Midday Edition: 28 April 2025

The Midday Edition of News Fix for 28 April 2025, straight from the Newstalk ZB newsroom - bringing you everything you need to know in news, politics, business, entertainment and sport.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Good afternoon. I'm Malcolm Jordan and this is your midday
news fixed for Monday, the twenty eighth of April. The
government's defending itself after three applicants who failed physical tests
were still admitted to Police College. Police are auditing hundreds
of applications to determine how widespread the issue is. The
Police Association and Labor Party suspect it's because of political

(00:26):
pressure to meet the government goal of five hundred extra
officers by late November. Minister Mark Mitchell says he's adamant
standards are being maintained.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
I find it a bit rich hearing the Labour Party
coming out when they dropped the swimming standard, they dropped
standards around low level offenses, drink driving and drugs offenses.
We haven't dropped any standards at all.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the government's working to make
sure more early childhood support goes to the families who
are supposed to receive it. Our newsrooms revealed the maximum
seventy five dollars a week rebate has only been going
to two hundred and forty nine families, far fewer than
the twenty one thousand who were expected to get it.
The eligibility criteria is now being expanded. The Prime Minister

(01:10):
told Mike Cosking the government had been focused on getting
the policy in place for families as quickly as possible.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Clearly some assumptions from my ID based off some in
complete information led to challenges that some of the assumptions
were wrong as how much people would receive and how
they'll do that. But we can fix that up.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Meanwhile, Luckson says ACC is being told to look over
its ethnic Outcome. Targets Act has challenged the Minister responsible,
claiming the agency's moves to reduce disproportionate injuries to Maori
and Pacifica in manufacturing are against Cabinets guidelines. ACC says
it aligns with the government wanting need based services. Luckson

(01:49):
says he understands Minister Scott Simpson was comfortable about the targets.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Obviously it's an operational decision for them, but he's and
r asked them to go back and reassure themselves and
him that that's been handled well.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
New Zealanders are still very much feeling the effects of
the cost of living crisis. The Financial Services Council's latest
annual Finance Resilience Index shows fifty five percent of people
worry about money daily or weekly. Up to thirty percent
say their savings would last less than a month if
they lost their job. Chief Executive Kirk Hope told the

(02:23):
Prosperity Project there's not a lot of resilience in the system.
A term into the government's teaching mandates, not all principles
are convinced. Since February, all schools are required to teach
an hour of reading, writing and maths a day up
to year eight. Children in years three to ten must
do progress tests twice a year. Upper Hut's Birchville School

(02:46):
principle Robin Brown believes change wasn't needed with most schools
covering subjects in other ways.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Education is integrated, so when they're doing.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
When they learn about rivers, they'd be doing Lucy and
U Messy.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
A thirty year old man's in custody in Canada after
a car ramming at a festival in Vancouver, killing at
least eleven people and injuring more than twenty to sport,
a five way playoff at the LPGA's first major of
the year has led to Japan's Mao Saigo winning on
the first hole at the Chevron Championship, Lydia Coe finished

(03:23):
in a tie for fifty second at five over Shane
Van Gisbergen's finished at thirty first at the latest NASCAR
race in Alabama and about to decide. Boxing's undisputed heavyweight
champion has been locked in. Alexander Usik and Daniel Dubois
will face off for the second time on Sunday, July twentieth,
New Zealand time at Wembley. I'm Malcolm Jordan. That's your

(03:45):
latest news fix. We'll be back with the next update
at five pm from the news Talk zb newsroom.