Full Show Podcast: 19 August 2024

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Pressing the newsmakers to get the real story. It's Heather
Duplicy ellan drive with one New Zealand let's get connected
you Storp said, b.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hey, good afternoon, Welcome to the show. Coming up today,
Police Minister Mark Mitchell on what he's going to do
about those boy racers who are attacking the cops. We're
going to get reaction to the government's crackdown on drink driving.
Do we really want to revive the Wally Auckland overnight train?
And Nikola willis the Finance Minister with us as per
usual after.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Six Heather Duplicity Allen.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Now, look, I.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Don't know if you realize this, but part of the
government's drink driving crackdown was which was announced in the
last day or so, includes this. The cops will not
be fully paid all the money they owed until they
actually meet their breath testing targets. Now, how this works?
Okay that on first blush is going to sound alarming
to you. We're not giving the cops all their money.
But hear me out. How this works is that at

(00:54):
the moment, m ZTA, and for years MZTA has been
paying the police to do I think it's something like
one point three billion dollars, and that's to do road
policing right, keep the road safe for us. And included
in that is an expectation that they will do three
million breath tests a year. That has just been lifted
to three point three million breath tests. But for about
ten years, even though the cops were getting all of

(01:15):
this money, they were not doing the breath tests like
in some years, not even close that. For a couple
of years there they did less than half what they
were expected to do. They were supposed to do three million,
they only did one point four million breath tests, but
they still got the money. Now, in what other part
of the economy would we be okay paying for something
and then only getting half of it, being like, oh,
that's fine. Like imagine if you've got your plumb around

(01:38):
or your tyler, let's say it's tyler comes in to
do your bathroom only does half the job. Are you
gonna walk in there and go, oh, you've only done
half the job. Oh, that's okay. Keep the rest of
the money you deserve it. Shout yourself a nice holiday
to RaRo, do something nice for yourself, treat the kids,
treat the wife, no you wouldn't do that, So why
on earth would we expect MZTA to be shelling all
this money over to the cops and only getting half

(01:59):
of what they paying for. What's happened now is the
government has ruled that NZTA will be able to hold
onto seventy three million dollars, which actually isn't a lot
out of the one point three billion. So they hold
onto the seventy three million. They're only going to pay
the cops that money once the cops do all of
the required breath tests. Fair enough, because as you and
I would expect, NZTA has been pretty frustrated by this,

(02:22):
and this gives them a little bit of leverage to
be able to get what they're paying for. It will
also sharpen the minds of the police bosses, I would say,
and just generally, by the way, I cannot welcome this
crackdown on drink and drug driving enough. I've said it
before and I will say it again. Speed is not
the biggest killer on our roads. It's people who are
under the influence of drugs or drink, and the more

(02:42):
of them who get pinged and get stopped before they
hurt someone, the better together do for cel nine two
nine two is the text number. Standard text fees apply.
Now gas, the government's being urged to invest in reducing
household gas usage, basically forcing us or getting us to
use less of it at home in order to leave
what natural gas is left for the industrial users. The

(03:03):
ideas come from the Green Building Council. They think it's
time that households wean themselves off using gas for heating
their homes and their whot water and so on. In
that way, industrial exporters can have a little bit more
to play with. The Chief Executive of Energy Resources ULTS
here or John Carnegie, is with us on this. Hey, John,
is this the solution?

Speaker 4 (03:20):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (03:21):
Look, you know, we applaud the efforts and certainly the intent.
You know, we all want energy efficient and low carbon houses,
you know, so we love that. But actually what we
do need to do is look for solutions to actually
protect all Kiwi's energy security and our economic prosperity, not
more subset.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Even if this was a solution, how would you do it, Like,
how would you actually encourage all of these households, hundreds
of thousands, potentially millions around the country to stop using gas?

Speaker 5 (03:50):
Yeah, well that's that's a great question. I mean, I
think that the intent behind the policy is government subsidy,
and so I guess from our perspective, you know, we're
just not sure it's police cost solution. And actually, I
mean you you led into the in your intro. You know,

(04:10):
actually generally cost solution is about choices and not taking
options away. Actually, we're all about giving New Zealand as
all the options we can rather than taking them away.
And actually it won't surprise you that we think that
natural gas is pretty pretty important defeat in the mix

(04:32):
for everybody.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
John, What is the solution though, Because if there is
only so much gas to go around, we are, as
households being prioritized to be the method X deal as
an example of that, right, and that's to the detriment
to the country because now we haven't got those export
earnings coming in from methin X. So how do we
how do we fix this?

Speaker 5 (04:50):
Well, the answer is more gas and more gas exploration. Heather.
You know again, you know we need to we need
to keep the households household connections into perspective, they are
really important, but we need gas for the industrials. Is
that cuts to the prosperity of all New Zealanders. So
more gas is going to be in everyone's best interest.

(05:13):
So you know, it's also worth while keeping a perspective
where we're talking about the gas used by households that
they use in terms of energy that it's called six
petta duals of energy, and really that's just almost the
equivalent of what method X has just given up. So
even if you gave it back into the system, really

(05:34):
it doesn't make any net difference to our energy shortage.
We still have a shortage. We still have in the
gas shortage. We have an electricity types electricity system. We
need more gas.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
John, when was the last time somebody actually found more gas?

Speaker 5 (05:50):
Well, the last discovery was in twenty twenty. Actually, yes, indeed,
you know there are a number of myths that kind
of float around, float around the system. Yeah, so twenty
twenty was the two to y discovery. That was a
discovery made by OMV. They yet to appraise it, so
we're not quite So you discover it and then you

(06:12):
kind of figure out what's there and what is there
and how much so we determine the balance between oil
and gas.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
So we don't know how much gas is there.

Speaker 5 (06:23):
No, we don't but you know there was another in
field discovery by OMV Maui East. Yeah, so you know
there have been discoveries. I think the issue it seems
to be doing the rounds that people don't seem to
take into account is that the ban has meant that
the only exploration that's able to be undertaken is within

(06:45):
the existing permits. And there are certainly prospects before the
ban that people were incredibly bullish about.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Prospect it tell me, if they've got if they found
something at two to why in twenty twenty, why didn't
they go and have a look how much there is
and start digging for it, drilling for it.

Speaker 5 (07:02):
Well, they had a work program already that has played
out since then. But also the band has created a
massive sovereign risk. So you know what it's done you well, no, no,
I wouldn't say that, but it's has certainly made new
investment you spending a lot harder to justify.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
John, Thanks for that. Really appreciate that, John Carnegie, Chief
Executive Energy Resources out here or it's the next time
you hear the Labor Party, Meghan Woods in particular real
prime offender here saying nobody's found any goal any oil
gas for years. You can say, well, actually it's only
four years ago. But because of you lot, they don't
want to go and have another look at it anywhere.
Listened to the Middle East. Anthony Blinken, US Secretary of

(07:44):
State has arrived in Israel just in the last few
hours now. He is there to try to rescue the
ceasefire negotiations. This is like an eleventh hour bid by him,
and the reason he's so keen on this is because
there's a real hope that this will stop this war,
if they can just get the both sides to agree
it or stop the war from escalating into something region white.
It doesn't look good though, because apparently both sides, both

(08:04):
Israeli and HUMAS officials, are hinting that a breakthrough may
not be as close as all of the international mediators
have suggested. Heather, I'm sorry to call you a silly
tart again. No you're not. But maybe they don't have
enough cops to do breath tests and they're out chasing
the bad guys. John. Maybe because if you have a
look at some of those years they correlate with lockdowns.
Maybe the problem is that the cops were manning I

(08:26):
don't know borders around Auckland or something like that. Quarter pass.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Digging deeper into the day's headlines, it's Heather duper c
Allen drive with one New Zealand one giant Leap for business,
US Dogs at b Sport with tab get your bed
on r eten bed responsibly.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Eighteen past four and Jason Pine sports talkhosters with US Pine. Hello,
Heather Piney, you basically predicted the All Blacks Argentina match perfectly.
Didn't you say that they're going to wallop them by
more than thirty points? Ida? Look, I wouldn't say that
it's bad.

Speaker 6 (09:01):
I deserve the round of applause because it hasn't been common,
hasn't more often than not of jinxt them, haven't I.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
That's exactly right. This is why we were all impressed.
How did you see that coming?

Speaker 6 (09:09):
I just thought that the bounce back from Wellington was
almost inevitable. I just raally sensed within that All Black
side from the media they did during the week that
they were really really annoyed by what happened in Wellington,
and before they got on the plane for two really
tough test matches in South Africa, they needed something to
give them a launching pad towards that, and look, that
first half was just a clinic, wasn't it. Thirty five

(09:31):
three at half time? Second half wasn't quite as emphatic,
but by that stage the job had been done. So yeah,
I just all Blacks teams, regardless of who's coaching and
who's playing, having ability to bounce back from adversity and
good to know that the current iteration has that as well.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
So there were a lot of questions about TJ Patanatta,
even Damien to some extent, Damian mackenzie and the forwards.
Have they all redeemed themselves?

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Well?

Speaker 6 (09:53):
I think those two you mentioned did. I think Damien
McKenzie had his best game of the year at first
five TJ from a very challenging night, and Wellington came
back and was a stand out at Eden Park. So yes,
and the Ford Pack look, in fact, they didn't have
any scrums to speak of Reddy and Wellington probably didn't
help them. They asserted dominance in the wet think Scott
Robertson said afterwards the wet are the better as far

(10:14):
as the Fords are concerned. So yeah, I think they
answered a lot of questions at Eden Park, but it's
going to go up another notch when they get to
the Republic.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah, it's going to be a tough one.

Speaker 5 (10:22):
Eight.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Now, what's going on with Israel as Sonja interesting?

Speaker 6 (10:25):
They say he's lost three of us last four. Now,
after he lost yesterday to drink as dupla Sea, he said, look,
I'm not done. I'll go out of my own terms
things very much, and he's probably the right to do that.
But at thirty five years of age, I'm not sure
if that's necessarily at the twilight of one's career when
it comes to UFC, but it would have to be
getting towards that. Who he fights next, I guess is interesting.
You know, Israel other Sonya doesn't go back down to

(10:46):
the bottom and start working his way back up. He's
still a headline name. So we wait to see who's next.
But yeah, I don't think it was in the script,
losing three out of four. We wait and see. But
if we know anything about Israel, it's that he'll do
it on his own terms, whether they might be.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Do you take from his performance? So, I mean, is
he fighting like a guy who is losing it? Or
is he just is his opponent just better for what I've.

Speaker 6 (11:06):
Read and seen from those who know a lot more
about these things than I do. He made a small
error which Dupless capitalized on, and the fight up till
then was actually swinging towards Israel.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
So so look, the.

Speaker 6 (11:19):
Fact that he made an uncharacteristic era is probably something
he'll examine. Was it a one off or was it
symptomatic of something greater? I guess he'll unpack it and
we'll find out in due course.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, hey, thank you very much, really appreciated Piney. That's
Jason pine sports talk host. Will be back at seven
o'clock tonight. Grecas Duplissy, what a name? May it sounds
like can I say this? I'm going to say this.
When I say can I say this? Generally the answer
that as will give me as if you have to ask,
you don't. But in South Africa there is like there's

(11:52):
a vibe about some parts of the country that are
a little bit The vibe is very similar to how
the Americans feel about the appellation. You pick up what
I'm putting down, and Dricustuplissi is a name that comes
straight out of the appellations, and that's all We're going
to say about that. So anyway, did you see those
speaking of cheese the appellations, she said, the video of

(12:12):
the boy races reversing that ute into the cops at
the weekend in Hamilton. I mean, I don't know, if
you haven't seen it, it is worth actually going look
going and looking it up just to see how stupid
some people can be. So the cops all standing around
a cop car makes it incredibly dangerous. And these guys
in the car don't know who it is. It's not
the two people in the photo that has since been published,
because the ute was nicked apparently just full speed reverse

(12:34):
into the cop car and take off. Now, if there
was a cop who was standing between the cop car
and the ute, that cop was mangled, if not debt
like that was pretty serious stuff. And in fact, like
even if hobbins of cops were sort of like hanging
out of the cop car already like half and a
half out, they would have I reckon, there'll be a
few bruises around the place. Actually, question now is because
this is a bit of a repeat of Levin, where

(12:54):
clearly this particular cohort of people have no respect for
the law and think that they can just do whatever
they wanted and seem to be quiet enjoying what they're doing.
To the police. There's a real question now about what
the cops are going to do about it. I mean,
I just wonder if if at some point does it
get to the point where you go, no, there, these
boy boy racer meats are a little dangerous, which is
going to shut you down. I don't really know what
the rules around it are. But fortunately Mark Mitchell, the

(13:16):
Police Minister, will he's going to be at us after
five o'clock about exactly what we can do here. For
twenty three.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
Heather dup to Cy Ellen, cutting through the noise to
get the facts. It's Heather Duper see Ellen drive with
one New Zealand let's get connected and news talk as
they'd be.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Hither can you ask Mark Mitchell why there isn't a
special riots squad and Hamilton ready to assemble if necessary,
and also and why not take more cars? Just a
few more each time? It's just a bit of a
joke pulled. The problem with that, of course, is then
you need a riot squad and I don't. I mean
maybe Hamilton needs a riot squad, who knows, But I
don't know, but if you want to riot squad just
for the boy racers, then you need a Rite squad
and Levin and you need one in New Plymouth, and

(13:52):
you need one in Hamilton because they're doing they're doing
all of the North Island at the moment, so it's
a bit tough, isn't it. Twenty six past four. Listen,
there is something funny going on with the Mardi King's
coronation celebrations, which by the way, are underway at the moment,
and Chris Slux is supposed to be speaking around about
four o'clock, so should be underway already. But much is
being made of the fact today that all of the
political parties have gone there except for ACT. And the inference,

(14:17):
of course, is that ACT is a bunch of cowards
because the other ones pushing through the Treaty Principal's bill,
but they don't want to front up and face the
music for it.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
Now.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
ACT says, in its defense, it wasn't invited today. Martin
King spokesperson says yes, it was, to which ACT says, yeah,
well absolutely, but we were only invited to the Wednesday
party and the house is sitting so we can't go
to that, but the Mardy King spokesperson says, naw, you're
also invited to Monday, which is where everybody was going

(14:45):
to be. But now the invitation has come out and
looks like actors being the honest one here, it doesn't
look like they were invited. It says, at the command
of King Tu Hatesia, we extend to you, ministers and
members of Parliament the invitation of Tepuki or Matrici. In
doing so, we notice specific Porfit he has been set
aside for all political parties Wednesday, twenty first of August,
beginning at nine am. So if that's all act was

(15:08):
invited to, and then we're doing the pretending, pretending that
they haven't showed up on Monday when they were invited,
why what's going on here? Hopefully Barry Sober can answer
that question. Hopefully he's going to talk about it when
he's with us talking through politics before five o'clock. Also,
by the way, get a load of this, Ossie. Kids
are spending two hours a day on TikTok. How much

(15:28):
is that messing with their anxiety and brains? We talked
to Oli Peterson about that. Shortly headlines next.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Hard Questions strong opinion Heather due for see Ellen drive
with One New Zealand Let's get connected and news talk
as that'd be Heather.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
I was on the Coppers in the eighties and the
early nineties and actually resigned a year after the merger
with the old Ministry of Transport when the job became
more political. Instead of actually police in the community. If
our breath test numbers were down, we'd be told to
set up checkpoints in the middle of the day where
there were lots of vehicles around, never mind that there
were not a lot of drink drivers around. Then numbers
and statistics rule over actual results. Dave, thank you. That

(16:16):
explains something because sometimes I live on the edge of
Ponsmby and sometimes there are police on the road outside
at like midday, on a weekday road or on a weekday.
I always thought, genuinely up to this point, thought it
was a reflection of the ladies doing long lunches. I thought, oh,
they're going to get them going to speaker, aren't they

(16:37):
all coming back from? But no, turns out it's probably
just the numbers, just trying to get the numbers up.
So Dave, thank you for that. Now I feel much
more informed and I'm going to rang you through some stats.
Actually were going to talk about this later on temp
Us five. Greater Auckland's Matt Lowry is going to be
thus on this not a huge fan actually off the target,
I'll explain, But how do you feel about catching the

(16:57):
train overnight from Auckland to Wellington or Wellington to Auckland,
Because this idea from the good old days is being rebirthed.
And the reason for that is because old Air New
Zealand is charging us an arm in a league to
fly on their planes at the moment. And Ken Laban,
you know Ken Laban, he tried to book a ticket
the other day and he said it was something like
eight hundred and seventy dollars return, which is you know,
I mean, that's right up there, that's pricey. That's a

(17:19):
lot of money, isn't it. And so he's revived the
idea and there are heaps of fanboys in Wellington because
of course they love trains. There heaps of fanboys for
the idea of jumping on a train late in the
night and having a good old kip and then waking
up we freshed in the morning, ready for your business.
Stal I've got a lot of questions about this. Where
are you going to shower? Do you have a lie
down bed? Who's gonna pay for it? Because I don't

(17:40):
know if you know this, but literally all the trains
in this country are subsidized, aren't they. If they're running anywhere,
somebody's paying for them because the people sitting on the
train and not paying the full ticket price. So who's
gonna pay for this one? Anyway? Thomas Nash, who is
from a Greater Wellington Regional Council and is a longtime
fanboy of this idea, will be a thus quarter past five.
Right now, it's twenty three to five.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
It's the world wires, on news talks. It'd be drive.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
So both Trump and Carmela have hit the same ground
campaigning in the key swing state of Pennsylvania over the weekend.
Here's some of Karmela's sales pitch.

Speaker 6 (18:11):
When you believe an ending child poverty, you fight for that.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
When you believe in what we need to do to
lift up the middle class, you fight for the middle class.
And here's the don They said, No.

Speaker 7 (18:23):
Her biggest advantage is that she's a beautiful woman.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
I'm gone, ha. I never thought of that.

Speaker 8 (18:30):
I'm better looking than she is.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinkoln has made his ninth
visit to Israel since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
He's optimistic that this time he's going to be able
to arrange some sort of a ceaspire. A senior fellow
at the Center for International Policy says, the chances of
a seaspire being agreed to buy both sides are still
pretty slim.

Speaker 8 (18:49):
I don't think what we're hearing from the actual spire
on the ground matches the level of optimism that would
burred from the White House and also from Secretary of Blinkare.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
And finally, a haunted doll on display at a museum
in South Yorkshire has reportedly attacked now seventeen men. So
men consistently report feeling that they're being scratched when they're
around the doll, and when women are around it. Sometimes
the light will just mysteriously switch on and off. The
owner of the haunted object's museum says he thinks that

(19:20):
what is happening is the doll is playing up to
get some attention. Because he puts some new stuff from
the conjuring movies on display.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
International Correspondence with Ends and Eye Insurance, Peace of Mind
for New Zealand Business.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Oliver Peterson sixty hour per live presenters with us ole.

Speaker 9 (19:37):
Get a head as a preemptive strike.

Speaker 7 (19:39):
I want to congratulate South Africa on their big win
over the weekend against the West Indies in the second
cricket Tests.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
How about the Wallabes though, eh, do you know what?

Speaker 5 (19:49):
Though?

Speaker 2 (19:49):
I wasn't It wasn't even the pathetic score that the
Wallabies rolled in. It was up what's going on with
their jerseys? That's the thing that caught my attention. The
startings look really orange, aren't they.

Speaker 9 (20:00):
Yeah, and it's really wets. You know, Perth we don't
get much rain. We've got a lot of rain on
the weekend.

Speaker 7 (20:03):
It really helped the South Africans, which, by the way,
the Stadium Morgan was about sixty forty in favor of
the spring Box. Even one of my New Zealand colleagues, Michelle,
said she was barracking for the spring Box on Saturday.

Speaker 9 (20:16):
I told her to think about where she's living.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 7 (20:19):
I mean, come on, I mean, you'd be siding with
us with nance, you would learn barracking for the Aussies
on Sunday night.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Well, I do love to support the underdog, and I
feel like you guys need a break. Having said that,
you might get your come up and so on us
because when we're going to face the spring box very shortly,
I think we're in for a little bit of a
hard time. Everyone, Ollie, listen, if this metro service which
opened in Sydney, it was opening in Auckland, the entire
country would be there to have a look at it.
Are you guys going to do the same thing?

Speaker 5 (20:42):
Oh?

Speaker 9 (20:42):
Absolutely, they reckon.

Speaker 7 (20:43):
There's two hundred thousand people going to bought it today
in and of itself.

Speaker 9 (20:47):
That's how excited people.

Speaker 7 (20:48):
Are in Sydney. And it is game changing. I mean
put it in this context. It is the biggest piece
of infrastructure that New South Wales has constructed since the
opening of the Sydney Harbor Bridge, and that has been
life changing obviously for plenty of Sydney. This is a
twenty two billion dollar project and it enables people from
North Sydney and Chatswood's on the North Shore to get
across the other side of the city under the under

(21:10):
the water there where the Sydney Harbor bridge would be
on the metro railingk.

Speaker 9 (21:14):
The trains are pretty snazzy.

Speaker 7 (21:15):
I've caught these trains before in some of the first
iteration of this new train line.

Speaker 9 (21:19):
But it's going to cut down the services.

Speaker 7 (21:21):
From the north Shore into the city by somewhere between
twenty and twenty five minutes. So this is awesome and
I really mean that because this is going to make
Sydney an even greater global city than it already is.
So look, it's expensive, twenty two billion dollars, but I
reckon they're going to get their bang for their buck.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Yeah, I mean these kinds of things you never really
regret doing. The may listen to the gambling ads, are
they actually going to be limited?

Speaker 9 (21:42):
Well, that's the multi billion dollar question.

Speaker 7 (21:45):
Obviously, a lot of the sporting codes in Australia rely
on gambling revenue and we have seen a push and
it's even coming from the backbenches of the government to
basically get rid of gambling ads, particularly around the time
of play, so that you know a lot of children
who are influenced by this and obviously going to their
phones and then putting on.

Speaker 9 (22:03):
A multi or whatever it might be.

Speaker 7 (22:04):
Are they going to do it well already, you've seen
the AFLD, you've seen Rabia, you've seen Cricket come out
and say, if you do that, all the junior program's
going to cost three or four times as much and
we're going to be in strife. I reckon they're going
to come to some sort of agreement herea there, because
this poll that's out through the Financial Review today shows
that Australians actually don't want gambling ads banned, they just.

Speaker 9 (22:22):
Want to see less of them.

Speaker 7 (22:23):
So I think they'll find some sort of middle ground
here restrict the amount of gambling ads that we can consume,
but I don't think they're going to get rid of
them all together right now.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
And listen to the kids who are spending all the
time on the phone. How old are these kids who
are spending a couple of hours on TikTok every day?

Speaker 7 (22:37):
So we're talking about Australian kids between ten and fifteen
spending up to two hours per day on TikTok, Now.

Speaker 9 (22:44):
I mean that's probably right. I don't know about you.

Speaker 7 (22:46):
I get those iPhone notifications myself every week and they're
telling me I'm spending you know, four or five hours
a day and I use, excuse, all.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
This is my job.

Speaker 9 (22:52):
But if you think about kids and they're spending.

Speaker 7 (22:54):
Two hours looking at these reels and these video after
video after video, Yeah, that's a lot, isn't it to
consume it.

Speaker 9 (23:00):
We don't know what they're watching, do we.

Speaker 7 (23:02):
So there is obviously a huge push in Australia at
the moment to try and push the age of access
to social media to sixteen, and obviously this is going
to be used as some sort of ammunition to make
that argument and license all of these social media platforms.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Have you figured out how you're going to manage it
for your kids when they come to this age.

Speaker 9 (23:18):
I don't know, honestly.

Speaker 7 (23:19):
I mean my eldest is now six, and you know,
he just picks up the iPad and plays games like
educational games. But it does worry even my two year
old this morning he's playing some sort of pepper Pig game.

Speaker 9 (23:29):
Like the fact that he even knows how to use
the iPad and turner on that's a worry, right, yeah no, And.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
That's smart a like if you think about how how
long it took, you just understand a southwronesse guys get
it immediately, OLLI thank you? For that, mate, Olli Peterson,
six pr Perth Life Presenter. Yeah, this is the thing, right,
So I got a girlfriend who I reckon. We mate
is year nine nine in November and pretty much hasn't
had anything in the way of screen time yet. And

(23:55):
that's kind of your parent goal, isn't it. And she
and I were talking at the weekend about Nathan Hates
book An Chest Generation, which is the one lying next
to my bed at the moment actually, which I need
to get on too. It's the next book I'm going
to read. And because this is the thing, this is
the worry of the modern parent is how much of
the screen you give the kiddies anyway, So my little dude,
he doesn't get that much screen. I don't know what's
happening when I'm not at home, to be honest, but

(24:16):
when I'm at home, he doesn't get that much screen.
Gets a little bit of pepper peg every now and
again as a little treat, you know, just so Mummy
can do some work and stuff like that. But anyway,
one of the things he does get is he's allowed
to watch videos of himself on the cell phone, right,
because it's sometimes you know, he's two years old. I
mean like I gotta know and a foot stamp this morning. No,
and so you gotta find ways sometimes to distract them.

(24:37):
Sol come, I'll be like you come over here, mummy,
you can watch you can watch a little bit of
Eggy on the phone. He already knows how to go
to the next one. He knows how to unmute it
so he can hear the sound, he knows how to
press play. It is alarming how quickly they learn it
and how a depth they are at it. So thoughts
and prayers to literally everyone having children at the moment,
because unlike much much like Ollie, oh bloody idea, how

(25:00):
we're going to handle this? Politics next with Barry Sober Quarter.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
Two Politics with Centrics Credit, check your customers and get
payments Certainty.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Barry so Senior political correspondent with US. Barry, have you
got any intel on what's going on in that poll tonight?

Speaker 8 (25:14):
Well, I've been a bit of talking around and it
would seem that the general view is the one news
variant pole tonight. It's a bit of a fizzit and
that would indicate that it hasn't really changed that much,
and it really hasn't changed that much this year when
you consider it, the last poll had a national on
thirty eight up two percent, Labor down one percent to

(25:36):
twenty nine. The Greens were very strong at thirteen even
though they dropped slightly. ACT was there at seven and
New Zealand first at six. The one before that had
New Zealand first, not even in parliament. So yeah, the
general views it's a phissit. It comes out at six o'clock.
So I guess we'll all be glued and pick up
exactly where.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
We'll all be gloo into neuce talk ZB drive. We
will immediately have the results. Yes, that's exactly what's going
to happen.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
Has Jasin arrived at the Democratic National Convention.

Speaker 8 (26:03):
Well as I understand it, of course, Kamila Harris is there,
and ordinarily these conventions in an election year like this
would confirm a presidential nominee, while she's already been confirmed.
Very unusual circumstances, of course, with Joe Biden stepping down,
she's apparently expected to share the stage with Joe Biden

(26:25):
within the next five to ten hours in Chicago, justin
Dernest quite extraordinary. She's been invited to Chicago by some
outfit there that called the Center for American Progress Action Fund,
and they say that their mantra essentially is to have

(26:51):
a non partisan policy institute and they like progressive, bold
ideas as well as strong leadership and concerned action. Well,
she'll be on a panel, which is very unusual for
somebody from lot in America. She'll be on a panel
giving her views on what a kind leader she was
in this country. And you know, it's the thing that

(27:12):
doesn't surprise me that justin adurn whenever I traveled with
her overseas, which she was in big demand, and mainly
it was because of the dreadful events that happened in
Christchurch with the mosque shooting. So she became very well
known instantly, really and her ban on guns that was
popular with the anti gun people in the United States.

(27:35):
So she's still a fairly prominent person overseas and that's
where of course she's living now. So so yeah, they've
trotted her out and she'll be on a panel. She'll
be rubbing shoulders with Barack Obama. He'll be there along
with of course Joe Biden. Soda A. Durne will be
really in her element there now.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
Barry it seems to me act was not invited to
today's stuff invited.

Speaker 8 (28:00):
I can tell you it was invited.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
O can tell me how you know this.

Speaker 8 (28:03):
It was invited last May and they were told that
there was going to be palphery for political parties. But
I think the view of actors that the day for
political part is to be present is not not just Rattina,
because there's no real expectation for people to be at Rautina.

(28:24):
It's a Waitangi day which is always observed by politicians
of every political queue. That act decided against going to
this particular event because it's not a political event. Very
unusual for politicians to turn out in force.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
That you're talking about from May. I can't read that
too far away, Age, because you're a boomer. You look
at that. Is that the invitation? Because that invitation only
mentions a poor forty on Wednesday, which is the one
that they say they were invited to today's Monday. There
is no mention of it in the invitation.

Speaker 8 (28:57):
Yeah, well look I was told that they were in.
They knew there was an invitation on.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
The Ta the Maori Kings people tell you that no.

Speaker 8 (29:04):
No, they didn't know it was a bit closer to
home to ACT.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
All right, we'll have to. I'll belied them for I'll
bled you for information during the break and then come
back when an assessment of whether you're on the money
or not.

Speaker 8 (29:16):
But then they're all there, I mean, except for ACT
and don't forget to very unusually. King Tota in fact
criticize roundly ACT and basically told Maldi to gather forces
against the coalition government. That's very unusual. He's the head

(29:37):
of the King you Tongue movement, but you know it's
unusual for the Maldi royalty to try and get the
troops against the government and the way he has done.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Hey, this crackdown on breath testing, I love it because
I want to see the roads be a safer place.
But I imagine that there will be a little bit
of negative reaction from people who get annoyed about this stuff.

Speaker 8 (29:57):
Well, the only problem I guess is and it's I mean,
you know, if you're going to take you know, three
point three million million bread tests, it's going to be
one hell of a job to get de manned, particularly
when there's so many demands on police, particularly violent crimes,
and the.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Cops get paid for this. So where else do you
get paid for a service and then you are only
going to do half?

Speaker 8 (30:19):
Yeah, well, I guess they're too busy is the answers.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
And don't take the money, which is what's going on
here right.

Speaker 10 (30:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (30:26):
No, I wasn't aware until I heard you say earlier
that there was money involved. Yeah, And I'm sure that
they'll be out there. We'll see the booze buses around
the place. The drug testing is the other thing that
I think is a big step forward.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Hi, Ruthie Berry, thank you very much, Barris for senior
political correspondence seven away from five.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
Digging into the issues that affect you, the mic asking breakfast.

Speaker 11 (30:49):
Are they not doing the job now?

Speaker 12 (30:50):
I think the point i'd make is over the last
ten years, only two of those years have we actually
seen greater than three millions actually achieved.

Speaker 11 (30:58):
And here is the simple truth. Most mansels aren't up
too much. Kissrey shows us this. If you rely on
a council, you're going to be disappointed nationally. She leads
now fifty one forty eight in the battlegrounds. Though back
tomorrow at six am the mic Hosking Breakfast with the
Rain drove of the LA News Talk ZB.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
Heather on the ACT invitation. Is there any chance that
we could amend the z B news headlines if, in
fact ACT wasn't invited to today's events. Okay, listen, I've
done the interrogation of Barry in the news break and
his source is good. His source is close to the
ACTION on this. And if his source says that they
were invited, this is the ACT party was invited to
today's thing and decided now I can't be bothered, won't

(31:40):
do it, then I think we'll go with what Barry's saying.
So the invitation that would suggest that the invitation that
has been released is I think there's some silly buggery
going on here from ACT. Actually, to be honest with you,
we'll see if we can get to the bottom. I've
sent a text. I've sent a little angry text to someone.
If they don't realize that that's an angry text because
it it was phrased quite nice or be honest, but

(32:01):
if they're listening, that's an angry text, you better reply
and we'll see if we can get to the bottom
of that. Actually, because I think I've been given a
bum steer here. Anyway, Listen, we're going to talk about
the breath testing as well, very shortly, because Matt Larry
I said, I'd give you a rundown on what he thinks.
Matt Lowry's for Greater Auckland. He thinks having targets is
not a great idea. He says, having targets for levels
of enforcement action. This is like three point three million

(32:23):
breath tests every year seems useful. But at the same time,
it is kind of weird to say that the police
will have to punish a set number of people. Even
weirder is tying financial incentives to that. I think he's
got this a bit crook like. I don't think the
cops are being asked to punish a set number of people.
They're being asked to run the ruler over a set
number of people and then punish the number who come

(32:44):
up foul of the law. I'm totally on board of this.
I mean, if you look at the figures, forty six
percent of the fatal crashes, like forty six percent of Yeah,
it's the fatal crashes rather than the fatalities technical point,
but forty six percent are caused by alcohol and drugs,
only eleven percent by speed only that shows you how

(33:05):
bigger problem this is absolute. We're going to run a
ruler over it and make mature next on what to
do about these feral boy racers.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
The only drive show you can trust to ask the questions,
get the answers by the facts and give the analysis.
Heather due to Celum Drive with One New Zealand let's
get connected and news talk as they'd be.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Afternoon. Police say that there was an organized criminal element
at a large boy racer meeting in Wycutthle over the weekend.
Four police vehicles were rammed during the event, and in
one incident, a white reversed its speed towards a police
car that officers were standing in front of. Now here's
what police Inspector Neil Faulkner said in an interview on
TVNZ's Breakfast program this morning.

Speaker 13 (33:51):
Concerning for police as the organized criminal element that's coming
into it and they're looking for sort of any opportunity
to cause.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Maximum harm where they can, which is actually concenter.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Mark Mitchell is the policeman assume with us.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
Now, hey Mark here, how are you?

Speaker 2 (34:06):
I'm very well, thank you. What is this organized criminal element?

Speaker 10 (34:09):
He's probably talking about the gangs taking advantage of the
fact that this meet and it sounds like this meat
was spontaneous. The police have actually been outstanding and policing
the ones that they get intelligence on and are going
to happen. This one was probably more spontaneous. So I'd
say that he's probably referring to the fact that you
will have game members come out and join it because
they see it as an opportunity of having a crack

(34:31):
at the police and just enjoying a bit of disorder
and violence, which is the sort of thing they like to.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Disicipay that, okay, And when we're talking about gangs, are
we talking about you know, the old gangs, the Monger
Bob and the Black Powet or these new guys coming
from Australia.

Speaker 10 (34:44):
It could be a mix. I mean, they're all into related,
they're all working together, so you know, I could be
a mix. I can't say which gangs. And he's sort
of referred to an organized crime element someone he's sort
of assuming that that's what he's referring to. But I'd
say that's I'm pretty sure that that is who is
refereed into. I mean, the fact of the matter is
is that we've got whether it be gigs, whether it
be boy racers, whether it be these violent youth offenders.

(35:08):
They all think they're above the war. They got no
respect for the police, they got no respect for the public.
And that's why we've got a massive, you know, public
safety program currently under underwein and government.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
Okay, just explain this to me though. So when we're
looking at this, we are seeing some pretty bad behavior,
and as members of the public, we're going, Okay, that's
the whole lot of them. But are you saying, actually,
for the most part, they're just kids wanting to have
a bit of a hoon around and there are a
few bad eggs in there.

Speaker 10 (35:33):
Well, they're all bad eggs. I'm sorry that you know,
kids are saving a hoon around. I get around the country.
They go out into our rural areas, they terrorize the locals,
they damage gear, they in just stock, they terrorize the
communities that they're in. So they're not going to be
treated with kid puffs. And that's why we've we're working
on some pretty tough legislation at the moment that will

(35:55):
come through cabinet to give the police additional powers to
be able to stop these boy racism and war powers. Well,
I can't go into detail on that because it hasn't
been through cabinet, but they're going to be significant, and
I think they'll go a long way to stop to
being able to stop the sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Is it impounding the cars because you've talked to us
about that before.

Speaker 10 (36:12):
Yes, it'll be. It is down there, definitely going down
that road.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Do you have the kind of power where when they
get together, given past behavior and live in and the
white couple, you can actually go in there. It may
be potentially with new laws, go in there and just
break the thing up before it becomes out of hand.

Speaker 4 (36:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (36:26):
Absolutely, it's going to be. They'll be proactive powers, but
you know they'll also be after the fact as well,
so they'll be broad wide ranging, and they'll give the
police the additional powers that I think they need to
be able to really clamp down this because you know,
not only they're putting the public at danger, you can
see that there's a lot of respect for our frontline
police officers and they are in big danger too when

(36:49):
they're trying to deal with these things.

Speaker 4 (36:50):
Cool.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Hey, thank you very much for running us through that.
Looking forward to seeing you take that through Cabinet. That's
Mark Mitchell, the Police minister, Heller duper see Ala Fransport
Minister Simeon Brown has announced another crack down. This is
a crack on drink and drugs drivers. He's given police
a series of targets to hit when it comes to
road policing, including a target of three point three million
breath tests. Yeah, if the cops don't hit these targets,
they're not going to get as much funding here as

(37:11):
what he said to Mike Costing this morning.

Speaker 12 (37:14):
We know that alcohol breath tests have an impact untisfing
alcohol or drunk drivers on our roads, and so it's
really important that we have clear targets and we see
them meeting those targets on a regular basis to keep
New Zealanders safe on the road.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Now, Matt Lowry's director of the Great Auckland Transport Bloggin
is with us. Now, Hey, Matt, hi man, I know
you don't like targets for the sake of targets, but
he's got a point, isn't it Like if you see
a lot of cop cars out there pulling you over,
you're less likely to get behind the wheel when you're
under the influence, Aren't you.

Speaker 5 (37:42):
Oh.

Speaker 13 (37:42):
I think enforcement is absolutely critical for road safety in
New Zealand, and I think it's important that the police
do have targets or what I guess I'm concerned about
is that we're saying that we have to I think
breath testing targets is a good thing. But when we
police are saying, when we're saying to the police they
have to find a certain number of people a year
for speeding or or what have you, that creates potential
issues and potentially bad headlines for the police in the

(38:05):
future and down the road when you know, people think
that they're being targeted unfairly. I don't think it's necessarily
the case.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
What's going like, do they have what's going on? A
number of speeding tickets?

Speaker 13 (38:16):
Yeah, so that part of the rules is that they
have to issue is different number of speeding tickets a
year and various other offenses as well. And to be clear,
to be honest, I think that is a good thing.
We need to target roads safety much more effectively. And
what we saw and what we've seen in the past
is particularly instead of the mid tens twenty ten to
twenty ish, roads safety actually got worse in many cases

(38:39):
and a lot of that was because enforcement propped.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, how do you feel about with holding that seventy
three million bucks until the target of the brief testing
is hit.

Speaker 13 (38:46):
Well, they're sort of a case of, you know, the
floggings will continue until morale improved situation where you've got
if we've got these targets, If they don't meet the targets,
then the funding will be cut, which will make it
harder than to meet the targets in the future. And
so it seems a bit of a weird and center
tem place for police to threaten their funding to be

(39:07):
able to plan long too to meet these targets.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Can you explain something to me, because the reason they're
doing this is because the NZTA, which basically pays for
the breath tests, is so frustrated that the police never
do enough breath tests. Why don't the crops do enough
breath tests?

Speaker 13 (39:22):
I mean, that's a good question for them, that they
haven't done enough, and they haven't done enough for a
long time. It's only the last year really that they've
actually started doing the numbers that they kind of need
to do and then to achieve to be able to
get that down and what we've actually seen is in
the last year or eighteen months that the number of
deaths one it has finally started coming down again.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
Listen, thank you very much Matt for talking us through.
I appreciate it. It's Matt Lowry. Greater Auckland director Heather Duplicy.
No deal that sleeper train in a minute. But I've
got some more good news first for mortgage holders. A
and Z, the country's biggest bank, has just announced the
biggest cuts to the home loan rates so far this year.
So the one year one is down forty basis points
now just under six point five percent, and the eighteen

(40:02):
month special rate falls fifty basis points fifty basis points
to five point nine nine. This is the first time
A and Z has had that eighteen month special rate
under six percent since October twenty two, so reasonably significant.
Now I stand to be corrected, but I had a
quick look at it today and it looks to me
like A and Z's eighteen month is now the lowest
in the market. The next best is ASB at six

(40:23):
point one five. And I am mentioning this because I'm
waiting for ASB to to counter and beat A and Z,
or at least match it because that's part of what's
going on here. It's really competitive out there right now,
and of course the OCR Cup last week will definitely
be having an impact as well. Unfortunately, got to mention it.
Deposit rates have also come down ten to forty basis points.

(40:46):
Coming up quarter two. I've got to get you across
what's happening with the driver testing thing. It's not resolved
at the moment, so I get you those detail shortly.
But anyway, seventeen past five now domestic flight's gone up
in price quite significantly, so it's prompted the calls again
about restoring the Wellington to Auckland night train. Now, this
idea has been around for quite a long time, but
it's been brought up again in a Greater Wellington Regional

(41:06):
Council meeting last week. The Council's Transport Committee chair Thomas
Nash loves the idea. Hi, Thomas, Hey, Heather, would you
really use it?

Speaker 4 (41:15):
I would, yeah, I'd certainly use it, maybe going one way,
maybe train out, fly back.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
How often do you have to go to Auckland.

Speaker 4 (41:23):
I don't have to go that often, but probably you know,
once every couple of months maybe.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yeah, do you have any kids.

Speaker 4 (41:31):
I do, you have two kids, and bringing them on
the train might not be the best option. For the
other side thinking.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
About that, I was thinking about your poor partner, who
has to be the one who's like soloing overnight so
you could go on a train.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
Yeah, no, that's a good point. But the thing is
a lot of people kids will know kids, they'll do
business travel. They'll travel up the night before because they
don't want to get the red Eye in the morning,
which is also disruptive. So it's essentially the same as that,
instead of paying for a hotel the night before your
fresh few meetings in the morning, you just get the

(42:03):
night train one way.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
But then where do you shower?

Speaker 4 (42:07):
Yeah, I mean some of the cabins have showers in
them on some of the Like in Europe, the night
trains are absolutely cranking at the moment. More and more
services are opening up. They're really well patronized, and that's
partly because of as you said in the intro, cost
of flights is going up, so other options become more competitive.

Speaker 5 (42:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
But okay, so Thomas, we always talk about Europe, but
then we do a stink New Zealand version. Is our
version actually going to have shower, isn't.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
It Well, I think it would have to for it
to work. I mean the way to do it would
be to go out to the market and say, hey,
we've got this almost completely electrified northoarn And main train
line between Auckland and Wellington. Are there any private operators
out there that would like to run a service. They
can come in and have a look, do their own
studies and set it up and see if it makes sense.

(42:49):
I sense and so of the other people have looked
into this in New Zealand that there would be enough
of the market to make this work and then we'd
get a service that well you could you couldn't, and
that would be the point, right, Like we invest a
lot of money in the North Island main trunk line,
renewal of tracks and track infrastructure to move freight and

(43:14):
passengers in the Auckland and Wellington metro areas, but we
don't use the track between Auckland and Wellington. Say that's
between Palms North and Hamilton, let's say, is very much underutilized.
So it was a major public asset that we don't use.
So we're just saying I think the people who who
are pitching for this are saying, let's go out to
the market and see if anybody wants to use that

(43:36):
for a night service.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
And so how much would it cost if we weren't
subsidizing it for a ticket?

Speaker 4 (43:41):
I mean I've seen some back of the envelope calculations
that say you could do it for one hundred bucks
each way, Thomas, unsubsidized. Yeah, because basically you would have
you would have maybe various services. You'd have the first
class maybe, and then you'd have kind of business economy

(44:02):
type seats which you know, lifelick thing, and and then
you would you would be able to charge different different
prices to different levels of service. And I think on
that basis you could You could certainly make it work
and people people have you wouldn't. The thing about it
is all you need to do is get the trains
and the new trains, and then you would you would

(44:22):
basically if you're a private operator, you would pay off
the trains over the over the kind of ten fifteen,
twenty years of the of the contract that you've got
to run it, and that would that would be doable.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Thomas, it's good to talk to you. Thank you very much.
Running us through that's Thomas Nash, Great Wellington Regional Council.
Listen back to the coronation celebrations at tutong A YY.
Chris Luxon the Prome Minise has given his speech. He's
really rammed home the fact that he is going to
kill Act Treaty Principals Bill again.

Speaker 7 (44:51):
But I want to be clear today that the National
Party will not support the Treaty Principal's Bill beyond first reading.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Now, I think he's really forcing himself a corner every
single time. I mean, it might seem like the right
thing to do when he's there's he's he's you know, crowd.
He needs to convince that he's going to kill the thing,
and so he keeps on repeating it every time he
goes anywhere near one of these kind of like massive
Maldi events. But he's painting himself into a corner, which
might be a little bit awkward if in fact he
finds out later on down the track that there is

(45:18):
a track that there is a lot of support for
as Treaty Principles bell. What is he going to do then,
be the guy who kills something unpopular, kills something that's popular,
and makes himself unpopular awkward five twenty two.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Digging deeper into the day's headlines, it's Heather duper c
Allen drive with one New Zealand. Let's get connected and
news dogs.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
That'd be heah, that would have to let any private
train provider know the tracks in Auckland don't work over
twenty five degrees celsius. And note that down's one of
many things we need to let them know. It's coming up.
Twenty five past five, Listen does just Sinda Ardurns, speaking
at Kamala Harris's Democratic National Convention this week not feel
like a marriage made in heaven. When I read the
news this morning, it was without the slightest bit of surprise.
It was like it was meant to be. Because we

(46:00):
already mentioned on the show that the Karmla craze in
the US right now is so weirdly reminiscent of Jasindamania.
And that's large largely because both of these women appear
to be popular really more because of the fields than
the actual policy. And actually when you look at it,
the comparisons are weirdly bang on. So here in New
Zealand in twenty seventeen, an unpopular guy Andrew Little can't

(46:21):
win the election, quits at the last minute, is replaced
by a younger woman who's Jasinda Ardun twenty twenty four.
In the US, an unpopular guy Joe Biden can't win
the election, quits at the last minute, is replaced by
a younger woman, Karmala Harris. Jasindaardurn rockets to popularity because
she's a breath of fresh air and politics it's otherwise
been dominated by two white men, Andrew Little and Bill English,
and is celebrated not for what she does but who

(46:43):
she is, which is a younger, married woman. Karmala Harris
rockets to popularity because she is a breath of fresh
air and politics has otherwise been dominated by two white
men Biden and Trump, and is celebrated not for what
she does but who she is, a younger brown woman.
Jacinda's popularity was always more at her being kind than
all the terrible policies she unleashed on US. Carmala's popularity

(47:04):
is based on her vibes and her kindness and stuff
more than her policies, given she's actually only released one policy,
one major one. She's on the economy. So what's interesting
then is if their paths basically mirror all the way through.
Do their paths keep mirroring, mirroring what happens next? Because
Carmla's so far only managed to energize the base. And

(47:24):
that is exactly what Jasinda Ardern did in twenty seventeen.
She only managed to energize the base. She didn't win
people over, really shouldn't win that election. She only took
labor to thirty eight percent, national won the election on
forty four percent. But we have a quirk in our
political system called MMP. The US don't have that quirk.
So is Carmela's just cinder story enough to get her

(47:46):
to actually win the election. We'll have to see.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Heather du for clan.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Here the BS one hundred dollars each way on the train?
Does he think we're going to be sitting on the
bloody roof? That's from MJW. Do you know what bang on?
I call BS on the one hundred dollar ticket price
as well, because look at to Huia, right, This is
we're talking about a train, This is to Huia that
just runs from Auckland to Hamilton, never mind from Hamilton
all the way down to Wellington. Right, So just the

(48:10):
Auckland to Hamilton.

Speaker 14 (48:11):
Thing.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
The ticket price onto Huia is twenty one bucks thereabouts.
The subsidy is eighty four dollars. What does that add
up to one hundred and five dollars? Now you're telling me,
Thomas Nash, that you're going to be able to get
a train to go all the way the rest of
the way for less of the cost. Absolutely nonsense. Plus thing,
it's not even just going to be seated, is it.
Is it going to be like live flat? I mean

(48:33):
you're going to be charging the live flat people a
lot of money, aren't you just kind of cross subsidized
so the poorer ones can just be paying a hundi bucks. Anyway,
On another thing, I thought that when they canceled the
free unlimited drivers tests, we would have this wonderful freeing
up of the system and everybody would be able to
get in.

Speaker 5 (48:49):
Not so.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
Apparently one guy had to send a student from Pukakoe
to dan of Urk to get a test. We're going
to talk to him next. News Storks there being.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
The day's newsmakers, talked to Heather first. Heather duper c
Allen drive with one New Zealand let's get connected and
news Talk zid.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Be Heather J Cinda wasn't married in twenty seventeen, GE's
check your facts, pick up your game. Did did I
not say unmarried? Did I not say unmarried? Because that

(49:31):
was the point I was trying to make. We remember,
we were fascinated by that. We were like, she's not
that right, It's kind of like that. So anyway, if
I said married instead of unmarried as a complete slip
of the tongue, and I apologize, and wow, there was
a lot of texts on that. There was a lot
of angry texts on that as well. Listen, Nichola Willis's
with us after six o'clock. I want to talk to her.
What's going on with tourism. I don't know if you've

(49:52):
caught up on the figures, but we are the tourism
industry is not bouncing back like it should, and now
we're apparently making it a whole lot worse by charging
them a whole lot more. Rang you through as before
we talk to and she's with us after sex and
the huddle standing by and right now it's twenty three
away from sex. Now, on another matter, doesn't look like
the wait times for a driver's license are getting any better,
So wait times in Auckland are staying stubbornly high. Despite

(50:13):
the government scrapping the unlimited free test resets in July,
it's still ninety four days to wait for a restricted
test now. Alista McGregor is driving instructor based in Pooka Kobe. Hey, Alistair, Yeah,
how how are you?

Speaker 3 (50:24):
I'm very well?

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Thank you. Did I hear that you had to send
somebody to Danavirk from Pooka Koe the other day for
a test?

Speaker 3 (50:29):
Bad?

Speaker 10 (50:30):
Yep.

Speaker 15 (50:30):
About a fortnight ago a student was desperate for his
full licensed tests, couldn't find anywhere in the Auckland region,
and the founder test in danny Vok, of all places,
so a good six and a bit hours drive down
there for essentially the full test is thirty minutes thirty
minutes four at four thirty, got past the test and
then six and a half hours back. So that's what

(50:51):
people are doing now for in some cases to get
a test.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Is this an odd is this is a rare thing
or is this happening more frequently?

Speaker 15 (50:57):
Well, annecdotally, I've got that's been going out to Thames,
which is not uncommon. Down to Hamilton. Again not uncommon.
It's uncommon to go as far as Danny Viurk. I've
had a student go down to Tamborla Nui and two
or three days ago I had a student's mum tried
to make a book in for a test which I
couldn't for a drive which I couldn't do. But that

(51:18):
student had a test book in New Plymouth planted to
go to New Plymouth for their test.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Jeez.

Speaker 15 (51:25):
The thing is people are desperate to get tests.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yeah, how has this happened? Because I would have thought
that once we scrapped the unlimited free tests, that will
clear up what's going on.

Speaker 15 (51:34):
Well, at the moment is it's taken a while to
work through the tests regime. The pricing changed about months ago,
and it's still going to take a while the existing
testiny to be worked through.

Speaker 4 (51:45):
So it's going to.

Speaker 15 (51:45):
Take a month or two, maybe a little longer before
it starts to ease. Now with the approaching Christmas, people
get desperate for tests. Of bookings as soon as they
are available are snapped up.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
So this is also going to get worse as the
year goes on. I understand, because apparently people start getting
real eager before Christmas.

Speaker 15 (52:03):
Well, that's true, and then you've got holidays and all
sorts of factors coming in. Students have got time off,
you know, exam leave and study time which they use
hopefully to get a license or a test before Christmas.
They want that test, you can they spend the holidays,
have a car and do some driving, et cetera. So
it does become normally at this end of the year,
it tends to get more desperate to get tests and

(52:23):
it's compounded by the current wait times.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
At the moment, Alisir, it's good to talk to you mate,
Thank you very much for that. Alistair McGregor, County's Driving School.
By the way, quick update on the act situation. Barry
Soapersaurce has come through says I screwed up. Sorry, the
letter that they got in may only invited them to
the King's coronation. So we'll just go back to the
original position on the show. I was right all along,
they weren't invited. By the sounds of things. Twenty one

(52:47):
away from six.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
The Huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty Exceptional marketing
for every property on the.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Huddle with me this see we got Joseph Beganny Child
Fund CEO and Trisshurson Shurson Willis pr Hello you too. Hello?
Do we want to sleep?

Speaker 16 (53:00):
Train?

Speaker 3 (53:00):
Josie?

Speaker 2 (53:01):
I love them?

Speaker 17 (53:02):
Yeah, and actually, I mean the flights have become so expensive.
If it was reasonable, I would definitely do that. Stays
on a hotel. You know, it's very romantic going on
the train, but I don't want it to be subsidized.
And I think you made that point about the train
lines where.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
You who are ye to?

Speaker 3 (53:19):
Who are you?

Speaker 4 (53:19):
Where?

Speaker 2 (53:19):
It's basically subsidized eighty How much would you pay? Well?

Speaker 17 (53:22):
I would at the moment if you want to fly,
you think, oh, I've got a meeting next week, I've
got a fly out in near New Zealand. I mean
you're paying the best part of two hun hundred and fifty.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
Bucks one way.

Speaker 17 (53:30):
Anything less than that, yeah, would be with it.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
Yeah. And you say a hotel costs yet, but yeah,
you want a good night to sleep?

Speaker 16 (53:36):
What about you, Trish Well, I think you would be
lucky to get one way for two point fifty on
in New Zealand at the moment. Often when you look,
you know, prices under three fifty you need to find
anything under three fifty Would you go to Wellington last week?
Booked a week out? This is for business travel, but
still it's a week out. It cost over eight hundred
dollars year and back, and that's what the prices are like,

(54:00):
which is a lot you consider jet Star. I did
consider jet Star, but probably like a lot of people,
when you've got airpoints with a New Zealand you're like, well, hey,
you know, but a jet Star. My daughter is in
Wellington at the moment you need. We've been flying her
up on jet Star and the savings are really significant until.

Speaker 17 (54:21):
Until it doesn't Until Jetstar doesn't turn up on time
and you have to book an urgent flight to get
somewhere because you go into a meeting.

Speaker 16 (54:27):
Well, I've just shot I'm not sure. I'm not sure
about that either, because that has been one of the
biggest gripes that I've had recently with in New Zealand
is on time performance. And for instance, last time I
flew to Wellington, the plane was forty five minutes taking
late taking off getting down there, and a couple of
times in the last year I've been on a flight

(54:48):
to christ Church and business travelers up the front in
a in a you know, in a kind way, have
called the hostess over and said, I'm really sorry, but
I need to let you know I've now actually missed
all of the business meetings. I was flying to christ Church.

Speaker 17 (55:00):
Oh no, oh, stop winding trash.

Speaker 16 (55:02):
No, but this is this is this is, this is
why on time performances.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Really, this is part of the reason people will be
flying down the night before and booking a hotel room.

Speaker 4 (55:10):
Right.

Speaker 16 (55:10):
But back to the sleeper train that these are really
you go to Europe, a sleeper train really really popular.
I think in New Zealand it's probably a great idea
if you've got the price right, I think.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
And love the right kind of bed because New Zealand
they'll they'll try to do distinct version eight totally like
a stretcher or something.

Speaker 16 (55:27):
I spent a lot of my youth going up and
down from Tomina Nui to Auckland on the Silver Fern.
Oh yeah, and used to absolutely love it. It's a
great trip.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
There's a good time. Actually, listen you into the drink
driving crackdown, Josie.

Speaker 17 (55:40):
Yeah, I mean, I think the evidence shows that if
you if you crack down on drink and drugs, you
are going to reduce crashes and fatalities and so on.
You could say the same about speed, and I know
there's always like evidence one way and the other. The
problem with the speed issue is that, yep, you can
reduce deaths almost entirely if you reduce the speed limit
to forty k there's a bit, there's a cost, and

(56:01):
you've got to be honest about the costs and the benefits,
and the costs can be things like, you know, if
you reduce speed, it might be that there's more trucks
on the road because you can only you know, you've
got to have more in a day to get the
same amount of goods to shops and so on like that.
So I think this makes sense. And one thing I
was thinking about with this is that when we had
the cannabis vote, a lot of people didn't vote to
legalize cannabis because they felt like there wasn't a good

(56:25):
enough debate about what you do about drugs and driving.
There's a lot about alcohol and driving, but actually in
New Zealand, a lot of it is drugs and driving
cause the accidents. And there was this thing about oh, well,
alcohol does it too, and it's like, yeah, but what
are we going to do if we legalize marijuana. Everyone's driving,
you know, doped up to their eyeballs and crashing. So
I do think it was I don't like the targeting.

(56:46):
Why targeting, the idea that you've got to you've got
a target to get enough you know, breathalyzers and what
not and so on, because I think, like I live
in Kapady Transmission Gully. You come down the hill and
Transmission Gully, it's really easy to to you know, speed
a little bit or something like that.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
So there you're talking about the speeding tickets, the spending tickets.

Speaker 17 (57:05):
Yeah, but if they do it with this too, where
you've got to the speeding.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
Tickets is different. The speeding tickets is you must issue
this many tickets, whereas the breath testing is you must
just do this many breath tests. Not necessarily you must
ping as many people.

Speaker 16 (57:14):
Trish, I really love this one. I'm all about the targets.
I think that's great. Two, if you step inack and
think about what this is about overall with the police,
it's about visibility. So this government has been all about visibility.
Say go into Central Auckland, which I did recently on
a Saturday there were police on the beat everywhere.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
It's a completely different experience, which.

Speaker 16 (57:34):
Was I immediately thought, wow, there's a lot of police
here and felt that was a good thing. I was
driving around on Saturday night coming back from dinner and
came under a flyover. There were the police setting up.
I think what was going to be a booze bus
and I thought, actually, that's that is excellent. And I
completely agree with Josie about the need for the drug testing,

(57:56):
but I think that is a big part of this.
Now there is the technology, is a way to do it.
I think it's fantastic.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
Yeah. Agree, Okay, guys will take a break. Come back
shortly quarters to six.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
The huddle with New Zealand Southeby's international realty, unparalleled reach
and results.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Right, you're back with a huddle. We've got Trishuson and
Joseph Agani. Trish, what do you make of act not
being at the coronation when all the other political parties
are there.

Speaker 16 (58:17):
Well, I think it's a real shame either way, whether
they if they weren't invited, or if they were invited
and turned it down. I think now more than ever,
we need everybody talking to each other and we need
to be able to do it in a really adult
way and just to show respect for each other by
you know, being at these at these major events and

(58:38):
hearing what everyone's going to say. So yeah, I think
it's a real shame. You know, often with these things
it is cock up over conspiracy. But either way, I
think it's it's a real shame.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Yeah, I agree, Josie, don't you.

Speaker 17 (58:50):
Yeah, and it's a little bit he said, She said,
I mean that absolutely looks like ACT weren't invited. But
the noise, it'll just be noise to most in the public.
But I think because the bigger issue really is, as
you say, Trisha, that they're just not really talking to
each other. And that's Party Marty too, who are winding
up the genocidal government and so on. So the best
thing you can do if you're being accused of being
a genocidal, racist government is just front up and be reasonable.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
Yeah, So totally.

Speaker 17 (59:13):
If I was ACT, I would have I mean, okay,
maybe they just found out, but I might have been.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
Weakened found which I would have asked and called them
up and canceled everything and gong because I think that
show is the most important thing I've turning.

Speaker 16 (59:26):
But in David Siemour's defense, I've never known him not
to be prepared to turn up, and I think, you know, Whitehungy,
even earlier this year, he has always prepared to turn
up in status case.

Speaker 17 (59:38):
I think there's a bigger issue here about what the
hell is going on with this Treaty Principals bill that
will never go anywhere because no one's going to vote
for it, And I think for ACT they've got to
realize and to Party Marty too. But ACT and to
Party Marty have more in common than they think they do.
And it is that devolution thing. We're one of the
most centralized governments in the OECD in terms of tax,

(01:00:00):
provision of services and so on. If they devolved, if
they advocated for more services out to mary whether it's health,
whether it's even you know, even I don't know, the
ability to kind of regulate on mary Land what you
build and so on. I mean, just champion a very
ACT principle of self determination, individuals deciding what they want.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
You just basically spelled out how to kill both parties
at the same time.

Speaker 16 (01:00:23):
Yeah, I mean, think about charter schools exactly. That fits
perfectly into that. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's as
I hate to harp on about these things, but this
bill was always going to end up where it has
in my view, because you know, act thought we could
have a high minded, intellectual debate debate around these things,

(01:00:47):
but you know, in New Zealand, unfortunately it ends up
where we are.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
How sure are you, Trish though, that Chris Luxen is
going to kill it. If it came to the point
where this thing was before the public and the public
liked it a proportion of the public a strong enough proportion,
will he really kill it.

Speaker 16 (01:01:04):
I do not think national are going to go forward
with this bill.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
I don't even it's popular, but I don't think it is.

Speaker 17 (01:01:10):
That's the other thing that the polesh I mean, what
most what you said, it's a bit like the trans
issue too, that most New Zealanders just don't want to
have a big fight culture about this. Well, everyone knows
somebody who's got you know, a kid who's going through
the best some issue around gender or whatever, and you
just think, look, I know what I think, but I
don't want to have a big fight about it. And
it's the same with the race issue. They're going this

(01:01:32):
is not us and they don't like it when to
Party Marty do it, and they don't like it when
Act does it. So that step down, you know, calms
the farm. Then National do.

Speaker 16 (01:01:43):
Not want where this could go on their watch. I
think that's the bigger thing. I think they've got an
eye an eye on that. They had to swallow the
dead rat to get the coalition deal across the line.
But they've been very clear from the start and I
haven't heard any of them dev eight from that.

Speaker 17 (01:01:58):
And John Luxon's got John Keyan is sorry, Chris audiance
for audience for each other.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
Hey, Trish, any surprise at all for you to see
that the World's Best Cities for Nightlife list has been
released in New Zealand does not feature.

Speaker 16 (01:02:13):
It's no, it's not a surprise to me because we're boring. Well,
you know me, I have I just love Auckland. I've
always adored Auckland. It's my home city and I've always
thought it was fantastic. But but, but, but the grand
Lady has lost a lot of sparkle since the pandemic
and I'm not sure that she's quite got it back yet.

(01:02:34):
There are still in Auckland some fantastic places to go.
Kay Road is absolutely pumping at It's really awesome. But
when you put it up against some of the cities
on the list, we're not quite there yet.

Speaker 17 (01:02:46):
Look, there's a been a nightlife in Ratatonga than there
is in any New Zealand city as today. Yeah, I
mean there's more going on there right. It's just so
depressing and you feel like going, oh, why is that?

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
Well?

Speaker 17 (01:02:58):
You know, oh New York doesn't have the Featherstone book.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
But we have we ever haven't we always been the
place that you come home to have your children here?

Speaker 5 (01:03:06):
You know.

Speaker 17 (01:03:07):
It's such a pressing though. We be a bit better
than that. I don't want to be.

Speaker 16 (01:03:10):
The place you come right there, So I'm want to
put it in a big plate here though I'd have
to say, yeah, as you cannot beat a night out
in Coordoradika Russell, a night out at the Joke of Molbra.
I mean that's we make, my view with the best
in the world we make it.

Speaker 17 (01:03:22):
Just say that we do make our fun wherever we
can know nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Thank you, guys really appreciated Joseph Gani Child fun Ceo
and Trishurs and Hurson Willis preshard all this evening seven
away from six.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
On your smart speaker, on the iHeart app, and in
your car on your drive home. Heather Duplicy Alan Drive
with One New Zealand one Giant Leap for business News
Talk as it be hither.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
The reason our night life sucks is because we're not
allowed to drink and have fun and it costs us
a bloody fortune. Well, for people who aren't allowed to drink,
we do a pretty good fist of that, don't we.
We drink quite a lot for people who aren't supposed to.
I actually wonder if it's the other way around. And
this is this is becoming my new theory, which is
that we drink to excess as a culture. And come on,
we do like we know that, right, We drink way
too much. So we drink to excess because we're bored

(01:04:09):
because our now life sucks. Other people go out and
they have fiestas and they have all kinds of fun thing,
go to the theater, do all this kind of cool staff,
wander around late night shopping blah blah blah. We're just
boozing because there's nothing else to do. Maybe that explains it.
Maybe that's the solution, is don't shut everything down at
nine o'clock. Auckland City Council. Just give us some more
things to do. Anyway, I say us collectively, I have

(01:04:29):
no plans to do anything. I'm a mother. I don't
care anyway. This is what I want to talk to
Nicola about. Okay, there seems to be mounting opposition to
the government's plans to charge tourists more to come here,
and it's going up quite a bit. So the visitor
visa we charge them for coming here as a visitor,
that used to be two hundred and ten dollars. That's
now going to be three hundred and forty dollars. That's
a sixty one percent increase. Then you've got the international

(01:04:51):
visitor levy going up. There's a completely different tax that's
thirty five dollars. It's going to go up shortly, and
it's the word around the street is maybe up to
one hundred bucks. So that total cost of that has
gone per person two hundred and forty five dollars is
before we've even arrived here. Ah, we're just like just
permission to come here two hundred and forty five dollars
is now going to be four hundred and forty dollars.

(01:05:11):
Now you times that by a family of five, and
all of a sudden, it's two thousand to two hundred
dollars before anyone's even set foot on the fener we're here. Now,
that's not even considering the working holiday scheme, which is
a completely different thing. That visa is going from four
hundred and twenty dollars to six hundred and seventy dollars. Now,
there's a lot of concern that it is going to
stop people coming here. I mean, you would have heard
Grant Webster from Tourism Holdings talking to my costing about

(01:05:32):
it last week. He was worried about it. Mb A
couple of years ago said the levy just by itself
is going to stop one hundred thousand visitors from coming here.
It's going to cost us six hundred million dollars and
lost money, money we cannot afford to lose because tourism
has not yet bounced back from before COVID, right. I mean,
we got figures last week it showed still seventeen percent
down on pre COVID levels, which means that back in

(01:05:54):
the day we would have made seventeen billion. We only
made twelve billion. Now, obviously the reason the government's doing
it tell your kinds out of other stuff. But why
they're doing it is because they need the money. Right,
we're short on cash in this country big time. We
need money. So the person who wants the money is Nicholer.
We'll have a chat to her next Oh and the
Pole going to get you across the Pole. News talksb.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
What's what's down? What were the major calls and how
will it affect the economy of the bigger business Questions
on the Business Hour with Hither Duplicy Allen and my
Hr on Newstalks FB.

Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
Evening.

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
Coming up in the next hour, We're going to talk
to Shane Soley. He's got some evidence the Reserve Bank
made the right call last week. Freight Ways has reported
today it reckons we're through the worst of it in
terms of the recession. They with us shortly and then
Gavin Gray out of the UK at seven past six.
So here we go. Here's the tvn Z poll for you.
National is on thirty eight percent, no change, Labour's on
thirty percent, up one. The Greens are in eleven percent.

(01:07:01):
That down too. Maybe you could put that down to
the Darlene Tana stuff that's been going on. New Zealand
first is on six no change, actors on seven no
change to Patsibari Marti parties on four up one. Our
right blockers in fifty one percent, the left block is
on forty five percent. And in terms of the preferred
prime minister, the real number there that is the most
interesting is Chris luxon thirty eight percent up five. Now

(01:07:22):
Nikola Willis as the Finance minister, Henikler.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
Hi you gy hey.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
So that's pretty good for the prime minister in that pole.

Speaker 18 (01:07:29):
Am Yeah, good to see get our support. And really, look,
we don't watch the poles too closely. They go up
and down, but I think New Zealanders can see that
we're doing the things that we said with those and
the best news that's come as that interest rate reduction,
which is going to make a big difference to many
families and businesses.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Yeah, you're talking about the ocr cut last week.

Speaker 18 (01:07:52):
That's right, and that I understand came after the poll
had been completed, So I imagine that that will make
a big difference across the country.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Yeah, are you joining the rest of us who are
levelheaded and calling this thing a flip flop by Adrian or.

Speaker 18 (01:08:07):
Well, it's not for me to say that's the thing,
because there is a bank independently make their decisions about
interest rates, and I independently make our decisions about fiscal policy,
and we leave it like that. We're very polite about
each other.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
Are there any days where you go I regret leaving
him in the job.

Speaker 18 (01:08:27):
Well, it hasn't been a decision for me either. That
was an appointment made by the outgoing government and it's
not a decision over which I have been thought.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Have you gone to look at the grounds under which
you may be able to recall them from the job
at all?

Speaker 18 (01:08:42):
Well, once that appointment is made, that's a decision that
can only be made by the Reserve Bank.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
Board, so you have god to look at it. Frankly,
I would if I was in your position.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
No.

Speaker 18 (01:08:55):
I think the backstory here for everyone who's listening is
that when Aunt Robertson said he was going to make
that reappointment, we wrote to him and said, hey, hey, hey,
don't do that when you have actually reviewed some of
these extraordinary monetary policy decisions that were made, which we
frankly think the Reserve Bank got wrong. We propose your

(01:09:16):
appointing for a short term period a year, do an
external review, and then we can then the income and
government can decide whether or not to reappoint him. We
thought that was a good way of getting through. Grant
Robertson rejected that approcess.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
Are we Why.

Speaker 18 (01:09:33):
No, he didn't He wrote that and just simply rejected that.
And I thought it was a shame because there's always
been a degree of unity over Reserve Bank appointments, because
we like to keep that institution and dependent in non
political Nichola.

Speaker 2 (01:09:48):
Listen, this is something you actually do have complete control
over as a government. What is going on with you
guys raising the amount of money that you're going to
be charging tourists when they land here.

Speaker 18 (01:09:58):
Well, as you know, tourists get a great experience in
New Zealand, and that doesn't come cost free to New Zealanders.
Looking after our national parks, our conservation estate, ensuring that
we have good facilities from public bathrooms, through the roads,
through the bridges, we think it's appropriate for tourists to
make a contribution to all of that. That's not unusual

(01:10:21):
around the world that you pay a HEV as a
tourist going to another country, And so we've been consulting
on where people think that LEADE should sit, and we
think it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I want
to see the tourism industry grow. I want to see
more tourists been there more money in New Zealand. But
I also want to see them contributing their fair share
when they come here.

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
But is it worth doing it at the cost to
our tourism industry because it's going to deter a bunch
of people about one hundred thousand to them Apparently, Well, no, I.

Speaker 18 (01:10:48):
Don't think that those numbers are right. The advice that
we've received is that it could have a small impact
at the margin, but it's actually quite hard to model.
And of course the content xt here is by the
time you decide to come to New Zealand, you're already
deciding to pay a pretty big yar fare and you're
coming to the other side of the world. So this

(01:11:08):
is a marginal cost in that context.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
So the MB itself says about one hundred thousand people
we deterred just this is just by the international visitor
levy going up, never mind the visit of visa costs, right,
one hundred thousand people not going to come here. That
costs US six hundred million dollars in lost money. You
don't think that's right.

Speaker 18 (01:11:25):
Well, I think it's I think it depends on a
number of factors, and I think that many people still
come to choose to New Zealand and in particular. I
think there's actually a proposition for us to say to tourist, hey,
look when you yeah, yeah, you do pay levy, but
you also get to see some of the best national
parks in the world, and that funding helps preserve flora

(01:11:47):
and fauna which are indigenous to New Zealand, which are
really special and part of your experience is being contributed
to by the U.

Speaker 2 (01:11:55):
Okay, well where are these people coming from? Because the
thing is that the Chinese market's collect so who are
we replacing them with.

Speaker 18 (01:12:03):
Well, we have seen an uptick interest from North America
in particular, but I want to see those Chinese tourists
coming back as well. So my view is that New
Zealand does well when we have lots of tourists coming here,
spending lots of money from lots of different markets. I
think there's a side to that which is if we
want New Zealanders to support tourism growing as an industry,

(01:12:25):
and I do want them to. I think they need
to see that we're actually able to fund the infrastructure
he to support that up tick in tourism. So I
think there's book under way to make sure we're growing
markets internationally. Markets will come and go, and the point
is overall, you want to have a lot of.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
Options if it comes let's say we are five years
down the track, because we still haven't recovered from the
tourism numbers that we saw pre COVID, Right, we're still
seventeen percent down on it. If it comes to a
couple of years from now, you're facing an election and
the numbers still haven't recovered, will you guys admit that
you made a mistake.

Speaker 18 (01:12:57):
Well, I am wanting to do everything we can to
increase those numbers over the next little while. I was
in Rosarua on Friday meeting with some of the incredible
adventure tourism and culptural tourism operators there. They have an
incredible offering. They have the capacity to take more throughst
and part of what that is is the marketing that

(01:13:18):
we do for those destinations of making sure that people
are aware of it, getting the word out. And that's
the other piece that we as a government of picking
up is how do we do that marketing more sensibly
and make sure we're connecting tourists to New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
Now Nicola, TV and Z. I'm getting a little bit
nervous about TV and Z because I can see that,
especially with the sport play that they're making, that's that's
quite a high risk thing and they're hoping that we're
going to pay for it, and want to pay you
want to subscribe and pay for all of the sport
that they're going to buy for a huge time. How
do we ensure that if this whole thing blows up
in their faces, taxpayers are not lumped with the cost.

Speaker 18 (01:13:53):
Well, the way that TV and ZED works at the moment,
we expect TV to make commercial decisions and generate commercial
revenue for those decisions, so they are able to make
plays if they think there's going to be advertising. They
think there's going to be money available to them if
they do that, but if it doesn't work out, they're
hardly going to be able to fund them into the future.
So like any commercial business, sometimes they are going to

(01:14:17):
take some risks, but they should be calculated risks.

Speaker 2 (01:14:20):
Yeah, he is hoping. Hey, Nichola, thank you very much,
really appreciate your time. This Nikola will list the Finance
Minister Shane Soli's next quarter.

Speaker 1 (01:14:25):
Past crunching the numbers and getting the results. It's Heather
duplic Allen with the Business Hour thanks to my HR,
the HR platform for SME on news talks.

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
Edb Hither the Aussie visit tourist visa is three hundred
and seventy dollars Australia, So ours won't even be all
that expensive, yew, would I work it out? It somewhere
in the four hundreds compared to their three seventy? Was
it four forty compared to their three seventy? So it's
around about the same. Here the tourist fees are just
booked two weeks in Vietnam, the visa costs more than
three hundred New Zealand dollars. Product. That's from trishre and

(01:14:57):
here that we traveled extensively overseas, we pay everywhere. We've
got no problem charging tourists to fee. I don't have
a problem charging tourists to fee, and I generally agree
with the principle that we need to make them pay
their bit, right, who doesn't? Who wants to? I don't
want to be subsidizing that that industry, do you. The
problem is how many we chase away at a time
when we can't afford to chase them away. I want
just wonder if it may have been something better left

(01:15:19):
for when we're at a high point of tourists, not
when we're at a low point, lowish point. It's eighteen
past six right now. I ever do see more evidence
the Reserve Bank did make the right call in cutting
the OCR. Last week, BNZ Performance of Services indexes out
was up almost four points to forty four points six
in July. Shane Solely from Harbor Asset Management has been
looking at these numbers for us. Hey Shane, Yeah, hey,

(01:15:42):
now it's still under fifty, so it's still contracting, right.

Speaker 19 (01:15:45):
That's right, And I think this is a really important
thing here. We're still actually well below where we were
in the GFC, and I think a lot of people
if they know that when they see it out in
the streets. But we're reading a lot of work to
do here. There was a little bit of life in
the measure, so the recovery three in terms of the
activity and sales measure and actually a little bit of
pick up in new orders. But this is still suggesting

(01:16:05):
the economy is continuing to decline and the Reserve Bank well,
they need to keep moving with those cuts.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
And we've had a start to the August profit reporting
season on the market today. What do you make of it?

Speaker 19 (01:16:17):
Yeah, a couple of interesting results. So two beats, two
beats against the expectations and one mass and the two
beats Contact Energy and Freightways slightly better. Obviously Contact Energy
a electricity generator. They're sort of hanging on to their
balance sheet. They're talking about focusing on future investment and
infrastructure to support growth and demand. Freightways are not a

(01:16:38):
bad result, but cautious about the outlook in the next six months,
but suggesting maybe as these rate cuts come through they
see a bit of recovery. But really for them, it
was Australia was there when the clanger. The real disappointment
was a Tom mil listed expectations. The stock price was
actually down nineteen percent at one stage and the management

(01:16:58):
team really quite considered bit of about sales demand, particularly
into China. With this unfortunate. We haven't seen a real
boost in terms of infants being born in the Year
of the Dragon against expectations, and really just actually a
shortage of infant formula supply and some higher cargo costs,

(01:17:19):
particularly air freight, so a few things really pushing them
back on expectations of a recovery and demand and margin.
So yeah, tough day for a two. The stock has
actually been really strong into this, so little bit of
the market perps getting ahead of itself.

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
Oh what else are we expecting to see in terms
of profit results for the rest of the week.

Speaker 19 (01:17:37):
Yeah, busy week here that this week we've actually got
fifteen companies Tomorrow, we've got Mercury Energy Wednesday, Eboss, Fletcher Building,
sky TV Tuesday, Auckland Airport, Genesis sky City Friday, Channel
Infrastructure of the Old, Insin Refining, Insiex, the Stock Exchange,
Port of Tower on a Spark, New Zealand, and Winton,
which is the real estate developer.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
Yeah, and not only that, we've got a whole bunch
of data coming out this week. What you looking for?

Speaker 19 (01:18:01):
Yeah, look, I think Econon lookwise. Tomorrow we've got the
ARII and Z house sales for July, and that's important
because we are we seeing a turning point. But I
think US politics and economic data come back to the
fray again, Heather. We're certainly investors have been watching this
US Democratic National Conference starts tomorrow. Is there any sort
of policy announcements that come through that are different challenging.

(01:18:24):
And then later in the weekend thisss are going to
switch their focus to the US Federal Reserve Jackson Hole Symposium,
and that is about whether our friend mister J. Powell,
chair of the Uscree Reserve, actually starts to talk about
we're going to cut rates again here and certainly the
inflation data is supporting that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
Yeah, Shane, thank you very much. Really appreciated that. Shane Solly,
who's with Harbor Asset Management. But he mentioned Freightways just there.
We're going to talk to Freightways in around about fifteen
minutes time because while they've taken a slight dip in
the net profit as on slight it's about six percent,
they actually think that we've turned a corner here or
through the worst of it, which I think because news
we all want to hear. So we've a little chat

(01:19:01):
to about what they're seeing. There, and if they're seeing
the green shoots just yet, just quickly see that yute
that was used to ram the cop car at the weekend.
Cops have got it already. They went around Huntley and
also to Hunger having a look at people's houses. Didn't
take them very long to find the ute, did it?
So there's a rat in the organization, isn't there in

(01:19:22):
the older boy Racer club? Or they were just done
and left very obvious clues. AnyWho, They've gone and found
the thing in Autodo Hunger. They've arrested an eighteen year
old and guess what, it's already been painted black? Hasn't
it freshly painted to try to evade the cops. Cops
aren't that dumb. They've got it anyway. Sounds like the
guy that they've arrested was the guy that they think
was driving it, because he's been charged with receiving stolen property,

(01:19:45):
dangerous driving and intentional damage causing danger to life. Now,
I hope that this news spreads through the boy Racer
community so they can update their little video clips with
you know, cops are going to get it. Karma is
a B word. Blah blah blah ah. The fun thing
about ramming a cop card to whips mates and jail. Now,
if that's what happens six twenty three.

Speaker 1 (01:20:06):
Everything from SMEs to the big corporates, the The Business
Hour with Heather Duplicy Allen and my HR, the HR
platform for sme US talksa'd be listen.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
I don't know if this is something you want to hear,
but I am going to have to update you on
Hazzard and Mes's trip to Columbia shortly. But first they're
still with some serious stuff and where this is why
we're actually here right six twenty six. So I didn't
realize this, and I actually don't know whether I just
missed it or whether this hasn't been made public yet.
But did you realize that it's been announced that the
Parliamentary Select Committee inquiry into the rural banking this is

(01:20:38):
the one that the Select Committee is going to do,
is looking into the climate rules. I didn't know this.
So how I realized this is because there's an article
that's popped up about the fact that've announced the terms
of reference, which is generally quite boring, but the terms
of reference this time includes the fact that the banks
have signed up to what's called the Net Zero Banking Alliance.
Now this is not new, right, we knew the banks

(01:21:00):
were doing this. I mean, this is an idea that
came from COP twenty six in Glasgow, which is a
couple of years ago now, and basically it aims to
get all the banks agree that they're going to get
their lending and investment portfolios to net zero emissions by
twenty fifty and B and Z is a member of it.
A and z's parent bank, asb's parent bank, Westpac, and
Rubbobank's parent banks that are all members of IT, which

(01:21:20):
basically ties the big banks into it as well, and
they've all got targets. So apparently Westpac has a set
target of a ten percent reduction in dairy emissions intensity
by twenty thirty and a nine percent reduction in sheep
and beef emissions intensity. B and Z has an eleven
percent reduction target, and the other banks we don't know
yet because either they haven't released them or they haven't
set them. But anyway, what the inquiry is now going

(01:21:42):
to look into is basically whether the banks are putting
the climate ahead of farmers, so whether the banks are
cutting off lending to farmers and the farmers are claiming
this cutting off lending to the farmers because they're trying
to meet their climate goals and they can't do both
of them at the same out at the same time, right,
So this is obviously great for the climate if this
is what the banks are doing, but it's kind of

(01:22:03):
bad for people who are hungry because we need the
farmers to make food. And then what they want to
look into as well as whether the banks are refusing
to lend, for example, for somebody building a new gas
peaker plant, which is obviously great for us not burning
more gas, but very bad because we end up burning
more coal. So there's a backfire to this. Anyway, I'm
fascinated as to whether this is in fact affecting their lending,

(01:22:24):
So stand by to have a look at that freightways
with us next.

Speaker 1 (01:22:30):
If it's to do with money, it matters to you.
The Business Hour with Heather Duplicy, Allen and my HR,
the HR platform for SME US talk sa'd be I'm falling.

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):
Gavin Gray's with us out of the UK and ten
minutes time we thought because everybody's getting so blinking excited
and I can't even begin to tell you how many
texts were like, Yeah, I'd love to be able to
sleep on a train between Auckland and Wellington. We thought, look,
we we just got to find out if this is
going anywhere. So we put in a request with Simon
same and Brown, the transportmanist as to whether he would
entertain this at all basically just said no. He said,

(01:23:08):
investing in an electrified overnight passenger train between Auckland and
Wellington is not a priority for this government. However, the
government is open to commercial operators accessing the tracks on
commercial terms to provide these services. Supposedally like somebody else
can do it and they can pay us for it.
And you know what, I don't mind that as a
business model. I mean, I feel like if no private

(01:23:29):
person does it, that's because we know it's a terrible idea.
But if they do it, then I have some hope.
And speaking of which, I've got a lot of texts
about what's going on with the flights hither. I travel
weekly nationally. I've got a large sales team. We've seen
a forty five percent lift on our air travel bill.
Think about that forty five percent. I mean that is
a significant increase in the cost that you're paying.

Speaker 3 (01:23:50):
Booked.

Speaker 2 (01:23:50):
A flight from Auckland to Partents to North last week
was nine hundred and eighty four dollars return, so I
ended up flying air Chathams this morning to fung Anui
instead for three hundred and forty five dollars return. A
flight Queenstown return from Auckland last week was over a grand.
At the same time, in New Zealand advertised a special
to the US It's seven hundred and fifty dollars. Admittedly
it was one way, Robbie, thank you for that, Heather.

(01:24:11):
The clown in the ute will get so many discounts
on sentencing, he'll probably end up doing a couple of
weeks p D. Steve. That's even if we end up
punishing him. I mean, we may actually find that by
the time the judge has finished discounting, because you know,
judges are softhearted individuals. You know, they feel very bad,
very bad for the circumstances that have led to somebody

(01:24:32):
deliberately allegedly backing a ute at full speed into a
cop car where there are a number of police officers,
And by the time they've finished discounting, we might have
to give him his repainted white for him, give it
back to him, apologize to him, pay for his petrol.
Who knows twenty two away from.

Speaker 1 (01:24:48):
Seven Heather duper Cela.

Speaker 2 (01:24:50):
One of the biggest delivery companies, reckons one of our
biggest by the way delivery companies. Reckons, We're coming out
the other side of our recession. This is Freightways runs
New Zealand. Couriers runs Big Chill. Of course, it's recall
a five point eight percent decrease in its net profit.
That's down to about seventy one million dollars. But the
company is celebrating the result because it's whether the worst
of our economic times. It reckons, Mark throw Here is

(01:25:10):
the Freightway CEO.

Speaker 14 (01:25:11):
Hey Mark, Hi Heather, how are you.

Speaker 2 (01:25:13):
I'm very well, thank you. So are you seeing this
as actually quite a small drop for how bad things
have been?

Speaker 14 (01:25:20):
Yes, in a word, yes, I think I don't know
that it gets any worse than this, and it's been
at this level for a wee while now. So now
there's a little bit of light at the end of
the tunnel that hopefully isn't a train coming the other way.
With some rate cuts here in New Zealand, maybe gradually
we can start to see someone proven as we get
into next year.

Speaker 2 (01:25:40):
What do you mean it doesn't get as bad as this?

Speaker 14 (01:25:43):
Well, I think we've tracked our customer activity month or months,
day on day for a long time now, and I
think we're at at the moment seems to be as
bad as it has been through that last eighteen months.
We're not seeing it getting any worse. We're not seeing
but it's really stable in terms of the volume coming
from our customers. So what we would hope is with

(01:26:06):
a little bit of confidence from lower interest rates as
we come into next year, that that volume then might
pick up.

Speaker 2 (01:26:11):
Do you reckon it's going to make a big difference
what happened with the ocr last week.

Speaker 14 (01:26:15):
I think it'll take maybe six or so months to
wash through. So our pick would be maybe after Christmas,
she's starting to see a few green shoots out there.

Speaker 2 (01:26:23):
So you think because I was kind of penning hopes
on the fact that just that signal that we are
through the worst of it would give some people some
confidence to start spending that don't need to hoard for
the big roll over on the interest rates and stuff.
You don't think that will happen.

Speaker 14 (01:26:37):
I suspect it'll take a little while maybe for people
to roll over their interest rates have a few more
dollars in their pocket. There's tax cuts that we've just
had as well, and again it's a small contribution to
some people to put a little bit more money in
their pocket. But my sense, my gut feel, is it
might just take six months to wash through to see
a little bit more volume.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
Al So still post the summer holidays before we really
start to see a pick up in business.

Speaker 14 (01:27:02):
Look, I think so, I mean Christmas time is a
busier time for us, but I don't think it's going
to be that much busier than last year. I think
we'll ride through that period and then in the new year.
I mean some cases, it's businesses it might need to
invest to grow their capacity, to push out a bit
more frase and have a bit more activity. For things
like the construction industry here, so we do a lot

(01:27:23):
of a lot of work for people in the construction sector,
and that sector is really down on the doldrums at
the moment. It might take a little while for that
sort of sector to flow through with better results.

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
Yeah, I suspect it's going to be like we're not
talking months we're probably talking years, aren't we with them?

Speaker 14 (01:27:39):
Potentially, Potentially we did a huge amount of work for
people back in if you remember the COVID days where
you couldn't fly anywhere, but you can do up your house,
and so you come off high of that back in
probably twenty twenty two, and it's been really muted. But
even sectors like that, I suspect maybe over the next
six months just start to get a little bit of
a lift.

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):
Here's the thing, Mark, I mean, if you listen to
the likes of I think it was Fitch who said
it a few weeks back, we I guess many of
us are banking on bouncing out of this and just
going back to sort of the hype of the last
ten years once we get through the COVID stuff. But
they were saying, temper your expectations because the Chinese economy
is not doing that well and the recovery is just
going to be pretty grinding from here. Is that what
you're expecting.

Speaker 14 (01:28:20):
Look, I think it'd be slow and steady, but that's
all right for us. Slow and steady, and even one
percent two percent growth out of our existing customers that
feeds our network pretty well. So we would be okay
with that, we'll win a bit of new business. We'll
attract a few new customers, get our pricing right. You
know that won't be the worst outcome.

Speaker 2 (01:28:41):
Oh good stuff, Mark, listen, thank you appreciated, look after yourself.
That's Mark trow Here Froatway CEO coming up, eighteen away
from seven Here the duplessye Ellen, Haran Meghan. I know
you've been waiting for ages for this. Harry and Meghan
have just wrapped up their full day tour of Columbia.
The thing about this tour is nobody can figure out
why they did the tour. It's really really weird because

(01:29:02):
the whole thing, I mean, this is not the first
time they've done something similar, but it's designed to look
like a royal tour, but they're not actually working royals anymore.
It's not an official royal tour, so what the hell
is it? But that was exactly like a Royal tour.
They had multiple outfit changes every day. They had formal
official visits where they went to things like you know,
looking at a school, playing the drums at a school,

(01:29:24):
going and looking at some cultural stuff, going and appearing
online to speak on stage, to speak on a forum
about something really boring like online safety. Weird, right, but
still not a royal tour, and it's not like it.
I don't quite know what to make of this, but
they didn't really let the press pack come. They just
invited one and I guess everybody else had to stay away.

(01:29:45):
And this poor journalists had to file for literally every
media outlet that wanted to know about this in the
entire world. And then they released their photos and stuff. Anyway,
then they said, because everybody's like, well, but why are
you there? There's no big event. It's not like Columbia's
celebrating its national Day. It's not like something specials happened.
It's not like you're promoting the Invictus Games. To be

(01:30:07):
why are you there? They would have said some stuff
about uplifting a communities and showcasing the nation's heritage, but
we're just still really baffled. I mean, most likely explanation
probably is that it was just a free They got used. Basically, somebody,
the vice president or whatever, was like, hey, guys, you
want to come visit us agaven the free holiday, and
they just basically got these guys to be like baller

(01:30:30):
influences and do like a massive tourism pitch. And that's
the only explanation. They're so bizarre. Do you know what
they are? They're just useless the board, aren't they. This
is like what bored rich people do. They float around
going I don't really know what to do. I'll just
go visit somewhere. Let's visit somewhere and take some photos.
But like to the nth degree, at least other rich
people sort of do it on their own time, but

(01:30:52):
these guys have to do it and get photos taken anyway.
Gavin Gray may Or may not have opinions on it,
and he's with us shortly sixteen away from seven.

Speaker 1 (01:31:00):
Crunching the numbers and getting the results. It's Heather Dupice
Ellen with the Business Hour thanks to my HR, the
HR platform for SME on newstalk sedb.

Speaker 2 (01:31:10):
Hey, this is a really weird little thing that just
came out in the one News poll. So they also
asked They didn't just ask voting intentions this evening, they
also asked about race relations. Asked public the question do
you think the government's policies are reducing, increasing, or making
no real difference to race relations? Reducing race relations came
in at Racial tensions, by the way, came in at

(01:31:31):
ten percent. Increasing racial tensions came at forty six percent,
and making no real difference to racial tensions came in
at thirty seven percent, which means, if you add reducing
plus making no real difference, forty seven percent of people
think that what the government's doing is making no real
difference to racial tensions or decreasing them, compared to forty

(01:31:52):
six percent who say it's increasing them. So it's level peaking.
That's a fascinating little little I mean, is there any
dispute that it's increasing. I mean, you could have an
argument about whether you think that it's worth increasing it
in the short term for the long term gain. But
it's definitely increasing it, isn't it anyway? Twenty everybody has
different opinions. Thirteen away from seven Gavin Gray are UK

(01:32:14):
correspondents with US.

Speaker 20 (01:32:16):
Now Hikeevin hither Head.

Speaker 2 (01:32:18):
How over crowded are the prisons?

Speaker 20 (01:32:20):
Yeah? Getting to absolute capacity, which is why as of
a couple of hours ago, this government kicked in operation
early dawn. What does that mean? Well, it's a kind
of emergency stop gap in order to try and at
least alleviate some of the pressures on prisons, and it
means that across the North of England, defendants waiting for
a court appearance will be kept in police cells until

(01:32:42):
prison space is available. So normally they're in prison cells,
but there isn't the space that they're being kept in
police cells. Why does that matter well, because now, of
course if an officer on the streets wants to detain
people in a police cell, they may find that police
cell is already full, and those are said to be
running at near capacity as well. So consequently, the sign

(01:33:03):
that Operation Early Dawn has been kicked in really was
something that was used air by the previous government back
in May. They then decided that they would release some
non violent offenders from prison early to free up space
forty to forty five percent through their sentence. It was
controversial at the time, but of course now Labor is

(01:33:24):
saying there is such an overcrowding problem. Although there are
two new prisons coming on streams in the next couple
of months, they are not ready yet. And following the
riots that we've seen and some four hundred and seventy
people being charged and pushed through the courts, there is
simply too much pressure on the system at the moment.

Speaker 2 (01:33:41):
Kevin, have you figured out why hesther En Mezza did
the trip to Columbia publicity there?

Speaker 20 (01:33:47):
I say they were invited. It's not gone down particularly
well here Prince Harry and Megan. Of course, touring Columbia,
there's great concern about their own security, one of the
most dangerous places apparently on Earth in terms of kidnaps
and murders and shootings and so forth. And yeah, they've
had a bit of coverage over here, not a huge amount,

(01:34:08):
but I'm pleased at least they are safe. I dare
say they probably quite happy with the way it went
in that they met lots of people, lots of smiling faces,
But apparently the crowds of those who gathered not for
the official events, but the crowds who were outside were
quite small, and many people just did not know why
they were in their country, or.

Speaker 2 (01:34:25):
Did actually not even know who they were in some cases. Yeah, Kevin,
give me the funniest joke at this year's Fringe festival.

Speaker 20 (01:34:33):
Okay, well, I'm going to hit you with this. It's
quite a Yeah, it's you. You've got to concentrate. Here
we go. I was going to sail around the globe
in the world's smallest ship, but I bottled it. Now
the funniest joke. The funniest joke at the Edinburgh Fringe
Festival is that one has been chosen by members of

(01:34:53):
the public from a short list drawn up by the judges.
The Nautical one liner was ranked among the best by
forty percent of those surveyed. If we've got time, I'll
give you a couple of others. Another one, I've been
taking salsa lessons for months, but I just don't feel
like I'm progressing. It's one step forward, two steps back.
Another one said eight horse at a restaurant once wasn't great.

(01:35:16):
Starter was all right, but the main was dreadful. Another
one said I sailed through my driving test, that's why
I failed it. And the one that I thought was
she really could have done better, coming in at fifth place.
I love the Olympics. My friend and I invited a
new type of relay baton. Well, he came up with
the idea and I ran with it.

Speaker 2 (01:35:36):
Oh okay, Kevin every single year and I can't get
my hit around. And what I want to know is
in what context are these jokes supposed to be funny.
Is this people who are standing on stage and delivering
these jokes and then they got oh that was the
funny one. Let's write that one down and submitted. Or
is it just a whole bunch of punters who sort
of submit what they think are going to be Christmas

(01:35:57):
crack a joke?

Speaker 20 (01:35:58):
No, no, no, These all acts within the Edinburgh Friends
on stage. Yeah, they're doing it well, it's part of
a long routine and then they'll throw in a few
one liners like this, and of course it's now become
a thing to try and win the prize. It's yeah.
I mean in the cold light today on its own
as a one line, you think is that the best
they could do? But actually in a sort of routine

(01:36:19):
they do go down really well. Another of my quick
favorites pints gallons leaders, which I think speaks volumes.

Speaker 2 (01:36:25):
Ah, jeez, it's so bad, isn't it. Devin, Thank you?
I appreciate. Kevin Gray, UK correspondent. I mean that's dead jokes,
that's you know what that is had to be there,
that's what that is. Eight away from seven.

Speaker 1 (01:36:38):
Whether it's macro micro or just playing economics, it's all
on the Business Hour with hither duplicy Ellen and my
HR the HR platform for SME.

Speaker 2 (01:36:48):
Used talks it b You're a typical Kiwi Hither. If
the C word is not in the joke, it's not
funny to you, just just a little bit of just
shade for the whole country there. So thank you for that, Steve. Also,
by the way, somebody made an excellent point earlier which
I think is worth repeating. Ben text through saying I
can't see Darlene Tanna staying on after that pole drop,

(01:37:09):
which is a fair point to make, actually, because almost
nothing causes the Greens to have a pole drop, a
like Julie and Gens is like screaming in somebody's face
on camera. There's no dispute on camera. Nothing happens to
their polling. They go, oh, mate, helping herself to some stuff,
and shops go the going to the cops, go into
the courts, doing the whole walk of shame through the

(01:37:30):
nothing happens to their polling. But Darlene doesn't want to
quit the party when the party wants her to quit,
And suddenly they start coming back and they're gonna be
looking at I imagine they'll be looking at that going,
I'm gonna have to get rid of her otherwise that
carries on anyway, Disney. Disney is in trouble, and that's
probably not a surprise to you actually, because when was
the last time you watched a Disney movie. But that's

(01:37:50):
not why they're in trouble. They are in trouble apparently
because the young kids, the gen z is, aren't loving them.
So just I think it was this last weekend. They
had a fan convention. Very recently. They have fan convention
and Disney super fans go to it. They pay huge
amounts of money. They go and there's like thirty six
different countries. People from thirty six countries fly in and
they dress up. They dress up as Mowana or Tiana

(01:38:13):
or Malificent or Wolverine or Darth Vader. And they had
all of these generations, you know, kind of Disneyish generations,
millennials down I suppose represent but no gen z is.
The gen z Is are the ones who are like
twelve years old through to twenty seven, and they can't
figure out why these kids don't like Disney stuff. Part
of it is, they think because they're way too into

(01:38:34):
influences and being like older than their years because they're
watching too much of the iPad. Some of it may
be the cost, because the thing costs one hundred dollars
a day, which is quite a lot of money. Some
of it may just be that they don't really they're
just not into the fandom thing and dressing up. There's
another aspect which is not being covered by the concerned
reporting about this, which maybe that the whole convention is

(01:38:58):
full of millennials, and millennials are not young anymore. Millennials
are like in their forties. Who wants to go and
dress up with? Like millennials? People in their forties dressing up?
Mowana get a life? Who wants to hang I don't
even want to hang out with them? And I am
a millennial. That's probably the reason.

Speaker 21 (01:39:14):
And I think I would look great in the moanare
utfit personally hither This train is bound for glory, as
performed by Mumford and Sons to play us out tonight.
I always love when I get an opportunity to play
this one. We haven't had a great train story in ages.
How good The train's going to be fancy enough to
have showers and it's only going to cost one hundred
dollars and it's going back and forth Nortan and willing
to night sign me.

Speaker 2 (01:39:33):
Up and it's eighteen forty. I mean, it's not going
to happen, is it?

Speaker 21 (01:39:37):
On the main trunk line?

Speaker 2 (01:39:38):
Hither here we go, yay la la Land. This is
why Wellington gets in the trouble. It gets into because
they go's they're gonna cost one hundred bucks, and they go,
let's get it and then they go whoops.

Speaker 3 (01:39:48):
See you tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (01:40:07):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
news Talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio

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