Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

There are hopes investment in rail is just the boost Auckland needs.  The Government will tip more than $600 million of Government funding in Budget 2025 to fully fund the Rail Network Investment Programme until 2027.  The freight network will get $461 million, and $143 million will be spent on Auckland and Wellington's metropolitan trains.  Greater Auckland director Matt Lowrie told Kerre Woodham some maintenance hasn't been done for decades.  He says that now that funding is coming through, they’ll be able to get improvements done so they can actually maintain and continue to improve services. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Northland might be the meth capital of New Zealand, but Hawkes Bay wouldn't be far behind. One tiny town – Waipukurau - recorded the biggest increase in meth consumption in the country in 2024. It was up more than 300 percent. What concerns the local coppers is that the community staying schtum about who's supplying the drug as Inspector Martin James told 1News last night.  “One of the key concerns for me here in Central Hawke's Bay is a lack of information that is coming through from the public to support us, there will be people within this community that know who are supplying this drug, this heinous drug, and we need them to come forward." Well, there might be people who know, but locals who have spoken to by 1News said they'd never seen any evidence that their town had such a huge meth problem. And I guess you wouldn't if you if you don't do meth, it you don't know people who do meth, then you're not going to see the problem. The police are depending on those who do know. And they might say there isn't a problem in their small town, but surely wastewater testing doesn't lie. The only reason I could think of that you'd see a spike like that would be perhaps a drug dealer has seen the light, had a road to Damascus moment and is going to turn over a new leaf and has flushed tens of thousands of dollars' worth of meth down the dunny over a period of weeks, but you know that is unlikely. This is just the latest call from police, iwi leaders and the Police Minister for the community to play its part in thwarting the gangs and the drug dealers and in saying no, you're not dealing here, not in our town, not to our people. They want the community to be proactive in terms of stopping meth, taking a hold in their communities, but how realistic is it to expect people to dob in their relatives or friends? It would be hard enough when you're an upstanding member of the community with no links to gangs to give police information that could lead to an arrest. You might be concerned about ramifications to your business or to your home or to your family. But imagine if the drug dealers and members of your very own family - you give information to the police that leads to a conviction for dealing, not possession, but dealing, you know that the person will be going inside for a very long time. You might hate the crime, but loved the crim. How do you reconcile helping the police with their inquiries with the knowledge that there could be an enormous impact on your own family member?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Green Party is suggesting an overhaul of the tax system in their alternative Budget.  It includes taxing wealth, inheritance, gifts, and private jet journeys, and they say it would bring in $88 billion in revenue over four years.   New income tax rates of 39% on income over $120,000 and 45% on income over $180,000 would be introduced, and the corporate tax rate would be raised to 33%, 3% higher than Australia's current rates.  Malcolm Rands is the spokesperson for the ‘Open Letter on Tax’ released in May 2023, in which 97 people leading “financially comfortable lives” expressed their willingness to pay more tax.  He told Kerre Woodham he thinks people who can afford more aren’t contributing as much as they can.  He says taxes don’t just fund social welfare and education, but also things like climate change and the infrastructure bills being passed that will need funding.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are the Greens bonkers? The Greens have come out and criticised Judith Collins for tinkering with the Public Service Commission census – that's a voluntary survey run over three weeks and it's a follow up to the initial 2021 survey of the same name. Now Judith Collins and her office had a look at the 2021 survey, and they suggested a few changes. They had thoughts about the census, and they said we don't really need the questions about disability, rainbow identities, religion, te reo Māori proficiency levels, on-the-job training, and agencies’ commitment to the Māori-Crown relationship. Instead, Judith Collins’ office said, we want to put in a new question about whether public servants give excellent value for my salary, there are instances when I consider my work wastes taxpayers money, or I would rate my manager as someone who cares about the effect of my work. They're focused on productivity rather than personal well-being, which seems to be what the 2021 survey was all about.   So the Greens and PSA Union have come out and said it's a form of political censorship, he says several ministers seemed more interested in fighting imported culture wars – there's all kinds of criticism for putting in questions on productivity. Judith Collins says she doesn't really care, to be honest. She says: “I think the Greens are frankly bonkers. I mean, how can they find it difficult that the public service should be delivering value for money? The Greens can go off on their fine little tangents. Frankly, that's their problem. I think it's very, very important.”   So bonkers. The Greens received the same criticism from some quarters when they released their Budget this week. They pledged, among other things, free GP visits, free childcare, funded through new taxes and increased borrowing. The policies include a wealth tax, a private jet tax, ending interest deductibility for landlords, restoring the 10 year bright-line test, doubling minerals royalties, and changes to ACC levies. It would see net debt climb from 45% of GDP to above 53% by the 2028/29 financial year. Criticism was immediate. Idealistic pie in the sky, policies that would mean the death knell for Kiwi businesses. Clown show, economics, Marxism. You probably heard it, you may even have uttered a few criticisms yourself of the Budget.   But is it bonkers? Yes, net debt would climb from 45% of GDP to above 53%, but 60% is considered a sustainable level of debt. It's considered a prudent level of debt by economists around the world. Sure, they're talking bigger economies and when you're a smaller economy, you don't have as much wiggle room, 60% would probably be way too much for a country as small as ours. But 53% – is that completely unsustainable? And do all Kiwi businesses think this is nonsense? I don't think so.   Remember the group of millionaires who wrote to the government a year or so ago? I think it was in the final stages of the last Labour government. It was a group of 96 wealthy New Zealanders who called on the government to tax them more. In the open letter, they said the current tax system contributed towards the gap between the poor and the wealthy. They said they didn't mind if the taxation is done through increased income tax or wealth tax, or a capital gains tax, but the increases should only apply to the wealthy.   Now, how do you define wealthy? According to the Greens, if you're on $120,000 a year, you should pay more tax, Under the Budget that they released —the proposed alternative Budget— If you're earning 120,000 a year, your tax will go up to 39 cents in the dollar. If you're on $180,000 your tax will go to 45 cents on the dollar. Does that then put you in the group of 96 wealthy New Zealanders wanting to be taxed more? When it comes to the differences between the parties, how helpful is it for the name calling, for the bonkers? Do we need to have a look at what policies might work? Are they aspirational policies? Are they policies that need more thinking through? I mean, when you look at the previous Labour government under Jacinda Ardern, initially there were some great ideas. I thought brilliant, fabulous, but they hadn't been worked through, and the unintended consequences was so damaging, and the fallout was so great, from nice ideas that hadn't been thought through.   So before you dismiss ideas completely, is it worth looking through how they might work? Is it worth discussing rather than dismissing ideas completely out of hand? Could there be a generational and ideological divide that blinds us, perhaps to some good ideas?  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, what a to-do. The image of Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters slumped in the House, head in his hands, summed it up really. Brooke van Velden dropped the C-bomb in the house, quoting a Stuff article whose author used the word in criticising the government's decision to amend the pay equity legislation. The coalition's female MPs are angry that Labour MPs, particularly the female MPs, have not condemned the journalist’s use of the word, which was used as a derogatory in the article.   Judith Collins, head of the Privileges Committee, was on with Mike Hosking this morning, ostensibly to talk about the suspension of three Te Pati Māori MPs for their haka in the House, but during the chat she deplored the decline of standards in the House.   “There's a lack of civility now and it's not acceptable, and I feel that the comments of the print journalist in the Sunday Star Times this last Sunday was one of the lowest points I think I've seen in 23 years. That and what happened on the 14th of November in Parliament. It's just the sort of behaviour towards each other that is despicable. So I'd say to Brooke, you know I wouldn't use the word myself, but I did feel that she at least stood up for herself and for all the rest of us, and I am waiting for someone of the left persuasion in our Parliament, one MP, just one, to come out and say it's not okay to attack people just because you don't agree with what they do.”  I think she'll be waiting a while. Karen Chhour has been consistently attacked by Labour MPs and Te Pati Māori MPs, really for just for being a Māori woman who has the temerity to be an ACT Party MP. And to be fair, when Jacinda Ardern and her preschool daughter were receiving violent threats —violent sexual threats, some of them very real and credible threats— there wasn't a universal condemnation of the abuse from National and ACT. Certainly Judith Collins, when she was the opposition leader, said she did not want to see Jacinda Ardern threatened when she visited Auckland in 2021 after the three-month lockdown. She said I don't want to see anything happen to the Prime Minister or have her threatened in any way. I think it's not good for our democracy and also it is not right for people to do that to each other, which is true, and good on her for saying that. But at the same time, it's hardly a universal, strident condemnation of the threats that the Prime Minister of the time was getting.   We were discussing this before the show, one of our colleagues said politicians need to be better otherwise people will just give up. They'll look at the carry on, they'll read the stories and think I'm not going to vote. I argued that there are House of Representatives – they are us, to borrow a phrase. Abuse of MPs on every level increased in 2022, 98% of them reported receiving some kind of harassment. Women were considerably more likely to face abuse on most counts than male politicians. Abuse increased across 11 of the 12 different mediums, with social media overtaking emails, faxes and letters as the most prominent. That came from us. That's men and women, normally erstwhile, law-abiding, God-fearing people who suddenly became more strident.   It was a result of societal factors, of lockdowns, of decisions made that had an enormous impact on people's lives and livelihoods and families. And there will be people who will never forget what happened. It can't be undone. But that all resulted in extremes, in the use of language and the vehemence of our opinions and our tribalism. I had a public Facebook page for years. I think in the in the seven or eight years I had it before Covid, I blocked two people. Once Covid started, I just got rid of it because it's why would you be a sitting duck? When I first heard about the death threats against Jacinda Ardern, I thought, well, who hasn't had them? You know that is not normal. That's not a normal response. The days of Socratic discourse are long gone.  So does that mean we have to give up, my colleague asked, that we have no expectations of our MPs? No. But I think before we ask anything of our MPs, we look at ourselves. I was thinking about that this morning. Can I call out the Principles Federation representative and say before you start looking at the government, how about you call out the poor parents who send their kids to school unable to hold a pen and not toilet trained? Whose fault is that? That is the parents. Can I say that? Absolutely I can. Should I mimic her voice while I'm saying that? No, I shouldn't. Talkback’s a robust forum. It's a bit like Parliament, people get heat up. We're allowed to have opinions. We should have differing opinions, but before I'm going to ask anything of our MPs, before I ask anything of my fellow journalists, I'll have a look in the mirror and check myself out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this spirit of taking the good news where we find it, I was absolutely delighted to see the results of Inland Revenue going after student loan defaulters. At the end of April, there were 113,733 people with student loans believed to be based overseas. If you're based overseas, you don't get the student loan automatically taken out of your pay packet. Overseas, it's up to you to make repayments, and more than 70% of those are in default on their loans – so it’s up to them to make the repayments.  Despite the extraordinarily expensive tertiary education they receive, they don't seem to understand what a loan is. They owe $2.3 billion, of which more than $1 billion is penalties and interest. Even if you wiped the penalties that is still $1 billion, owing to the taxpayer. We paid for the lion's share of the education, around 70% of the true cost of the education, they took out a loan which was paid for by the taxpayer, and $1 billion is owing to us. For about 24,000 of these overseas based borrowers, the debt is more than 15 years old.   Inland Revenue has collected more than $207 million in repayments since July last year from student loan borrowers living overseas, and that's 43% up on the same period the previous year. And the reason for the sudden flurry of productivity and getting the money back? Inland Revenue was given the money, student loan compliance funding, to go after the little thieves, so they finally had the resource to be able to do it.   According to Inland Revenue, they've contacted more than 12,000 borrowers – 1,320 of them have entered repayment plans, 960 have fully repaid their overdue amounts. Inland Revenue has seen a collective repayment of $9 million once they took an interest. Thank God. The department is also looking at borrowers who own property in New Zealand – there are just over 300 of them. And ever since “hello, it's Inland Revenue on the phone. We understand you owe us money. We also understand you have property in New Zealand”, shockingly, these people are suddenly able to find the money to repay the New Zealand taxpayer. So they've paid up $1.7 million.   Any defaulters within the group who have refused to engage and resolve their defaults, says Inland Revenue, will see further legal enforcement taken, which may include New Zealand based bankruptcy or charging orders over their properties. They're doing the same for student loan defaulters who have investments or bank accounts receiving interest income in this country. Just watch these people suddenly come up with the money they owe once they realise Inland Revenue will be able to go sniffing around in their accounts. And as a last resort there'll be arrests at the border.   This is so overdue. In the past there seems to have been a reluctance to go after overseas based student loan defaulters. What about when they all flocked back to New Zealand during the Covid times? That was the perfect time to collect the money owed. It is a kindness to the borrowers to keep that student loan debt at the front of their minds. If you can forget about a big debt, if there are other people screaming at you for money who are up in your grills, you'll park it and put it to one side and think I'll do that when I get a bonus at work, or I'll do that one day, and then it gets so big that it becomes terrifying and you just don't think about it. You will remain in blissful and wilful ignorance of the monies owed, and then the penalties and interest that blow out that original loan. Keep it at the forefront of their minds.   There are all sorts of arguments that have been put up by student loan thieves over the years. We're the best and the brightest. If you come after us, we won't come home. We'll keep our enormous intellects overseas. Well, you can't be that bloody bright if you don't understand what a loan is, can you? It's not a gift. It was a loan. You have to pay it back. Another argument is, “it's all right for you, your generation got free university education we had to pay for it”. Well, it was really the generation before that received free education. But back then, they really did only take the best and the brightest, numpties need not apply. Total enrolments at all universities in New Zealand was 16,524 in 1960. Today there are 177,000 university students in New Zealand. I'm quite happy to have a discussion about making unit centres of academic excellence and restricting access once again to only the very best and the brightest and pay for that education, absolutely. If we reduce it down from 177,000 to 16,000, we can afford that. Happy to have a chat about means testing but not until you do what most of us manage to do, even the most lowly qualified of us ... pay your bills and pay what you owe.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

School principals say they’re grappling with growing numbers of new entrants with behaviour and oral communication issues - and believe the Covid-19 pandemic is to blame. They’re calling for more investment in learning support to help address the problem. Kerre Woodham believes the problem lies not with the education system, but rather with parents who fail to prepare their kids to enter it. "How about principals, instead of moaning and grumbling and demanding more of the taxpayers' money to shore up the gaps and poor parenting, actually call the bloody parents to account." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Inland Revenue says attitudes are shifting among student loan holders living overseas.   More than $200 million has been collected from overseas borrowers since July last year – a big annual increase.  More than 24,000 people are thought to be overseas, collectively owing $1.3 billion on loans going back more than 15 years.  IRD's Jane Elley told Kerre Woodham since they received additional funding they’ve been able to ramp up their workforce, enabling them to be a lot more targeted when chasing debt.   Her advice to anyone struggling with their loan is to get in contact with the IRD – ignoring the problem only makes it bigger.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This particular pre-Budget announcement should be music to the ears of parents who are currently working every hour God sends to pay for extra maths coaching for their children. You might have heard them on this show before – parents who really can't afford it, but say to themselves they can't afford not to, pay for the sort of tuition that teachers are unable to give in school, that one-on-one coaching to fix the gaps in literacy and in maths. Core subjects that teachers should be able to teach and should have time to provide extra support for those children who needed a little bit of a catch up, but in the modern-day classroom environment, it appears they cannot.   Next week's Budget will include nearly $100 million in funding over four years for students who are underachieving in maths, including $56 million for the equivalent of 143 “maths intervention teachers” in primary schools. I didn't know we had a “maths intervention” tree, but it will be fantastic to pick 143 teachers off there and pop them in the classrooms. Perhaps they'll come out of the after-school tuition programmes.  From next year, all students will have their maths ability checked in their first two years of schooling, which is fantastic. You have to know where you're coming from, you have to have a base from which you can start. Education Minister Erica Stanford said the maths check scheme would cost $4 million and aims to identify students who need more support, similar to the literacy phonics check unveiled last year, which is going, by all accounts, great guns. So that's $100 million that we've got, that's $56 million spent on the maths intervention teachers, $4 million for the maths check scheme, and according to my maths, that leaves us $40 million that will fund small group maths tutoring for up to 34,000 year  7 & 8 students each year, from next year. Hell-ay-jolly-lujah!    As I say, parents are trying to shore up the gaps in their children's maths education by enrolling them and after school tuition at considerable expense will be absolutely delighted. Are the teachers? Thank you for asking. According to Upper Hutt Principals Association president Robyn Brown on Early Edition this morning, not so much.  “Unfortunately our problem doesn't sit in maths. We are desperate for learning support and if we want to improve achievement, we need to put every cent we have into learning support rather than ring fencing it just for maths. We know that that's not going to make a huge difference. At the moment we have inadequate PLD or professional development for teachers. On a curriculum that they've only had two terms to teach so far, it's not been implemented with ability, we have no way of even assessing it yet.”  It would be great if you could say $100 million investment in our classrooms is fantastic, but I guess you're not going to get that from Principal Associations and education ministries. They have been saying for some time, since Labour was in power, that they need more professional development. They need more time and there have been many, many changes within the schools around the curriculum, and I don't blame them for wanting to catch a breath, catch up with what this iteration of the curriculum looks like. But when she says math isn't the problem, that is the problem.   In 2023, New Zealand students recorded their worst ever results in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment. The average student dropped up to 15 points in maths, one of the worst performing. It's not a one-off. New Zealand's “achievement” in maths has plateaued for the past two decades. And then you had all this nonsense back in 2022, saying they get maths anxiety before tests, they're very anxious. They're actually brilliant at maths, they just get very anxious before exams. What tosh, absolute nonsense. They don't know the answers – that's where the anxiety comes from. They're not prepared; they don't know how to do it. Parents know this. They will welcome this investment even if the teachers don't, or the teachers' unions and representatives don't.   When it comes to the learning difficulties, that surely is a separate matter entirely. Neurodiverse kids, kids who are behind the eight-ball from the time they were born because of the damage done in the womb, that is complex, it is difficult, but surely it's a completely separate issue. I'm not sure it should be conflated with your average school kid needing to do better in core subjects – children who are able to learn from a standard curriculum, who want to do better, who deserve better, who should be doing better. I'm sure there's a shopping list a mile long that any teacher or principal has when it comes to doing the best for the kids that turn up in their classroom. Too often your ordinary, everyday children are getting left behind and forgotten. They deserve the best. They deserve to be supported and encouraged and just see how far they can go, not have all the money spent on trying to deal with incredibly complex and difficult situations with families and children. How about a little support for these kids whose parents are doing the best by them, whose teachers are trying to do the best by them but they're getting dragged in so many different directions and situations?   I'm all for this this. It’s fantastic. Have the base check, know which children are going to need the extra support, target it to them and hopefully, hopefully in a few years we won't have children leaving primary school who are illiterate and innumerate, because that has been a crying shame for the past two decades and that is only going to benefit New Zealand to have a better educated populace. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The government sent a strong signal to boy racers that their days of running amok on the roads are over. Car crushing is not new, it's been announced before - Judith Collins was police minister in 2009 when car crashing legislation was introduced for recidivist boy racer offenders, hence her sobriquet, Crusher. In fact, only three cars were crushed and Judith Collins wasn't the police minister by the time it happened, because he needed three strikes before a car was crushed.   Anne Tolley was the police minister when the first of the three cars was crushed. But despite the fact only three ended up in the jaws of the hydraulic crashes, Judith Collins said the legislation worked as a deterrent. Vehicle offences lowered by 15% in the first year of the legislation and she said police had seen a massive drop off in the number of complaints about boy racers. At the time, Collins wanted to see the legislation extended to cover those who fled police. Now, a decade and a half later, it’s happening. Chris Bishop and Mark Mitchell have announced a suite of legislation aimed at dangerous drivers. According to Chris Bishop, Kiwi’s are sick of seeing idiot drivers putting everyone around them at risk, so the governments going to take action through a range of much tougher penalties. And they are: Establishing a presumptive sentence of vehicle destruction or forfeiture for those that flee police, street racers and intimidating convoys and owners who fail toidentify offending drivers. Giving police more powers to manage illegal vehicle gatherings by closing roads or public areas and issuing infringements. And increasing the infringement fee for making excessive noise from or within a vehicle from $50 to $300. The changes will be introduced in new legislation and in mid-2025 and Chris Bishop says convicted fleeing drivers, boy racers and people participating in intimidating convoys will have their vehicles destroyed or forfeited. No three strikes. When you commit an offence that comes under this legislation your car will be gone. But I owe $30K on it! Tough. You'll keep paying it off to the finance company, but you won't have a car. Is this sort of heavy-handed legislation necessary? Well, yes according to the Police Association President Chris Cahill. The one conviction, rather than having to have three convictions under the current law, should make a difference. Look, we've got to do something. These things are out of control and they're not just anti-social boy racing. These things have got to the point where they deliberately antagonising police when they turn up – They're getting bottled, they're getting their cars rammed and the public had gutsful of it when it's in their neighbourhood, so I think it's worth a try. Worth a try? Well, yes, it worked before apparently according to Judith Collins, and she had the stats to support it. When it was introduced critics said, well, only three cars were crushed. Precisely, she said, because people changed their behaviour. She said clearly these boy racers aren't idiots. They don't want to lose their cars, so therefore they won't commit offences that mean their cars will be seized and destroyed and if it works as a deterrent, so much the better. I'm glad to see that they're going to extend the legislation to those who flee police. That can only make the roads safer. I’m all for it.   Ever since I began doing talkback, which is going back a very long time, there have been problems with young people, men and women, and not so young, those who are old enough to know better getting together and deciding that parts of the roads belong to them and are going to be their private racetrack. And there's a school of thought that says, oh, they're just kids, they're just having fun, this is how they learn to drive. There's nothing for them to do, this is their passion. Well, no, there are plenty of places where these young men and women can go on race legally if they want to prove themselves. And don't come at with me with the ‘it's expensive’. You choose to spend money in all sorts of ways. Your cars are expensive. You take pride in them. Pay the money. Go to a racetrack where you can really prove yourself. It's not harmless fun. Not when people have been killed, maimed and injured. And not when it's costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not when you’re filthy little oiks leaving your rubbish everywhere. Not when you're abusive. Enough. You won't get your car seized if you don't break the law  - really easy. You won't get your car seized if you stop for police when they tell you to do so. You won't get your motorbike seized when you and your dodgy mates don't get together in a convoy and break the law and stick two fingers at the police and at us. It's really simple. Nobody's coming after you. If your car is seized, you've gone looking for trouble. Bring it on.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.