Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

Ports of Auckland want to move on ... after today announcing its abandoned plans for a new automation system.   It means writing off a $65 million dollars' investment, after years of delays and confidence concerns from the port itself.   Port CEO, Roger Grey has only been on the job 10 weeks but says it was obvious it wasn't working from the moment he arrived.   He told Heather du Plessis-Allan th...

Is New Zealand a third world country? A dairy owner in Huntly reckons we are.  Jas Sandhu’s Four Square shop has been burgled three times in the last 90 days, he says.  The last time was Saturday morning.  He’s watched the CCTV footage and he reckons it’s the same people who burgled him once before.  He says he’s living in constant fear and he’s about ready to give up the shop he’s run since 2004....

Forget Paris, Tokyo and Rome.  The South Island is where Americans want to be apparently...   This is according to a 'ranking list' by Washington based publisher U.S News and World report. Which analysed over 1000 locations... With the South Island coming out on top.  The description read: “New Zealand's South Island brims with majestic landscapes at every turn, from dramatic mountains to spectacu...

Alan Hall's murder conviction has been quashed by the Supreme Court after 36 years.   Hall spent 19 years in prison for the 1985 murder of Arthur Easton, but the Crown has since admitted that it was a substantial miscarriage of justice.   Today, the Supreme Court Chief Justice said it was clear that justice had seriously miscarried – either from extreme incompetence or a deliberate strategy to ach...

Farming leaders have today proposed a way to price greenhouse gas emissions created on farms.   Under the model, individual farmers would be responsible for calculating their own emissions and paying a levy on those emissions.  The levy would increase progressively over the years but it can be reduced by planting native trees for example.   It's now up to the Government to decide whether it's on b...

Actor Matthew McConaughey gave a passionate speech about gun control at The White House today.  The hearings into the Insurrection of the Capitol begins at prime time later this week – sending cable TV producers scrambling.  Johnny Depp has thanked fans on Instagram.  US correspondent Dan Mitchinson joined Heather du Plessis-Allan.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government may have just made your GP visits even most costly.   Northland GPs in particular say they will be struggling to provide services at the current cost, with the primary healthcare funding increase falling well short of the inflation rate.   Whangarei GP Dr Geoff Cunningham joined Heather du Plessis-Allan.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The New Zealand Nurses’ Organisation is calling on Wellington Hospital to postpone elective surgeries because of staff shortages. The Union has today issued a provisional improvement notice to Wellington Hospital management, forcing the hospital to address the problems as a health and safety issue within just eight days. NZNO delegate Sarah Ward works on the cardiology ward there and joined Heathe...

A headline this weekend caught my eye: “The office monsters are trying to claw their way back to 2019”. The office monsters are apparently the corporate leaders trying to force people back into the office, back from working from home, like we used to do in 2019 before Covid. What’s brought this on is the email from Elon Musk to his staff last week, telling them to get back into the office for at l...

Sky TV has confirmed it is in talks to buy mediaworks. Due diligence is still underway, and a deal is not certain, the company says. If a deal does go ahead, it would not require Sky to raise new equity, but it would require shareholder and regulatory approval. Sky investors haven't reacted with excitement about the news, with the share price down almost 7% since the news broke. BusinessDesk manag...

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has defended her Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta - saying there was no need for her to rush into the Pacific after China turned up in a big way recently. Some people thought Prince Louis' antics were adorable - others were outraged at the parenting and at the fact the kids got dragged to all the jubilee events. Do you see a problem here? Was Louis just being an average...

Concerns for cyber-bullying, after Apple shares plans to offer a new delete and edit feature in iMessage. It's part of its upcoming software upgrades, and will give users 15 minutes to make changes after sending a message. Former NetSafe Chair Rick Shera told Heather du Plessis-Allan the easiest way to ensure users retain proof of messages they've received is to screenshot them. He says it's the b...

The misfiring Warriors have suffered a significant blow with coach Nathan Brown quitting the club with 18 months left on his contract. The club confirmed his departure this morning leaving club great and current assistant coach Stacey Jones in charge. Jones becomes the fourth coach in the last three years. Brown lives in Australia, where the Warriors have been based for the past two seasons due to...

In June last year, the NZ Herald reported that Australian sperm donor Adam Hooper, who had more than 20 children, was planning to travel to New Zealand to donate. His trip was delayed when the borders closed due to Covid but he is expecting to be here in time to attend the first Bledisloe Cup game at Eden Park.  Hooper says he will becoming to New Zealand to spread the word about sperm donation an...

A claim the Government is insincere in its approach to reining in gangs. Jacinda Ardern says she wants to introduce new laws to target them, that are more than token moves.  She also says she wants to hit gang members' assets. Act Party Justice spokesperson Nicole McKee told Heather du Plessis-Allan the Government is playing politics. "Three weeks ago Labour voted down my Bill which would have all...

501 deportations will be on the Prime Minister's agenda when she heads across the ditch later this week. She'll travel to Sydney to meet new Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, with an informal dinner on Thursday, then a formal bilateral meeting on Friday. Jacinda Ardern says it's an opportunity for discussions aspects of bilateral relations that have been difficult for a number of years....

The misfiring Warriors have suffered a significant blow with coach Nathan Brown quitting the club with 18 months left on his contract. The club confirmed his departure this morning leaving club great and current assistant coach Stacey Jones in charge. Jones becomes the fourth coach in the last three years. Brown lives in Australia, where the Warriors have been based for the past two seasons due to...

The Reserve Bank of Australia has surprised the market by lifting its official cash rate - by 50 basis points from 0.35 per cent to 0.85 per cent. Economists had been evenly split on expectations the cash rate would be lifted either by 25 basis points to 0.6 per cent, or 40 basis to 0.75 per cent. The RBA's more aggressive stance saw the Aussie dollar rally by almost half a cent against the kiwi d...

The law to ban supermarket covenants is going through Parliament at the moments. Over the course of the week, we learned some interesting things about the inner workings of supermarket leases from the Food and Grocery Council. One of these aspects is their ability to block other businesses going into malls if they’re in them. Business commentator Rod Oram joined Heather du Plessis-Allan. LISTEN AB...

Australia and China continued their tit-for-tat diplomatic rivalry in the Pacific on Thursday as the foreign ministers from each country paid separate visits to island nations. In Samoa, Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced that her country would donate a patrol boat to replace a similar one that was wrecked after it ran aground last year. Meanwhile, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi v...

Queen Elizabeth II stepped gingerly onto the Buckingham Palace balcony Thursday, drawing wild cheers from the tens of thousands who came to join her at the start of four days of celebrations of her 70 years on the throne. Her fans sported Union Jack flags, party hats or plastic tiaras. Some had camped overnight in hopes of glimpsing the 96-year-old queen, whose appearances are becoming rare, and a...

The Silver Lake deal has finally been signed. Only one of NZR’s provincial unions was opposed to the $200 million deal with the US private equity firm. The deal will see $37m distributed immediately with the 14 NPC teams receiving $1m each, 12 heartland unions $500k each ($6m total), Māori rugby $2m, community clubs $7.5m, Players' Association $5m. The Black Caps and England are having a torrid ti...

Climate activist group Tyre Extinguishers are well and truly making their mark in Wellington. What they do is go around deflating tyres and leaving a note saying they did that because their SUV is killing the planet, etc. A guy in Wellington found a note on his car, but didn’t see any damage on the vehicle, drove to his home up Transmission Gully, got to around the Porirua offramp, and almost had...

Question: when Andrew Coster blamed cops for killing fleeing drivers, was it a slip of the tongue or an insight into his thinking? On TV earlier this week, he said that in the last ten years when police were chasing cars “we killed 60 people through police pursuits”. Sounds a lot like Coster was blaming cops there and no surprise it apparently upset some frontline police officers. As a result, Cos...

Meat and dairy alternatives Beyond Meat and Oatly were once hyped additions to global sharemarkets. But they’ve shared more than half their value this year alone. It begs the question whether the whole thing was completely overhyped and we all just like our steaks dairy a lot more. Future of Food strategist Dr Rosie Bosworth joined Heather du Plessis-Allan. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener...