Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

New Zealand Inc. is in trouble and it's on us —you and me— to fix it. Not politicians, not economists, not even our blessed farmers who've got us out of trouble time and time again – it is on us, New Zealand voters.  It doesn't matter whether we vote left or right, red, blue, green, yellow, or black. We all have to give our political parties the cojones they need to enact the policies that will save this country. Treasury's been warning us for years now, decades. Current government policies —whichever government has been in— are not sustainable.  Treasury's 2025 long-term fiscal statement says population ageing is going to put unbearable pressure on New Zealand's long-term fiscal position. You know this. If you know anything about news, if you know anything about New Zealand politics, if you know anything about New Zealand society, you know this to be true.  ANZ senior economist Miles Workman says Treasury's report should be on the reading list of every New Zealander. Because, he says, I don't think politicians are going to be able to make the changes that are needed here until the voting public is behind those changes. And he's right.  In short, fiscal pressures will accelerate in coming decades with costs of superannuation and healthcare expected to rise significantly as the population ages. There is no one solution. In 1965, there were seven working-age New Zealanders for every person over 65. So that was seven working New Zealanders paying taxes for every person over 65, and for the most part, in 1965, those people on the Super weren't working. Today, we have four working-age New Zealanders to one person over 65. In 40 years, which is not a very long time, it'll be just two working New Zealanders to every person over 65. Successive governments have known this. Voters have known this.  But political parties need the support of voters to make the changes that are needed, as Infometrics principal economist Brad Olsen told Ryan Bridge last night.  “The worry a little bit is that we've had these warnings before. We had something very similar from the Treasury four years ago in 2021. And realistically, I think what the Treasury is continuing to highlight is that there's, there's a lot of big challenges in front of us. We don't have to solve them all tomorrow, but we really do have to start sometime soon to get us out of what looks like a very unsustainable pathway going forward. But, and here's the biggest kicker for me, you can't do any one thing and it will magically solve our sort of fiscal challenges. There's a lot that's going to have to happen that will be unpalatable to politicians across the political spectrum, but by goodness, we've got to start soon.”  It's only going to be “unpalatable” if political parties expect voters to act out of self-interest. And that's what I mean, it's on us to affect the changes.  I was talking earlier this week about the need for political parties to have a bipartisan approach to important issues like infrastructure and health and education curriculum. It's absolutely imperative. They can tinker around the edges, but it is incumbent upon them to have an infrastructure plan to stop the waste of money. And it's incumbent upon us to take a grown-up approach and look at the good of the country as a whole, not our immediate needs.  If you've got your Super, calm the farm – your gin money's quite safe. Nobody's taking it off you now. But those of us in the 45 to 60-year age group need to realise that we're the ones that need to affect the changes needed to keep the country alive by allowing politicians to introduce policies that if they tried to introduce them previously would have sent them to political oblivion.  There are options: raising the age of Super eligibility, broadening the tax base, (euphemism for fiscal drag and wealth taxes), index linking super payments to inflation rather than wages, means testing – these are all options.  And another option is that New Zealand grows its wealth, that we become wealthier so we can afford it all. That's not looking likely. Treasury notes in the report that recent productivity trends have diverged from past projections, which means productivity growth over the past two decades has been weaker than predicted, averaging just 0.7% per year, and they expect that to last.  So, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.  I would like to think if we make the changes necessary, the Super will be there for those who need it. I would like to think that if we make the changes necessary, young people starting off in life, starting off with their families, will not be crippled by the burden of looking after people who were too lazy and self-interested to vote for the changes needed to spread the burden.  It's on us. We can't just look to the politicians – what are they going to do? They are only going to come out with policies that they think will appeal to us. Are we that childlike that we just want the sweets before we'll vote a political party in? We have to be grown-ups. We have to grasp the nettle and say this is tough and this is going to be ugly, but we're going to do our bit to ensure that New Zealand is a better society for future generations. That's the way it used to be, and we've dropped the ball.  You know, we can moan and grizzle all we like about the waste of money and the lack of purpose and the dithering around and the incompetence, but ultimately, if we want to affect change, it's on every voter in this country to do so. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With all the hats he wears, Chris Bishop has been busy this year.  He’s the Minister for Infrastructure, and also holds the portfolios for Transport, Housing, RMA Reform, and the role of Leader of the House.  While wrapping up 2025, Bishop told Kerre Woodham he’s proud of how the Fast Track legislation has been tracking.  He says things like the Waihi North mine expansion and the Port of Auckland expansion would have normally taken years to break ground, but the legislation means they’re both underway.  Plus, he told Woodham, there are big housing developments, renewable energy projects, and many more coming through his office.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hornets are on notice as the Government commits $12 million to stamp them out in Auckland.  The yellow-legged hornet was detected on the North Shore earlier this year.  They pose a serious threat to honeybees and, by extension, to the agricultural sector.  Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard says since the start of November, 37 queen hornets and 28 nests have been destroyed.  More than 730 traps have already been deployed.  Hoggard told Kerre Woodham they’ve searched over 6000 properties so far.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can take the girl out of Waihi, but you can't take the Waihi out of the girl, I tell you.  News that Oceana Gold's Waihi North project has been approved makes good sense, as far as I'm concerned. The permit that was confirmed yesterday guarantees the securing of 350 existing jobs, the creation of 100 plus new roles, the project to be in operation until at least 2042, so that gives some continuity, some certainty, which is fantastic, and a billion-dollar investment from Oceana Gold.  Now, having lived there for five years when I was growing up, gold is a huge part of who Waihi was and is. It was also a really strong union town as well. Gold was first discovered in Waihi in 1878 and by 1905, Waihi not only possessed the most productive gold mine in New Zealand, but was the third largest inland town in New Zealand because of the gold. You had the 1912 Waihi miners' strike. That was a six-month pitched battle that ended in violence and a miner killed by police, and shaped New Zealand politics for the next 60 odd years. And that's very much a part of the town. It's a gold mining town, it's a working town. It's a beautiful town.  The Martha Mine was and is living proof that there is gold in them there hills. The Martha Mine extracted 174 tons of gold, and the total district surrounding district, there was more than 31 million pound in gold value in the old currency from 1882 to 1954. So this is an area that has been mined for more than 100 years and is a community that knows mining, that is mining. When Dad was the bank manager in Waihi, I'm pretty sure, and it's not me making things up, but memory is an unreliable witness, I used to work in the bank in the school holidays and there were gold ingots in there, and that was fascinating, in the vaults, like you see in the cartoons.  So this is an area that knows mining and for any kind of permit to be denied, it would make no sense whatsoever.  Anti-mining activists have their place, and nobody wants to see pristine conservation parks torn up and destroyed, but that's not modern mining anyway. Even if they were to go into a conservation park, you don't tear it up and destroy it. That's not how you mine these days. As Oceana Gold president and CEO Gerard Bond says on the Heather Du Plessis-Allan show this morning, it shows that the new fast-track consenting process is working well.  GB: I think New Zealand has the best development permitting system globally presently. It's rigorous. It is difficult to get something permitted anywhere in the world, and New Zealand is no different. Our application was substantial. We did a lot of work, but the great thing about this process is that it's done in a timely way.  GB: New Zealand leapt up the mining attractiveness index in a annual global survey this year already off the base basis of that legislation being passed, and I think our success will further solidify New Zealand as a place that you can do business in.  HDPA: Part of the problem in New Zealand though is attitudes towards mining. Do you think that's changing?  GB: Well, we have tremendous support where we mine from local communities, and I understand during the course of last year, we saw the public support for mining has improved dramatically in New Zealand. And I think that's because people see that we do it safely, we do it responsibly, have done so for 35 years, and will continue to do so. And this is an industry that generates real high-paying jobs that are very, very productive. So, I'd like to think that New Zealanders would welcome the fact that they have a a robust mining industry.  So, yes. I just simply cannot see the problem. Had the permit been denied, it would have made no sense whatsoever. And those who do live in towns where there are where mining is an industry, do well. You know, people have good jobs. They're not subsistence jobs, they're not service jobs, they're not tourism jobs depending on the season. They are all year-round jobs. I think we've got so hung up on mining and it's like the no nukes movement. It becomes a badge of pride to wear your I'm an anti-mining activist badge next to your pounamu without doing any kind of rational thought about it. Again, it's that kind of you're either in my tribe or you're not.  I support mining in Waihi for the reasons as outlined. Do I support it everywhere? No, but then they're not asking to mine everywhere.  Do I want conservation parks kept pristine? Yes, I do.  Do I want all of New Zealand kept like that? No.  So, I would really love to hear from those people who live on the West Coast, who live in Waihi, who live in areas where there are mines. You can actually grow up in and around the mines and there is still beautiful, lush, green land, there are still native birds, but there's also a thriving industry that provides well-paid jobs to men and women who would otherwise have to go to Australia to get them. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s been a tough run for the economy this year, but the Finance Minister is celebrating the progress that was made.  Nicola Willis told Kerre Woodham the economy is growing, which means that when they look back on 2025, they’ll be able to say it ended a lot better than it started.  She says that looking into next year, it’s set to grow much faster, with many more jobs being created.  “People can look forward to their incomes rising faster than inflation and ongoing low interest rates – that's a positive way to start the next year.”  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Trains will be offline across the Auckland rail network from December 27 to January 28.  KiwiRail says the closure is needed to allow for urgent repairs and maintenance which is needed for the upcoming City Rail Link, set to open in the second half of 2026.  Public Transport Users Association National Coordinator Jon Reeves told Kerre Woodham that shutting down the trains over the summer for maintenance purposes is the classic cliché that's been going on for about 25 years.   He says it's become a bit of a joke, and a different way to make these upgrades needs to be found.   LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Zealand's economy grew more than expected between July and September.  But between April and June, it shrank more than previously thought.  GDP rose 1.1% in the September quarter, surpassing all expectation but Stats NZ has revised the numbers for the June quarter, finding GDP actually fell 1%, not the previously-reported 0.9%.  That means the economy shrank 0.5% in the year to September.  NZ Herald Business Editor Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham the data is showing there’s some momentum in the economy, especially within manufacturing and business services.  He says consumers take a bit longer to feel upbeat, but the business core of the economy is picking up.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For those who have been here over summer, Auckland is a lovely place to be.  A lot of residents push off, and it feels like the city is yours to explore, and visitors are very welcome and make a welcome addition to the city, new people with new energy and seeing things that you don't see, seeing the city through new eyes.  But it's going to be a little bit tricky to get around, unless you fancy a bus on a sweltering day or you bring your car, because Auckland trains have announced that they're delivering the last big push on the rail network rebuild and other critical city rail link preparations.  There'll be more than 1,300 people involved in repairing tracks, building new platforms, pedestrian bridges, removing level crossings, and testing the timetable. So, thank you very much to those 1,300 who will be working in the heat over summer to get the CRL up and running, but it does mean the closure of the Auckland rail network from the 27th of December to the 28th of January.  It'll be fully closed for most of the time, with the exception of some southern eastern and Ōnehunga line services returning between the 19th and the 26th of January. Auckland Trains say balancing delivery with minimising disruption to passengers and freight is tricky to get right. So, using holiday periods when demand is lower means we impact fewer people, they say. For those staying in Auckland or working right through, we understand this is frustrating – and it will be. If you're one of those essential workers working right through, it will be frustrating to know that an efficient public transport option is closed to you, quite literally.  And for those who are looking to be the first people in the world to welcome in the new year in Auckland City Central, I mean, it's a hell of a spectacle. You've got SkyCity with the fireworks display and Vector with their lights, great music and it is a happy fun time, but imagine having good times and energy and well factor and then hopping on a bus crammed to the gunnels, chugging back out to Pukekohe. Is that really how you want to begin your new year? It's hardly the hoots wahay you're looking for, is it?  A bus is not a train. Showing that I understand mechanics and engineering, a bus is not a train. Several buses are not one train.  I do get it. I really do. There has to be some short-term disruption for long-term gain. And I do want to be able to travel hither and yon on public transport if I can do so safely and efficiently, as I do in other cities, I love jumping on the subway or the metro and even the buses. But Auckland's so far behind the eight ball. London opened its first deep-level tube line with electric trains in 1890. The New York subway opened in 1904 and Paris's metro a few years earlier in 1900. So, it's taken us a hot minute to get with the program, even allowing for economies of scale.  People will use public transport if it's efficient and it's safe and it's going. They're not going to use it when it's shut. We're seeing increasing numbers of people choosing other modes of transport other than the car, according to the latest AA survey.  Now, you'd expect people who belong to AA, you know, to love their cars, and they do. 97% of the 7,000 members who responded drove in the four weeks before taking the survey, but 60% also walked where they needed to go, 15% had cycled, 15% had bussed, and 6% had hopped on a train. Imagine how many more there would be if we did have an effective public transport system that was actually running. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark Mitchell is acknowledging the wins he had in 2025.  It’s been a busy year, the Minister dealing with a range of emergencies across the country, plus the hefty police portfolio.  He told Kerre Woodham that although there’s a lot of negative headlines throughout the year, we should be extremely proud of ourselves as a country.  Mitchell says there’s a lot more going on than there is bad.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Treasury's Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows more delay to getting the books back to black.   The deficit's expected to deepen to a depth of $16.9 billion and not narrow to $60 million dollars until 2029-30.  Economic growth is expected to be just 1.7% next year.  NZ Herald Business Editor Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham that the problem isn’t in how much we borrow, but the efficiency of government spending.   He says there's a big lack of trust in the government, as people would be able to cope with higher borrowing if it was going towards amazing infrastructure projects, but we haven’t seen that over the last decade.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're going to start this morning with the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update, which was actually the Three-quarter Year Economic and Fiscal Update. It delivered news we all expected, and that is that we're getting there as a country. It's just taking longer than we thought.  Treasury's half-year update, published on Tuesday, predicted a return to surplus in 2029/30, a year later than it forecasted in May. Finance Minister Nicola Willis said she'd continue to aim for 2028/29 and said we're on target to return the books to surplus faster than they will in Australia, the UK, Canada, and many other advanced economies, while maintaining a prudent debt position.  She's doubled down on what she calls her disciplined plan for returning the books to surplus, and says she's not willing to implement more brutal spending cuts, as the Taxpayers' Union have been advocating for, warning that their prescription would deliver human misery and hurt frontline public services and depress already weak demand in a recovering economy. She points out that the Taxpayer Union proposed, among other things, scrapping all Working for Families tax credits, reducing the average weekly income of the recipients by about $180. She said beneficiaries and low-income families would be at the brunt of any change like that, delivering a level of human misery she was not prepared to tolerate. She said of Labour's criticism, that their approach to spending is reckless and would further delay a return to surplus.  She said that the Government had delivered about $11 billion a year in savings during its term. Without this disciplined approach, she says the year's deficit would be $25 billion, and debt would be on track to blow out to 59% of GDP. So, according to Finance Minister Willis, she and her government are on track, and that being castigated by the Taxpayers' Union for being too soft, too wimpy, and being criticized by Labour for being too harsh, means she's charting the right course.  It is a fine balance she has to strike. You, me, everybody can see where she can make cuts. The winter energy payment, making it a needs-based payment, making a number of allowances needs-based, the fees free, that sort of thing. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit you could pluck off and save a few cents here and a few cents there. What a lot of households have done over the past few years. But she is bound by her agreements with coalition partners. There are some things she cannot touch. She's working in an MMP environment. There are plenty of things I'm sure she'd love to do, things that Ruth Richardson could do, but even allowing for the human misery factor, there are coalition partners she has to placate, and the Government wants to get re-elected.   It is utterly pointless steering the right course, but only for three years. It is utterly pointless saving a few billion here, only for it to be squandered next time round. So what do you suggest she does? I'm sure she gets plenty of reckons from all sorts of people – the most recent and the most high profile was former Finance Minister Ruth Richardson, who really should pipe down. I'm glad that debate's off. That was just farcical. But Ruth Richardson needs to pipe down because she could do things, and did do things, that simply aren't possible for this Finance Minister to do under MMP.  And also, it's a lot harder to get elected under MMP and to have a big say in the direction of the government unless you've got a big platform. So anything Nicola Willis does has to be with an eye to being the biggest party to form a government.  So, I tend to think she's right, that if you've got the Taxpayers' Union going, you're too soft, you're too wet, you're too pathetic, you've got Labour going, you're too cruel, you're too harsh, you're too brutal, then she's pretty much on the right track. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I remember back when I first started talkback, a million years ago at nighttime, it must have been the semicentennial of the waterfront workers strike of '51, or the lockout, depending on which side you're on. It was the biggest industrial confrontation in New Zealand's history for those who don't know of it. It was 151 days from February to July, and at its peak, 22,000 waterside workers, or wharfies, and associated unions were off the job, out of a population of just under 2 million.  It took place at a time of Cold War tensions, so name calling was rife. The opposing sides denounced each other as Nazis or commies, traitors and terrorists. Not all unions were on board with the Waterside Workers Union. Some of them thought they were way too militant, way too stroppy, so the unions weren't completely aligned. There was even the difference between the strike, which is what the employers and government called it. For the unionists, it was a lockout.  Things got so bad that a railway bridge near Huntly was dynamited at the time of the tensions. An act of terrorism, basically – that's certainly what the Prime Minister at the time Sid Holland called it. No one was hurt, but coal supplies were severely disrupted. So, we've got bridges being blown up, we've got people on strike, we've got families who would have starved were it not for supporters feeding them. But if you were found out that you were supporting a wharfie's family, you could be ostracised, even if you were a working-class family, it hit you. Your union had to be aligned with the waterfront workers. So it was incredibly divisive.  On the 1st of June, police dispersed up to 1,000 marchers in Queen Street, using truncheons and heavy-handed, fairly heavy-handed tactics. There was a lot of argy-bargy. There were fractured skulls and lacerations and concussions. The Government broke the strike really by bringing in new unions, and new unions of workers. They were denounced by the unionists as scabs, and the wharfies' position was becoming increasingly hopeless. Eventually, after five months, they conceded defeat on the 15th of July. So after 151 days.  But the ugliness and the bitterness remained, because we were talking about the strike, and a man rang me from Huntly, and he said there was a scab living in his town, and he wouldn't be in the same shop, he wouldn't be in the same pub, and he would cross the street. 50 years later, that bitterness and that anger remained.  Then we had in '81, probably the only comparable thing in recent times, was the Springbok tour, and the protests over that. That was the largest civil disturbance seen since '51. More than 150,000 people took part in more than 200 demonstrations. 1,500 were charged with offences that resulted from the protests. It was a clash between baby boomers and war veterans, between city and country, between young versus old. It's the Britain of the South versus an independent Pacific nation. There were real tensions and families were divided within themselves.  And then along came Covid, more recently.  I guess what I'm wondering about is how do we heal ourselves? Because we're at a time in history and at a time globally where tensions are running really, really high. Can we learn any lessons from our past? Our own past. We can't look at the world and try and fix that, but we can certainly try and heal ourselves here. We can look at the civil, not civil wars here, but civil division, civil fractures.  I mean, if you look back and you and your family were divided over the Springbok tour, not expecting anyone still to be around from 1951, but if you look at the division you might have had with your parents during the Springbok tour, you can't cut ties forever with your parents, can you? You can't cut off your kids because they went on a protest march. So surely on a micro level, if you can heal your differences and still come together at Christmas and birthdays and things, despite the pain and the anger and the absolute incomprehension of each other's stances, then surely we can do it on a national level, can't we?  And the same with Covid. There probably wasn't as much violence, physical violence, but certainly the violent rhetoric online was painful and awful. And it was probably more, I don't know, those who did not get vaccinated feel they were very much othered by the whole of society, that they were outcasts and punished unfairly and unnecessarily. But that was more an anti-authority, in my mind anyway, when it comes to Covid. You didn't agree with all the decisions being made, or you did. And anybody who dissented was a traitor and wanted to kill old people.  We're at a really tricky time, but we have been at tricky times before. We have thought how on earth are we going to get over this before, many times in our history.  I guess I'm looking at stories from a micro level. If there were real differences within your family, how did you get past them? How did you get past the pain and the hurt and come together as a community again? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The NZ Blood Service is encouraging people to donate, saying the demand doesn’t stop.  Although the amount of hospital activity and the number of surgeries slow down over the holiday period, CEO Sam Cliffe says things like accidents, births, and long-term conditions are still prevalent.   She told Kerre Woodham that they try to over-collect in the two weeks up to Christmas and for a little bit after, as their stocks tend to get a little bit spikey in January.  Additional mobile donation stations have been set up across the country, so even if you’re not at home, there are options available.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A year into the job Health Minister Simeon Brown is celebrating early signs of success on reducing wait times.  He took over the heath portfolio in January of this year, succeeding Dr Shane Reti.  Brown told Kerre Woodham he attributes reinstated health targets as one aspect that's made a difference.  He says the number one focus remains improved access to health care.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At least 16 people are dead and 38 others injured in a terrorist attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney. Hundreds of people had gathered at Bondi for an event to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah, when gunmen opened fire. Massey University Centre for Defence and Security Studies Senior Fellow John Battersby told Kerre Woodham that police responded as quick as they could, but it can be difficult to predict these attacks.  "Law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies are pretty good at what they do, but they do not have a crystal ball." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A New Plymouth lake is being drained in an effort to stop invasive clams.  Lake Rotomanu's been closed to motorised watercraft since the gold clams were found there last month, marking the first discovery of the species outside of the Waikato River.  The lake's outlet was opened yesterday, and it will take about four days to drain completely.  Dave Cade told Kerre Woodham it’s the worst biosecurity threat to New Zealand’s freshwater that the country’s ever faced.  He says the clams reproduce asexually, and they’ll smother the bottom of lakes, smothering native organisms and clogging hydro stations.   LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nicola Willis is defending her economic track record in the face of a lobby-group's satirical campaign.  The Taxpayers' Union has sent MPs Nicola Willis-branded fudge, claiming she favours treats today and taxes tomorrow.  It suggests Willis should cut spending more.  Willis says the Government has reduced taxes and delivered significant cost savings while keeping frontline services.  Kiwiblog author and co-founder of the Taxpayers' Union, David Farrar told Kerre Woodham that putting aside personalities, it’s not a bad thing for people to realise we still have a real fiscal challenge in New Zealand.   He says that while the Government has cut spending in a number of areas, we’re still spending more than we’re bringing in in taxes.   LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you see any advantage or benefit to the country in having a former Finance Minister and the current one debating fiscal policy?  The current Finance Minister, Nicola Willis, has challenged the former Finance Minister, Ruth Richardson, to a debate. Now, that is misguided in my view, but to be fair, she was grievously provoked. Ruth Richardson is the chair of the Taxpayers' Union. The Taxpayers' Union is a pressure group, a ginger group, founded in 2013 to scrutinise government spending, publicise government waste, and promote an efficient tax system.  Its basis is its membership is mainly conservative, centre-right, right-wing figures, and it's regarded as a right-wing pressure group. Normally you would think they'd be scrutinising Labour and Labour's spending. Last week, the Taxpayers' Union sent out a provocative pamphlet and an accompanying box of fudge, accusing Nicola Willis of not delivering on her election promises to rein in reckless spending, unsustainable borrowing, and the hiring of endless bureaucrats. The Union accused Willis of failing to deliver the goods and fudging it, hence the fudge that arrived with the press release.  Provoked and incensed beyond reason, Nicola Willis swiped back. She said, "My message for Ruth Richardson is a very clear one: come and debate me face-to-face, come out of the shadows. I will argue toe-to-toe on the prescription that our government is following. I reject your approach, and instead of lurking in the shadows with secretly funded ads in the paper, come and debate me right here in Parliament. 'm ready anytime, anywhere, I will debate her." So you can see she was a little bit brassed off.  Willis said she stood by her decisions in government and wanted Richardson to defend her legacy, having introduced the infamous Mother of All Budgets in 1991, when her government under Bolger came in and were left with, I would argue, an even worse fiscal mess than this government inherited.   It's all got very personal. I don't think there's anything wrong in critiquing decisions made by government ministers, looking at how they're going, giving updates, having a reckon, especially when the ministers came in on a campaign of fixing the economy and reining in irresponsible spending, it's fair enough to say, "Okay, have you?" The Coalition Government possibly hasn't done enough, been innovative enough to suit the Taxpayers' Union agenda. They wanted more. They wanted cuts in spending, they wanted slashing of and wholesale firing of bureaucrats. That's what they wanted, but the Government's in the tricky position of having to be responsible stewards of the public purse and get re-elected.  And that's a tricky one. The Taxpayers' Union doesn't have to worry about getting elected. It's a stand-alone lobby group. The Taxpayers' Union has criticised Nicola Willis for a measly 1% reduction in public servants, but as David Farrar from Kiwiblog points out, this may well be the first government in history to actually reduce the number of public servants. They're the first ones to have done it.  It was never going to be easy inheriting the situation left by the previous government, and it never is. The Labour governments spend, that's what they do. But there's also nothing wrong with critiquing the performance of the government. The Taxpayers' Union shouldn't have made it so personal. Nicola Willis should have showed superhuman restraint and not lashed back.  The debate is a pointless waste of time in my view. I know that we're all political tragics here and we take far more interest than the average person does and if I thought there was any merit whatsoever, and if lessons could be learned or if as a country we would benefit from having these two Finance Ministers thrashing out points of economic order, fine. I just don't see it. I think it's egos have been wounded and it is the equivalent of challenging somebody to 50 press-ups – a pointless exercise. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Whenever I hear or read news headlines these days, I know that the headlines will be just that for so many people. Headlines. People won't hear or they won't read beyond the headline, and then they'll form their own opinions based on nothing more than 20 words or fewer. I've got numerous examples of that. Even people that I would have thought would understand the media, like journalists, they'll look at a headline and think, "Oh, you know, subscriber only, I'm not going to pay. I'm just going to draw my own conclusions from the headline," which they know is flawed and ridiculous.  You have to read the body of the story. If you just go on the headline, then you are going to be misinformed. It's a bit like the cancer diagnosis headline that's in the news today. "Cancer diagnosis numbers set to skyrocket by 50% over the next two decades". As soon as I read that, I could write the text to this show myself.  Example: Yeah, have a look at how many of them were vaxed. Join the dots, and variations on that theme. Or I could imagine people thinking, "Oh my god, cancer diagnoses are up. I'm going to die." Or putting my young activist cap on, Māori are around 1.6 times more likely to die from cancer than Pākehā or other ethnicities. So the young activists are like, "Yeah, that's right, man, institutional racism inherent in the system. Yeah. It's colonialism. That's what's causing that."  In fact, when you look beyond the headlines, when you read beyond the headlines, there's actually a lot of good news in the story, if you are willing to take the time to read it or listen to the interviews. Since the first state of cancer report five years ago, there has been encouraging progress in key areas of prevention, early detection, and treatment. Cancer diagnoses might be skyrocketing, but that's because they've got better diagnostic tools. We can find it before it does the damage. The chance of surviving cancer has improved over the last 20 years. The five-year net survival for all cancers has improved by 15% in the last 20 years, probably due to the screening and the advances in treatment.  And even better is the news that many, many of the cancers that afflict us can be prevented by us. We have the power to reduce our risk of some cancers, as Dr. Chris Jackson, Professor of Oncology at University of Otago and practising medical oncologist, explained to Heather du Plessis-Allan this morning.  CJ: 20% of all cancers are related to smoking, 20%. So if you get rid of smoking, you would cut the number of cancers by 20%. So that is undisputed.  HDPA: Even though the numbers are so small nowadays?  CJ: Yeah, well, it's probably going to, certainly it is going down, but those people who've been smoking are still going to be going through the system for that amount of time. The number the number two cause is obesity. So New Zealand's what, the third most obese country in the world now, I think? And we're seeing a rise in some obesity-related cancers now also, and I think if we could fix that, that would be the other big thing in terms of prevention. The other key thing, which is a very New Zealand thing, is our love affair with the sun. And as we come into summer months, I think we have to reflect on the old slip, slop, slap thing. Australia has done the sun prevention thing better than we have, and our skin cancer rates are now higher than theirs.  Absolutely. There are still many, many mysteries around cancers.  There are cancer clusters within families, there are rising rates of healthy young people being diagnosed with bowel cancer. There is much work for cancer researchers to do. But they've also done a lot of work in the field of many cancers and have found the cause and effect. Smoking increases your risk of cancer, obesity increases your risk of cancer, ignoring sun warnings increases your risk of cancer.  So we need to pay heed, if we want to. Make the changes you need to your lifestyle, you improve your chances of a healthy active life. Don't, get sick. Take advantage of the free buses that will take you to the free screening because early detection is the best prevention, or don't. And you'll pay the ultimate price. I mean, the headline, if you just simply looked at it, you could form your own conclusion.  You could absolutely go off onto an interpretive dance of your own misinformation, your own prejudice, your own beliefs. Cancer diagnosis numbers set to skyrocket by 50% over the next two decades. In fact, beyond the headlines, there is so much good news in there. And one of the key messages I think that we need to take from it is the fact that we have a little bit of control and agency over our own lives, that it is not inevitable that we get cancer, we get sick and we die.  There is much we can do to prevent it. Early detection is the best prevention. The treatments are good, provided you go along and you get the screenings, and you keep up to date with your health, you pay attention to your body, and you think that you're worth it. When we look at the numbers who are disproportionately affected by cancer, you have to ask how many are helping themselves. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Efforts to stamp out yellow-legged hornets in New Zealand are widening.  Biodiversity New Zealand is expanding the 5-kilometre surveillance zone in Glenfield and Birkdale on Auckland's North Shore further out to 11-kilometres, to ensure only one population is at large.  Victoria University Ecology and Entomology Professor Phil Lester told Kerre Woodham hornets target worker bees one by one and will hurt more than our honey sector.   He says bees support our dairy, kiwifruit, and avocado industries, and if they get established it will be a real problem.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.