Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

You know, I was not at all surprised to see the headline on the front of the New Zealand Herald today talking about the state of mental health care for children and teenagers in New Zealand. A briefing document that was provided by the Ministry of Health, to the Health Minister Andrew Little in September last year, has been obtained by the Herald and it paints a grim picture. Mental health crisis...

Fears China's latest plan for a security pact with the Pacific is designed to give them more influence in the area. China has sent a draft to 10 Pacific countries, outlining a plan for policing, security and data communications cooperation. It comes ahead of a meeting Foreign Minister Wang Yi is hosting in Fiji next week. National's Foreign Affairs spokesperson Gerry Brownlee says it's deeply conc...

More than 150 people have marched through Kaikohe this morning to take a stand against gang violence. The Mid North town has been drawn into ructions that began in Auckland between rival gangs the Tribesmen and Killer Beez, with shots fired at a house in Kaikohe before dawn on Tuesday. Today's hikoi is fronted by leaders of the hapū of Ngāti Ueoneone, Ngāti Whakaeke, Ngāti Tautahi, Te Matarahurahu...

As you will have heard by now, the Reserve Bank increased the official cash rate by 50 basis points to 2 percent. This delivered what many commentators saw as a hawkish monetary policy statement, pointing to much higher rates ahead as it chases down inflation. The Monetary Policy Committee says it sees the cash rate rising to at least 3.25 percent this year and that it was resolute in its commitme...

Now historically, communities have relied on their particular version of God to keep their people in check and if God is always watching, then the theory is that you should be on your best behaviour and do no wrong. Of course, people are flawed and imperfect. Inevitably, we will do wrong, but given that God is always watching, their sins will be exposed and they will be punished. In this increasin...

Anthony Albanese will be sworn in as Australian Prime Minister today, ending conservative rule in Australia that lasted nearly a decade.  Counting from the election is yet to confirm whether he has enough seats to establish a majority government.  As things stand, Labor's one seat short -- and needs 76 to form a majority government.  Questions have been asked as to what an Anthony Albanese electio...

I don't mind telling you that prior to yesterday's budget, I was kind of over it already. The question is whether this budget announcement yesterday was a win for the Government? Was it that enough to turn the tide in the polls? For most of us though, the immediate question is what's the Government going to do for us, and our focus on the cost of living and the constant headlines around inflation?...

Why is it, and how is it, that you can get away with murder in this country? You'll have heard in our news that a charge has been dropped against a family member who was accused of trying to obstruct justice. They were one of the people in a home in Flatbush Road, who were there when 14 month old Sofia Taueki-Jackson was murdered. She suffered a catastrophic and unsurvivable head injury late on Sa...

A warning has come for caution before any change to the law giving a right to silence. Police believe 14-month-old Sofia Taueki-Jackson was killed at her mother's home in Clover Park two years ago, after a significant head injury. NZME’s newsroom can reveal a charge has been dropped against a family member accused of obstructing justice by refusing to assist the investigation. AUT law professor Kr...

We can take it as a given, can we not, that dental health is part of your overall health and well-being.  Besides the pain of rotten or broken teeth, you're also predisposed to a range of other health ailments. Poor oral health can impair your general health and well-being by creating or exacerbating health conditions such as heart and lung disease, and stroke. There's a direct correlation. Also,...

A call for the Government to put more money towards dental care in tomorrow's Budget. The Dental Association is calling for raft of changes, starting with increasing grants for access to urgent dental care. President Kate Ayers told Kerre Woodham despite their best efforts, many people develop dental issues they simply can't afford to fix. “It’s just not fair that they need to continue on with it...

The Government's offering up new transport options, rather than kicking people out of their cars. Included in their Emissions Reduction Plan is more than half a billion dollars towards pushing electric and hybrid vehicles. The money will help lower and middle income households scrap their fossil-fuel burning cars for a climate-friendly alternative. A pilot of the scheme will involve up to 2500 veh...

I have to say looking at the Herald this morning, you wonder whether the Government, whether the media, whether I, have a take on what people are really concerned about because I came back and I'm reading the paper and there's a full-page report in the Herald on what we can expect from the Government and its master plan to cut emissions when the Budget’s released. The headline in Stuff is 'Emissio...

Finance Minister Grant Robertson delivers his fifth Budget on Thursday, with an emphasis on health and climate change. However, there are doubts this week's Budget will address New Zealand's cost of living crisis. In an opinion piece in the NZH, National's finance spokesperson Nicola Willis says this is not the time to be adding more unnecessary costs or embarking on big bureaucracy-building ventu...

It's been hard to miss the publicity that's been circulating on-screen, and in radio and print media around the Road to Zero campaign which has been led by the NZ Transport Agency/Waka Kotahi. In response to this, there's a story today about one man, Geoff Upson, who is campaigning in in the other direction ... campaigning to ,quote, Keep it 100. Now for those of you who may have missed it, the Ro...

The Piopio home invasion case. I'll be honest, my initial reaction to the not-guilty verdict was that I struggled to contain my Glee. But that was because when the case first broke and I looked at the facts and I predicted,  two or three weeks ago, that no jury was ever going to convict the father and son of the charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. The question is, did th...

The Employment court has ruled ex-Gloriavale members were employees from six years old, not volunteers. Hosea and Levi Courage, and Daniel Pilgrim, have now left the religious community, but sought a declaration on their status after leaving school and working at the commune and its businesses. The Employment court found the work can't be described as chores or education, because of the commercial...

I moved to the North Shore of Auckland in November of last year. After years and years of living in the central city it was a big move to go across the bridge. I fell completely and utterly in love with the North Shore lifestyle. It's completely different to being in the city. The one big negative that people warned me about was Onewa Road. That's the main road linking many different suburbs on th...

The Government is expected to announce next week that a congestion charge is on the cards for Auckland's CBD in 2025. A Helen Clark Foundation report has found such a charge could cut congestion by 12 percent, but researchers say the process needs to be brought in fairly. The Infrastructure Commission released its first long-term strategy at the start of the month. They believe we need to ease con...

Well, you can't say all those millions spent on PR consultants and market researchers and communications advisors and spin doctors, you cannot say all those millions of dollars have been wasted, can you? Because look at this, the public registered a vote of no confidence in Police Minister Poto Williams with the Newshub Reid Research poll out last week, we talked about that nearly 2/3 of those pol...

Starship have launched a youth mental health app as self-harm events abound young people spike. Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, admissions of children and adolescents to hospital following self-harm events have increased by 25 percent in the 15-19 year age group and 50 percent in the 10-14 year age group.   Over 5600 young people presented to hospital emergency departments around the cou...

The public has registered a vote of no confidence in Police Minister Poto Williams as youth crime spirals out of control. The latest Newshub-Reid Research poll asked: Is the current Police Minister too soft on crime? More than two-thirds - 68.3 percent - said yes, while just 18.3 percent said no. Minister Williams doesn't think it's fair. She said to Newshub "For me, you're either soft or you're a...

Founder and CEO of chemicals company DGL, Simon Henry, has criticised My Food Bag for putting an image of brand ambassador Nadia Lim in its prospectus, referring to Lim as 'Eurasian fluff'. National Business Review ran an article featuring an interview in which the comments were made. Kiwi Wealth in the process of adding DGL to its exclusions list in response to the derogatory comments he made. Ki...

If a politics wonk was to ever put the time and effort into ranking the best and worst of New Zealand parliamentary speakers, I am willing to lay good money on Trevor Mallard being cited as the worst speaker of the house in the country's history. Now obviously I can't go back to the late 19th century and the early 20th century. But I'm still willing to be it. He would be the worst. He's an unlikel...

Is it any real surprise that the Property Investors Federation says rolling back changes that have been made to the rental industry by this government will fix soaring rents and a shortage of rental properties? Probably not.  You would expect such a position from the federation, but the real point is, are they right? Yesterday, the Property Investors Federation launched a five-point plan, which it...