The Mike Hosking Breakfast

It’s not a Kiwi summer without Six60, and the county’s highest selling live band is rolling on.   They’ve dropped their latest single, ‘We Made It’, coming in the wake of their bestselling Australian performance at the Sydney Opera House.  They’ll also have the honour of being the first live act to perform at the new One NZ Stadium in Christchurch and are curating a new country and roots music festival, taking place this summer in Matakana.   Lead singer Matiu Walters told Heather du Plessis-Allan it’s just a one-day festival at the moment, but they have plans to grow.  “It’s definitely a tough time for the arts, music, and for everyone really, to be fair,” he said.  “We didn’t, we never want to kind of just, to like, rest on our laurels.”   Over the years they’ve been performing, Six60 has smashed records, being labelled as the country’s first-ever Chart Icon at the 2025 Aotearoa Music Awards, and Walters says their drive stems from their desire to do “cool stuff”.  “Our goal was, was always just to write and perform music, and my purpose is to sing and play guitar, and all these things that kind of happened around us,” he told du Plessis-Allan.  “We’re aspirational dudes.”  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Mike Hosking Breakfast with Heather du Plessis-Allan Full Show Podcast for Thursday 18th of December, we speak to the new Deputy Police Commissioner and preview the Q3 GDP number.  The Government is saying the road cone hotline's performed as desired, so they’re shutting it down – six months early.   Six60 lead singer Matiu Walters stops by for a chat and performs their new single 'We Made It'.  Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Kiwi classic with added convenience.  Rotorua has its first hot pie vending machine, stocked with the famous Maketū Pies.  All ten varieties are on offer in the machine, which sits just outside the I-site and besides the Redwoods Treewalk.  General Manager Craig Williams told Heather du Plessis-Allan the site was selected for visibility, with around 700,000 tourists passing through per day.  He says a lot of international tourists are looking for a hot pie as part of their Kiwi experience, and the novelty of the machine will capture attention.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hopes a Reserve Bank move will translate to better prices for borrowers might be overly optimistic.  It is changing the mix of capital banks are required to hold, aiming to reduce funding costs and freeing up around $5 billion in equity across the sector.   It’s also targeting closing the gap between bigger and smaller banks, making the market more competitive.  Financial Markets and Banking Expert Andrew Body told Heather du Plessis-Allan that the change might result in a couple more chicken dinners for your average borrower, but nothing substantial.   He says the big deal here is competition, which will require political leadership like we’ve seen in housing, education, and health to solve.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government maintains its road cone hotline has been worthwhile.  The pilot, which encouraged the public to report excessive cone use, ends tomorrow, six months ahead of schedule.  Site visits found 86% of work sites were already compliant.  Workplace Relations Minister Brooke Van Velden told Heather du Plessis-Allan the hotline has found there are issues with the traffic management plans councils design.  She says the people on the ground putting the cones out aren't the problem.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Newly minted Deputy Police Commissioner Mike Pannett says he's up for the challenge as he starts the job.   His predecessor Jevon McSkimming was given nine months home detention yesterday, for possessing objectionable material.  Pannett told Heather du Plessis-Allan the reputational damage from McSkimming is something police need to take into account.   He says policing is even more complex and dynamic now than it has been in the past, and there’s some big challenges ahead of them.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Schools and kura could have an important role to play in preventing youth suicide.   Coroner Tania Tetitaha's inquiry into the self-inflicted deaths of six young people finds they were effectively lost in a fragmented system.   Children's Commissioner Claire Achmad says we need to make sure getting help is as easy as possible at the earliest stages of distress.   She told Heather du Plessis-Allan school-based services like counselling and social workers provide a lot of benefits. Achmad says their presence makes them more accessible and more trusted by children and young people.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Several of the major banks expect a significant bounce back in GDP for Q3 when Stats NZ releases its economic figures later this morning.  Westpac and ANZ both predict a gain of about one percent, putting that down to a jump in activity across the board.  ANZ Chief Economist Sharon Zollner told Heather du Plessis Allan while she's nervous some of that could turn up in the revised numbers down the track, it's looking positive.  She says some of the corners should be knocked off the volatility in the economy and the overall level of GDP will be revised up.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Mike Hosking Breakfast with Heather du Plessis-Allan Full Show Podcast for Wednesday 17th of December, Nicola Willis responds to the surplus being pushed out another year, the third blowout in her two years as the Finance Minister.  Indycar champ Scott Dixon is on to talk his career and the launch of a new world class karting facility in Auckland.  And Mark Mitchell and Ginny Andersen cover all the highs and lows of 2025 on the final Politics Wednesday for the year.    Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's no surprise that Nicola Willis has pushed out surplus by another year.  That now makes it three years in two years, as in she has delayed surplus by three years in just the space of the two years she’s been at the Finance Minister’s desk.  Had she kept her pledge, the one she made about tidying up this country’s books when asking for our votes in 2023, we would be seeing a surplus next year.  Now it’s 2029 at the earliest.  Getting our books back in order is important if we don’t want our kids to pack up and leave for Australia when they’re old enough to.  Nicola can blame everyone from Treasury to Trump if she wants, but she has not done enough to get us back to surplus.  She has defended, and kept, Jacinda’s wasteful policy of paying for one free year for university students. The policy has been repeatedly criticised as a flop that doesn’t actually make anyone go to university.  Cutting that would save us in the vicinity of $1 billion over four years.  She has given welfare to households on more than $200,000 a year by giving them money for childcare. People on that kind of coin don’t need benefits.  Cutting that would save $1 billion in a little over five years.  She still hasn’t cut or income tested the Winter Energy Payment, which is going to people who are still in the workforce and being set aside for nice trips to Fiji.  Cutting that would save $1 billion in less than two years. Trimming it would save less, but it would save something.  She has cut 2000 public servants when Grant and Jacinda added 14,000.  Be in no doubt - money is tight.  But there is still a lot of waste that could be cut if Nicola Willis was brave enough. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.