/on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/rss ¾ÅÒ»ÐÇ¿ÕÎÞÏÞ Sat, 19 Apr 2025 19:39:23 Z en /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-heather-du-plessis-allan-simeon-brown-needs-to-convince-more-than-just-voters/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-heather-du-plessis-allan-simeon-brown-needs-to-convince-more-than-just-voters/ I've got a lot of time for Simeon Brown - he's a very good politician, but I reckon he might want to take the advice of Chris Hipkins - a man who was also once the Health Minister - and just tone down the fighting talk. Because accusing the striking senior doctors of the worst kind of politics is not going to help anyone. The only thing that is going to help right now is money - and he is simply going to have to pony up the cash and pay those doctors a lot more. Look, I know, there will not be a lot of public sympathy for doctors who are on that kind of money - whether it's $350,000 like Simeon claims or only $250,000 like the doctors claim - it doesn't matter whether we think they're paid not enough or too much What matters is what the rest of the world pays, because that’s who we are competing against for senior doctors.  NSW, I've been told, is the part of Australia that pays senior doctors the least, and their starting pay is more than what our senior doctors get on the highest level here. And they, by the way, just had a three-day strike themselves. We already have such a shortage of senior doctors in this country that in Taupo Hospital not even a third of the positions are filled. I don't know how they're running that place. So while I appreciate that Simeon Brown is a very good politician and could well end up wining the PR battle against the doctors - ultimately, it's not the voters he has to convince, it's the doctors.  And there, money talks. LISTEN ABOVE Thu, 17 Apr 2025 06:56:50 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-its-time-for-a-hard-crackdown-on-bad-dog-owners/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-its-time-for-a-hard-crackdown-on-bad-dog-owners/ I am of the view that it is time for authorities to start cracking down really hard on bad dog owners.  When I was on maternity leave, apart from trying to ignore Donald Trump, I was trying very hard not to read too much news because I was just trying to get away from work a little bit.  But there was one story that I saw pop up on the Herald that I actually had to click on. That was the news report about that Katikati dog attack a few weeks ago. That was where the three dogs killed the four year old boy, and all three of those dogs were unregistered.  I clicked on that news report because, frankly, dog maulings freak me out at the moment in a way that they never have because it's too close to home. I'm constantly trying to keep my 3 year old boy away from dogs that look like they're grumpy, including just yesterday at our local park because they're everywhere now.  I've certainly noticed because I've started to see a pattern here that we've had a spate of more maulings in the last couple of years. We very clearly have a massive dog issue on our hands.  Not only dogs that are mauling, but dogs that are roaming, and dogs that are unregistered.  And I am not seeing a corresponding urgency from authorities to deal with this particular issue.  We've had the announcement today that the government's going to crack down on owners that tether their dogs too long, but I still feel like it's a bit wet bus ticketey, isn't it?  What's the punishment for them if they tether their dogs too long? Oh, a fine. Just a fine.  And at what level do they get cracked down on? Well, quite clear dog abuse is what it takes to get a crackdown.  It is like the worst extremes of what you would see with dogs that cop a fine. I don't think that's good enough.  Sure, at the local government level, you've got councils like Auckland Council, currently having a crackdown on unregistered dog owners and warning them that they're on their absolute last legs and they've got to register their dogs.  But the punishment for failing to do so after repeated warnings remains pretty lame. It's a fine, or it's going to court. They get to keep the dog.  I would not be that lenient if I was in charge of the situation. I would just be turning up and saying you had 28 days to register your dog, you didn't register your dog, the dog's coming with me, and I put the dog down. It's as simple as that.  Because as the council says there is a link between unregistered dogs and dogs that end up roaming and dogs that attack people. I think we are well past the point where we need to get tough on these dogs.  Sure, the dog owner's not going to be stoked about it. They're not going to be happy. They've got a dead dog. But that's a better outcome, I would say, than having a dead kid, don't you think?  My patience with these dogs ran out a long time ago and these owners in particular. I, for one, want to see a hard crackdown.  I don't know how many more incidents like the one in Katikati we have to have before we start taking this problem with our dogs seriously.  Tue, 15 Apr 2025 06:33:00 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/ryan-bridge-youve-got-to-hand-it-to-winston-peters/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/ryan-bridge-youve-got-to-hand-it-to-winston-peters/ You've got to hand it to Winston Raymond Peters. On this his 80th birthday... he's jetting round the Pacific representing his country. Keeping us close to our friends in the region as China circles and America wanders. He's visited more than 40 countries since Luxon took over. The stamina. The discipline. The confidence. The work ethic... all things to be admired. Doesn't matter what side of politics you come from, hats off to you Winston. And Happy birthday. And what a contrasted pictures he paints in Parliament... One side of the house... draped in performative costume's... wearing badges and head pieces... and snapping their fingers... and doing TikTok videos.... And not bothering to learn the standing orders... Not bothering to turn up to work. Not bothering to engage in meaningful debate so that we might all get to a better place... you know... the essence of democracy. Winston is not perfect... he's flip-flopped and u-turned more times than you can count. He angered the right picking an inexperienced Labour party over the high-polling Bill English in 2017. Some will never forgive him for that. BUT. he's a man with a strategy. He's a man who doesn't mind hard work. He's a man whose politics you may not like, but who's character modern society cannot afford to lose or forget. He was born in 1945 - just a few weeks before Germany surrendered to the Allies in WWII. He's been in politics for nearly half a century. The Kingmaker... punching well above his weight in MMP system. In fact... a teacher of mine used to say the P in MMP was Peters. He's loves a bit of drama... he loves a fight... he's not above performative politics too, by the way.. remember the NO sign? Remember the Winebox inquiry? The donations sagas? BUT... and this is why kiwis keep giving him a chance... he takes seriously the things and people's he promised to represent... and he works day and night to get the political deals done to make them happen. The new generation of politicians should put their phones down, sign out of Instagram... and take a leaf out of Winston’s diary... Happy Birthday, Winne P. Fri, 11 Apr 2025 06:16:40 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-ryan-bridge-barbara-edmonds-and-labour-were-wrong-about-the-tariffs/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-ryan-bridge-barbara-edmonds-and-labour-were-wrong-about-the-tariffs/ Trump's tariff backdown proves that Nicola was right and Barbara was wrong. Willis took the cool, calm, collected approach. Take advice, watch closely, don't react with haste, don't spook the horses even more. Trump's already doing that. Barbara Edmonds and Labour were hitting the panic alarm - firing off a press release yesterday saying that this is a crisis and that we need to up spending. Borrow more. Bigger Government will save the day. Which is nuts. Premature and nuts. Barbara came on this show last night and said Willis was sitting on her hands while the world crumbled around her. Earlier in the week, Hipkins said we needed to stand up to Trump a bit more - how's that working out for China? The last thing we need is self-serving politicians, or former politicians in the form of Phil Goff, grandstanding for their bash-the-bully-moment on television. This is the time for quiet diplomacy. It's time for your Winstons' and Rosemary Banks types - she's our Ambassador to Washington - get them out there. The bigger problem for Labour and the way they've reacted so far is that it reminds us why we didn't like them in the first place. When Covid hit they doled out the cash. They couldn't give it away fast enough. Grant spent from the country's purse like a housewife on holiday. And Barb - she wants her time with the Visa. Right when our Government debt is about to hit 46 percent of GDP - remember, it was 20 percent pre-Labour - and right when we're getting closer to at least balancing the Government books. This is a timely reminder from Labour that their fundamentals haven't changed. When a crisis comes, when storm clouds gather, their go-to plan is to make it rain cash. LISTEN ABOVE Thu, 10 Apr 2025 05:10:32 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-ryan-bridge-weve-got-to-take-the-wins-where-we-can-get-them/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-ryan-bridge-weve-got-to-take-the-wins-where-we-can-get-them/ So the Reserve Bank did the predictable thing today and cut 25 basis points. Good news for mortgage holders, good news for the economy, more money in our pockets and more money to spend.  Of course it's not going to change the world, it's a quarter of as percent on the wholesale rate. And the wholesale rate is only makes up a portion of the bank's rate. And the bank's rate only matters if you haven't already fixed. And so far, the banks haven't budged on fixed rates, only floating. The banks' swap rates are most important here - and there's talk they could fall further too, so we could get a 4.5 percent rate this year instead of the current 4.99 on two year. Either way,  it's the general direction that we like the sound of. Loosening, lowering, the direction of travel - to steal a term from Jacinda - is good. And our disposable income is going up. Great. But of course, the question then becomes - will we actually spend it? Are we now so worried about trigger-happy Trump and his tariffs that we don't get that new couch or don't upgrade the car or don't get the kids back to ballet class because the subs were too expensive? The answer is - we don't know yet, because we haven't had any confidence surveys for the past week. But if Trump doesn't start doing deals soon, then my bet is people will starting pulling back a bit. Maybe not all the way, but enough to slow a recovery. Just talk to your friends and family and ask how they're feeling about things at the moment. So there's reason to be weary - but one mustn't be ungrateful. When inflation is beat and the Government's talking about growth and a budget surplus rather than more borrowing, you've got to take the wins when you get them. No matter how small or teenie-tiny they may be. LISTEN ABOVE Wed, 09 Apr 2025 07:27:24 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-ryan-bridge-well-soon-find-out-what-america-first-means-for-nz/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-ryan-bridge-well-soon-find-out-what-america-first-means-for-nz/ Trump's tariffs are coming tomorrow - and he's basically playing God with the global economy. I've found the stuff we should know: The presser is 4pm Eastern time in the Rose Garden at the White House. That's 9am NZT. The reason it's late over there is because they want markets closed when he announces it. This is big league stuff. This guy has the power to make or break countries, markets and entire industries. Here's some stats: Goldman Sachs' odds on a US recession are up from 20 percent to 35 percent. Moody’s reckons it could cost 5.5 million jobs - that would lift the unemployment rate from 4 percent to 7 percent. GDP would fall 1.7 percent from peak to trough. For context, that's the equivalent of 2/3rds of the growth our economy is expecting this year. Reciprocal tariffs are broad-based tariffs across all countries. The White House has been tight-lipped on carve-outs or exemptions, but some countries are hammering the phones begging for them. They're panicked on Downing Street - though Starmer says he's staying calm and they're working the phones. Talk of getting an economic deal has turned into just that - they now say they're likely to be hit like everyone else. India - they've been on the phones. They're notorious for trade protectionism, so it's a bit rich from them but their share market's been feeling the heat. Vonderlayen's readying the war chest. The EU will fight back. Britain won't. Neither will Vietnam. Neither will New Zealand. Luxon's message today was keep calm and carry on. Agriculture, as we've been talking about since the minute Trump tweeted about it, is on the cards. The US overtook the Aussies this year as out second largest export market for goods, thanks to red meat. That could hurt. But applied equally to Argentinian and Aussie beef, perhaps not so much. It all depends on the number. 10 percent is fine. 25 percent is a bigger problem. The real threat is the word's biggest economy going into recession - and the flow-on effects. The smart money's already been piling into gold and European stocks. Tomorrow we find out what 'America First' really means for the rest of us. LISTEN ABOVE Wed, 02 Apr 2025 06:05:58 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-ryan-bridge-is-nicola-willis-bluffing-with-the-supermarket-announcement/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-ryan-bridge-is-nicola-willis-bluffing-with-the-supermarket-announcement/ I reckon Nicola Willis is bluffing - she's having a laugh. She's not really going to take a sledge hammer to the supermarkets. She has threatened to do this, she's had consultants come and do some work on it, but she's not serious about doing it. There's two main reasons as to why not. One: Splitting up the brands like Pak N Save and New World form each other is a drastic action to take. It could affect hundreds of mum and dad-owned stores who run their own local supermarkets and form part of co-ops around the country. Then there's the problem of prices - the fact that co-ops like Foodstuffs exist means they can spread their costs around the country and make prices more even between the regions. What happens to the price of Pams biscuits at Pak N Save Kawerau if it's split from its brother and sister stores? Does it come down or go up?  If it goes up, so does Nicola's credibility. Splitting retail land  from wholesale also risks creating a middleman to go between the two, thus pushing prices up anyway. These are all arguments for why not. There are also arguments for these, but at this stage they're not specific, they're just - prices are too high, so we'd better do something. All that's before you even get political support for such a move - which wouldn't involve ACT - so it would need help from across the aisle. I think, in the end, the risks will be too great and the benefits not clear enough for Nicola to smash the supermarkets to smithereens. I also think she knows this and she's hoping the threat is enough to yield some results - and that it will go down well with the public, who are sick of paying through the nose for groceries every week at the checkout LISTEN ABOVE Mon, 31 Mar 2025 06:35:04 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-ryan-bridge-do-we-need-to-give-our-politicians-four-year-terms/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-ryan-bridge-do-we-need-to-give-our-politicians-four-year-terms/ So we're all going to have our say on giving our politicians a four year term - or are we? The announcement from Goldsmith today was all over the place - David Seymour is largely to blame for that. He'll be on the show soon, so we'll ask him to explain then. But in principle, do I support a four-year term? Yes. Why? Because politics is too short-sighted. They spend one year getting in. One year doing work. Then another year getting elected again. The bigger problem, though, is strategy and pay-off. Strategizing with a 3-year window means short-sighted ambitions. It means we don't invest in as many big roading and rail projects as they should. It means we don't bother with fixing productivity. Stuff gets put in the too-hard basket because there's no pay off before the next election. And that's the prize these guys are working towards. Part of the reason China is a superpower today - only 50 odd years after opening up to the world - is because it has centralised power. It's a dictatorship. It has a very clear direction and very clear strategy. And no pesky elections to worry about. Now obviously we don't want to go full autocracy here - but a little more time for a party in power would, I think, do more good than harm. I also reckon we should give local Government four years too. For much the same reasons. But I also think we should combine voting in local and national politics, so you vote for your mayor and your Government on the same day, in the same polling booth. Two fifths of bugger all people actually bother voting in local elections - which is part of the reason local councils are run by such weirdos who can't seem to balance budgets. So, one polling day for everything, once every four years. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Done, easy. LISTEN ABOVE Thu, 27 Feb 2025 04:30:19 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-ryan-bridge-is-violent-crime-really-dropping/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/perspective-with-ryan-bridge-is-violent-crime-really-dropping/ So it looks like, on paper at least, that this is a big win for the Government's crackdown on crime. Violent crime is down for the first time in five years - sure, it's only by two percent, but at least it's not going up.  2019 - up. 2020 - up. 2021, 2022, 2023 - up, up up. 2024 - down.  And over those five years of increase, violence went up 51 percent. You basically had to just walk down the street and you'd get punched in the eye. Mark Mitchell and Paul Goldsmith have fired off press releases quicker than a Chinese warship in the Tasman about this, they're crowing and beating their chests, they're very happy. And you can see why - serious assaults have come down, injuries have reduced, ram raids are down massively, total victimisations are down as well. And here's the kicker - guess what else has changed at the same time? The prison population has just hit its highest level since 2018. Police foot patrols are up 40 percent. So it's almost like - if more bad people are in prison, they're not punching us in the streets. I know, completely unbelievable. And who would have thought police patrolling the streets might actually prevent crime? This is, of course, not radical stuff. It's basic stuff. And on these numbers, the Government finally has something tangible to be proud of. But - and there's always a but with these stats - retail theft is up 12 percent. People are still walking into shops with their tote bags and taking stuff. And then there's the stats themselves - this survey that they're using here covers a 24 month window, so it's not a crystal-clear picture that we're getting. Plus, the violence numbers that they're looking at come from a mish-mash of police data via Twitter, of all places. This is from the Government release. So we can expect some blowback from Labour on that. But you don't need the stats to tell you - what you feel and what I feel and what we feel and see in our neighbourhoods, and that's more cops on the beat and less violence on our streets. LISTEN ABOVE Tue, 25 Feb 2025 03:47:36 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/ryan-bridge-prepare-for-a-defence-focused-budget/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/ryan-bridge-prepare-for-a-defence-focused-budget/ Get ready New Zealand, a massive defence budget is going to drop in three months. Judith Collins told the show on Friday the Government wants to get to two percent of GDP. We're currently at 1.1 percent with our spending. We spend almost $5 billion a year on defence. So we're talking about double that - almost $10 billion. Now, Nicola Willis set her spending allowance for new money at $2.4 billion for the next three budgets, excluding savings.  So at that rate, it'd take more than nine years and ALL the extra money available to get to 2 percent.  That would also mean nothing extra for health and education or anything else. So that is quite unlikely. Here's what they should do - come out and say we're getting to two percent within 15 years. They're announcing a 15-year defence plan, so it'd signal plenty of time to scale up. Then there's the why - and on what? The why is easy. America is in retreat mode. China is waiting in the wings. We're in the middle, though down the bottom of this battle. China now has the world’s largest navy - 234 warships. The US has 219. Donald Trump, and more importantly the American people who voted for him, don't want to play global cop anymore. Trump will only help Ukraine if he gets 50 percent of their mineral wealth in return. He's doing economic deals. So we're quite vulnerable. The US spends between 3 and 4 percent of GDP on defence. Australia spends 2 percent already. There'll be plenty of people - the Greens, the academics, and the experts - who'll say we shouldn't spend $10 billion on defence. They want more school lunches and more pay for teachers.  But what's good's a school lunch if you've got no country? Security is more important. But the challenge for the Government will be making sure they spend any extra cash on the right stuff. Not just spend the money for sake of hitting an arbitrary target. We should spend wisely, so we're useful enough to a more powerful player. If the Government is serious about this, which they certainly sound to be, then perhaps its time they also let nuclear-powered warships into our waters. If we're worried enough to drop $10 billion on defence, then surely letting an ally dock here wouldn't be such a bad idea? LISTEN ABOVE Mon, 24 Feb 2025 05:05:57 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/francesca-rudkin-we-owe-our-first-responders-as-much-support-as-possible/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/francesca-rudkin-we-owe-our-first-responders-as-much-support-as-possible/ This week another police officer was struck by a vehicle, this time in Huntly. The officer suffered moderate injuries.  It comes after the horrible New Year's Day incident in which Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming was killed and another officer injured after being struck by a vehicle in Nelson.  Police Minister Mark Mitchell said on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning, Police and first responders are increasingly dealing with violence. Not just here in New Zealand, but globally as well.  It's good to hear Mitchell, alongside Paul Goldsmith, is planning to bring new legislation into the house in the first quarter of this year to bring in tougher sentencing for violent behaviour towards first responders and prison officers.  It would have been better if it had been included in Goldsmith's sentencing reforms, which had its first reading in Parliament last September.  Those reforms too are to ensure criminals face tougher consequences and victims are prioritised.  This new legislation aimed at offenders towards first responders will not just impose tougher sentences, but also clearly define emergency service workers, and require sentencing to be cumulative rather than concurrent.  It's aimed at being a preventative measure, but something tells me offenders will get the message through experience rather than media headlines.  We owe our first responders as much support as possible.  They go to work and deal with a level of risk the rest of us don't have to confront. These laws show we as New Zealanders appreciate their work and are prepared to do what we can to protect them. I hope the work to clarify who is a first responder - generally thought of as police, paramedics, and the fire service - is extended to hospital emergency staff, and possibly even other health workers.  The need for this legislation, this growing anger and agitation experienced by many in public facing jobs - especially those in retail - makes you wonder what has happened to us as a wider community.  You rarely go into a shop without signs telling you kindness is appreciated, or that they will not tolerate abusive behaviour.  Is this a post-Covid thing? Have we just got more angry with the world? Is it a need to be seen and heard? We seem to have forgotten that the consequence of anger is often more damaging than what made us angry in the first place/  Hopefully the least these tougher laws will achieve, is help bring that back into perspective.  LISTEN ABOVE Fri, 07 Feb 2025 04:56:42 Z