The Mike Hosking Breakfast

An Upper Hutt primary school principal says their workloads are comparable with secondary school principals, and they deserve a better pay offer.  Principals who belong to the NZEI union have rejected the Government's latest collective agreement proposal.  They say it fails to acknowledge their work.  Birchville School Principal Robyn Brown told Heather du Plessis-Allan unlike secondary principals, they weren't offered a curriculum change allowance, and the pay rise amounts to a cut.  She says primary school principals have far fewer people to implement curriculum change.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kiwi consumers could finally see butter prices fall, thanks to increased global dairy production.   New research from Rabobank shows EU, UK, and US production has been surging, pushing down global prices.  Fonterra's already forecasting a lower farmgate payout than last season.  Fonterra Co-operative Council Chair John Stevenson told Heather du Plessis-Allan the change could be good news for supermarket shoppers.  He says if the surge continues, there'll be an impact on our store shelves.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So, to the Nicola Willis v Ruth Richardson debate.  Here’s a challenge to Nicola Willis: do it this year. Do it next week.  I’m hearing that having challenged Ruth Richardson to the debate, Willis’ office would prefer to do it next year.  I can understand why. By next year the momentum will be gone and we’ll all have moved on to other things and it, probably, won't get as big of an audience.  Next week though is a big week.  The Government is opening its books. It sounds like Nicola might be pushing out surplus, again, for the second time in two years.  Then we’ve got the GDP number and that’s coming off the back of the Taxpayer’s Union campaign calling her out for her big spending, which kicks off today.  So next week there’s much more energy around a debate. If it’s pushed out to next year, I would read it as the first sign of losing courage.  And if I was cynical, it's the first sign of them hoping this will fizzle and die because frankly, it was a political mistake to challenge Ruth Richardson to a debate.  Regardless of what you think of her, Ruth can article all the problems with Nicola's big spending budgets and debt gathering in a way that most members of the media can’t, which is to say she will mount a case that Nicola is spending too much and taking us down exactly the same path of economic trouble that Grant started us on.  And I suspect that will convince a lot of voters that we have a problem here.  And we do. We have a problem when we have a government that promised to cut spending and yet spends more than Grant and will, by mid next year, have taken on $45 billion more in debt, which will by then account for almost a quarter of our total debt.  This is an important debate, because what is more important for a government to do well than run the country’s books?  So, next week? How about it? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Mike Hosking Breakfast with Heather du Plessis-Allan Full Show Podcast for Thursday 11th of December, as Australia bans social media for under 16s, what does our interim report say we should do?   David Seymour responds to the findings of the investigation into the mouldy lunches at a Christchurch school.   US billionaire Mark Cuban talks the All Blacks, being an NBA owner, the state of US politics, and AI.  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.

Mark Cuban has his hands in all sorts of pies.  The US billionaire businessman is involved with tech, media, health insurance, the NBA, and more recently, politics.  He got his first major start with the media company Broadcast.com, which he sold to Yahoo in 1999 for US$5.7 billion worth of stock.   The next year he got into the NBA, buying the Dallas Mavericks for US$280 million, selling a majority stake of the team in late 2023 for $3.5 billion.   Cuban has become something of an authority on sports, and while he’s not familiar with the economics of rugby in New Zealand, he does have a few ideas on it could be saved.  “You’ve got to make it more fun,” he told Heather du Plessis-Allan.  “Not so much on the pitch, right, but in the stands."  There’s a difference, Cuban explained, between the quality of the sport being played on the field or court, and the experience people attending the game have.  “When I got to the Mavs, the people that were at the NBA thought it was all about basketball ... but I was like, you don’t even remember the score of the last game you went to.”  Instead, he says, what you remember is the people you went to the game with – the first date or the buddy that got drunk.   “And I think rugby is fun, but it’s not, it’s not as much a spectacle."  “You’ve got to make it different, otherwise you just get the purists that have been going for 50 years that don’t want to see it changed.”   LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A brand new kiwifruit is about to hit the market.  Zespri has approved the commercialisation of a new red variety, Red80, following the success of Red19.  The fruit has been naturally bred through Zespri’s Kiwifruit Breeding Centre in partnership with Plant & Food Research.  CEO Jason Te Brake told Heather du Plessis-Allan Red80 has a later harvest than Red19, which extends the time RubyRed will be available for consumers.  He says the fruit likely won’t be sold until 2028, as they’re releasing the licence to growers next year, and it will likely be a couple years after that before the first crop is available.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tourists continue to flock across the ditch to New Zealand.  Stats NZ figures show more than 260 thousand overseas travellers visited in October, 22 thousand up on the year before.  More than 120 thousand came from Australia – a record October high.  Tourism Holdings CEO Grant Webster told Heather du Plessis-Allan that New Zealand is currently a cheap destination for Australian tourists when compared to places like the United States.   He says there’s also been strong marketing from Tourism New Zealand, which has been paying off.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just because something's hard to do, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.  Parliament's education committee is recommending New Zealand consider following Australia in banning under 16s from social media.  It's found the platforms are exposing young people to a wide range of harm.  Acting Committee Chair Carl Bates told Heather du Plessis-Allan teens will get around a social media age limit like they get around the drinking age limit, but that isn't a reason not to try.  He says this is about a cultural shift, and the majority of the committee believe we need to step up and ensure the internet is safe for children.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“A week of drama” could have been avoided had the principal of a school with mouldy lunches waited for the investigation rather than going public, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says.  New Zealand Food Safety said yesterday the mouldy lunches served at the Haeata Community Campus were most likely caused by an error at the school.  Seymour told Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan the school should have “kept an open mind” so he did not have to spend a week talking about “what happened to 20 lunches”.  “I guess people might start to ask themselves, ‘Look, this whole saga, it was unreasonable to have a principal who was out in the media for a week, when in reality, Food Safety New Zealand completed the assessment within 10 days, which is lightning speed for most things that happen in government’.  “And if they were just open about what might have been the possibility, we could have waited till now, we could have saved a week of drama.”  One of the lunches given to students at Haeata Community Campus  He also said he had been told by Food Safety that the school had a policy of leaving school lunches in the cafeteria so students could have extras if they wanted, and the mouldy lunches came from there.  He had been told by Food Safety that the school had a policy of leaving school lunches in the cafeteria so students could have extras if they wanted, and the mouldy lunches came from there.  He said the same lunch was served on Thursday, so this seems like the most “plausible” answer.  Seymour said Food Safety NZ had been all over the school and Compass “like a rash” and was confident in the result revealed yesterday.  Haeata Community Campus principal Peggy Burrows did not wish to respond to Seymour’s comments this morning.  She previously told the Herald the findings of the school’s internal investigation were with the board and the school’s lawyers and were due to be released on Friday.  Haeata Community Campus principal Dr Peggy Burrows. Photo / Supplied  Vincent Arbuckle, deputy director-general of New Zealand Food Safety, said an investigation into the incident found that the mouldy lunches were not part of a wider food safety issue with the School Lunch Collective.  “We know the issue caused a lot of concern among parents and students at the school, so we considered it important to provide accurate and independent information about the likely cause,” Arbuckle said.  “After carefully examining all the possible causes, we are able to reassure parents that there is not a wider, or ongoing, food safety risk with the School Lunch Collective.  “The most plausible explanation is that lunches intended to be served to students the previous week were accidentally mixed in with that day’s lunches.”  Burrows earlier maintained that none of its “robust” systems failed between Thursday and Monday, when the food was served.  The lunches served at Haeata Community Campus were covered in a thick layer of mould.  Arbuckle said New Zealand Food Safety’s food compliance officers considered the possibility that the error was made by the distributor.  They found it was unlikely that the distributor delivered lunches from the previous week because several other schools received the same lunch on the same day with no reported issues.  Arbuckle said another reason was that the Compass Christchurch Kitchen (Central Production Kitchen) only receives the number of meals required for the following school day because of the minimal capacity of available chillers.  A food poisoning warning was issued last week after several children from Haeata Community Campus ate school lunches covered in thick mould.  The meals, provided as part of the Government’s school lunch programme, were eaten before a teacher intervened.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are concerns our health system isn't keeping pace with our accelerating cancer rates.  The Cancer Control Agency's latest State of Cancer Report has found more New Zealanders are being diagnosed with cancer, but they're surviving cancer for longer.  It's projecting diagnoses will increase by 50% over the next two decades.  Otago University Medical Oncologist Dr Chris Jackson told Heather du Plessis-Allan this means fewer people getting scans, surgeries, and procedures.  He says funding is increasing, but outcomes aren't improving at the same rate.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.