Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

The Newsroom headline 'Luxon Spies an Opportunity' kind of sums it up really. National's leader delivered his State of the Nation speech over the weekend, and basically went back to the future with a promise to reverse Labour's tax grab should National be voted in 2023. Labour spends your money. National gives you your money back. It's the traditional trope. Christopher Luxon was right not to dwell on Covid, even though we've had more hospitalisations and infections with the Omicron variant than we've seen during any time of the pandemic. But there is plenty of fertile ground to be had by talking about how taxpayers' money is spent. Nobody minds money being spent on our hospitals. If there's one thing the pandemic is underlined is that governments of whatever hue, simply cannot afford to neglect our health system. But I personally do mind that this government spends so much money on looking good, gussying up its image.The Government spent close to $1 billion on contractors and consultants in the past financial year, Newstalk ZB revealed the numbers just after Christmas. The figure was down from the previous year of 2020. But still, tens of millions of dollars higher than it was in 2017. And this after a promise from Chris Hipkins to reduce the number of consultants.So while some of that might have been necessary for experts on the like, significant sums have been spent on public relations consultants and communications experts. Why do we need public relations consultants being paid tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars, to tell us what a good job the Government is doing? If in fact, the Government is doing a good job, we can see that for ourselves. We don't need to be told. We don't need to be persuaded. It bothers me that $200,000 is being spent on an American company to listen into social media posts relating to the government rules and policies around Covid-19. Why, why bother? If you think you're doing a good job, if you believe you're doing the best job possible, just do it. Why would you worry what people were saying about you on Twitter? Or about your rules. On Facebook, why does it matter? And if you're going to spend our money listening into our conversations, make the reports public, but they will not.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As Omicron bites and more people are being forced to isolate for extended periods of time, the staff shortages in this country across just about every sector have become critical. The aged care sector is an example - a broad coalition of residents, workers and facility operators has written to the Health Minister warning him that staffing shortages in the sector could become catastrophic if more workers go into isolation. And it's not just the aged care sector that's suffering.  In the New Zealand Herald, Jane Phare, a business reporter, has done another story on the staffing shortages in this country. And across every sector. We're all going to have a problem with the worker shortage with or without Omicron isolation.  You might say it doesn't affect you, but it will soon with increased inflation, delays in infrastructure and building, poor service closures and everyday price rises. Fruit is going to stay unpicked. If there are no pickers, it will stay on the trees until it falls to the ground and rots and you will pay more for it.  You won't be able to get to the supermarket after work or when you usually did, because they are reducing the hours that they're open because they don't have the staff. You're not going to be able to get the car fixed because your workshops are closed and so on and so forth.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A firm that tracks cryptocurrency transactions says US$33.8 million of the digital currency has been donated to Ukraine’s government and non-governmental organisations since the start of Russia’s invasion, nearly a third of it on Wednesday. And with some of the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchanges staying put in Russia, the European Union and United States said they would include crypto currencies in sanctions. Janine Grainger is the co-founder and CEO of Easy Crypto and she joined Kerre McIvor. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was pretty ugly yesterday afternoon, wasn't it? What began with creches and concerts and herb gardens and Kumbaya ended in violence and arson. The Wellington protesters believed they had right on their side. They believed they had all of New Zealand behind them. But ultimately, they believe that their rights superseded the rights of other New Zealanders to go about their business, to go to school, to commute, to work. Their rights don't supersede the rights of other New Zealanders.  Protest all you like; I take my hat off to you. If you feel strongly enough, compelled enough to get out of your comfort zone to go somewhere to raise your head above the parapet and say, I think this is wrong, good for you. But the moment you break the law, the moment you say your beliefs trump mine and I have to seed my right of way to you, you no longer have my support or sympathy. Should the police have acted sooner? I really think it would have been ghastly if they'd moved in the first week. Even the second week. Once the peaceful protesters had upped sticks and gone, then that was the time to go - had they gone in earlier it would have been really ugly. I don't want to see violence, but at the same time I do not want to see protesters think they have the right to supersede my rights. They don't. You have your strong belief, you hold on to it. You protest, you protest lawfully, do not impinge on my rights. And once we start seeing walls around Parliament. That will really brass me off too. Do we need to block off Parliament to the public in general? Or should we just cherry pick and close up the nutters carrying placards with death threats? I'd hate to see protests at Parliament ended because some people acted unlawfully. I think protests at Parliament can be powerful and they can be meaningful. This one wasn't.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, yesterday we got an apology from the Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, over delays in people receiving their Covid test results last week.  He said, as if it was some sort of revelation, that higher test positivity rates meant pooling or batch testing became unfeasible and thus processing tests took longer. There were also problems because they had vacancies in the labs that they couldn't fill and the labs were already down workers because many were in isolation because of the virus. Well, shock me. How is any of this news?  Even those of us without any kind of laboratory qualifications, any qualifications at all really, other than an ability to listen to the radio and to read the news, knew that this was going to be a problem, as Omicron spread as more and more people became positive as the R rate grew higher and higher.  I get angry that more people aren't angry about this. Give them the first six months. But since that time, they're making the same mistakes. They're not consulting with other people with far more relevant expertise than they have. They're not listening to the people on the ground saying we haven't got what we need to do the job. If they don't know, they'll just take a wild stab in the dark and in a way,  I feel sorry for some of the Government ministers, but right now the Government ministers should be putting the blowtorch on the feet of those public officials. You are letting us down as government ministers, we're parlaying wrong information.  You are letting the people of New Zealand down who are trying to do the best in the face of the most bewildering array of instructions, counter instructions and messaging.  You are leading down, I think most importantly those poor under siege, beleaguered public health workers who are doing their best and impossible conditions. It is simply not good enough, and if you get cross that I'm banging on and on about the failings of the Ministry of Health, I'm even more cross that you don't care.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to Tuesday the 1st of March and what a red letter day! Today is a day of joy and unabashed delight.  Looking overseas, we have almost universal pressure from the world on Russia to end its occupation of Ukraine, it's I think the first time I have seen in my lifetime the world coming together and saying no, this is unacceptable and they're prepared to put money where their mouths are in terms of the sanctions, in terms of not allowing Russian athletes deployments across the board, it's just about every sphere.  The major democracies of the world finally showing that they do indeed have cojones in putting significant and meaningful sanctions on Russia. Make no mistake this will hurt Putin and Russia.  Closer to home, self-isolation is over for returning Kiwis. Finally, finally a little bit of common sense!  We are so lucky to live in an age of FaceTime and Zoom, but nothing, absolutely nothing beats the connection of a full body hug between people who love one another, just who haven't seen each other for ages and ages.  Then, overnight we have the announcement of a most excellent trade deal that's been negotiated between New Zealand and the UK. The deal will cut costs for New Zealand exporters provide significantly greater access to the UK market and advance other issues important to news.   50 years later, we're back almost where we started with Britain.  So a great day for New Zealand all round!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's praise all around for New Zealand rea$ching a free trade deal with the United Kingdom. Trade Minister Damien O'Connor says our free trade deal with the UK is a gold standard agreement. The UK has agreed to eliminate tariffs on our exports, with duties removed on 99.5 percent of current trade into the UK. Kiwi exporters are expected to save about 37 million a year on tariff elimination alone. It's expected to boost our GDP by $700 million to $1 billion. Laura Clarke is the British High Commissioner to New Zealand and she joined Kerre McIvor. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've been discussing the Russian invasion of Ukraine overnight. Ukrainian forces are battling Russian invaders on three sides after Moscow mounted an assault by land, sea and air. Thousands of Ukrainians are fleeing to neighbouring countries, including Poland, Hungary and Romania. New Zealand has joined other Western leaders in condemning the invasion and imposing sanctions against Russia. For an explainer as to why this is happening, Director of International Studies at Otago University, Professor Robert Patman joined Kerre McIvor. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was interesting reading the New Zealand Herald headline "Ready, set, go! Employers brace for the Kiwi worker exodus as borders reopen." Over the past couple of months, I've received numerous texts and the old email from people saying, right that's it, I'm off to Australia. Mostly they’re people who identify themselves as young professionals, which is concerning. I haven't heard this much chat about heading to OZ, because of dissatisfaction with the way the country is going, since the final days of the Helen Clark years. That anecdotal kind of evidence is shored up with the story in the Herald. Recruiters and employers are really concerned about the skills shortage right now. It's already tight, but they say if bright young Kiwis head off on their delayed OE, and the government border restrictions mean bright young internationals can't come here and replace them, then we're in shtook. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Urgent changes to government policy are needed to control the conversion of sheep and beef farms to pine trees for carbon farming, according to a discussion paper funded by councils and farmers. The paper, by former Hastings Mayor and National Party MP Lawrence Yule, argues that short-term land-use decisions are being made to the detriment of long-term land-use flexibility, rural communities and export returns. Lawrence Yule joined Kerre McIvor. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.