Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

There are hopes investment in rail is just the boost Auckland needs.  The Government will tip more than $600 million of Government funding in Budget 2025 to fully fund the Rail Network Investment Programme until 2027.  The freight network will get $461 million, and $143 million will be spent on Auckland and Wellington's metropolitan trains.  Greater Auckland director Matt Lowrie tol...

Northland might be the meth capital of New Zealand, but Hawkes Bay wouldn't be far behind. One tiny town – Waipukurau - recorded the biggest increase in meth consumption in the country in 2024. It was up more than 300 percent. What concerns the local coppers is that the community staying schtum about who's supplying the drug as Inspector Martin James told 1News last night.  “One of the key co...

The Green Party is suggesting an overhaul of the tax system in their alternative Budget.  It includes taxing wealth, inheritance, gifts, and private jet journeys, and they say it would bring in $88 billion in revenue over four years.   New income tax rates of 39% on income over $120,000 and 45% on income over $180,000 would be introduced, and the corporate tax rate would be raised to 33%...

Are the Greens bonkers? The Greens have come out and criticised Judith Collins for tinkering with the Public Service Commission census – that's a voluntary survey run over three weeks and it's a follow up to the initial 2021 survey of the same name. Now Judith Collins and her office had a look at the 2021 survey, and they suggested a few changes. They had thoughts about the census, and they said w...

Well, what a to-do. The image of Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters slumped in the House, head in his hands, summed it up really. Brooke van Velden dropped the C-bomb in the house, quoting a Stuff article whose author used the word in criticising the government's decision to amend the pay equity legislation. The coalition's female MPs are angry that Labour MPs, particularly the female MPs, have...

In this spirit of taking the good news where we find it, I was absolutely delighted to see the results of Inland Revenue going after student loan defaulters. At the end of April, there were 113,733 people with student loans believed to be based overseas. If you're based overseas, you don't get the student loan automatically taken out of your pay packet. Overseas, it's up to you to make repayments,...

School principals say they’re grappling with growing numbers of new entrants with behaviour and oral communication issues - and believe the Covid-19 pandemic is to blame. They’re calling for more investment in learning support to help address the problem. Kerre Woodham believes the problem lies not with the education system, but rather with parents who fail to prepare their kids to enter it. "How...

Inland Revenue says attitudes are shifting among student loan holders living overseas.   More than $200 million has been collected from overseas borrowers since July last year – a big annual increase.  More than 24,000 people are thought to be overseas, collectively owing $1.3 billion on loans going back more than 15 years.  IRD's Jane Elley told Kerre Woodham since they received ad...

This particular pre-Budget announcement should be music to the ears of parents who are currently working every hour God sends to pay for extra maths coaching for their children. You might have heard them on this show before – parents who really can't afford it, but say to themselves they can't afford not to, pay for the sort of tuition that teachers are unable to give in school, that one-on-one co...

The government sent a strong signal to boy racers that their days of running amok on the roads are over. Car crushing is not new, it's been announced before - Judith Collins was police minister in 2009 when car crashing legislation was introduced for recidivist boy racer offenders, hence her sobriquet, Crusher. In fact, only three cars were crushed and Judith Collins wasn't the police minister by...

There's bad news, really, and it's been coming and I think I've had my head in the sand for some time. I've been wanting things to get better quickly. I've wanted things to move out from grindy-ness, and a lack of fun, and excess, and nonsense. It's just been for four years of long, slow grind, it seems.   Well, Matthew Hooton's opinion piece in the New Zealand Herald has laid it out starkly,...

Warnings to be careful after a string of fires was linked to lithium-ion batteries.   Scrap metal company Sims Metal has been fined $30 thousand over a 2023 fire that released toxic smoke near Ōtāhuhu.  A massive blaze at a recycling plant near Glenfield last month was also linked to lithium-ion batteries, as well as a number of fires breaking out in rubbish trucks across the city. ...

Long serving Labour MP and former Minister David Parker gave his valedictory speech in Parliament last night, where he gave his colleagues across the House a list of things to do, among his thank yous and goodbyes.   Chief among them was closing the gap between the very wealthy and the middle class. It could be done, he said, with a tax on capital income, a wealth tax, some form of interest d...

Just when I thought the issue of pay parity couldn't get any more confusing, the Government has made it so. Yesterday, the coalition government moved under urgency in Parliament to raise the threshold for proving work has been historically undervalued when making a pay equity claim. Under the new legislation, any current claims would be stopped and need to restart under the new higher threshold to...

The Government is being criticised for their use of urgency to pass legislation.   A law to lift the threshold for gender-discrimination pay equity claims and extinguish claims under way is likely to pass today, after only being announced yesterday.    The Government's said it could save the taxpayer billions of dollars.  Taxpayers Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager James...

The unemployment rate has stayed static for another quarter.  Stats NZ figures just out show the rate remained at 5.1% in the March quarter.  The number of full-time workers fell by 45 thousand over the year and part-time employment grew by 25 thousand.  Herald Business Editor at Large Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham today's figures are a surprise.  He says this is good news but i...

A new report from Retail NZ has revealed the state of retail crime in New Zealand - 99% of the membership of Retail NZ has experienced some form of crime or antisocial behaviour in 2023/24, that's up from 93% the year prior.   I remember thinking that's a lot, National want to be working on that because they were very strong in opposition and in the election campaign saying they were going to...

I don't know if you caught the story over the weekend - Ngāpuhi, the iwi of Northland, are calling for police to round up the drug dealers in Northland using the same strong tactics they used in drug raids on Ōpōtiki last year. You'll remember there was criticism of how the police dealt with some of the individuals in Ōpōtiki, mainly coming from the individuals and their families themselves. Now N...

The leader of the country's largest iwi is calling for the police to crackdown on drug dealers and methamphetamine use in Northland.   It comes as a group of young people were caught smoking a meth pipe in broad daylight in Kaikohe.  Northland MP Grant McCullum says locals need something constructive to do during the day.  "We've got to commit to helping these people get into the ha...

The leader of the country's largest iwi is calling for the police to crackdown on drug dealers and methamphetamine use in Northland. Ngāpuhi leader, Mane Tahere says he saw a group of youngsters smoking a meth pipe in daylight on the main street of Kaikohe - just down the road from the police station. He's met with Police Minister Mark Mitchell - asking authorities to use tactics similar to the dr...

David Seymour is absolutely on the money with his call to cut the number of ministers in Cabinet and outside of Cabinet. In his speech yesterday, he proposed capping the number of ministers at 20 —currently there are 28— and scrapping the position of minister outside of Cabinet.   “Right now, there are ministers that have seven different departments. There are departments such as MBIE that an...

A Hawke’s Bay group is helping households tackle food waste.  An average of 130,000 tonnes of food is wasted each year in New Zealand – 86kgs per household, resulting in $1326 down the drain.  Every Bite is a four-week programme run by Sustainable Hawke’s Bay, designed to help households become more food resourceful and reduce waste.  Acting General Manager Sam Paterson told Kerre W...

The Government has set a deadline for the new Interisland ferries.  Two new ferries are due to arrive in 2029, and the wharf currently home to the Aratere ferry is set to be demolished within a year to make room for infrastructure that can support the new ships.  Ferry Holdings Ltd has initiated discussions with KiwiRail and the Port of Marlborough to understand the infrastructure requir...

Can you copyright a recipe?   Two Australian cookbook authors are clashing over claims of plagiarised recipes.  Nagi Maehashi, who runs the popular food blog RecipeTin Eats, says influencer Brooke Bellamy's new cookbook ‘Bake with Brooki’ contains uncannily similar ingredients, quantities, and instructions for a caramel slice and baklava.   Food writer and cookbook Author Allyson Go...

The latest addition to the school curriculum will have kids learning about money.  The Education Minister's making financial literacy a compulsory topic for Years 1-10.  Several financial organisations, banks, and charities have partnered with the Government to deliver lessons on investment and taxes.  Paua Wealth Management CEO Donna Nicolof told Kerre Woodham this is one of the si...