Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Environmental awareness and the risk of dolphin bothering seems to have been behind SailGP’s decision to withdraw its racing from Lyttelton next year and move the whole kit and caboodle to Auckland.   You may remember they looked at Auckland but there was inability to provide the kind of spectator stands that Russell Coutts wanted, So off to Lyttelton they went, with the caveat that you have to be...

The news New Zealand is out of a technical recession isn't necessarily cause for celebration.   Stats NZ figures show GDP rose 0.2% in the three months to March and 0.2% in the year to March.   But Herald Business Editor Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham that we could still see a series of further per capita contractions over the next few quarters.   He says if we don't end up back in a technical reces...

New Zealand’s health and safety performance seems to be dire still.   In 2013, an independent taskforce identified three key failures in the country’s health and safety system in the wake of the Pike River tragedy.   Eleven years later, Newsroom reveals that despite knowing these faults, not much has changed. Legislation continues to be poorly implemented with insufficient follow through, the prim...

Gerry Brownlee, the Speaker, wants to boost security for politicians while they're out and about in the community before something goes very wrong. Something has gone pretty wrong in that Green MP James Shaw was assaulted in the street as he walked to work. You'd have to say that was a pretty nasty episode. Gerry Brownlee is considering giving Parliament’s security guards powers to arrest and deta...

Boosting Parliament security is a work in progress.   MPs have shared experiences of threats and intimidation, and some say the Parliament protests were a catalyst for greater concerns.   The Speaker's looking into the possibility of giving Parliament security guards arrest powers.   Security Association Chief Executive Gary Morrison told Kerre Woodham that having Police support is key.   He said...

Let's start with the announcement yesterday from Chris Bishop allowing people to build small granny flats without requiring consent. It's followed through, the coalition government, on its promise to cut red tape around the resource consent process. The announcement was made yesterday, and they said it will be easier for people to put a granny flat in their backyard without having to go through th...

Labour's leader continues to call the Government tax cuts poorly timed.   The Government's pouring $14.7 billion into it and giving landlords a $3 billion boost.   The tax changes kick in late July against advice from officials who recommend waiting until October.   Chris Hipkins says 12 billion dollars has been borrowed to fund the cuts.   He told Kerre Woodham that he agrees tax brackets need ad...

You do not have to go back very far to find a news story about a New Zealand Prime Minister having his or her trip disrupted by a shonky 757. The Prime Minister's trip to Japan, with an accompanying trade delegation, was disrupted over the weekend after the Air Force 757 broke down, again. And it was this time last year, to within a week, that the plane ferrying Chris Hipkins to China set off on i...

A report by the Ministerial Advisory Group reviewing English and maths learning, has recommended annual checkpoint tests for students. It recommends children in Years 4-6 learn handwriting, including cursive handwriting, and study the "conventions of text structure and style". Children would also be encouraged to write by hand as much as possible in their first three years at school. The Write Les...

General consensus our Defence Force plane is embarrassing New Zealand. The Prime Minister and his delegation were stranded in Papua New Guinea - en route to Japan - after two fuses blew while the 757 was refuelling. Chris Luxon took a commercial flight to Japan - and Air New Zealand's diverting a flight to collect his 52-strong delegation, which has taken a slow trip to Brisbane in the 757. ZB pol...

So it turns out we suck at saving for retirement.     We’re really good at ticking the box and signing up for KiwiSaver, go us! The Retirement Commission said yesterday that 90% of people getting paid a wage or salary have signed up to KiwiSaver, and around 80% of self-employed people have. However, when it comes to self-employed people – I wonder how many are just putting in the minimal amount of...

This week Tony Astle ate at Advieh, a restaurant in the new InterContinental Hotel in Auckland.   With ‘Advieh’ being Persian for spice, the menu boasts a fusion of Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and the finest local produce.   Tony sampled the Marlborough oysters, the natural and grilled kingfish crudo, the lamb, the grilled oyster mushrooms, and said the hand cut chips are to “die for”.   LISTEN...

Fieldays is in full flow at Mystery Creek in Hamilton and there’s a bit for farmers to celebrate this week. Or at least sigh with relief over.     On Tuesday, the Government announced agriculture would not be included in the Emissions Trading Scheme, and the climate change initiative He Waka Eke Noa would be disestablished and replaced with a new initiative, the Pastoral Sector Group.     And yest...

This week is Men’s Health Week, aiming to cull the number of Kiwi men dying from preventable illnesses.   They encourage men to start with the small steps that can enable them to turn their health issues around.   On their website they say that ‘living longer, more enjoyable lives takes a little work, but we’re all up for it’.   Scotty ‘Sumo’ Stevenson is an Ambassador for Men’s Health Week and to...

As emails keep hitting the inbox—or the letters hitting the letterbox if you’re still supporting the postal system—telling us of price increases for all sorts of things. From the cost of our energy, to insurance premiums, to our favourite streaming service, we're all still keeping a close on our household budgets and doing what we can to try and keep them under control.     So, how far do you go t...

New Zealand’s largest Build to Rent complex opened this morning.   Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Housing Minister Chris Bishop cut the ribbon of Resido, a new development in Auckland’s Mount Wellington.   Bishop said that there is no silver bullet to solving New Zealand’s housing crisis, and so they need to take every option available to them, Build to Rent being one such option.   The new...

Ram raids are down more than 80% for the month of April, compared to last year. Police have identified 12 ram raids in April 2024, compared to 64 in April 2023. Sixty-four! That wasn't even the highest. There was a peak in August 2022 when there were 86 ram raids. There was a total of 433 ram raids in 2022, 288 in 2023, and 67 in the first four months of this year.   To what can we attribute the d...

Questions have been raised after the death of a baby boy in Te Kuiti.   A homicide investigation's been launched after the 10-month-old couldn't be revived on Saturday afternoon.   His injuries are thought NOT to be accidental and Oranga Tamariki's assisting Police.   The father is insisting that he’s done nothing wrong, saying that he was trying to save his baby’s life, not take it.   The investi...

In an ideal world, I would rather not dig up the ground and the sea bed to extract their resources. But we created certainly not an ideal world, but a comfortable world precisely because mankind learnt how to do that, to extract the riches from beneath the Earth's crust. Mankind's gone from living in a harsh and inhospitable environment to living in relative comfort thanks to the extraction of tho...

Mark Story is the Deputy Editor at Hawkes Bay Today – he recently wrote an opinion piece about working remotely at cafes, after being banned from Smiths in Napier for ‘table-hogging.”   He interviewed hospitality owners from around the country, to shed some light on what’s reasonable.   Story told Kerre Woodham “I think it’s common sense – if I did stay longer than an hour or two, I’d buy somethin...

Do you know what we need after a big night of celebrating Newstalk ZB cleaning up at the radio awards?  We need pothole chat, that's what we need. Have a listen to Simeon Brown, the transport minister, talking about the $4 billion pothole prevention program that was announced this morning.    “This a step change. This is about actually ensuring that the funding goes into not just the patchwork qui...

Chef Tony Astle from Parnell’s iconic Antoine’s restaurant joins Kerre Woodham to dive into his the good and the bad of dining experiences both around New Zealand and internationally.   He digs into the service, the decor, and of course, the food, inspiring listeners to give new dining experiences a try.   Also on offer is the Recipe of the Week, and this week he’s serving up Leek and Potato Soup....

Chef Tony Astle from Parnell’s iconic Antoine’s restaurant joins Kerre Woodham to dive into his the good and the bad of dining experiences both around New Zealand and internationally.   He digs into the service, the decor, and of course, the food, inspiring listeners to give new dining experiences a try.   Also on offer is the Recipe of the Week, and this week he’s serving up Leek and Potato Soup....

Every two weeks on a Friday, I send a silent thank you to the payroll people at NZME who put the pot of gold into my account that pays my bills. My paycheques are bit like one of those jump jets that lands on an aircraft carrier ever so briefly before bouncing off and up again. Pay packet comes in to land, pops down and whoosh, off again into the wild blue yonder. Still, it's there. My bills are p...

Ahead of Dry July, Canterbury Rugby teams are being challenged to pick alcohol free alternatives.   Throughout June, South Canterbury Rugby Football Union is teaming up with Te Whatu Ora, Fire and Emergency, the Police, and South Canterbury Road Safety, asking people to ‘Be a Hero: Try Zero’.   Club members are being encouraged to choose zero alcohol beverages in an initiative aimed at reducing al...