/on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/rss 九一星空无限 Fri, 31 Jan 2025 21:45:51 Z en /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/jodi-oconnell-tvnz-ceo-on-devastating-job-cuts/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/jodi-oconnell-tvnz-ceo-on-devastating-job-cuts/ Television New Zealand (TVNZ) chief executive Jodi O’Donnell has told 九一星空无限talk ZB's Heather du Plessis-Allan she didn’t want to cut any shows, but it had been a day of hard decisions. “It’s only a proposal at this stage," O'Donnell said.  "We have spent the seven months working across the business trying to find cost savings,” she said However, it hadn’t been enough, she said. “We need to do something more significant. So we’ve had a look at all our options. I’ve been open about the fact there are no ‘sacred cows’ and we need to find ways to stop doing some things because we need to cut costs." O'Donnell said TVNZ was investing more than $40 million into news and current affairs: “So we absolutely believe in the future of news and current affairs.” She said, though, TVNZ’s operating model was more expensive than the revenue it was making. "We need to find ways to stop doing some things because we need to cut costs." Pressed on specifically which programmes would be cut - including possible changes to Shortland Street - O’Donnell said any show could be affected: “We’re looking at everything.” “We’ll constantly be looking at things to keep our operating model in line with our revenue. “We are a commercial business. That’s the remit we need to work with. She said TVNZ’s decision-making was partly based on which shows would work in a “digital world”. O’Donnell confirmed TVNZ did not consider cutting 1九一星空无限 down to a half hour. "What we see with the one-hour news bulletin, it’s an incredibly profitable hour of broadcasting and it also delivers incredibly strong on our digital platform." She said there had been a continual decline in advertising revenue across this financial year. “Our competitors these days are not [九一星空无限talk ZB] or Sky or Warner Brothers, but they are Google and Meta. These are multi-trillion dollar organisations. “Ninety cents in every dollar spent in digital news advertising is going offshore. That’s 10 cents left for the likes of New Zealand Media and Entertainment, TVNZ, Stuff - any of the local broadcasters, and that’s a challenge. “I mean you still can’t advertise on television on Sunday morning at the moment. That’s how outdated that [Broadcasting] Act is. “I think, particularly in this environment of trust, it’s important that is really clear and it’s still independent." She said she was ambitious about TVNZ’s digital future. “We offer a broad range of content. Local is still an incredibly important part of that. As we build out that platform, that’s the challenge we have in front of us." There were no other cuts planned, she said. - NZ Herald WATCH ABOVE   Fri, 08 Mar 2024 03:59:56 Z /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-could-we-see-the-mass-vaccination-go-anything-but-smoothly/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-could-we-see-the-mass-vaccination-go-anything-but-smoothly/ Could we see this coming?  That the mass vaccination event was going to go anything but smoothly today?  Probably.  They really needed this to go well.  Because this is supposed to signal that NZ is finally off and running on the vaccinations.   This week the jab opened to the general public.  The PM got her second jab.  And now this big event of efficient, mass vaccinating in the most at risk area, South Auckland.  This is supposed to inject confidence in the roll out and encourage everyone else to go in and get a jab because it’s a super-efficient process.  Except apparently it’s a shambles.  At least that’s what Emma on Twitter said.   Minimum delay already one hour – that was at 11:40 this morning.  Spencer on Twitter said he turned up at 10:40 to hear the 9:50 group only being called then. So confirmation: about an hour delayed.  11:30 Helen texts us – still an hour’s delay. Ralph called and said the delay was so long he had to abandon the jab and – it sounded like – go back to work.  Even before this started it was clear this bombing.   I mean you have to invite 140,000 people before you can fill the 16,000 slots – you know you’ve got a problem.  That’s a response rate of 11.4%.  That’s a decline rate of 88.6%.  That’s not good by anyone’s measure.  Frankly this event and the entire week has been a bit of a damp squib.  As I said a few days ago: I’m starting to get a bit worried about how many people feel urgent about getting the jab.  Hearing that you might have to take the day off work when it’s your turn because the system is delayed and slow is not going to help.  Fri, 30 Jul 2021 05:32:03 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-pausing-the-bubble-the-right-move-economically/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-pausing-the-bubble-the-right-move-economically/ The Government’s done the right thing suspending the trans-Tasman bubble today.   Delta has clearly changed the risk calculation.   It says a lot that New South Wales – which is the state that has managed Covid without having to go into a widespread lockdown this entire pandemic – has now been forced into lockdown.  And even after four weeks of lockdown, it can’t seem to knock delta on the head.  It recorded 136 cases today – that’s the highest daily total this outbreak.  53 of them were still roaming around the community while infectious, which means this lockdown ain’t gonna end any time soon.  You couldn’t really leave travel open to unaffected states.  The land borders are proving a little porous.  People have been sneaking from one state into another then flying to NZ and pretending they didn’t start their journey in a hotspot.  111 of them have been busted and thrown into MIQ.   I’m not generally a fan of being overly cautious but I think this is a simple economic equation.  If we get even one case of delta, we will be heading straight into a Level 3 or 4 lockdown.   That’s what we're hearing from the government’s advisors.   So you have to weigh up the cost of that versus the cost of closing the trans-Tasman bubble.  The trans-Tasman bubble isn’t seeing much traffic right now.  NSW and Victoria are the biggest air routes to NZ.   Both are closed.   Which means there is not much benefit to our tourism businesses at the moment.  A lockdown?  Well, the cost to Auckland which is the city most likely to be locked down is between $45 and $75 million a day.  A helluva lot more if it’s the entire country.  So the maths there is simple.  We are the last elimination country that hasn’t had Delta.  Our border controls are so weak we have already had more than 100 people arrive without doing their pre-departure tests.  Our vaccination rate is so low we’re sitting ducks.  We could and should be getting on with the latter.   Economically, closing the border to a country in the grips of an outbreak was the right move. Fri, 23 Jul 2021 03:45:38 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-poto-williams-should-be-representing-the-police/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-poto-williams-should-be-representing-the-police/ I feel for our country’s cops at the moment, especially after those train wreck comments by their Minister Poto Williams this morning. My problem is not that she opposes the arming of frontline police, she’s entitled to her opinion. My problem is that she says her reason for that is because the communities she represents don’t want it. I’m talking about the communities I represent which is Māori and Pasifika communities. What is she talking about? She’s the Police Minister. If there is a group she is supposed to represent and have the back of it’s the police. She is the person who is supposed to go to the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister and argue for resources and funding to make sure cops can do their jobs. And if there’s a second group she should be representing, it’s the people of Christchurch east who elected her. Who are a mix of ethnicities -  12 per cent Māori, 4 per cent Pasifika, 87 per cent Pakeha, 5 per cent Asian. But instead, she makes it sound like she’s the representative of South Auckland's Māori and Pasifika communities. Christchurch East voters should be annoyed. The Nats are calling for Poto Williams to be sacked, I personally think that’s over the top. Her comments aren’t a sackable offence, but they have likely eroded officers’ confidence in her as their Minister. She clearly does not have their backs as a priority and that is why I feel sorry for them, because it’s hard to be a cop at the moment. They’ve got gun violence that’s so bad even the police commissioner admits it’s worrying him The Government's told them they’re on a pay freeze for three years and then the Prime Minister signs off nearly three million dollars of spending to go to members of the Mongrel Mob, which is a gang cops are spending their working hours trying to disrupt. The police association says in the last two weeks they’ve had more feedback from frontline officers than in the last five years combined. So officers are upset, and frankly, after hearing the minister today, with good reason. Wed, 21 Jul 2021 04:19:19 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-are-we-headed-for-a-clash-with-china/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-are-we-headed-for-a-clash-with-china/ It feels like we are headed for a clash with China. The only question is, how far can we push it before China hits us with economic punishment as they have done to Australia? It is very significant that our Government accused China of sponsoring cyberattacks late last night, we have made similar accusations in the past, but commentators say the accusation has never been levelled by a minister before. This time, it is a minister - Andrew Little. The fact that we did it in cahoots with other western powers – the US, the UK, NATO, Japan, Australia – means that we are a little bit shielded from reprisal. It’s not as if China feels it must retaliate against us necessarily. But they could, and at some point they may well choose to. We are not letting up on our criticism of them this week, it’s this last week we chose to adopt the new Western phrase ‘Indo Pacirfic’ instead of Asia-Pacific, which China apparently really hates. We’ve called them out on the treatment of the Uyghur Muslims, we’ve called them out on Hong Kong, we’ve called them out on the tariffs they’ve used to punish Australia. We probably didn’t have a choice on this one, China stealing IP is a significant problem, and we can’t always hang back while our allies do the heavy lifting. But you’ve got to wonder whether this is why foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta warned exporters for about three months now to diversify away from China. When she said it was only ‘a matter of time’ before the China storm hits us you have to wonder if she already knew New Zealand was going to have to call China out and we’d be risking retaliation. And we are it’s just a question of how long China tolerates us giving them a serve before they give us one back. Tue, 20 Jul 2021 04:45:46 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-im-fascinated-at-nsw-rulebreakers/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-im-fascinated-at-nsw-rulebreakers/ I’m fascinated by how many people are breaking the lockdown rules in New South Wales at the moment. Every day, when the NSW authorities report the number of new cases, they also include the number of those infected people who were running around town while sick.  And every day that number is double digits: today 20, yesterday 34, Saturday 29 Then you’ve got the seven people who got together at a field to play soccer against the rules, suspiciously without a soccer ball.  You’ve got the three removal guys who knew they had Covid and travelled from Sydney to regional New South Wales anyway.  You’ve got the crowds at Bondi this past weekend.  And you had the truck convoy blocking the Harbour Bridge in protest at the lockdown.   In just one day 20 people were charged and will be before the courts.  240 people were given $1000 tickets.   At this point you obviously ask: why are they ignoring the rules? And the only conclusion I can come to is that they are not seeing enough people dying to frighten them.   In this outbreak NSW has only suffered four deaths: two in their 90s, one in their 80s and one in their 70s.  If you’re a young person much less likely to die from Covid that’s probably not sufficiently frightening.  This puts the authorities in an awkward situation.  Because they now face the worst possible situation.  Which is a heavy drawn out lockdown that has to continue because it’s not effective because too many people are breaking the rules.  These guys have just gone into a full noise lockdown for the first time this pandemic. From today even construction and building maintenance have been shut down. These guys are already more than 3 weeks into their lockdown and the spread of Covid shows no sign of slowing. So the fascinating thing is watching what happens next?  Do they give up and let Covid rip like some of their state politicians have suggested they should?   Or do they stay in a semi-effective heavy lockdown for weeks or months until they finish rolling out the vaccine?  Mon, 19 Jul 2021 05:00:35 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-olympics-happening-rain-hail-or-shine/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-olympics-happening-rain-hail-or-shine/ It’s now exactly two weeks to the day that the Olympics are due to open and I think we might have to come to terms with the fact that this thing looks like it’s going to go ahead. Because they are clearly pulling out all stops to push on. Last night Japan declared a Covid state of emergency in Tokyo and instead of that ending the thing altogether, they’ve just decided to ban fans. They’ve have pared it back to almost a skeleton event, bar banning spectators from the events outside Tokyo like the surfing. I don't know what else they can do to keep the Covid risk down while still holding the event. But here’s a question for you.  Now that fans are banned, does it need to be called off?   What is it that we’re worried the Olympics will do Covid wise?  I mean clearly it’s not like the Olympics themselves pose a risk of introducing Covid to Japan. Japan’s registering an average of close to 1700 cases a day.  It’s clearly now at low risk of creating super spreader events amongst fans. And frankly, no one should be too worried about athletes catching Covid.  They are consenting adults, who’ve been offered vaccines, choosing to go to a country registering quadruple digit Covid numbers. They’re more than capable of making their own decisions and then living by.   In a way, I’m starting to come around to the idea of holding the Olympics.  If only because it represents some of kind half-version of normality returning. The vaccinated world is charging towards the other side of Covid now and the Olympics feel like part of that wave.  Obviously a lot can change in just a few weeks – we saw that with the cricket in India – so who knows how this plays out.   But the athletes are arriving, the events are scheduled, the banners are going up.   The closer we get, the more it looks like this is gonna happen. Fri, 09 Jul 2021 04:46:39 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-government-keeping-the-borders-shut-will-end-in-tears/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-government-keeping-the-borders-shut-will-end-in-tears/ I think it’s becoming more and more obvious that we are drawing ever closer to some sort of crunch point with a worker shortage in this country.   ASB this week warned that labour turnover has surged in the last three months, suggesting bosses are just desperately poaching staff off each other. ANZ today pointed out we are very close to full employment, which is to say everyone who wants to work is working - and yet we still have employers crying out for workers. We are, as Brad Olsen says, playing musical chairs, but we just have more chairs than people. I think it’s also becoming more and more obvious that Covid isn’t the only reason workers can’t get in. As immigration lawyer Alastair McClymont said to Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning, this is deliberate. The government is cutting off the foreign worker supply to try to force up wages. It’s not going to work; it’s going to end in tears. There’s an example of this in history that explains how this is probably going to play out.  Back at the end of 1964, the Kennedy Government stopped Mexican workers from being able to cross the border for seasonal work on farms. Again, they thought these workers were driving down wage rates and stealing jobs off Americans. The end of result of that was that farms that relied on these workers couldn’t’ hire Americans, so they did exactly exactly what our government wants our bosses to do and they invested in equipment. They pulled up their crops, bought equipment, and turned to farming things that were more easily done by machines than people. And you know what happened to wages? Nothing, they stayed the same.  So this giant experiment with trying to push up wages is probably not going to work, but will happen is that businesses will fall over while this experiment continues. So this will end in tears and we’re nearly at the crunch point. Thu, 08 Jul 2021 06:34:18 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-why-did-government-baulk-at-paying-40m-more-for-vaccines/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-why-did-government-baulk-at-paying-40m-more-for-vaccines/ The surprise of the day today came in reading Richard Prebble’s column, and finally getting some confirmation as to why we are back of the OECD queue for the Pfizer vaccine. Turns out, we didn’t pay the premium that other countries like Israel did to get their jabs early. Israel paid about US$4 per dose more than the US, and agreed to share data, and got their first shipments in early December last year. According to Prebble, quoting an economist, to get up the queue would’ve cost us $40m.  That’s nothing. We probably paid Pfizer a quarter of a billion dollars for our doses.  $40m on top of that is a small amount. It’s $10 per Kiwi on top of the probably $56 per Kiwi our doses cost. Why did we agree to $56 and then baulk at another $10 to get it earlier?  Why would we say ‘nah we’d rather be right the back of the queue thanks, literally last in the developed world’? Here’s perspective: $40m is the cost of only one and a bit days of Auckland going into lockdown level 3 back in March. As we said yesterday on the show, we are the last country standing on the list of elimination countries that hasn’t had Delta through it. We are sitting ducks. Australia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Mongolia, Cambodia, Laos, they’ve all managed to keep Covid controlled until delta came through. 95 percent of us have no jab.  In Israel, more than 80 percent have at least one jab.  I do not buy the government’s argument that it’s unethical to pay more to vaccines ahead of others  We didn’t elect them to prioritise citizens of other countries, they’re elected to look after us. And in any case, Ashely Bloomfield admitted they nicked 100,000 Pfizer doses from Covax which is meant to go to third world countries, so when it comes to ethics they haven’t got a leg to stand on. Now I think most of us are resigned to this vaccine roll out being as slow as it is. I think we have already written the rest of this year off, so this is not a massive upset. But isn’t it an insight into the lack of urgency behind the scenes. For a mere $10 a person, we might’ve actually been front of the queue, instead of dead last in the developed world.  Wed, 07 Jul 2021 04:29:47 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-people-calling-for-raising-the-pension-age-can-take-a-hike/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-people-calling-for-raising-the-pension-age-can-take-a-hike/ People calling for a raise in the pension age can take a hike, frankly.  You always hear this from the same kind of people, don’t you? Soft-handed city dwellers who sit behind a desk all day for their jobs, who only ever break a sweat in a gym class.  For them, retiring a couple of years later is no big deal, because they work in relative comfort.   They should try pitching their opinion straight to someone like a builder or a farmer and see how it goes down.  Some of those people who do manual labour all day don’t have the option of working another couple of years extra.  Their bodies are broken.  Sometimes well before retirement age.  Some of them have shot knees in their forties.   If you firmly believe that the retirement age should be raised, you need to check your privilege, and if you hold a nice cosy office job where the biggest muscle you exercise is your tongue, then maybe you have too much privilege to really comprehend what a delayed pension means for some of your fellow Kiwis. Because they will have to retire.  Once the body’s shot, it’s shot.  At least right now, they only have to last to 65 and then they’ll have some money to see them through.  I’m as tired of hearing this argument as you probably are but it’s been raised again by Treasury in their long term economic outlook document where they argue something has to give because the pandemic is blowing out national debt.  It is a fallacy that pensions are an unsustainable cost.  Right now they cost 5 percent of GDP.  In 40 years from now they’ll cost 7.6 percent.   That’s not even the current OECD average. Right now, OECD countries spend more than 8.5 percent on pensions we’d still be short of that in 40 years.  If Treasury is worried about spending, don’t cut the spending that matters: the spending that means we have one of the lowest elderly poverty rates in the world.  Cut all the unnecessary spending the government’s racking up under the guise of Covid:  Upgrading marae owned by wealthy iwi  $30 million on investigating an hydro lake scheme so stupid they’ll have to abandon it   $90 million on a fast train to Hamilton that isn’t fast  We could save billions if we just spent money wisely.  Leave the pension age alone.  The least we can do for hardworking kiwis who’ve paid taxes their whole lives is make sure they can stop working when their bodies are shot.  Tue, 06 Jul 2021 04:53:08 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-best-start-shows-all-thats-wrong-with-government-subsidies/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-best-start-shows-all-thats-wrong-with-government-subsidies/ Isn’t the Best Start programme everything that’s wrong with public spending right now?  This is the Prime Minister’s pet programme for giving money to parents of new-borns. It was launched to stem child poverty, with a payment that is worth up to $3120 a year.   We find out today that the government is giving that money to couples who frankly do not need it. They gave it to nearly 4500 couples earning over $200,000 a year and they gave it to 11,000 couples earning over $150,000 a year. You’ll hear the usual stuff trotted out from defenders of this kind of spending. Going through the process of income testing parents ends up costing more than just rolling it out to everyone. If you don’t roll it out to everyone some people will slip through the cracks. A good society funds its oldest and it’s youngest. It’s only $35 million.  That last excuse is what always bugs me - it’s always ONLY x number of million dollars.   Have you thought about this: We as taxpayers are subsidising nearly every aspect of a life. We pay parents to have a child, then we subsidise the child going to school, we subside the child’s doctor’s visits, we subsidise the dentist visit, we subsidise university – almost completely – we subsidise the child after their OE coming home through MIQ with a free hotel room, we subside them buying their first home, we subsides them buying an electric vehicle and then we subsidise them having a baby so we start the thing all over again while they grow old and we start subsidising their winter electricity bills  Some of that stuff is entirely justified – doctor’s visits for example, the pension, schooling – but it’s got completely out of hand if we are subsidise nearly aspect of a life  And you know what the outcome of all this is? Anyone missing out gets so frustrated at the thought that wealthy couples are getting taxpayer money as gifts for having a baby. That come next election we all line up to see what they’ll give us to even the ledger and make us feel less ripped off, thus perpetuating the cycle all over again. Meantime, so much of our taxpayer money is going into subsidising normal life stuff that we don’’ have enough to pay nurses properly. I’m frustrated by this. Frankly, I’d rather they found a way NOT to give thousands of dollars of new baby money to parents who don’t need it rather than making excuses for why they should.  Thu, 01 Jul 2021 05:00:04 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-wellington-kayakers-shouldnt-have-to-pay-over-search-and-rescue-callout/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-wellington-kayakers-shouldnt-have-to-pay-over-search-and-rescue-callout/ The suggestion that the kayakers who went out in Wellington’s rough weather this morning should pay for their rescue is ridiculous. The guys were not rescued - so there’s no rescue to pay for.  By the time everyone caught up with them, they were safe and sound on dry land at Petone.  I don’t blame the people who called emergency services when they saw the lads in the water. These guys had set out from Seatoun and headed to Petone, in what are apparently enormous waves, with swells of up to six metres forecast for this evening. But one person’s danger is another’s adventure, especially if they are experienced in this stuff. And according to one of the kayakers – Eric, who spoke to TVNZ once they caught up with him - they are experienced. These guys didn’t call for help, they weren’t the ones who made the decision to dispatch air and sea rescue services - they were just out having fun before going to work. The only possible criticism you could have of these two is that they should’ve given the coastguard a heads up that they were heading out. But in order to do that, they had to have foreseen that there would be concern for them. If this is their normal, they might not realise it would appear so alarming to others, that it could prompt 111 calls. You can't accuse them of being cavalier with their safety, given they both had lifejackets on. It is unavoidable that from time to time, there will be cases where rescue services are called when people are absolutely fine and don’t need help - just given the sheer number of rescues that happen in this country, statistically that has got to happen from time to time. But, when it does happen, you chalk up to a misjudgement on everyone else’s part, not on the part of people like the kayakers. You can’t make these boys pay for assistance they didn’t ask for, or need. Tue, 29 Jun 2021 04:41:56 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-pausing-the-travel-bubble-was-the-right-call/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-pausing-the-travel-bubble-was-the-right-call/ I’m always happy to give the government a hard time when I think they’re stuffing up, so – to be fair to them – I should also give them a bit of support when I think they’re making the right call.   On that note, I think they’ve done the right thing briefly pausing the trans-Tasman bubble, if only to ensure that route stays open long term.  The worst thing that could happen right now is that someone else comes over from Australia and Delta takes hold here. That would kill the trans-Tasman bubble until – at least – we’d all had vaccinations. There are a huge number of Kiwis who don’t like the bubble, don’t like the idea of it being open, and if a case leaked over here and took hold, I can’t see the government holding that bubble open against the wave of anger. Just today we’ve had the news that a couple of contacts of the Northern territory miner who has tested positive for Covid have arrived in NZ.  They’re isolating and being tested, but it does show just how much uncertainty there is across the ditch at the moment with the Delta variant. That variant’s causing trouble. The fact that it’s outrun the NSW contact tracers says a lot: those guys have managed to keep on top of every other outbreak and avoid a city-wide lockdown but delta seems to be faster than them. The thing with the bubble is that we know – under the government’s elimination strategy – that it’s a privilege.  It’s a hard won privilege.  Every day with the bubble open for businesses in places like Queenstown means a day with extra revenue they otherwise wouldn’t have got.   It totally sucks that the three day pause has caused cancellations, and I can’t imagine how much disruption that’ll throw those businesses into. But we also know public opinion on this is finely balanced, and the integrity of the bubble needs to be protected so that Aussie money can keep coming over. If a three day pause is what it takes to prove the bubble works and is what it takes to protect it long term, then I think  it’s a price worth paying. Mon, 28 Jun 2021 05:36:33 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-mycoplasma-bovis-study-shows-bureaucrats-dont-know-how-to-deal-with-farmers/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-mycoplasma-bovis-study-shows-bureaucrats-dont-know-how-to-deal-with-farmers/ If you want a perfect example of suits in Wellington turning up on the farm with no idea, just have a look at the study into how badly the bureaucrats treated farmers and money during the bovis eradication programme. The University of Otago researchers who did this study reckon they had farmers breaking down when they turned up to talk about their experiences. Remember these are farmers, people who typically don’t show a helluva lot of emotion, arguably especially not in front of a pair of strangers. That is how awful this was for them. One farmer told the researchers he can’t even remember the birth of his first child, it was that traumatic.  He’s now given up farming because of it. Another says he was still in the milking shed when the pet food guys turned up and started shooting his animals and cutting their throats in the yard. Another said he was told he’d have to have his shed cleaned out. Sounds like the bureaucrats had no idea what that actually meant and that it was going to cost $150,000. He said the shed was old anyway and for 70,000 – half the price - they could knock it down and build another one. MPI said no, they couldn’t be seen leaving him with a new shed – even if it cost half the amount of taxpayer money – and so they had it cleaned. One farmer said his staff were paid to sit at a table disinfecting and scrubbing individual screws.  Screws.  For goodness sake, what is a box of screws worth?  Quite rightly, the researchers have slammed MPI for this.  They’ve called it ‘inhumane’, ‘intrusive’ and ‘impractical’.  They say local knowledge and expertise was ignored - which basically means people who don’t know how to farm started instructing the farmers – and the bureaucratic process was inefficient.   Ultimately the eradication has been successful and for that MPI deserves some praise, but I suspect more praise needs to go to the farmers who went through more pain and frustration than any of us realised.  Tue, 22 Jun 2021 04:49:14 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-winston-peters-could-be-brought-back-as-labours-handbrake/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-winston-peters-could-be-brought-back-as-labours-handbrake/ Does Winston Peters have a path back to Parliament?  Too right he does.  I reckon this all comes down to how much of a mess the National Party is in 2023. If they are still the shambles they are right now and have no hope whatsoever of getting enough votes to from a government, and the only possible scenario is a government of Labour or Labour plus the Greens, I reckon there will a strong temptation among grumpy centre- and right-leaning voters to put Winston back in as a handbrake. He’s got a couple of things to get over. The first is the SFO-laid charges against people connected to NZ First. He needs that to go right for his party  And he’s got to deal with resentful voters. People are annoyed with him and blame him for putting us in this position by choosing labour in the first place  Fair enough, but if you’re faced with the option of continuing to pushing him for that, or putting him back in to stop nonsense like the Auckland bike bridge and taxes they promised they wouldn’t do. You might well decide that as angry as you are, you’re more worried what Labour might do with another three years unchecked. And the fact is we have seen the difference he makes. Labour last term got none of this crazy stuff through because he stopped it: fair pay agreements, ute taxes, light rail to the airport. But he’s gone, and Labour’s gone hell for leather with the madness.   九一星空无限hub last night trotted out some numbers to prove Winston Peters couldn’t make it back. 70 percent of the country, according to a poll they did, didn’t want him back. But 20 percent did. He only needs five percent: he only needs a quarter of those people and he’s back. He’s got a good issue to campaign on with Māori separatism. That’s probably not going away this term because labour’s Māori caucus is massive and powerful and making demands, and they’ll be doing that right up to the next election to make sure they don’t lose seats to the Māori Party. That looks like a gimme for him. Obviously, it’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen at an election in two years’ time. National might become credible and voters won’t want to waste votes on NZ First. But if the political landscape mirrors what we’ve got now, I’d say Winston’s got a path back. Mon, 21 Jun 2021 04:46:17 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-councils-are-ignoring-the-impact-of-making-cbds-car-free/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-councils-are-ignoring-the-impact-of-making-cbds-car-free/ Can councils for just one second please start caring about what they’re doing to businesses in their area?  This decision to ban cars from central Wellington is so stupid.  We all know this because we’re all seeing it roll out across our own towns and suburbs up and this country but this is now in Wellington on a bigger scale.   Clearly this is moronic. It’s hard enough for Wellingtonians to get around town at the moment with all the streets available to them, just like it is for most of us in our towns.  It’s jammed.  There are more people in our towns now than the existing infrastructure can handle. Councils should be building infrastructure - like a tunnel through Mt Victoria – not taking infrastructure away.  The impact that this will have no business is no longer a theory.  We are seeing what councils can do to people’s livelihoods.  We have businesses in Auckland today protesting outside their council because of the disruption caused by the CRL works.  We have a guy in Henderson saying his revenue is down 54 percent in his shop because the council has redirected traffic and stuffed it up all.  This is probably exactly what’s going to happen in Wellington.  You take these streets away so people struggle to drive around even more, you take away up to 200 car parks when the city is already down about 3000 from the Kaikōura quake, and you essentially stop people wanting to come into town.  Mum and dad, kids in the back, coming in from Johnsonville, blustery day, prospect of driving around 20 minutes trying to find one of the few available parks while navigating the new weird street system, those guys are just going straight out to the mall in the suburbs. You know how much the officials care?  Siobhan Procter, who is the projects director for Let's Get Wellington Moving, said most of the retail spend comes from pedestrians and public transport users anyway.  Only 23 percent of it comes from private vehicles users so “there is very little risk of any downside to retailers”.  Very little risk? A quarter of business. These people run on a net margin of less than 4 percent most of the time, so a quarter of business is a lot, lady.  These shops are already dealing with public servants working from home after the lockdown, car parking rates going up, and parts of the city unsafe because the government filled central city hotels with homeless people. Councils have no idea what they’re doing to people.  Hating cars cannot be more important than the people trying to eke out a living in the city.  Thu, 17 Jun 2021 07:48:21 Z /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-xenophobia-cant-be-blamed-for-kiwis-turning-against-china/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-xenophobia-cant-be-blamed-for-kiwis-turning-against-china/ This survey out today about Kiwis’ changing attitudes to China is fascinating, albeit not surprising. It shows that 35 percent of kiwis now perceive China as a threat, which is a reasonable increase from last year, when it was 22 percent. There are only two countries we see as a bigger threat and they are North Korea and Russia. And for the first time there are more kiwis that see China as a threat than there are kiwis that see China as a friend. Now I’d be willing to bet that it’s actually worse than this right now, because this survey was done in October and November last year. Things have got a heck of a lot worse since then.   Since then, we’ve had: China slapping tariffs on Australian wine, Damien O’Connor telling Australia to treat China with respect which is pretty much an admission that we suck up, commentators in western countries calling us out for cosying up to China, the New Xi-land 60 Minutes piece, Nanaia Mahuta warning exporters to diversify, and Joe Biden running out the Covid lab theory. So 35 percent?  It’s probably higher now.   But this can’t be blamed, like it so often is, on xenophobia. I heard the boss of the Asia New Zealand Foundation today trying to gently blame the media for fostering negative perceptions of china. Nah, I’m sorry, this time it’s on China. The media didn’t crack down on democratic rights in Hong Kong. The media isn’t torturing Uighur Muslims in camps in Xinjiang. The media isn’t expanding its naval reach in the South China Sea.   China is to blame for Kiwis for viewing them more as a threat than a friend. If it doesn’t want to be perceived as a threat, it has to stop behaving like a threat. Wed, 16 Jun 2021 05:12:35 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-ev-rebates-adds-to-the-narrative-labour-is-anti-motorist/ /on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-ev-rebates-adds-to-the-narrative-labour-is-anti-motorist/ Anyone else starting to develop the niggling feeling that Labour is anti-motorist?  If you are, that’s a problem for Labour.  Of course, I’m asking this question off the back of the EV announcement yesterday.   The political nerds right know will be wondering how much is this new petrol car tax going to hurt Labour.  Answer, not a lot right now, because you don’t buy cars every day, so most of us probably can’t see right now how or when it’s going to get us or how much we’ll be stung.  But this is a slow burner: people are going to get annoyed over time as they get reminded over and over again how anti-motorist this government is.  Bizarrely, the government is going to remind you about your car tax.  I just expected it would be buried in the price of the car you’re buying so you’d never really have to address it.  But no, when you buy your new or imported second hand vehicle, they’re going to force you to log on to register your car for the first time and you will be redirected to a website where you will find out what your tax is and you’ll have to pay it.  Every person will be reminded that they’re being taxed.  So how many people will that annoy?  In 2019, there were 245,000 new registrations in the country.  If that number holds, then between this car tax coming in at the start of next year and the 2023 election, about 429,000 car owners will log in to find out how many thousands they’re paying in tax.   That’s about 12-13 percent of voters.  If the car is owned by a couple and both of them are annoyed at the tax, it could be up to 24-26 percent of annoyed voters now.  And I suspect it’s going to irritate more people than not.  Because most of us only care about climate change until it starts costing us actual money, and then don’t care as much.  And this feeds that growing narrative that Labour is out to get you if you’re a motorist.  This announcement plus the boomer bike bridge to Birkenhead, plus the cancellation of desperately needed roading projects like Mill Road south of Auckland and SH1 from Port Mardsen to Whangārei, plus all the cycleways being built everywhere, plus the petrol levy in Auckland. All of that is going to remind you they’re not listening to you.  They are deliberately leaving you in congestion.  And then every time you pay this tax, or get told by your wife or brother or mum or friend how annoyed they are at paying this tax, it all adds up to a growing annoyance at all of us having to pay more, but going nowhere faster, and the sense that Labour doesn’t like motorists.  And that over time might well hurt them.  Mon, 14 Jun 2021 04:43:09 Z