/on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/rss 九一星空无限 Thu, 18 Sept 2025 09:17:05 Z en /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-at-least-delta-is-getting-us-jabbed/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-at-least-delta-is-getting-us-jabbed/ If you were worried about our slow roll out, then Delta arriving here early than expected might be a good thing for us on balance.  This is exactly what we needed to get vaccination rates up.  There wasn’t any urgency before.     Officials could hardly get 12% of invited people to turn up to the Manukau mass vaccination event.  We didn’t have enough older people getting their jabs, that’s part of the reason the government had to open the system up to everyone from September.  Even Ashley Bloomfield hadn’t yet got his jab despite his age category opening up nearly two weeks ago.  Many of us were acting like we had all the time in the world.     But then Delta arrived.  And yesterday - first day of the lockdown - we saw a massive surge in jab bookings.  The Prime Minister said at 1pm it was the busiest day on the booking's website yet with a record 195K people signing up.  That is great result.  That means that we’ll probably get to a higher vaccination rate, faster than we would have without an outbreak.  And what that means is that because more of a us will get jabbed faster, we will be able to move on faster and get on with the plan to start prising our border open next year.  The worst thing that could’ve happened to us is that we got to 1 January next year hoping to start easing up on the MIQ rules for double-jabbed travellers and then realised our vaccination cover was too low to do that.  I know a bunch of people will be angry at me for this.  They’ll misread this as me saying its good Delta has arrived and wishing death and illness on people.  But the fact is Delta was always going to arrive. It was an inevitability.  And it might be the only thing that would’ve got many of us hurrying up and booking that jab.  Thu, 19 Aug 2021 05:05:55 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-we-knew-this-was-coming/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-we-knew-this-was-coming/ Do you know what I’m not going to do today? I’m not going to get angry about this lockdown.  How can we possibly be angry about this today?   I’m not at all callous to business, especially hospo who I know will have broken hearts right now.  But we knew this was coming, Delta was always going to breach our border at some stage.  We’re the last elimination country that hasn’t had it.  The only surprise is that it’s arrived maybe a little bit earlier than many of us thought it might.  I mean, I had bets on riding October but here it is in August.   And we knew when it arrived, we’d be straight into a lockdown. The government warned us delta would mean a level four lockdown straight away.  That’s what happens when your vaccine rollout is so slow you are literally the bottom ranked country in the OECD.  That’s the fact.  We’ve known for moths that was happening too.   What’s the point in crying about now?  If you don’t like how slow Labour’s rolled out the vaccine, vote for someone else next time.  Right now, there’s nothing we can do but sit tight and do our bit and follow the rules.   It is of course not surprising that there some clowns out there like Billy TK getting himself arrested today protesting the lockdown.  You might not like it either, but anyone with half a brain can see that this is necessary if we want to maintain elimination.  And surely we want to maintain it until at least everyone who wants the jab gets the jab?  I think If I had to sum up how I feel about this lockdown, I’d say I’m just tired.     I imagine plenty of Aucklanders feel like that right now.   We’ve already done three months in lockdown all up.  Now we’ve got more ahead of us   But here’s hoping it’s one of the last.  Because soon surely, jab rates will up high enough to prevent this.   So, one more crack at it.  Wed, 18 Aug 2021 04:53:14 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-nz-hasnt-fallen-out-of-love-with-rugby/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-nz-hasnt-fallen-out-of-love-with-rugby/ In retrospect I think we can all agree anywhere would’ve been better than Eden Park on Saturday night.  That was a great game wasn’t it? But no one’s talking about that. No one’s talking about the record drubbing the ABs gave the Wallabies. No one’s talking about the fact that it might have proved (temporarily at least) that Fozzie actually deserves the job. Instead, what we’re talking about is whether this is proof New Zealand has fallen out of love with the All Blacks and with rugby. Of course we haven’t. It’s just that this is what would happen if you hold identical test matches, played by the same two teams, two weeks apart in the same city. NZR just made a big mistake here. They had two alternatives - Dunedin or Wellington – and they’ve should gone for either of them over Eden Park.  Dunedin has a capacity of 31K, more than the 25K ticket sold in Auckland.  It was free on Saturday night.  They had club rugby finals that afternoon that wrapped up by 5:30. So they could have had the game. Wellington has a capacity of 35K.  It was taken by Beervana Saturday night but it was free Sunday night for an evening game. And Sunday games are not crazy.  We did them last year through the pandemic and people loved them. To be fair, they were afternoon games.  But frankly, a Sunday game in Wellington might well have proven more popular than a repeat in Auckland. I’m guessing the NZR chose Auckland ultimately because of money. Eden Park has the biggest capacity so if it had sold out it would’ve made them the most money. And likely they’d end up spending less than flying players around the country. But that’s not showing much regard for fans in regions who also want to watch a test match.  Especially if that ends up being one of only two games we get this year. If it was about money, as we suspect, it’s backfired. Because the PR damage from this – in terms of angry fans and this growing sense that it’s a sign rugby is dying – is probably far greater than any extra money they might’ve made. Mon, 16 Aug 2021 04:43:07 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-joe-biden-made-a-massive-error-with-afghanistan/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-joe-biden-made-a-massive-error-with-afghanistan/ I think it’s now statement of fact that Joe Biden has made a massive error of judgement with Afghanistan.  Joe Biden is no longer the great hope of the west.   He is just another disappointing American President.  It is now clear today that Washington and other western capitals believe Kabul is probably going to fall to the Taliban.  Biden has just this morning announced he’ll send in three battalions – that’s 3000 troops – to Kabul in the next 24 to 48 hours help evacuate American embassy staff out.  They are trying desperately to avoid the pictures of the hasty American withdrawal from Saigon after the Vietnam War.  The reason this is happening, the reason the Taliban have taken more than half the country’s districts and are now advancing on the capital Kabul is because of naivety.   Biden and his administration either really believed that peace talks with the Taliban would suddenly turn them from murderous psychopaths into decent people.  They either believed that or they didn’t care and so they suddenly pulled all their troops out of Afghanistan – sometimes in the dead of night – and left the place wide open for the Taliban.  It’s as if they learnt nothing from the war in Iraq.  What happened after the Americans pulled out?  ISIS took the American gear, rode into town, took over and started killing people.  Guess who was in charge then?   Obama.   Biden was vice president.  He should’ve learnt.  The Americans are leaving Afghanistan worse for some than how they found it.  The fear is the Taliban will go back to oppressing women again, banning girls from school, conducting public amputations and stonings.  And for people like the interpreters who helped our defence force, things are now worse because they will be hunted down and killed unless they can get across the border and get evacuated to New Zealand.  So Biden. Not the wise, calm, globalist leader who would be good for the world after the hyped drama of Trump.   Arguably worse for the world after this massive error of judgement.  Fri, 13 Aug 2021 05:43:29 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allen-its-not-genesis-fault/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allen-its-not-genesis-fault/ It’s cute of Megan Woods to try blaming Genesis for the power outage on Monday night because they didn’t fire up the third coal boiler at Huntly fast enough.  It’s not Genesis’ fault. To believe it’s their fault, you have to believe that they are responsible for the gale force winds blowing the weed into the intake at a hydro lake, and for the wind dropping off around the wind farms at the same time. Clearly they cannot be responsible for that. And frankly, nor is Transpower, because they can’t have foreseen that that would happen. This was a sequence of unfortunate events that happened at exactly the wrong time:  the coldest night of the year. But the problem is that it could, and did happen, because we are constantly running our electricity system too close to the edge. It didn’t surprise me at all that the lights went out on Monday. We’ve been talking all winter on this show about how dangerously short of power we’ve been. It has got so bad this winter that we’ve had heavy industry shutting down because we don’t have the electricity. Methanex stopped work for three months to free up gas to help keep the lights on.  NZ Steel and Norske Skog paper mills reportedly cut back or altered production when power prices peaked.     Bosses at the Whakātane mill blamed the decision to sell the thing on the cost of electricity.  So all winter the Government has known we have a major problem. But they’ve said nothing at all until Monday because that’s when it hit residential customers and threatened to hurt them in votes.  They haven’t come up with a single workable solution to this problem all winter. Instead, they’ve announced a whole bunch of things that will make this worse: A gas ban so we can’t even rely on that as a backstop in future dry years. Then, encouraging us to buy electric vehicles so we only increase demand.  As I’ve said before, their policies will only make this situation worse next time we have a dry year. So, when you hear the government shifting the blame to Genesis or Transpower or anyone else - ask them this: you’re in charge, what are you doing to fix?  Wed, 11 Aug 2021 06:15:42 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-who-narked-on-the-olympians/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-who-narked-on-the-olympians/ Who was the loser who narked on the Olympians partying on the plane?  Whoever it was needs to get a life.  We can tolerate a bit of celebrating can’t we from our victorious athletes on their way home?  This will have been the first real opportunity for these guys to let their hair down in ages.  They’ve been training for goodness knows how long, and they’ve had to be pretty buttoned down during the Olympics. There have been heaps of rules to keep them safe from covid:  They haven’t been allowed to mix with too many others, haven’t been allowed to party in the village, and they’re about to go into two weeks of MIQ! So is anybody really begrudging the fact that they got on the lash on the plane on the way home? No one’s going to condone athletes reportedly throwing used face masks at air attendants. But come on. Is that it? Is that a thing that we’re now so upset about that we have someone narking to the media and raining on the Olympic parade? Apart from that, the worst that they apparently did was get on the drinks, put on loud music and sing along.  Some people trying to catch a sleep might’ve been a bit upset.  Plus, they had their masks off which is bad because covid, but I think two weeks of MIQ will sort that out.  This by the way was a charter flight.  So it was only athletes, their teams and Air New Zealand crew on board presumably. So whoever narked is among those groups. Good on them.  I’m not upset about this. I would’ve expected that the athletes get on the razz and have a sing along. They deserve it. Because on that flight was gold medal winners and kids who had their first experience at the Olympics. That is something to celebrate, and I’m glad they got the chance to.  Wed, 04 Aug 2021 04:35:00 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-we-pay-too-much-for-groceries/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-we-pay-too-much-for-groceries/ No surprise, the Commerce Commission has found what the rest of us already know:  We pay too much for groceries.  We’re the 6th most expensive grocery market in the OECD at last count.  Our prices are around 10% higher than Australia’s.  No surprise, the Commerce Commission has blamed the very thing we’ve all been blaming for the longest time: there’s not enough competition.  We have only two big supermarket companies and according to the report, they’re not competing with each other on price.  So the only thing that actually matters is what comes next.  What is the Commerce Commission and the Government is going to do about it?  The thing that is ultimately going to bring down those prices the Commerce Commission says a third player coming into the market to challenge Foodstuffs and Woolworths into forcing their prices down  But third players aren’t coming in because it’s too hard. The Warehouse Group tried in 2006 and gave up within two years. So, the Government is going to have to intervene in the market to make that happen.  The easy option is to force the supermarket chains to supply a third player with wholesale groceries at reasonable prices so they can compete. The hard option is force the supermarket chains to sell off some of their stores or brands. Either way, this will kick up a storm in the sector.  The Government will buy itself a fight.  Does it have the courage?   I’d like to see it go hard.  I think there’s public support from frustrated shoppers.  But I’m not getting my hopes up. Because the last big shake up of a market, which was petrol, has done absolutely nothing.  The responsible minister at the time, Kris Faafoi, told us petrol prices might come down by as much as 32 cents. They’ve gone up in recent months by 32 cents.  This is where the rubber now hits the road.  It was never really a question about whether we pay too much.  We know we do.  It was never really a question about what to do to fix that.  We already know: increase competition.  It was always a question of what the Government is going to do.  Ball’s in their court now.  Thu, 29 Jul 2021 04:45:22 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-theres-no-incentive-to-get-the-covid-jab/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-theres-no-incentive-to-get-the-covid-jab/ If the country’s first mass vaccination event is anything to go by, we might have a problem; because they couldn’t find enough people wanting to get the covid jab to fill the event.  This event is scheduled for Friday, at the Vodafone events centre and it’s supposed to vaccinate 15,500 people over one weekend. At the start, health officials sent invitations to 12,500 people. Only around 3000 booked a spot, which is less than a quarter. So health officials widened the net. They invited 82,000 people. Still they couldn’t find enough people who wanted to fill he spots. So they widened it again and invited 140,000 people, and they managed to get the numbers they needed. I reckon this is might be what we’re going to find as we roll the vaccine out. There is no urgency out there to get the jab. Because why would you? Nothing much is going to change once you get it, the government’s made that clear.  Even if we’re all jabbed at the end of this year, life in the Hermit Kingdom carries on largely the way it has for the last 16 months: the borders stay closed, MIQ continues operating, maybe you get a shorter MIQ stay if you’re jabbed, but equally maybe you don’t. So what’s the incentive to get the jab?  Obviously this would change the minute the Delta variant breaks out in New Zealand  That would likely provide the urgency to get vaccinated. But I suspect, if that doesn’t happen, we might end up having the same trouble as every vaccinating country bar one; which is that we hit about a vaccination rate of about 60% and we just can’t get it any higher. That’s not great for us. It makes it so much harder to break out of our golden cage, because we might not have the levels of vaccine cover we need to start letting jabbed travellers in without going through quarantine. If ever there was a reason for the government to be very clear with us on what it thinks happens next, this is it. Because frankly, for many people, unless there’s a threat, there may be no compelling reason to vaccinate. Don’t believe me?  Give me another reason why 75% of invited people couldn’t be bothered going to that jab event. Tue, 27 Jul 2021 04:40:24 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-gumboot-friday-deserves-funding/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-gumboot-friday-deserves-funding/ The Ministry of Health’s not looking particularly flash at the moment.  Mike King’s accusing the Ministry of withholding funding from his mental health organisation ‘Gumboot Friday’ on account of a personal grudge against him because he keeps on calling them out publically.  They say that’s not true.   They say he just didn’t file this funding application within the available window.   Well if we’ve got a case of he said, she said and we have to decide who to believe - Mike King or the Ministry of Health - in the absence of concrete evidence, I’m going with Mike King every time. This is the very Ministry of Health that tried to gag another mental health organisation - the Mental Health Foundation - telling them they weren’t allowed to criticise the Ministry if they were taking Ministry money.  The Mental Health Foundation was so outraged they went public with it.  The Ministry is not in a position to be relying on legalistic obstacles to getting mental health money out the door. It has $1.9 billion of taxpayer money tagged for helping our fellow Kiwis with mental health problems. It is struggling to spend it.  If they have a - as far as it appears – successful and well known programme asking for money but missing the available window, then bend the rules. Give them the money. It’s better out there helping people than sitting in a bank account somewhere. I know a lot of people will think Mike King went too far this morning when he accused Ashley Bloomfield of being “a nasty little man” who is “killing our kids”.  King has rightly apologised for that. It was wrong to say that.   But, rightly or wrongly, I cut Mike King a man who is so deeply passionate about mental health that he handed back his gong in protest at the Ministry of Health’s lack of action. I’d wager that passion and frustration is the reason he went too far.  Personally I’d rather have a Mike King who goes too far because he cares deeply than a Ministry of Health that doesn’t go far enough because it doesn’t care enough. I’d say they’d better give that money to him or come out with a decent explanation for why not. Or the sense that they’re being vindictive might set in.  Fri, 02 Jul 2021 04:17:24 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-nanaia-mahuta-not-convincing/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-nanaia-mahuta-not-convincing/ Doesn’t look like Nanaia Mahuta’s managing to convince many to get on board with her big water reform plan.  She announced the details today of how the country’s water network will be split into four regions but Whangarei District Council already pulled out yesterday. Auckland Mayor Phil Goff hasn’t pulled out yet but judging by the level of shade he’s publicly dumping on the plan, it sounds like he’s planning to. Kaipara’s not sure, Christchurch has doubts, Napier and Clutha too.  So far, not so good.  You can tell that the government is losing the PR battle with councils by the fact that they’re now trying to convince you and I they’re releasing full page newspaper ads and video ads to get us on board. Which I suspect they hope might lead to us putting pressure on our councils. But it’s annoying councils who think it’s a slap in the face for the way they’ve managed water and  Local Government NZ – the organisation representing councils – says it’s “deeply disappointed with the overly negative and unsophisticated way” the ads are treating the water reforms.  Well I’m not holding my breath that Nanaia’s going to get this one through.   I don’t blame councils for objecting.  Take for example Auckland Council.  Owns $10 billion worth of water that you and I – if you’re an Auckland ratepayer – have paid for over years. If we amalgamated with the other northern councils above us geographically, we would be contributing 92 percent of all the water assets. We would get in return less than 40 percent control so we’re literally giving our assets away, then we have to share control with mana whenua just adding layers of bureaucracy, and then we have to help pay to connect Kaipara’s ratepayers up to water because only one quarter of them have reticulated drinking water.  No.  Why?  Sell it to us Nanaia, cos you’re not convincing us.  It looks a lot like the minster is losing the battle right at the start of this campaign.  I’m not sure how she’ going to salvage it.  She’s always got compulsion up her sleeve where she can force us to give up our assets  But good luck trying that one on.   If mayors are angry now, they’ll worse at the thought of that.  Wed, 30 Jun 2021 04:35:40 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-sick-of-cops-turning-a-blind-eye-for-gangs/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-sick-of-cops-turning-a-blind-eye-for-gangs/ I know the cops are doing the right thing with the gang funeral procession today by not turning up en masse and giving them a hard time. I know that doing that would only lead to unnecessary violence between the cops and the gangs. And I know the best thing to do is exactly what the cops are doing which is to just keep an eye on it but largely let the thing run its course. But isn’t it frustrating to see hundreds of patched gang members take over the streets like this?  To see them hanging out their side windows, driving down main thoroughfares. To see videos of them doing burnouts outside people’s houses in a Grey Lynn cul-de-sac after dark last night. And to see the cops closing off a busy road in Grey Lynn – Great North Road - to give these guys space. The frustrating thing is that the rest of us wouldn’t get away with this. If you or I wanted to take over a road we’d be applying to the council in writing for an event permit at least nine weeks in advance. And we’d probably not be allowed. And none of us think the cops would simply turn a blind eye if we were cruising through a busy intersection with our passengers hanging half their bodies at the car windows do we?  It’s just so frustrating that gang members get away with bad behaviour simply because of their numbers. I don’t blame you if you’re sick of this nonsense. We’ve had stories of a gang taking over a school in the Hawke’s Bay for a tangi, taking over a highway there for a funeral procession last month, doing a motorcycle charity run on Auckland’s North Shore in February, and stories of the Mongrel Mob taking over Te Mata Peak for initiation ceremonies. There’s a lot of this brazen stuff going on lately. The cops are probably as frustrated as we are at this. It’s not a great look for them frankly. It’s not a great look for the Police Minister. Largely, because it is confronting to see that many gang members in one place. It gives you a sense of the numbers out there. And that doesn’t even touch the sides of what’s really going on. That crowd was big but it was only around 300… there 27 times that many gang members across the country now.  Our reporter who was there this afternoon said members of the public who couldn’t get down the road were yelling abuse through car windows at the gangs. While I totally accept that the cops are handling this the right way, I suspect our tolerance for it will only last so long. Fri, 18 Jun 2021 05:03:22 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-the-uk-is-fighting-back-at-wokeness-will-nz-follow/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-the-uk-is-fighting-back-at-wokeness-will-nz-follow/ This morning my husband asked me what the hell is wrong with the wokesters in this country.  He’d just read the story about the kids who’ve disbanded the School Strikes 4 Climate Auckland branch because they’ve self-identified as racists and feel it’s wrong for Pākehā to lead the fight against climate change.   I tell you what, there are quite a few other people reacting like my husband. But if you think it’s bad here, you need check out how bad it’s got in the UK at the moment. It’s peak woke there. Last week Oxford University students voted to take down a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in their common room because she represents “recent colonial history”. And the Bank of England was busted two days ago, secretly removing the portraits of previous bank governors and directors who might have benefited from the slave trade back in the day.   Never mind that the Queen cannot be cancelled because she’s the Queen. Never mind that some of those 17th century bankers also did good things for society in their time.   But the good news is tolerance of this kind of nonsense is wearing thin , and there is a real backlash to it developing.  The guy who’s taken over as the top cop of Greater Manchester – Stephen Watson – reckons the public are fed up with officers’ virtue signalling. He reckons public tolerance of ‘woke’ policing is at a ‘high water mark’ and needs to be sorted it. He’s drawing the line at officers doing things like taking the knee because he thinks “officers could put themselves in a difficult place” if they’ve demonstrated they’re “not impartial” but then perhaps being asked to justify a controversial arrest they might’ve made as being done professionally. There is also now a kind of anti-woke TV channel that launched last night in opposition to BBC 九一星空无限. It’s run by veteran UK broadcaster Andrew Neil who is both the chairman of the outfit and the presenter of the prime time show. In his opening monologue he promised to expose the growing promotion of cancel culture by media and politicians amongst others, and “will not come at every story with the conviction that Britain is always at fault”. Their opening broadcast drew 2.5 times the BBC news audience that night  Who knows if it’ll be successful?  It might not.  It might just be a temporary fascination before people drift off back to old habits. But it’s telling that these guys think there is enough frustration in the UK at the handwringing and the self-hatred and the identity politics and the wokeness to warrant launching a new TV channel and for a top cop to tell his officers to call it off. I suspect we haven’t hit peak woke yet in NZ, but I’ve got full confidence there are more of us with our heads screwed on properly who won’t brook this nonsense, than there are those trying to woke and cancel. Tue, 15 Jun 2021 06:42:24 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-wokesters-are-learning-the-hard-way-about-coal-usage/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-wokesters-are-learning-the-hard-way-about-coal-usage/ Do you know what I’m loving today?  The wokesters learning the hard way the meaning of the phrase ‘unintended consequences’.  Turns out we are burning coal at a rate we haven’t seen in a long time. In just the first three months of the year we burned more coal than in the whole of 2016 and 2017 combined. That was summer, people.  Imagine what it’s going to be like when we see the coal use numbers for winter. Because we are burning right now like there’s no tomorrow because we are so short on water in the hydro lakes even Methanex has been asked to cut production to keep our lights on.  Any of those greenies regret the gas ban now?  Because gas burns at half the rate of greenhouse gas emissions that coal burns at. And coal ain’t going nowhere.  As long as we rely on wind and rain for power… we will always need coal or gas on the days that wind and rain is low.  Ah, but we’re going to run out of gas soon so… coal it is.   And by the way… any of those greenies regret that we’re not using New Zealand coal at Huntly?  Because we are importing coal at a rate of 1.1 million tonnes last year. If we were using New Zealand coal… you’d only have to get it out of the ground, ship up the country to Huntly and have a relatively small carbon footprint. Instead… we’re shipping it in from Indonesia… which means huge emissions even getting it here  Before we even light it.  So… I hope the greenies are still enjoying their gas ban and the fact we don’t mine much coal nowadays. Because both of things mean we’re hurting the planet more than we otherwise would’ve done  Unintended consequences, eh?  Don’t say we didn’t warn you.  Fri, 11 Jun 2021 04:57:09 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-why-we-sadly-will-never-become-a-republic/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-why-we-sadly-will-never-become-a-republic/ Yesterday the Prime Minister said something that made me realise I have actually given up hoping we will become a republic any time soon. While Jacinda Ardern was announcing our new Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro, she said she believed New Zealand will become a republic in her lifetime. However, I don’t think we will.  And I say that as someone who definitely a republican.  But I just don’t think we can counter the absolute star power of the royals. We are obsessed with them, even us republicans. Harry packing a sad and accusing his family of racism, Charles not taking his calls, Meghan telling absolute porkies - we know all the ins and outs. And it hooks in the younger generations who would expect to come of age being totally enlightened and ready for the move to republicanism, but no. Opinion polls seem weirdly stubborn. In the last decade support of the monarchy has tended to sit between 50 and 70 per cent. How old is Jacinda? 40? So she’ll have another 50 years or so. So what do we think is going to happen in the next 50 years that might force public opinion to swing in behind a republic? The queen is going to die.., but I think predictions that will precipitate republicanism are wrong. William is the son of Diana so we will probably love him. Australia might become a republic, but even their stronger republican movement has recently lost popularity. But even if they do, it won’t necessarily trigger us to do the same, because we have a wrinkle they don’t have: the Treaty of Waitangi. And remember that is signed between iwi and the Crown, not iwi and our government.   Never mind the constitutional lawyers and academics who say dropping the Crown won’t make a difference –  they’re almost certainly right – but once you get public debate going it doesn’t really matter, all kinds of hell will be kicked up about the implications of a republic on the Treaty. And that’ll turn enough people off. Obviously I still hope it does happen but I think there is a good chance Jacinda becomes another David Lange on this topic. He once predicted “New Zealand will become a republic just as Britain will be blurred into Europe”.  Well, he got the Brexit thing wrong, and he’s long gone but we’re still not a republic. Tue, 25 May 2021 04:57:45 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-four-year-parliamentary-terms-dear-god-no/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-four-year-parliamentary-terms-dear-god-no/ My first reaction when I saw David Seymour resurrecting the idea of a four year parliamentary term was Dear God, please no! I don’t think now is the right time to be raising this topic again. I mean another two and a half years to go under this lot is quite enough without us adding another year.  So far I think the best response to Seymour’s proposal was one tweet from former Reserve Bank economist Michael Reddell, saying for governments with “ideas and commitment three years is ample before checking back with the electorate” I totally agree. Primarily my objection to a four year term is that in New Zealand, there is very little stopping a majority government doing anything it wants. We don’t have an upper house like Australia or like the UK or US that can say no to stupid ideas. MMP sort of helps us there because coalition partners can act as handbrakes, but then we now have a majority government without coalition partners and there is very little stopping them from what they want. And so they have abused it a wee bit doing things like springing the Māori wards on us without telling us at the last election that that was the plan. And I suspect that by the end of this term we are going to be very tired of them implementing some pretty kooky ideas like bringing back 1970s style collective agreements and threatening to ban migrant workers. But there’s not a lot we can do.  Credit to David Seymour for at least trying to address that by suggesting that to balance out the extra year for the government by giving the opposition more power through control of all select committees, But frankly, that’s too easy to game and only works if the media’s strong, which it isn’t.   And also, the idea that NZ governments don’t get long enough is wrong. Our governments pass laws very fast. Former PM Geoffrey palmer once described NZ as the fastest lawmaker in the west. The only real check on that largely unrestrained power is us, the public being able to vote every three years. I’m not keen to lose that, especially right now, no matter how well considered David Seymour’s proposal is. Mon, 24 May 2021 05:12:33 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-not-a-lot-of-surprises-in-budget-2021/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-not-a-lot-of-surprises-in-budget-2021/ Budget 2021 has finally been unveiled - but does it live up to expectations? Heather du Plessis-Allan was in the lock-up reading through the documents, and she's unsurprised by what's been announced. WATCH ABOVE Thu, 20 May 2021 02:46:18 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-new-report-reiterates-why-who-is-a-waste-of-time-and-money/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-new-report-reiterates-why-who-is-a-waste-of-time-and-money/ Huge amount of respect for Helen Clark and the work she’s done on the report into the WHO’s handling of Covid, but I’m not sure it’s told us much we didn’t already know. The WHO stuffed this up. This was the modern day test of the outfit, a real life global pandemic, and it completely blew it and completely undermined trust. Helen Clark’s report in part blames the WHO for letting this get out of hand by not declaring Covid a pandemic sooner – as in, it should have warned the world just how bad it was sooner. It also blames China, because it was slow with handing over information. The fact is the WHO doesn’t work and actually can’t. It has no power to force countries to do things, and because it runs on money pledged by individual countries, it has a conflict of interest. I mean, can anyone say the WHO has been hard enough on China? From the start it has failed to call China out adequate for China’s stonewalling and questionable honesty, and even as recently as the start of this year, WHO allowed China to essentially interfere in its report into the origins of Covid.  How can we trust an organisation that in one breath declared a health emergency and in the next breath told countries to keep their borders open? Especially when the suspicion is that that was what China wanted?  As long as the WHO is run like this, none of us can actually trust it to be honest.  And even now, it’s reminding us how ineffectual it is with the Covax vaccine distribution. Covax is supposed to be a way of distributing vaccines to low income countries that need it most, but the truth is its high income countries, including New Zealand, that buying up the world’s vaccine stocks and jabbing our own people first. Helen Clark has a bunch of recommendations to improve the WHO, including it having its own independent funding so it’s not reliant on countries that will make demands. I think we've all been around long enough to know the chances of improvement are slim. So probably, I’m sorry to say, the WHO has for many of us probably done its dash. Frankly, it’s a waste of our time and our money. Thu, 13 May 2021 04:44:22 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-government-cant-spin-their-way-out-of-pay-freeze-backlash/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-government-cant-spin-their-way-out-of-pay-freeze-backlash/ I don’t know what the government’s playing at by playing pretend with the pay freeze. It clearly is backing down on this pay freeze, but it just doesn’t want to say it out loud, either because of insecurity or arrogance. After yesterday’s meeting with angry unions, they’ve agreed a whole bunch of things, including promising to now consider cost of living increases for public servants. Well, what is a cost of living increase if not a pay increase aka backing down on the pay freeze?  Clearly they’re using weasely words like ‘cost of living increase’ to avoid having to admit they got it wrong and they’ve changed their minds.  But by doing that, they’re creating confusion, and I tell you what, confusion is not going to make this go away. Because there will be bunch of voters of there who, short of hearing a proper back down, are going to believe the pay freeze is still on. And there will be bunch of public servants who hear ‘cost of living increase’ and think whatever they get is going to be tiny, and they don’t trust the government’s weasel words. If I was in that position I’d strike. And already the nurses are making noises that sound a lot like threats to do exactly that. The union is in pay negotiations right now. They’ve reached a stalemate. They’re already voting on whether to strike. That voting doesn’t close until tomorrow, and frankly, this will likely tip some of those nurses to vote yes, especially if they remain confused and suspicious. And I’ll tell you what, if those nurses strike, they will have public support regardless of the real reason, whether its’ broken down pay talks or pig-headedness or pay freeze wash up. The public is now so shocked by the government, and probably so confused by what’s really happening, that the nurses will have the sympathy of the majority of us. If it wants to cauterise this properly, the government’s going to have to admit they got it wrong and clear up the confusion. They can’t spin their way out of this.     Wed, 12 May 2021 07:07:51 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-outrage-over-nanaia-mahuta-s-speech-is-really-about-jacinda-ardern/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-outrage-over-nanaia-mahuta-s-speech-is-really-about-jacinda-ardern/ Right, to this international outrage over Nanaia Mahuta’s speech.  I honestly don’t think we need to worry a jot about the criticism we’re increasingly copping from international commentators. Two reasons, number one, this outrage appears completely confined to the commentators. None of the governments in the Five Eyes have indicated they’re angry, in fact both the UK and Australian governments have privately briefed the media insisting that they’re not concerned.  Number two, this is not really about China and the Five Eyes. This outrage is aimed at having a go at Jacinda Ardern and her perceived wokeness. There is something in common with all the critics I’ve seen emerge on this subject and that is that they are to the right of politics : Nigel Farage, conservative, former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, liberal party, Andrew Bolt, a host of Sky 九一星空无限 Australia which is increasingly conservative, a UK MP from the Isle of Wright, Conservative Party  and columnists for The Telegraph and The Times, both generally conservative newspapers. And weirdly a number of them have made a point of name checking the PM and the fact that she is left wing. The Telegraph labelled Jacinda Ardern our “ tiresomely woke Prime Minister“ and deemed her “the West’s woke weak link”. Nigel Farage called her left leaning. And Andrew Bolt called Mahuta “as woke as they come” warning that woke politics is making the west desperately weak', what has the Prime Minister or her government's wokeness got to do with this?  In fact this is the most un-woke position to take on China.  The Prime Minister is actually putting money – ie. our trade with China - ahead of values – ie.. criticising China’s human rights abuses.  If anything, the woke crowd should be cross with her for selling out. So for these guys to attack Ardern’s wokeness is a ridiculous stretch that doesn’t make any sense. What I think is really going on is that they are using this issue to attack her because she is the fashionable global emblem of handwringing, nicey-nicey politics   That’s what they’re really having a go at, badly. And if you see that way, you realise we have nothing to worry about. This isn’t really about our foreign policy at all.. this is just about attacking the Prime Minster. Fri, 23 Apr 2021 06:26:53 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-governments-plans-for-air-new-zealand-is-bad-for-all-involved/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-governments-plans-for-air-new-zealand-is-bad-for-all-involved/ I’m quite concerned about the direction the government’s has taken with Air New Zealand  The letter sent on Friday appears to have been largely missed because everyone’s been focused on the extra loan to the airline. But the government has announced that they will now be an “active majority shareholder” and they will be "involved in the process leading to board renewal" - which means they want a say in board appointments and they will want a say in businesses decisions. I can’t tell you how crazy this is. For a number of years now successive governments have operated a hands-off model. They own a majority in companies like this, but they let those companies be run essentially independently. Because businesses that makes business decisions do well, but businesses that make political decisions do not.   This government has put politics back into Air New Zealand. So what’s going to happen next time Air New Zealand decides to cut a route, like it cut Paraparaumu and it cut Wanaka, and the locals get upset and the mayor goes on TV? Does the government allow Air New Zealand to make that decision?  Or does it involve itself and force the company to keep the route open even if it’s running at a loss?  In the past, even though the government might have had power to force decisions, it didn’t and we didn’t expect it to. But we might now. And so now there will be pressure on the government to force Air New Zealand’s hand. Now here’s the question for you: why would you invest in that company?  48 percent of that airline is owned by shareholders who’ve just had the risk to their investment increase. The company wants to go to shareholders and the markets and ask for another $1.5 billion at least in further investment in the next five months.  Why would you put your money into that when politics is now an increased risk?  And them, is this who it’s going to be for other listed companies the government part own, such as power companies - if power prices are too high and people complain is that a risk to your investment?  I don’t know why the government’s written this letter and has this intention.  It could be naivety.  It could be its flexing to business to show who is really in charge.  It could be that they genuinely believe assets like this should be government–owned  But whatever the reason, this is a bad idea for the government, for Air New Zealand and for shareholders. Mon, 12 Apr 2021 04:26:11 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-government-is-right-to-suspend-flights-from-india/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-government-is-right-to-suspend-flights-from-india/ I understand that there is a bit of concern around the government’s decision to ban flights from India for two weeks, but I think this was the right decision. And I also think we should brace ourselves for the chance that this will be extended beyond the current two week ban. The reason I say that is because the situation in India is forecast to get a whole lot worse. Right now they’re getting a lot of cases a day, but economist Rodney Jones is forecasting that will rise in a couple of weeks, so that suggests the ban might have to be extended. The only way that that wouldn’t’ happen is if the Ministry of Health can figure out in the next couple of weeks how to tighten the system and stop so many positive cases coming through to our MIQ. But I don’t have the confidence that they can figure something out that quickly, given their record of being slow in fixing most things. This is going to raise some questions about whether it’s legal, because this is a breach of NZ citizens’ right to come in the Bill of Rights Act. A lot of people including academics are saying it’s fine as long as it’s temporary… it gets tricky if it gets extended. Obviously I’m not an expert but I don’t have the same concern. We breach the bill of rights act every day in some form or another… putting people in prison is a breach. We do it anyway because it’s necessary. This seems necessary given that our system cannot handle so many positive cases. I think NZ citizens trapped in India right now have a good reason to be asking why the system isn’t yet equipped to weed out positive cases before they get on the plane given we’ve been talking about it for weeks. But clearly it can’t. And so the only option left is the nuclear one, which is a travel ban. And I would expect, as I said, that there is a good chance the nuclear option goes on for longer than two weeks  Fri, 09 Apr 2021 07:47:34 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-wellington-zoo-should-not-replace-the-lions/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-wellington-zoo-should-not-replace-the-lions/ Have you seen what’s going on with Wellington Zoo?   They’ve just had to euthanize their two lions today.They’re sisters, getting on a bit. One was sick, so had to be put down. And then the zoo also put down her sister because lions are social animals and so it would be cruel to force her to live out her days by herself. That is obviously really sad to hear - but this is the bit that I cannot understand: Wellington Zoo says it will “look at starting a new pride of lions in the future”. What? Why on earth would Wellington Zoo get more lions?  Does anyone think is appropriate anymore, to take animals that should be living in sub Saharan Africa in hot, often dry climates and then force them to live, in a cage, in cold, windy, damp Wellington?  Is that still appropriate?  That second lion died for no good reason other than being in that cage with her sister.  If she was in the wild she would most likely have been part of a pride, had the ability to socialise and carried on with her life  I’m really opposed to zoos. I think these things are an anachronism from the days when we didn’t have the ability to travel to the animals in their natural environs and so we decided that to see them they had to be brought to us. Those days are over The argument against me will probably be that it’s educational for the kids. But if you want education, stick on National Geographic and fill your boots. Lions are supposed to roam the wild not be stuck in enclosures in the middle of a city that barely ever comes out of winter. Wellington Zoo should not replace these lions.  Thu, 08 Apr 2021 12:46:05 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-governments-housing-announcement-is-no-grand-plan/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-governments-housing-announcement-is-no-grand-plan/ If you’re a first home buyer, I’m sorry to have to say this, but this government housing announcement is not going to change the game significantly for you.  I can’t find a single economist who reckons this is a game changer. This is little more than tinkering at the edges.  If you are almost there as a buyer, it might help you a wee bit.  It’ll lift the cap on the price of houses you can use a grant for.  And it’ll knock a few investors out of competing for the house you want to buy.   But forcing them to pay a bit more tax on rental income and taxing them if they sell within ten years will only put some investors off. It’s not a huge disincentive, because quite frankly, houses are still - even with those changes – a good investment option compared to alternatives.  The best way to describe this is the way the government does, which is that it tilts the playing field towards first home buyers.  It makes it slightly easier.  But that’s about it. What’s frustrating about this announcement is that it just doesn’t address the fundamental problems that are driving houses up in price.  We don’t have enough land.  We don’t enough builders. Why isn’t there a big bold idea for housing to fix that? Look, this is almost getting boring due to repetition, but our problem is a lack of supply. Has been for ages. Still is.  You can tax all you like, you can lift caps, you can give grants, but unless we have more houses, not a lot is going to change.  So where’s the big idea?  Where’s the boldness – like Fran O’Sullivan said last night - why not bring in thousands of builders from China or Vietnam as she suggested and get cracking on pumping out houses?  Quite frankly, we are probably at the stage where house price inflation now warrants a grand idea like that.  Michael Joseph Savage had a grand idea in the 30s. He pumped out 33,000 state houses for people who didn’t have homes.  We’re probably due the 2021 equivalent of that. But be in doubt: what we saw today is not a grand plan.   Tue, 23 Mar 2021 08:47:27 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-this-argument-is-bigger-than-police-ten-7/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-this-argument-is-bigger-than-police-ten-7/ I can’t say if Police Ten 7 should be pulled off the air I don’t watch the show.  Ultimately, it’s going be a called for TVNZ and the police based on two things I’d say: whether it’s still a ratings success for TVNZ, and whether it’s still helping to solve crimes for the police.  Because let’s not forget, this show is not just about entertainment – although that undoubtedly is part of it – but it’s also about catching crooks. Last year, 20 cases were solved using information from viewers.  But actually, this argument is bigger than Police Ten 7. This is an argument about whether police are racist.  And there are plenty of people who think they are because 54 percent of people in our prisons are Māori or Pasifika, 66 percent of young people arrested in 2018 were Māori, and, in this particular iteration of the argument, Police Ten 7 is targeting brown people, according to Meng Foon. And that’s what this is: this is the same argument wrapped up in Police Ten Seven   So are they?  Or, are they just doing their jobs, arresting criminals whatever the colour of their skin. Police Commissioner Andrew Coster was asked about alleged police racism last week and he argued there are problems upstream, even before police get involved. What I thought he was trying to diplomatically say is that perhaps the reason Māori are over-represented in crime stats is because they’re also over-represented in a whole bunch of other stats that can go hand in hand with crime: poverty, poor education, joblessness.  You and I can argue about where this started. I’m of the firm belief there is a direction line back to dispossession of land, but possibly that’s an argument for another day.   But the point is, if we want these stats to change, then we need the proportion of Māori in poverty and other negative indicators to come down first, through a solution like perhaps Bill English’s social investment policy. But we’re not going to change a damn thing by telling police they’re racist for arresting people who are committing crimes.        Mon, 22 Mar 2021 03:47:03 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-weve-moved-on-from-needing-an-americas-cup-parade/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-weve-moved-on-from-needing-an-americas-cup-parade/ There’s not a lot of love for the fact that Team New Zealand has cancelled any chance of a winner’s parade if they take the America’s Cup.  Normally we have parades after America’s Cup wins. We’ve even done it after losses. We had one after San Francisco and the 9-8 horror loss. We had one after Bermuda. Who can forget the images of Sir Peter Blake on parade in the 90s?  But this time, no. And that’s because team New Zealand has asked Auckland not to host one. Their reasoning is that it’s been a tough year, and ratepayers don’t need that cost.  The move is not popular, especially on social media, but then when is anything popular on social media. To some extent I can understand the gripes, mostly over the fact that New Zealand has sunk $250 million plus into this event and a little parade would be a nice thank you gesture. I get that.  This is obviously in the context of some resentment over the fact that Grant Dalton is planning on possible taking the next event offshore to somewhere like the UK even though taxpayers have spent so much on this event.  But come on, let’s be rational. A parade? We don’t need a parade. It’s not the 1930s.  We’re a bit more sophisticated than that now.  Parades work best when you’re welcoming home a winning team from offshore. But these boys are here; we can see them every day at the viaduct, so I’m not sure how good turnout would necessarily be.  Also, money’s tight.  We could well be in a technical recession at the moment, and Auckland City Council’s had a massive fall in income post Covid. Now’s not the time for the city to be throwing cash at something like a parade.  So I totally get if you feel a bit grumpy at a perceived lack of gratitude over all the money we’ve invested, but throwing more money at the same thing is probably not the way to get bang for your buck.  Wed, 17 Mar 2021 04:06:28 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-queenstown-doesnt-deserve-the-hate/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-queenstown-doesnt-deserve-the-hate/ It’s disappointing to see the vitriol being unleashed on Queenstown at the moment. Businesses have gone public over the fact that they are getting some pretty awful messages.  Things like: “Queenstown have made their own bed and now they have to lie in it. No pity from someone who like everyone else was overcharged in that town."  We’ve heard it on some of the calls into this station as well, people grumpy at Queenstown for asking for help after years of overcharging. Well, you might call it overcharging; they call it running a smart business. There’s no debate. Queenstown is expensive. I recall paying $120 for a bottle of pretty normal whiskey that I would normally pay $70 for in Wellington or Auckland. That’s a huge mark up, and one that would probably windup a lot of kiwis - but it’s not aimed at us. It’s aimed at the international market who account for a lot of Queenstown’s tourists normally. And haven’t we all been offshore in tourism hotspots and paid a lot more than we would normally expect to simply because it is a tourism hotspot? That’s all that’s happening here.  Queenstown is priced for its market. You can’t realistically argue that Queenstown should price itself lower for us Kiwis. That would be akin to Pacific resorts charging far less than they do because they’re pricing themselves for their local markets. That’s crazy. If the tourists are prepared to pay more, then you charge more.  And the thing we need to bear in mind is that Queenstown is stunning.  It is a highly desirable location for visiting tourists. It’s a premium destination, which is why it charges premium prices. It’s not trying to rip us off, it’s just trying to make as much money as possible from high value international tourists which ultimately means it rakes in more in GST for the country which ultimately benefits all of us.  Tue, 16 Mar 2021 05:35:56 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-coal-import-shows-oil-gas-ban-was-a-whoops-from-government/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-coal-import-shows-oil-gas-ban-was-a-whoops-from-government/ There’s only one thing to say about coal and that’s ‘whoops’.  Probably shouldn’t’ have banned the gas exploration eh?   The situation, FYI, is that we’re now learning we imported more coal last year than any year since 2006.  We imported 1.1 million tonnes in 2020 - that’s more than we imported in 2017 and 2018 combined.  And the reason?  Well, it looks like this can be directly sheeted back to the government’s oil and gas exploration ban three years ago. Two reasons for this. If we’re not looking for more gas, we will eventually not have any gas. But electricity companies use gas to fill in those down times when the wind isn’t blowing or the rivers are low. But if they don’t have gas, they’re going to need coal, so they’re stockpiling. According to ACT, our national coal stockpiles have gone from 40,000 tonnes to 166,000 in one year, and you know what that means: we’re going to be burning a lot of coal for a long time yet.  And the second thing is that we’re getting less gas out of existing gas fields.  Sometimes gas fields don’t perform as well as they should  And need to be re-drilled  Normally that could be done much more easily because we would have oil and gas exploration, so we would still have big drills coming to NZ regularly and the necessary workers here and they would be able to do the re-drilling in the existing gas fields.  But we don’t, so we’re getting less now of what we should have. And that is the consequence of a knee jerk ban. You can ban anything you like because it sounds good and it’s a climate emergency and it’s the nuclear free moment of your generation, but you just made the situation a whole lot worse for the climate - because everyone knows coal is worse than gas. So, if you supported the government’s oil and gas ban, good for you, but don’t say you weren’t warned. Hope you don’t mind the coal-fired consequences of that ban.   Mon, 15 Mar 2021 04:37:01 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-why-is-clarke-gayford-doing-jacinda-arderns-job/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-why-is-clarke-gayford-doing-jacinda-arderns-job/ Clarke Gayford has waded into the conversation about the Government's somewhat delayed move to announce whether or not Auckland will be moving down alert levels. Gayford has come under fire, after he wrote that an in-principle alert level decision was made, pending today's final test results. Martin an inprinciple decision was decided but its all pending on final test results today.— Clarke Gayford (@NZClarke) March 11, 2021 Jacinda Ardern says she hasn't seen her partner since yesterday, and pushed back strongly on the implication he knew what the decision was. Watch the video above as Heather du Plessis-Allan shares her thoughts on Jacinda Ardern's partner involving himself in the alert level controversy. Fri, 12 Mar 2021 06:38:23 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-the-queen-delivers-mature-response-to-sussex-whinge-fest/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-the-queen-delivers-mature-response-to-sussex-whinge-fest/ Has The Queen done enough to stop the Harry and Meghan scandal damaging the royals?  She put out a very short statement this morning: “The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan. The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.”  That is a massive middle finger at the couple.  It basically says we love you, but your story is wrong, and you shouldn’t be airing family disputes to the whole world.  And that’s it.  And I reckon that’s enough. It’s dignified which is the opposite of these two cry-babies.  I think many of us would agree that this it’s embarrassingly poor behaviour to make a family dispute public, so many of us would think it’s reasonable for a family to want to handle this kind of thing privately. And many of us will have been in exactly that kind of family situation where two people can tell completely different versions of the same event, so we can buy the line that ‘recollections may vary’.  I also suspect that many of us can see through the deliberate misleading that happened in that interview.  Meghan and Harry clearly tried to paint themselves as the victims of a brutal family, when half the time the explanation is that they didn’t get what they wanted because they weren’t supposed to get. For example, Archie being denied the title of prince.  He’s not due the title of prince.  A commonwealth audience would know that.  An American audience – which this is aimed at – wouldn’t necessarily.  The two of them came across as wanting things both ways all the time: wanting privacy but giving interviews, saying they don’t read the tabloids but being obsessed with the tabloid stories about them, not wanting a title for Archie but wanting a title for his security.    There is very little public sympathy for the pair of them – that much is obvious from polls in the UK and Australia – and so I think The Queen has played this perfectly. Because we are not clamouring for justice for these two.  We think they’ve behaved horrifically.  This is different to Diana where the public felt sorry for her. The public do not feel sorry for these two given their hypocritical behaviour.  Now I don’t think The Queen’s statement will make the story go away: some of these allegations are just too sensational for the tabloids to resist picking at them.  But, The Queen has probably limited the damage by sounding like the loving, mature, grown up matriarch in contrast to their infantile ‘she made me cry’ whinge fest.  Wed, 10 Mar 2021 04:58:57 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-how-ruthless-is-the-queen/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-how-ruthless-is-the-queen/ How ruthless is the Queen?  She might be getting on in years, but she’s clearly not lost her nerves of steel. Those fresh bullying claims levelled at Meghan Markle have Buckingham Palace’s finger prints all over them. I’ll bring you up to speed, if you haven’t been following it. Three days ago, The Times broke the story that Meghan Markle allegedly treated staff members so badly that two left. It then came out that Kiwi Jason Knauf, who was working for Meghan and Harry, had sent an internal email because he was so worried about Meghan’s behaviour. So, as a result, Buckingham Palace has announced an investigation into the bullying allegations.  Here are the reasons to be very suspicious about where this story is coming from. Number one: Jason Knauf now works for William and Kate, who are have had a falling out with Harry, and you can guess whose side Knauf is now on. Number two: the timing of this story is too cute. It’s emerged just days before that Meghan and Harry interview with Oprah, which by all accounts is freaking the royal family out because they don’t know what’s in it. Number three: the bullying investigation. What’s the point in launching an investigation?  Meghan and Harry aren’t part of the family anymore.  Any bullying they might’ve been subjecting staff too is history.  It’s not a current threat to royal staff.  It’s been said any inquiry must’ve been signed off by the Queen, so this attack – if it is coming from Buckingham Palace (as it appears to be) – probably has her blessing.  And that’s ruthless isn’t it?  It looks like she’s prepared to put the future of the crown ahead of her grandson.  The Queen’s been ruthless in the past – deciding who Charles could marry, forbidding her sister from marrying Captain Townsend, being cruel to Diana – so it should be no surprise that she’s still got it, even at 94.  Fri, 05 Mar 2021 04:32:32 Z