Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

This is the one time where Chris Hipkins' many portfolios are perfectly aligned - Covid Response Minister and Education Minster. He's made a tough call. Was it the right decision?I can't help feel that it was the only decision the Government could really make. As a parent, I can see the impact on my children who haven't been able to see their friends.The zoom meetings just aren't cutting it. Tim Beveridge on the Government's decision for school's to return from November 17. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Winston Churchill used to visit to bombed areas of London in a gesture of solidarity. He wasn't hunkered down. What's our Prime Minister done? She's been down in Wellington. She's said she knows the plight of Aucklanders. Nonsense. She has no idea. Tim Beveridge speaks ahead of Jacinda Ardern's first visit to Auckland in three months.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The last time Rose Langbein joined Kerre McIvor, she was reporting from the Lower East Side in New York and was in her third week of lockdown. That was the 3rd of April 2020, when lockdowns and Covid were very new and novel! Since then, Rose has returned home to New Zealand to collaborate on her second book with her mother Annabel - Summer at Home.You can find it at your local supermarket and all good bookstores. The book will also be available online for those who are abroad.Rose and Annabel Langbein joined Kerre McIvor.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The long-awaited announcement around MIQ was made yesterday and yet again, people with loved ones overseas, people who are desperate to travel for business - people who just want to get off the island have been told to wait.   ‘Eventually’, ‘soon’, ‘shortly’, seemed to be the most used words in Chris Hipkins speech.  Sure, those who have been lucky enough to secure MIQ rooms will have their stay in isolation reduced. From November 14, they will spend just one week at their MIQ hotel, not fourteen days.  They will be able to isolate at home after seven days, provided they test negative throughout their stay.   But, Hipkins warned that reducing the stay didn't mean that the number of rooms available for Kiwis wanting to travel would double.  The rooms that WILL be freed up as a result of the shorter stays will be used to isolate community cases of Covid who are unable to travel at home.   No reviving of the trans-Tasman bubble, no self-quarantining at home for the fully-vaxxed until at least the first quarter next year and no hope for people stranded overseas without the possibility of securing work because their visas have expired. I tend to agree with Sir Ian Taylor - There's not a lot of forward thinking or innovation in the Government's plan. But then I guess the Government knows they're onto a winner.   It's shocked me how many people like being locked up and told what to do.  It's shocked me too how small minded so many people are.   I'd love to talk to the travellers, the explorers, the adventurers - those who were waiting desperately for some good news from the Government on MIQ and who were let down once again.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealand Herald Political Reporter Thomas Coughlan has written a great breakdown of Three Waters and he joined Kerre McIvor.LISTEN ABOVE   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government is pushing forward with its overhaul to the governance of water. The Three Waters reforms will see council-owned drinking, storm and waste-water services amalgamated into four regional bodies.They also announced yesterday it will be mandatory for councils to join the changes, removing the opt out clause.Dr Muriel Newman is the Director of the New Zealand Centre for Political Research, a public policy think-tank, and she joined Kerre McIvor. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was only a matter of time. In fact, Chris Hipkins said that yesterday - it would only be a matter of time before Covid reached the South Island and it’s arrived;  via two members of the same household who had recently returned to Christchurch from Auckland. There is very little information at this stage - we will be bringing places of interest to you as they come to hand - but the Covid 19 Response Minister CH updated the Mike Hosking Breakfast with what information they DID have. The Minister said it's too soon to say whether Christchurch or the South Island would be moving up an alert level - remember Auckland was put into a lockdown 70 odd long, long days ago on the basis of one case. But here's hoping the South Island dodges a bullet.   Remember the Australian traveller to Wellington - he had the most splendid time visiting all sorts of hip locations and he also had Covid but mercifully no-one else got it.  The Coromandel - nobody else got it there either.   So, fingers crossed for our brothers and sisters in the South, although - and here's a thought - do you WANT to go up a level?   If you're sitting in Auckland or Waikato, most of us can't imagine anything worse than being under any kind of restrictions, whether you're vaccinated or unvaccinated.  People in those regions have pretty much made their choices and are ready to go.   But if you're in the South Island, you haven't seen a case of Covid in a year.  There was the Blenheim case, but that seems to have been contained.  And that was only recently.  Vaccination rates in the South Island are pretty good - bar the West Coast. This revelation of Covid reaching Canterbury must surely give those who have just been sitting the on the fence the push they need to get to their nearest vaccination clinic.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government is set to force through its Three Waters reforms, u-turning on a previous promise to make it voluntary for councils to join up to the amalgamation plan. National party leader Judith Collins joined Kerre McIvor.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government is set to force through its Three Waters reforms, u-turning on a previous promise to make it voluntary for councils to join up to the amalgamation plan.Act leader Daivd Seymour joined Kerre McIvor to discuss.LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, the PM sure came out thundering at yesterday's presser.   When I heard the extent to which she was going, with mandating vaccinations, I thought she has clearly had her people read the mood of the room.   You have 86% of the population with at least a first dose, 71% fully vaccinated. That is the vast majority of us.   That is the vast majority of New Zealanders who have said, yes, if the vaccine is what we need to get out of this mess, or who have said yes, we believe the science and we have asked questions - why did it take so long?  And they have been answered to our satisfaction, and we've had our vaccination, or are people who would rather travel to see family and friends than go down a rabbit hole with imaginary friends on social media. Whatever the reason, the overwhelming majority of us have had the jabs, as requested, and have sat and waited. Vaccinated businesspeople wanting to open up to vaccinated customers and they have been unable to do so for weeks and weeks and weeks.  And the compliant are becoming non-compliant.   Two vaccinated friends might meet up inside, on the deck, for a cup of tea.  Your kids might play with the kids from two houses down the road, racing each other on their bikes down the empty street.  And you wonder why you're still at this point when you and everyone you know has done what's needed to lift these restrictions on our everyday freedoms.   Surely, when there's a bus out of restrictions and into freeland and people are on board, ready to go, and somebody says, What about the family up the valley?  They don't have a car to get to the bus stop - we need to go and get them.  Fair enough.  They deserve to be given a chance.  So, everybody on the bus, drives up the valley and stops outside of the door of the family and explains that there is the opportunity to get out of a restricted way of living and drive to freedom and the family goes 'yeah, nah, I don't like the that Phizer bus, I'm going to wait for the Novovax bus.  You guys should too.   That bus could be months away.  It's not even on the timetable.  I think, in that case, it's perfectly reasonable for the kids on the Pfizer bus to roar off down the valley, through the quiet streets of a locked down Auckland and make their way to the Waikato to pick up their locked down cousins there.   The PM was speaking for the vast majority of exasperated people - both vaccinated and unvaccinated, who are ready to open up now.  And the very best thing she did was take the pressure off businesspeople, who would otherwise have had to police vaccination certificates and have lengthy negotiations with staff.   Those in hospitality - an industry that has been hit so hard - were desperately looking for leadership like this.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.