Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Connectivity is top of mind for many South Island voters.  

South Island businesses are banding together to push their priorities onto the election agenda, using a major new conference to pressure political leaders on growth, infrastructure and workforce issues. 

And for the average person, mobile coverage and connectivity is a big issue – with dropouts and lacking 4G/5G coverage causing problems. 

NZ Telecommu...

They say hope is the last thing to die. And thus it was yesterday when I heard Labour's first policy announcement in months. Give me a reason to vote for Labour – and they didn't. Chris Hipkins and Tangi Utikere announced a cap of some public transport fares —mostly for the cities, mostly for Auckland, where there's already a cap— that cuts off at a lower spending base. Not really the sort of bold and visionary po...

The fact that life is a bit of a grind for many people, and has been for some time, means we start to question the natural order of things. When you can pay your bills, have time to spend doing what you enjoy with the people you love, when there aren't glaring inequities, when the failure of the present system and the people who run it aren't up in your face, when you don't see homeless people and beggars and violence, then everyth...

Public outcry over the entitlements used by Members of Parliament is the only thing that will get them changed, a political analyst says. 

Labour Leader Chris Hipkins has come under fire for using a generous publicly funded private superannuation scheme to pay off the mortgage of his family holiday home, saying that ultimately, it’s his money.  

Other MPs have also been criticised for claiming the accommodation allo...

The Police Commissioner says he should have known months ago that senior officer Rakesh Naidoo had decided to run for Labour, to protect Police impartially. 

Police Minister Mark Mitchell says Naidoo has been privy to private information. 

Commissioner Richard Chambers says he only found out on Sunday, while Labour says Naidoo told a supervisor his intentions last Thursday. 

Chambers told Kerre Woodham there are clea...

Quite frankly, it's all getting a bit much. We're all tightening our belts, we're making decisions about where we're spending our money, what we're spending it on. The rates keep rising, insurance levies keep going up, the cost of everything is through the roof. And for many, many people, there's not a lot of disposable left at the end of the day. Even people who are earning pretty good salaries are suddenly finding there's not as ...

Bayleys CEO Mark Macky joined Kerre Woodham to discuss everything to do with the current housing market including prices, predictions, where the demand is, and advice for first home buyers. 

Macky said that despite the recent changes in the market, for those buying and selling there shouldn't be an issue, "the good news for them though, is that, if you're buying and selling in the same market, if you sell it what the property ...

Labour's accusing the government of secretly spending $1 billion from next year's budget. The Taxpayers' Union has chimed in too, accusing the government of political skulduggery over the billion dollars in undisclosed future spending.

It amounts to $22 million in '27, '28 before ramping up over a four year period. Heather du Plessis Allan asked the Prime Minister about it this morning and he said there's nothing to see here.

"It's...

It's just so infuriating when you see criminals who are given sentences that in no way reflect the heinous nature of their crime. It would be lovely, well not lovely, but it would be admirable to have faith in a justice system, not simply have to endure a legal system. 

The Aussies know how to do it. There was a particularly ghastly pack rape of a young woman who had the misfortune to be walking home from a bus stop at the wro...

I wanted to start today with a landmark study from Monash University. It's found that a routine arming of police officers does not lead to a spike in trigger happy coppers. In fact, after Aussie coppers were armed in the early 1990s, there was a downward trend in shooting rates. The research, which investigated 50 years of officer-involved shootings in Australia between 1970 and 2020, challenges the prevailing assumption that incre...

The speed of the changes to council voting rights is sparking some concern.  

The Government is amending the Local Government Act, which would strip non-elected representatives of voting rights on council committees. 

Changes would impact iwi and youth representatives, although Treaty-based committees are exempt. 

Local Government NZ Board Member and Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell told Kerre Woodham that while they unde...

The Government will stop unelected individuals from voting on council committees, a move an Act MP has described as closing an anti-democratic loophole. It seems like a no brainer. Why should unelected individuals have the right to vote on council committees? Of course people who have never been elected to a council or a government shouldn't be given voting rights. You can certainly ask people for their opinion, their informed comm...

Defence Minister Chris Penk opened the door, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon slammed it shut. Chris Penk was at the Shangri La Dialogue, an annual security forum held in Singapore where defence ministers and military chiefs from across the Asia Pacific gather every year. 

Asked whether New Zealand might ease its rules to allow nuclear powered submarines into its waters, given that Australia's slated to get three nuclear power...

As far as Budgets in economically precarious times go, I thought it was a pretty good one. 

And save yourself the 20 cents, anonymous texter. I can see you typing from here. "Well, you would say that, Tokyo Rose, wouldn't you?"  Well yes, come on, be fair though – what on Earth were they supposed to do? We were warned that there would be very little money to spend. The Government resisted throwing lollies, instant s...

So what would you rather? A little bit of pain now or a whole lot more later? The Reserve Bank yesterday opted to keep the official cash rate at 2.25%, but the decision to hold was a close-run thing. And we know that now because of the transparency around the decisions being made and a jolly good thing it is too. Governor Dr. Anna Breman had to use her casting vote. The Monetary Policy Committee was evenly split on whether to raise...

No matter how meticulously you plan, there’s always a chance something will go wrong while travelling. 

New data from Southern Cross Travel Insurance shows it’s often the small moments that end up costing the most, whether it’s a simple fall on a walking track or a broken bone before even leaving the country. 

Chief Customer Officer Jess Strange told Kerre Woodham that as costs increase across the board,...

Have you done the sums yet to work out how much more you're going to have to pay, how much more you're going to have to find to pay the rates bill? We were talking before the show, for some of my colleagues it's an extra $45 per fortnight, they're in an apartment out of the main city. I can't even imagine how much the increase will be for people living in the leafy suburbs. 

Auckland Council has locked in a 7.9% rates rise, ac...

Fear the cost of living crisis may be getting worse for Aucklanders following the super city's largest ever rates increase.  

The 7.9% rise will see the average ratepayer's bill increase by $320 a year.  

The Auckland Ratepayer's Alliance says the council's budget is bloated and it needs to focus on cutting costs, and they already hear from people on fixed incomes and pensioners struggling to make ends meet.  

Age Br...

Thirty years ago, I was the station manager and breakfast announcer at a very small experimental talk station in Auckland called ‘The Point’ on 1476 AM. It lasted for about three years. It was a lot of fun. Now I mention this because I clearly remember 30 years ago a morning when we discussed what happens to New Zealand when the Maui and Kapuni gas runs out, because even then scientists were warning that supplies were l...