The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Donald Trump says reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated.  The US president is addressing media in the White House after his recent absence from the spotlight over the weekend sent social media into a tailspin.  Health rumours have been ramping up since his diagnosis of a chronic vein condition, with photos of his bruised hand circling online.  US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking his reappearance comes after yet another federal judge ruled against his deployment of military tropes in Los Angeles in June.  He says the ruling could have significant implications for the President’s future plans if it holds, but the Trump Justice Department is planning on appealing.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is this a turning point for the wine industry?  Data shows export volumes are expected to grow 4% to 285 million litres in the year to June 2025.  Export revenue is also forecast to lift to $2.4 billion by 2029.  Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers CEO Brent Linn told Mike Hosking Hawke’s Bay is more domestically focused, with production to export only representing 25% of their market.  He says that they’ve built their pedigree on the premium end of the market, and they have noticed some return to purchases of the Hawke’s Bay brand.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The growing volume of purchases from the likes of Shein and Temu are hitting New Zealand’s import economy hard.  Stats New Zealand has revised the National Accounts, with imports down $2.5 billion in the June quarter.  The average value of parcels has dropped sharply, driven by fast fashion and cheap e-commerce.   Retail NZ CEO Carolyn Young told Mike Hosking a lot more people are looking to buy goods from overseas retailers as opposed to New Zealand.  She says they’re trying to encourage people to buy from local stores and businesses, as it’s important to try keep the money in our economy as opposed to shipping it off to China.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Wednesday 3rd of September, our tourism stats are slowly continuing to move in the right direction. So when will we reach 100% of our pre-Covid numbers?  David Seymour says New Zealand should pull out of the Paris Agreement – National says no. Former Fed Farmers Chair and Associate Agricultural Minister Andrew Hoggard speaks on the topic.   On Politics Wednesday, Ginny Andersen and Mark Mitchell talk the Tamaki Makaurau byelection and Brooke van Velden’s controversial comments, plus Mike extracts a promise as to how early they’d get up in the morning for a prerecord.   Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Government ministers have received a reminder about the "separation of powers".  Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden has been criticised for claiming Employment Relations Authority members believed “money grows on trees”.  She's told our newsroom Attorney-General Judith Collins has discussed the matter with her.  National's Mark Mitchell told Mike Hosking Collins has reminded ministers they can't openly criticise the judiciary.  He says the separation of powers is important in a strong western democracy like ours.  Labour’s Ginny Andersen says the problem is that van Velden seems to have appointed people and expected them to make different decisions.  She says her comments demonstrate that they’ve been appointed on the basis that they’ll make certain decisions as opposed to being independent.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Christchurch father-of-three has won a nationwide competition to design a helmet for Formula One driver Liam Lawson.  The competition, run by Lawson’s team sponsors Red Bull, invited New Zealanders to submit original designs and offered a rare chance to see their creativity come to life on the F1 grid.  Nearly 500 designs were submitted, and the winning design will debut at the Singapore GP in October.   Winner Ian Ebbs told Mike Hosking he took into account things Lawson likes —the colours on his previous helmets, and hobbies like golf— as well as including tastes of home.  He says the design is a taste of New Zealand.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

ACT believes New Zealand needs to be more realistic when it comes to the Paris Agreement.   The party, along with NZ First, have expressed interest in withdrawing from the agreement unless we can negotiate a better deal.  Associate Agriculture Minister Andrew Hoggard says that trying to meet our current targets is costing the country too much.  He told Mike Hosking that we’ve got a lot of good stuff going for us, and we shouldn’t beat ourselves to death over being some sort of sacrificial guinea pig.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Schools are keen to move on from open-plan classrooms due to the negative impacts on learning.  The Government's announced it will give funding to schools for the classrooms to get fixed up.  They will be able to get the money from a contestable fund based on need to put walls in the barn-style classrooms.  Christchurch's Avonside Girls' High School Principal Catherine Law told Mike Hosking a few things worked in them, but overall, the experiment was a disaster.  She says there are some defenders, but the majority of people in education believe they were a mistake.  Law says they were implemented at a time when inquiry and student-based learning was a focus.  She says it was a perfect storm, but having 70 students in a classroom meant the importance of teacher-student relationships and routine was lost.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The tourism sector's still fighting for pre-Covid numbers.  The most recent International Visitor Survey shows overseas visitor numbers have lifted by nearly 200 thousand over the past year – up 5%.  Their spending was up by around $500 million but is still only 86% of pre-Covid numbers.   Tourism New Zealand CEO René de Monchy told Mike Hosking they're pushing to get visitor numbers back up to pre-Covid levels by the end of next year.  He says a lot of overseas markets are competing for international visitors.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We got there at last.  If you are a Golden Visa holder, that’s a person who puts $5-10 million into the country, you can now buy a house.  The idea that we expected you to put that sort of money into a country and then rent was, and is, absurd.  Not to get into the weeds too deeply, but the Golden Visa is different to the 183 days rule.  The Golden Visa means you can invest but not be here the 183 days. But it now means you do qualify for a $5m+ home.  None of this is complex. None of this needed to be as hard as it has turned out to be.  You will note from Winston Peter's comments yesterday he has preserved his ongoing dislike for so-called foreigners coming here and snapping up the countryside and locking the rest of us out of the market, none of which happened of course, but the xenophobic streak runs deep in that party.  But if you go back to National's original idea of $2m, a lot of water has gone under the bridge. A lot of banging of heads has happened and some people have had to be dragged kicking and screaming to what I would've thought was a fairly obvious finish line.  The weird thing for me about Peters is this is the same bloke who is out in the world pleading with said world to come and invest. He's saying come and do business, we are open.  He is trying on one hand to desperately rectify the damage of the Labour Government Covid era, while at the same time doing the old New Zealand First "cake and eat it too" trick. "Please come, please bring your money but, oh, given you're a foreigner you can use Airbnb". It's nonsense.  At $5m it changes little for you and me. It’s a tiny portion of homes. Its two million pounds and it's three million US dollars. For some global citizens it's pocket change.  But it all helps, and man do we need help.  The worry is the difficulty in getting here. Easy, obvious decisions should not be hard. They should be quick and slick.  But we got there. It all helps.  It was a good day for NZ Inc.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.