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November 4, 2025 12 mins

Mark Mitchell and Ginny Andersen are back with Mike Hosking to delve into the biggest political developments thus far.  

Labour has raised the question of if the Government is planning to ban homelessness in city centres – how would this work? 

The Te Pāti Māori stoush is getting increasingly ugly, and what’s happening with police numbers and fake breath tests? 

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Time for politics. Wednesday, Mark mentals whether this morning, Mark Morning, Mike,
and Jinny Anderson's Good morning, Ginny.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Good morning you both.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
A couple of quick things, Mark, just for you. Jeez,
I've got three and I don't want to get bogged
down on this, but real quick, this breath test, this
breath test thing. Why do people doctor breath tests?

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Well, I mean that's a good question. They've obviously they've
launched a quick investigation. Now it's a it's an employment
matter with police. But the thing that's good, I mean,
it's really good. They picked it up in the audit
that they're checking, and now they're dealing with it, you know.
I mean, obviously expectation is that the police officers aren't
doing this, but they are taking extion on it.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Okay. So I just couldn't get to the bottom of it.
In the sense is the inference that I've been pulled up,
I ping, I ping a whatever, and then I slip
them tweety and he makes it go away.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
The metrics, whether they're doing it or not, they're saying
they're doing that when they're not doing it.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
It's what it is is is that they're pressing the button.
So in the audit's being picked up that they might
be driving from one location to another and they pressed them.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Doing four or five breath tests on the way.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
It will register a breath test, but actually they've they're
in trendsit so it's impossible to actually be.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
To the bottom of something like that. Is someone going
to get sacked for that? You can't go around doing that.
This is not good, Mark, Well.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
People have to be held to account for it. There's
no doubt about that, and that's what the police are
doing and they're now involved in an employment process and
making sure they do that because you know, the integrity
of our New Zealand police is fundamentally so important. We
should be extremely proud of them. We've got we have,
in my view, got the best police force in the world.
Public confidence is growing. They're doing an outstanding job. And

(01:42):
by the way, their internal audits picked the stuff up so.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
That the next one mick skimming and all the other ways.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Sorry, I just wondering if Mark thought it was this month.
I think I think it's the twenty seventh of November
that he's meant to have reached five hundred additional police
is what the Electron promise was Some of the reackoning
is that that police are under additional pressure to have
to deliver on these things without the resources, and this
demonstrates how stretched the frontline really is when you start

(02:09):
to see things like this.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Quite the opposite, Ginny, and I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
What you're going to make five hundred you may.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
So let me address that is that since I came
into since I became police Minister, I've been having to
work on these issues that fermented under the previous government.
I've gone back and I've increased the training from sixteen
weeks to twenty weeks. If I wanted to speed things
up and get recruits through, I would have done what
you guys did and left it at sixteen weeks. I

(02:36):
didn't move to twenty because we've made a commitment to
five hundred. We stayed by that commitment. We're not we've
One thing we did is we were removed and pulled
back the overuse of discretion. We've said that we standards
matter and we're going to maintain those and we're not
going to compromise on it. And if that means that
we're a bit slow or it takes a bit longer,
so be it.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Right, that's what we're going to Right, that's next one
real quick mixed skimming and the others? How many others?
And how how big a problem is this bubbling to be?

Speaker 3 (03:06):
I can't speak about that because there is suppression orders
in place.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Will they be suppressed forever? I mean, all I want
to know is there are a lot of porn being looked
at on the com police computers and why if you're
a policeman you're looking at a lot of.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
No sorry sorry, so so basically yes, so obviously the
commissioner on finding out that or becoming you know that
that gitm at skimming has allegedly had you know, bestiality
and all sorts of different objectionable sort of things on
his computer. They they are now he put in place

(03:40):
immediately an audit and strengthen the system up. And because
of that, there's been some breaches and now they're dealing
with that.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Okay, Ginny, where'd you get your homeless question from? Not
you personally, but your party? Where'd you get the homelessness
question from? Yesterday in the house.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
That was information that had been provided to the party
to people, and we had asked a few questions and
we felt that it was worth asking the Prime Minister
himself in question time yesterday to verify whether that was correct.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Did you well, who are your sources? I mean, are
they good sources? Are a bit of a whisper around
the corridors.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Seemed that it was a reasonably good source, but the
Government has yet to confirm whether that's correct or not.
But we're interested to know what those conversations that have
been going on with Auckland Council and we know that
homelessness has got worse in that central CBD area of
Auckland and people are feeling quite unsafe.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
In Begged and the sooner we clear them out, the
better mark Are you going to clear them out?

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Well, we just I'm just going to go back. What
I've done is brought back how this is not really
policing issue that police are doing the outstanding job. Crime
is coming down the CBD. This is a homeless and
a rough sleeper.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
You unique to clean them out.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
We have to do. Well, if you let me finish,
we'll bring We're going to bring our stakeholder group back together,
which has been very very successful in dealing with these issues.
We're going to identify exactly what the issues are and
we're going to make sure that we've that we help
these people and that were it doesn't matter whether you
live in rural, provincial, urban or city in New Zealand.
You deserve to be able to be safe and not

(05:09):
have to deal with his answers changing the law. So
Paul Goldsmith and Justice are doing a lot of work
around that we've got. So yeah, there's you know, he's
got his advisory group that are bringing ideas forward. And
of course you've got Ryan Hamilton's move On Bill which
is in the Biscuit tin which was fully supported by

(05:29):
Caucus and the Prime Minister and helps give some powers
that don't exist currently to being.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Able to deal with So, Jenny, the question I thought
was interesting about the question was you seem to ask
it in a way that if they were going to
change the law, that's a bad thing. Isn't it a
good thing? Don't we want to clean up behomeless?

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Well, first of all, we need to be clear that
this government he's cut off funding for emergency housing twenty
million lease in the last year and the direct result
of that is increased homelessness, and that's why we've seen it.
So first of all, they should take responsibility for making
this problem even worse. And second of all, I think
there's a whole lot of people in the suburbs surrounding
Auckland who want to know whereabouts these people are going

(06:05):
to be pot Are they going to be outside their
front door, in their park or outside their kids' school.
It's not going to make the problem go away by
just picking them up and putting them somewhere else. It's
just irresponsible.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Mark.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
Well, well, first of all, we've got kids out of
emergency housing, which there's a massive growth of children living
in motels. We've done it, it's Mark. Come on, Jenny,
you've had your say. We were dealing with fifteen what
we call rough sleepers in the CBD. Most of those
had somewhere to go, They were choosing to come into

(06:36):
the CBD as part of a community. It does often
the behavior is antisocial. They're not only a risk to
the public, but there's also risks to them as well
in terms of their safety. And yes, absolutely we've supported
Ryan Hamilton's move on orders that currently neither the neither
local government nor central government have got the powers to
be able to take these people and put them in

(06:58):
a safe location than living on the streets, which is
not safe for them nor the public. So yes, we're
going to take each.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
One super quick, Mark super quick. If whatever the law
would the like in your experience with dealing with downtown Oakland,
the police, et cetera, would the council be interested in
actually doing something about it or is it one of
those things that you're going to pass and they just
ignore it.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
No, the council, they are very good and they will
do something about it without a doubt. Like I said, currently,
there's no actual laws that there is no law currently
that allows you to be able to actually move someone
on that is rough sleeping, that is engaged in the
social behavior that is a risk to someone that wanders
out drunk from it from a pub and assaults them.
So that at the moment, there are no laws that

(07:40):
can do that, and that is the big, big that
is part of the work that Paul Goldsmith and Justice
are doing.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Okay, Ginny, can you inform us as to do you
know what's going on in the Maori Party? Why was
there a coup? Do you have any idea what's going
on there?

Speaker 2 (07:55):
I do not know, Mike, I do not know what
is going.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Because normally in a coup you can go well, the parties,
you know, polling badly, or the leaders are useless, or
whatever the case may be. But I can't work out
what's going on, and it will materially affect you more
than the rest of the world. I think won't potentially well.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Well.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
When I was traveling around the countries and took it
all and around that, I did meet a few people
who clearly indicated that that they were waning in terms
of support.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
It was.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
It was really concerning. And we maintain saying that if
someone out there wants to change this government, then the
best way to do that is to vote for the
Labor Party, and we'll continue to say that.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
So, yeah, I think it's sad.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
It's let me just make it it is. It is
really quite unfortunate, and they've got a lot to sort
out and work through. But no, I don't have any
idea of the dtail.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
Do you think John timer Herey might be one of
the problems.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
You can only speculate, But I just find a lot
of stuff.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Is associated with becomes angsty.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Well, it doesn't look great when it's playing out on
social media. You know, those discussions for any political party
are always behind close correct.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
But I spoke I spoke to Willie Jackson yesterday.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
That's always fun.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
He's like the kit. He's he's like the kit that
got the cree. Look at your head. But but the
reality of is you've got the leader of the party,
Mary Party at the US today saying we'll come back
and we're going to choose the next prime minisce. So
we're going to get rid of the current government and
we'll choose the next prime minister.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
That's that's that's twenty twenty six is great discussion as
far as I can work out now, Mark, But Barbara Hook,
I know you're not going to say, but, but I
watch questions. Barbara Kuruger is useless. Were she's great? What
do you mean she's great? She's she's really like her.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
She's really good.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
I'm sure the wine. I'm sure with a couple of wines,
you haven't. She's a lovely woman. But as a Speaker
of the House, good job, No, she does not do
a good job much. She has no control. There's clearly
no what okay, yeah, I mean you must have seen
you were there. You were both the yesterday that was
a circus.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
I thought she did it right. Great, Yeah, she's really
fear She listens through key and she go back and
get advice. Now I think she's doing.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
You know, and I do agree. And the other thing
to remember that she is the Deputy Speaker of the House,
so she wouldn't That's not her normal role.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
I understand that, but I mean when the first drop
comes in, when you know, when when the halfback goes out,
you don't want some pretender coming in. You want you know,
top quality stock. I just don't rate her as a speaker.
But then again, what do I suppose if you two do,
would the House support your view as opposed to my view?

Speaker 3 (10:37):
I think so definitely, Well, definitely in the National Party.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
What about you, Jenny again the House with the Labor Party.
If I asked all the Labor Party members what do
you reckonvolve Barbara, would they go, you don't know what
you're talking about? Hosking.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
She actually listens and gives a few judgment where sometimes
you know, some of the others aren't quite.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Likely, you mean some of the others and Jerry, don't.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
You Sometimes series can be just blunt and just go blunt,
that's it. Without a reason, but she listens really keithe
and wags up each instance and we respect.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
That completely random topic or read somewhere that Sean thirty
years and broadcasting, Is that right?

Speaker 1 (11:14):
Who? Glenn Glean? Sorry Glenn, sure we sacked him. We're
sexual Glen Glen thirty years last well Saturday.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Actually he's a huge followed up on the coast. He's
hugely popular on the on the coast. He might even
be more popular than you might.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
On the coast, just on the coasts, might be broader.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Or just coasting him.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
That's nice to see you both, Mark Mitchell, Jimmy Anderson
and Glenn of course, Who's We'll go on the coast.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
For more from the Mike Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeart Radio.
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