Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

I have said it before and I'll say it again. We can argue for hours, we can have online debates, we can write letters to the editor about whether extreme weather events are the result of anthropomorphic activity or whether we're just in the middle of a natural cycle that's occurred for millennia, but ultimately, what we think about climate change doesn't really matter. It's what banks and insurers and councils and the Government thinks that matters. And when they decide climate change is making some homes uninsurable, there's no arguing about it. Insurance companies just will not insure you, which means you won't be able to get a mortgage, which means you won't be able to buy a home in certain places unless you can buy it on your EFTPOS card, like Westport.  There's a story on Radio New Zealand's website today. A major insurance company has temporarily stopped offering new home insurance policies in Westport because of the fact that the town floods and floods again. AA Insurance, which has approximately half a million New Zealand customers, wrote to Buller District Mayor Chris Russell at the end of 2023 to tell him AA would halt new business home and landlord insurance policies for properties in the 7825 postcode, which covers Westport, Carters Beach and Cape Foulwind. The company said existing policies would stay in place and it had put a transfer policy in place for anyone looking to buy or sell a home that was currently insured with AA.  Tower Insurance is another one. People who own properties in locations where Tower deems the risk is too great are now being denied insurance cover outright. Beware signing up to a sale and purchase agreement before you can be sure you have insurance. A couple of legal firms are saying would-be buyers have found when they apply for a mortgage that they've signed up for a property on an insurer's red-lined list. Because they can't get insurance, they can't get the mortgage. But with no insurance condition in their sale and purchase agreement, they still have a contractual obligation to settle on the purchase.  Back to Westport. The West Coast Regional Council Chief Executive said the first stages of the Resilient Westport project involved building 17 kilometres of stopbanks. Most of that work's in the planning and design stages, but two sections have been built already and that will be protecting around 30 houses that hadn't had that protection before. And in the next few months, they'll be progressing more of the flood bank, which will result in more houses being protected. And the council plans to show that to insurers who'll be visiting the town at the end of next month as different stages of the flood protection scheme are completed.  So AA has said to Westport that if its flood exposure drops below the maximum exposure limit in the future, if they believe the flood banks will do the job of protecting the homes, then they'll reopen books to new customers. But they're not the first insurer to stop insuring where they deem the risk is too great, and they certainly won't be the last.   So as I say, we can argue all we like about climate change and who's responsible and whether anyone should be held responsible at all. It really doesn't matter because policies are being drafted, policies are being enacted that take climate change into account. And whatever we believe, we will be denied insurance, paying the increased premiums, reshaping our towns and communities as a result of what the banks, the insurers and the council believe. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The arrival of Netflix and other film streaming services was the death knell for video rental stores. Five years after Netflix arrived in New Zealand in 2015, the majority of stores, once mainstays of our weekends —who didn't go in and spend an hour or so in the video rental store trying to decide what to choose for the weekend?— had closed across the country.   Yet despite 99% of New Zealanders saying they used email regularly in that same year, 2015, postal services have endured. Now sure, they've reduced as mail volumes have dropped off. 2015 was a big year because that's when postal deliveries went from six days a week to three as the mail volumes declined. But at least my toll payment notices and my cards from Aunt Barbara are still arriving in my letterbox three days a week.   The decline of video stores was relatively quick, if not painless. The decline of postal services is long and slow and may yet not be terminal. Take the announcement yesterday that New Zealand Post is to remove its services from 142 franchise partners. On the face of it, grim news. Yet in the same press release, New Zealand Post GM of Consumer announced that many of the remaining stores will be upgraded and new retail hubs featuring modern spaces designed for parcel sending, collection, and returns will be opening across the country. All well and good.   But for the franchises, those businesses that had New Zealand Post services in their stores, they say people do still send letters and parcels. They do still contribute significantly to their businesses. The owner of Marsden Books in Karori, Briony Hogg, told Ryan Bridge this morning that having the post office in store brings in a number of people.  BH: For us as a small bookshop in a suburban area, it's all about the people that it brings into the store. People would come in to do their posting and while they're in there, they'll buy a card and they'll buy a book and they'll have a chat and we build a relationship with these people and yeah, we're really, really disappointed that we've lost that.  RB: Do you know what sort of impact it might have on your bottom line?  BH: It's going to be pretty significant. It is a large portion of our revenue. So now we're going to have to think about ways that we pivot, ways that we change in the way we do business. And it's been a pretty exhausting couple of years to be a small business owner. I'm sure there's people out there that just don't have the energy to do that sort of pivot anymore. So yeah, it's going to be really, really significant, not just on me, but on all the other 141 outlets that got closed yesterday.  Yes, it's interesting too the choice of franchise owners that NZ Post has chosen to keep. I am no NZ Post GM Consumer, but a bookstore seems to make more sense for a New Zealand Post franchise than a service station, but there we go.   The fact remains it's a government-owned company and if it's making a loss, that's a loss the taxpayer has to wear. In the 2024 financial year, the state-owned enterprise reported a loss of $14 million. Chump change if you're a former Labour government, but nonetheless $14 million. The moves announced yesterday are part of the plan to return to profitability.   In a way, it would be quite freeing to not have postal services anymore. I'm still hung up on sending cards to denote formal occasions, but I faff around. I still owe a thank you card to generous hosts from Christmas. A month has now gone by. Their generosity was such that I need to acknowledge it, and an email just doesn't do it. Yet I would have sent an email within days of Christmas. But because I'm still trying to find the right card and get an actual physical voucher, it'll probably be Easter before I post my thank you. And a thank you delayed is an ill-mannered ingrate. So if there was no postal service, I could use that as an excuse rather than just faffing around. But I still love sending cards and maybe that's just a generational thing. There may be those of you 30 and under who are thinking, "What? I only get my speeding tickets in the mail and that is that and I could easily do that online." But some occasions just seem to require a formal thank you, a formal handwritten "I've taken the time to acknowledge what you've done for me and I appreciate it." And I would be really, really, really sorry to see that go. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

And here we all are, another summer, and while for many people it was fun in the sun and family catchups, for others it was dealing with floods and landslides. Specialised crews are still working, and will be working for some time yet, on recovering the bodies of the missing Mount Maunganui campers. Families are mourning the loss of a Welcome Bay grandmother and grandson killed in another Bay of Plenty landslip, and around the country communities are dealing with being cut off from main thoroughfares and facing lengthy drives to access any kind of amenities, probably counting their lucky stars that their family members are not among the dead and injured from this year's summer storms.  It's horrifying, but it's not unexpected, is it? Ever since humans have attempted to tame the environment around them, they've had to deal with the fact that often they will come off second best. So, do we need to rethink how and where we build our communities? It's the definition of madness to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results, and yet that is what we do.   Cabinet's meeting this morning and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told Mike Hosking they'd be discussing the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to fix major roading damage from this year's summer storms. Last year they met to discuss the hundreds of millions of dollars that would be needed to fix roads, the year before that they needed to fix kilometres of roads around the country, and that too would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. A large part of the Waioeka Gorge, which connects Gisborne and Bay of Plenty, will be closed for several weeks to clear slips from the roads. Farmers in the region are calling for a plan B and a more resilient road network because they say they can't handle being cut off from the rest of the country every 18 to 36 months.  There are some communities that are looking at other options, rather than rebuilding every time there are floods and doing that every 18 to 36 months. You've got the town of Westport that's looking at a long-term managed retreat strategy, where they're not going to build a new town per se, but gradually any new projects will be built on higher, safer ground away from the severe flood risk, and there'll be plans for a new hub and infrastructure to encourage gradual relocation over generations.   There's also a proposal to shift Kumeū's town centre over a number of years. That was tabled by the Auckland Council around about this time last year. A proposal to shift Kumeū and Huapai area because it has a repeated history of flooding, and yes, you can pay the higher insurance rates and you can rebuild and do it again and again, but why would you if there is an alternative? Infrastructure proposals are also being put forward, but a number of community leaders are saying it's pointless, it's putting your finger in the dyke. The better option is to concede defeat and build somewhere else.   Certainly there are ways to mitigate damage from flooding and landslips, there are ways of predicting which areas are more prone to flooding and landslips, technology's improving all the time. In some instances though, do we just need to acknowledge that we are no match for the power of nature, concede defeat and step away? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Inflation's officially higher than it's supposed to be.  Latest Stats NZ data shows inflation's reached 3.1% – up from 3% at the last update three months ago.  That's above the Reserve Bank's target range of 1 to 3%.  The Herald's Liam Dann told John MacDonald it's also well above the Reserve Bank's forecast of 2.7%.  He says there were hopes inflation was starting to fall again, so to see a rise like this isn't good at face value.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ambulances have been seen coming and going from the site of a major search operation at the base of Mount Maunganui.  Multiple people remain unaccounted for after yesterday morning's landslide, with crews working through the night to shift a massive amount of dirt and debris.  A source has told the Herald as many as nine people are potentially trapped.  Herald Senior Investigative Reporter Michael Morrah is on the scene and told John McDonald there's a huge amount of activity.  He says the disaster identification team, search and rescue team, and sniffer dogs are working through the debris.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People still aren't accounted for in Mount Maunganui's Beachside Holiday Park after a landslide roared into the campsite at the base of the mountain at about 9.30 this morning.   Images show a caravan on its side inside the nearby the hot pools.   Newstalk ZB Sport reporter Brian Kelly says about 30 police cars have arrived – the most he's seen in the town.    He says there’s a couple of helicopters, seven or eight fire engines, and a digger on scene, and the only comment he’s gotten is from a police officer who was sprinting past, saying the slip is bad.  The torrential rain that's lashed the North Island's east coast has caused flooding, slips, and road closures.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Prime Minister's keen to raise the retirement age -- but it's not possible in coalition with New Zealand First. The Government is halving its KiwiSaver contribution rate -- and canning if people earning more than 180-thousand dollars. The default rate of worker and business contributions to KiwiSaver will rise over time. Chris Luxon told Kerre Woodham pushing out the retirement age to 67 makes sense. He says Labour doesn't think it’s a good idea, and New Zealand First does not want to move that forward. Luxon also spoke about the cuts the government made to make funding available elsewhere.  Budget 2025 includes 21 billion dollars of cost-savings - 13 billion of that from the controversial change to pay equity law - raising claim thresholds. Prime Minister Chris Luxon told Kerre Woodham these are difficult choices, but there's no way they could afford that. LISTEN ABOVE OR WATCH HERE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealand Inc. is in trouble and it's on us —you and me— to fix it. Not politicians, not economists, not even our blessed farmers who've got us out of trouble time and time again – it is on us, New Zealand voters.  It doesn't matter whether we vote left or right, red, blue, green, yellow, or black. We all have to give our political parties the cojones they need to enact the policies that will save this country. Treasury's been warning us for years now, decades. Current government policies —whichever government has been in— are not sustainable.  Treasury's 2025 long-term fiscal statement says population ageing is going to put unbearable pressure on New Zealand's long-term fiscal position. You know this. If you know anything about news, if you know anything about New Zealand politics, if you know anything about New Zealand society, you know this to be true.  ANZ senior economist Miles Workman says Treasury's report should be on the reading list of every New Zealander. Because, he says, I don't think politicians are going to be able to make the changes that are needed here until the voting public is behind those changes. And he's right.  In short, fiscal pressures will accelerate in coming decades with costs of superannuation and healthcare expected to rise significantly as the population ages. There is no one solution. In 1965, there were seven working-age New Zealanders for every person over 65. So that was seven working New Zealanders paying taxes for every person over 65, and for the most part, in 1965, those people on the Super weren't working. Today, we have four working-age New Zealanders to one person over 65. In 40 years, which is not a very long time, it'll be just two working New Zealanders to every person over 65. Successive governments have known this. Voters have known this.  But political parties need the support of voters to make the changes that are needed, as Infometrics principal economist Brad Olsen told Ryan Bridge last night.  “The worry a little bit is that we've had these warnings before. We had something very similar from the Treasury four years ago in 2021. And realistically, I think what the Treasury is continuing to highlight is that there's, there's a lot of big challenges in front of us. We don't have to solve them all tomorrow, but we really do have to start sometime soon to get us out of what looks like a very unsustainable pathway going forward. But, and here's the biggest kicker for me, you can't do any one thing and it will magically solve our sort of fiscal challenges. There's a lot that's going to have to happen that will be unpalatable to politicians across the political spectrum, but by goodness, we've got to start soon.”  It's only going to be “unpalatable” if political parties expect voters to act out of self-interest. And that's what I mean, it's on us to affect the changes.  I was talking earlier this week about the need for political parties to have a bipartisan approach to important issues like infrastructure and health and education curriculum. It's absolutely imperative. They can tinker around the edges, but it is incumbent upon them to have an infrastructure plan to stop the waste of money. And it's incumbent upon us to take a grown-up approach and look at the good of the country as a whole, not our immediate needs.  If you've got your Super, calm the farm – your gin money's quite safe. Nobody's taking it off you now. But those of us in the 45 to 60-year age group need to realise that we're the ones that need to affect the changes needed to keep the country alive by allowing politicians to introduce policies that if they tried to introduce them previously would have sent them to political oblivion.  There are options: raising the age of Super eligibility, broadening the tax base, (euphemism for fiscal drag and wealth taxes), index linking super payments to inflation rather than wages, means testing – these are all options.  And another option is that New Zealand grows its wealth, that we become wealthier so we can afford it all. That's not looking likely. Treasury notes in the report that recent productivity trends have diverged from past projections, which means productivity growth over the past two decades has been weaker than predicted, averaging just 0.7% per year, and they expect that to last.  So, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.  I would like to think if we make the changes necessary, the Super will be there for those who need it. I would like to think that if we make the changes necessary, young people starting off in life, starting off with their families, will not be crippled by the burden of looking after people who were too lazy and self-interested to vote for the changes needed to spread the burden.  It's on us. We can't just look to the politicians – what are they going to do? They are only going to come out with policies that they think will appeal to us. Are we that childlike that we just want the sweets before we'll vote a political party in? We have to be grown-ups. We have to grasp the nettle and say this is tough and this is going to be ugly, but we're going to do our bit to ensure that New Zealand is a better society for future generations. That's the way it used to be, and we've dropped the ball.  You know, we can moan and grizzle all we like about the waste of money and the lack of purpose and the dithering around and the incompetence, but ultimately, if we want to affect change, it's on every voter in this country to do so. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With all the hats he wears, Chris Bishop has been busy this year.  He’s the Minister for Infrastructure, and also holds the portfolios for Transport, Housing, RMA Reform, and the role of Leader of the House.  While wrapping up 2025, Bishop told Kerre Woodham he’s proud of how the Fast Track legislation has been tracking.  He says things like the Waihi North mine expansion and the Port of Auckland expansion would have normally taken years to break ground, but the legislation means they’re both underway.  Plus, he told Woodham, there are big housing developments, renewable energy projects, and many more coming through his office.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hornets are on notice as the Government commits $12 million to stamp them out in Auckland.  The yellow-legged hornet was detected on the North Shore earlier this year.  They pose a serious threat to honeybees and, by extension, to the agricultural sector.  Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard says since the start of November, 37 queen hornets and 28 nests have been destroyed.  More than 730 traps have already been deployed.  Hoggard told Kerre Woodham they’ve searched over 6000 properties so far.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.