Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Rail Minister Winston Peters yesterday confirmed we are to get two new rail-enabled Cook Strait ferries.  The Government's signed a fixed-price contract with a Chinese shipbuilder and is securing teams to build port infrastructure in Picton and Wellington.  Rail Minister Winston Peters claims the total cost will come in under $2 billion and delivered on time in 2029.  Ferry Holdings...

A little bit husky, a little bit hoarse, not as bad as Heather, but a little bit husky from belting out the classics at Eden Park last night with Metallica. Oh my god. Oh my god. What a show. What an event for the city. If you were there, you know, and you'll still be buzzing, and you will still think that is one of the best concerts you've ever been to.  I used to quite like Metallica. I mea...

It's the 15th anniversary today of the Pike River mine disaster, and on this anniversary, unions are calling for a corporate manslaughter law to be enshrined in legislation, as it is in other countries like the UK, Australia, Canada.  29 men were killed when an explosion ripped through the Pike River mine on the West Coast of the South Island. And despite reforms following Pike River, includi...

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the Pike River mine disaster that killed 29 men.  Despite reforms following the incident, New Zealand's workplace health and safety record remains poor, with fatality and injury rates among the highest in the developed world.  Workplace injuries and illnesses cost the country an estimated $5 billion each year.  Victoria University workplace health...

Business NZ Chief Executive Katherine Rich says the Supreme Court's ruling that Uber drivers are in fact employees of Uber, not contractors, could have far-reaching implications for businesses that hired contractors, and she says it could collapse the gig economy. What's the gig economy? Well, when we're talking about the gig economy, we mean people who work on single projects or tasks, gigs, on d...

Bowel Cancer NZ's new report lays bare the realities of 350 people under 50 living with the disease.   It’s the second deadliest cancer in New Zealand, and the leading cause of cancer death among people under the age of 50.  Every year around 3,300 New Zealanders are diagnosed and 1,200 die from the disease, despite it having a cure rate of over 90% when caught early.   The Never To...

On the front page of the New Zealand Herald today there was a poll, and it shows that we're split as a nation on the issue of capital gains tax. So, the question for us here in this room and you in your room and all of us together is, should we have another discussion on the CGT? And my answer to that is, of course not. And why? We have no real idea of what it looks like, so we don't know what we'...

New Zealand produces enough food to feed 40 million people. Some of it we consume and some some we export.  But a staggering 30% of the food we make or grow goes to waste.  Fruit and vegetables need to look a certain way to make it onto supermarket shelves – or they get tossed.   Angus Simms and his partner Katie Jackson wanted to tackle that problem - so they started Wonky Box thre...

As you'll have heard in the news this morning, the Retirement Commissioner has called for a 10-year roadmap and cross-party agreement, following the release of its review of New Zealand's retirement system.  More Kiwis are living longer, working differently, and facing pressures around housing and care. We're facing a huge rise in the number of older people. At the same time, we're facing few...

A warning New Zealand needs to act quickly on strengthening our retirement income system.  The Retirement Commission's income policy review has found a longer-term political focus is needed to ensure future generations' certainty.   It makes 12 recommendations, including moving more quickly to implement KiwiSaver reforms, and harder strategies such as a new cross-party accord.   Pol...

How common is it for people to be living double lives?  Former Deputy Police Commissioner Jevon McSkimming is awaiting sentence after pleading guilty to having child sexual exploitation and bestiality material on his work devices.  An IPCA report also found complaints of McSkimming being a sexual predator were ignored, the emails the woman sent instead being used to prosecute her for har...

How is it that the woman, who's at the centre of a cover-up by top brass within the Police, still has to go to court to defend two charges of causing harm by posting a digital communication? She's charged with harassing a police officer who was apparently investigating her accusations against that pervert McSkimming and with harassing the investigating police officer's wife.   She was charged...

The revelation that the Deputy Commissioner of Police Jevon McSkimming was a predatory pervert was one thing. To find out that our most senior police officers were complicit in not only covering up his inappropriate behaviour, but then prosecuting, persecuting his victim is quite frankly horrifying.   I knew, many of you knew, Andrew Coster was an ineffectual toadying eunuch. Does anyone reme...

At what point, when you're a business owner, do you decide that you've had enough? There was Covid, then there were the boom times, then there was the recession that seems to have gone on and on, there's a crisis in consumer confidence, there's global uncertainty that too has gone on and on. There are problems finding staff, there are problems keeping staff, there are problems finding work, proble...

The BBC is facing accusations of bias, as well as a lawsuit, after a leaked memo suggests the Panorama programme edited one of Donald Trump’s speeches to imply he encouraged the Capitol Hill riots of January 2021.  The US President is demanding a full retraction and is threatening to sue for nearly 1.8 billion New Zealand dollars in damages.  The incident is doing nothing to raise trust...

Many businesses that limped through the pandemic are now going under.  Insolvency practitioners have been reporting a sharp rise in the number of insolvencies since mid-2022.  Smaller retail, hospitality, construction, transport and manufacturing operators are failing far more now than they were before the pandemic.  Waterstone Insolvency Principal Damien Grant told Kerre Woodham a...

So the government's Sunday sessions this year have involved announcements of all sorts of policies, ranging from ho-hum to meaningful. The announcement yesterday of the action plan against organised crime comes under the meaningful. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith released what he called a bold and comprehensive action plan that aimed to disrupt supply, go after those who profit from the drug trad...

The Government's announced its methamphetamine action plan, calling the drug a 'scourge on our society'. Methamphetamine consumption doubled from 732kg in 2023 to almost 1,500 kilos in 2024, according to police wastewater testing. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says the prevention campaign will address importation, distribution and most importantly demand. NZ Police Acting Assistant Commissioner:...

New Zealand has the third highest adult obesity rate in the OECD, and the rates are going up. One in three adult New Zealanders is classified as obese, and one in 10 children. Even if you take into account, yes, yes, yes, a lot of the All Blacks front row are considered obese if you use the BMI. And yes, you might have a slow metabolism or it's your hormones and there's nothing you can do about it...

The Prime Minister says he's confident a free trade agreement with India will get across the line soon.  Christopher Luxon denied negotiations had hit a rough patch after skipping Parliament last minute this week to meet with India’s Trade Minister.   He told Kerre Woodham India has very strong positions on certain aspects of trade.  Luxon says they’re really hard negotiators, but e...

Publicly funding weightloss drugs may not be the answer to the country’s obesity problem.   New Zealand has the third highest adult obesity rate in the OECD, with one in three adults classified as obese, and one in ten children.   Associate Minister of Health David Seymour believes publicly funding things like Wegovy would help save money in the long run.  But community leader and F...

What do you do, when you have invested all your money into an idea you thought was going off, and then the whole world shuts down?   Do you try to fight on? Or do you completely change your business to survive?  That’s the decision Aidan Bartlett faced.   He’s the co-founder and chief Executive of online marketplace Designer Wardrobe. It was, once upon a time, a designer rental shop...

It's one of those circular discussions, really, where people are extremely staunch in their opinion and no amount of debate can bring them over to the other side. A bit like the secondary tax discussion – you either think you're paying more tax, or you don't, you understand that it all comes out in the wash.   Sick leave is a bit like that. People either believe it's an entitlement and you us...

The events calendar at Auckland's Eden Park could soon be a lot busier.  RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has asked Auckland Council for feedback on a proposal to increase the number of concerts it hosts from 12 to 32 a year.  It's recommending the venue should be allowed to host up to 12 large concerts of more than 30 thousand attendees.  Eden Park CEO Nick Sautner told Kerre Woodh...

A month ago to this very day, Heart of the City, the business association for Auckland City Centre, released a scathing report that found store owners and offices believed homelessness, too few police, neglect and disorder, and frightening anti-social behaviour were crippling their businesses.   Amongst the most dire findings was 91% of those surveyed saying rough sleepers and begging were af...