Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

More than 20 thousand secondary teachers are walking off the job today to strike over the lowest pay increase offer in a generation. 

Post-Primary Teachers Association members will picket outside dozens of schools and MP offices after rejecting a 3% pay increase over three years. 

Opposition Leader Chris Hipkins told John MacDonald teachers deserve more than the Government's offering. 

He says that if they accept thi...

You won’t get me tooting for the striking high school teachers.

Because I don’t think they’re reading the room at all. On the picket lines, unhappy that they've been offered a 3% increase over three years.

And this is nothing to do with the kids not being able to go to school today, because high school kids don’t need babysitting. They can just stay at home and work on their assignments, or go to the mall, or go into town.

The reas...

Canterbury's top police officer believes the current policies around arming New Zealand police officers are appropriate.  

Multiple investigations are underway following a double police shooting in Christchurch that left one dead and another seriously injured.  

The Council of Licensed Firearms Owners says it's an example of what happens when police aren't trained to handle firearms in high pressure situations.  

Can...

We are going to pay more for water services. But even though it's coming about because of government policy, I’m not blaming Wellington. I’m blaming our councils. 

Councils that should be ashamed of how they ran down our water infrastructure to the extent that millions of litres of water disappear every day because of cruddy pipes. 

And the consequence of that neglect and incompetence is going to hit us in the pocket.&nbs...

How would you feel about New Zealand building small nuclear reactors to generate more power?

That’s what the Maxim Institute think-tank is calling for. Saying that, if we did, more of the world’s biggest technology companies could be attracted here to establish big data centres and that would add billions of dollars to the economy.

Thomas Scrimgeour from the Maxim Institute says the rest of the world is going nuclear on the power g...

When I first heard about the police shooting and killing someone they had actually gone to help, like most people, I wondered how the hell that could happen.  

This is the shooting in Bryndwr in Christchurch overnight on Wednesday, which left a woman dead and a man critically injured.  

As always happens, the armchair experts haven’t been slow in coming forward. For example, demanding to know why the police couldn’t have ...

The Mental Health Minister's defending claiming his Government's inherited Hillmorton Hospital and its failings from the Labour-led Government of the time.  

A review of Canterbury's mental health services reveals significant failings, contributing to murders by patients in 2022 and 2024.  

Minister Matt Doocey told John MacDonald it's a fact.  

He says the report lays bare the state of Hillmorton in June 2022, and t...

I can recall a conversation I had about a month ago with Labour leader and former Covid-19 Minister Chris Hipkins about Part 2 of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into his government’s pandemic response.  

And he was saying that he was waiting to be invited to appear, and wouldn’t be asking for an invite, and wouldn’t be gate-crashing. That was around the time that he was also saying the Inquiry was a platform for conspiracy th...

Like anyone, if I can get something for free - I’ll take it.

But if it’s something I have to pay for, then I’ll pay it. Which is how I’m feeling about all this fuss over the new Woodend Bypass, north of Christchurch, being a toll road.

Granted, I won’t be a daily user, so the financial impact on me won’t be the same as it will for someone who uses it every day.

But let’s get a grip. Toll roads are the future.

Tell that to Waimakari...

If I asked you who you would rather go and have a beer with, Christopher Luxon or Chris Hipkins, who would you choose?  

I’d choose Luxon any day. One slight technicality is that he doesn’t drink. But he’d have a lime and soda or whatever he likes to drink, I’d have a beer and we’d probably have a very nice time.  

Reason being that on the occasions that I’ve met him in person, he comes across as a very good guy and good ...

TOPIC 1 EDITORIAL: STADIUM TRAIN

I love this plan for an express passenger train to get people into Christchurch for events at the new One New Zealand Stadium, which is due to open in April next year.

But I’ll love it even more if the councils around here chip-in to pay for a new railway station at the corner of Moorhouse Avenue and Colombo Street, which the rail company behind the plan is describing as a “key ingredient”.

Because,...

You can tell council elections are coming up, because that’s the only reason the Christchurch City Council is going to start using high friction road surfaces at pedestrian crossings, instead of speed humps.    

Even though it knows that speed humps are safer. Even though it knows that it won’t slow down traffic. But you’ve got to keep people sweet when there’s an election coming up.   

They’re starting with a p...

Local politicians from both sides of the political divide are slamming police process around the proposed restructure in wider Canterbury.    

Federated Farmers, City Councillors, and schools are concerned at the lack of community consultation.  

Banks Peninsula MP Vanessa Weenink told John MacDonald the communication, for a start, hasn't been well managed.  

She says police will need to do a lot to assure her, ...

When I heard Transport Minister Chris Bishop talking about the Government’s changes to the road user charges system, I had a bit of a Max Bradford moment.  

Max was the National Party minister who told us back in 1988 that his reforms of the electricity sector were going to mean cheaper power prices.  

Which is what Chris Bishop was saying yesterday about the plan to ditch petrol taxes and move all vehicle owners to road ...

With the Government wanting artificial intelligence to be used to mark high school exams, I asked a ChatGPT bot how it felt about that.   

And here’s what it said: "If the Government were to ask me to mark high school exams, I would feel (if I could feel) cautious optimism, with a big dose of responsible hesitation."  

The bot said, on the upside, it could process thousands of scripts quickly, never get tired, and no...

The Opposition leader says he's worried Police are retrenching from rural communities. 

A planned staffing restructure could move some permanent posted rural officers move to work from 24/7 hubs in Rolleston and Rangiora. 

Officer headcount won't drop.  

Chris Hipkins told John MacDonald he's been through this in his own area, in Wellington's Upper Hutt. 

He says it means Police presence reduces.  

He says ...

Canterbury police say they'll still serve rural communities under a plan to centralise officers.  

They're mid-way through two weeks of internal consultation on a plan to shift some officers from smaller rural stations, to larger 24/7 hubs in Rolleston and Rangiora.  

District Commander Superintendent, Tony Hill, told John MacDonald rural liaison officers will still work with smaller areas, and police will respond and com...

Yesterday, when the Government announced that it was getting rid of NCEA, my immediate reaction was that it was a mistake.  

That we would have been much better sticking with the system we’ve got and improving it.  

Twenty-four hours later, I still feel the same.   

There are some aspects of the changes that I think are brilliant. But the more I’ve found out about it, the more convinced I am that this could all ...