The
New Zealand and Defenders Squad gave me a plaque with
a you know it was a fake block seventeen on it, right,
So you do receive things like that I made. I
made a real rookie era when I tried to take
it down to Wellington to have my office and I
headed my bag and forgot that it was zero and
put it through the security. A few read lights going
(06:01):
off and yeah, there's a bit happening that I wasn't
the Minister of Police them, thankfully, But anyway, I did
get it safely Dwellington. But you know that's not unusual,
especially a law enforcement to restact your slot.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Then maybe I'm the old one out. I've never been
given a gun ginny the earthquake announcement. I don't know
how up to speed with all this stuff you are.
But the earthquake announcement yesterday, the changes to the rules
and stuff like that, is there anything there that you
would flip? I mean, it strikes me as full of
common sense.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
It does seem like it's a reasonably good balance between
ruskin and cost. But you've really got to get across
all of the detail, and we haven't had the opportunity
to do that yet. But generally supportive of the fact
that if it's going to save people money and a
cost of living crisis, but you just want to make
sure that it's not compromising safety fair.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Enough too, so on that in the spirit of goodwill.
When Luxeon writes an open letter to Hipkins yesterday about
the oil and gas so Hippkins calls that desperate. What
do you see as can you see a major issue
that you too could coaless on that would make a
material difference to this country over a long, longer term
period of time.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well, if there was a genuine agreement to look at renewables,
because that's the that's the long term plan that will
help bring down the price of electricity, but just posturing
like the latest announcement. I've just been reading that in
the break There's nothing in there. I mean, this is
another you know, Nikola gets grumpy, like the supermarkets or
the banks, all the Fontier and butter. You have Nicola
(07:23):
kind of writing a letter or getting cross at someone
and that's that's it. There's nothing else. Yeah, I got
it plane, a concrete plane that's going to bring prices
down for Kiwi's and hoping they're going to find some Guess,
is not that plan?
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Well, I think I think to be me Marke, I mean,
I don't know if you're across this announcement. I assume
you are. You signed it off in cabinet, But I
mean what you're doing is there's a lot of investment
going into renewables. But the announcement itself today, the specifics
are hardly game changing, are they.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Well, we need both, we need a we need to
be investing in renewables and we need to be investing
in all in guess to secure our energy future. In
this touchy and key power prices down and you know,
I felt very sorry for Barbara Edmonds. I was at
the mood of the boardroom breakfast the other day and
one of the questions specifically put to both Nicolas and
Barbara is that to Barbara's will you support the current
(08:15):
government's policy around we have to continue expiration for all
in gas? And she turned around and said no. You
could audibly hear the growing in the room, because these
are the people that are running our big businesses that
require energy, that will go out of business if the
energy is too expensive, and you've got labor still entrenching
themselves and are.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Going They're going out.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Of business because of the because jobs gone correct, because
of the cost of power, because of the policy settings
that you guys had in the previous government. You're dead right.
You had awful policy settings, energy policy settings, and we
are picking up the tab for that now and we're
coming out. We're saying, as a country, we need to diversify,
we need to have renewables, but we need to have
(08:57):
all in gas as well.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
And you got support. So that has been twenty years
since we found any new Guess again, if we found
some tomorrow, it'll be ten years before you get it online.
So that's not going to fix the problems we've got
now and when need a better plan than Nicola writing
a shitty letter at someone and saying stop it because
(09:19):
we've all heard that one before and it's tired and old,
and there is no cre the country.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
The country wants, the country wants to bipartisan approach to this,
so there's some certainty. So it allows the companies that
actually need to make a major investment to find that
all in guests to make that investment. And by the way,
if you are so sure there's no all or guess
out there, why do you keep fanning the exploration of it?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Well, good luck finding it. I'm hopeful like you. Let's
let's let's hope there is somebody will take ten years
before it's online.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Have you found have you found Ginny? Just quickly? Have
you found the euro ruinous? Are you coming back to
the country largely bereft of funds?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
It is bleak. I have to say, exchange rate for
New Zealanders it's really and.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Even new Mark at eighty seven cents Australian. I mean,
you're going to be working hard to be going out
for dinner. You're shouting the lads tonight, a few beers
and a few states, probably the beer we meet.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
We meet up with Mike Bush, who's doing a great
job as the new commissioner of Victoria. But of course
they've had a very tough time at losing two of
their police officers recently, so I'm sure we'll catch up
and have a view with that.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
So hi to Mike for me. I like him, He's
one of my foe. It's nice to see him make
Mitchell and Jenny Anderson fly home safely and good luck
at the water park. Jenny Anderson Mark Mitchell.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
For more from The Mike Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks it'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.