Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

An Auckland school has had to apologise to a student expelled for swearing at a teacher in 2019. Macleans College has been told to say sorry to the teenager, after his family lodged a formal complaint to the Ombudsman. The student was expelled after telling a teacher to "F*** off" in an argument over an iPad, which the Year 13 boy was allowed to use due to writing difficulties. The college has str...

Unemployment has plunged to 4 per cent - the biggest quarterly fall in 35 years That's down from 4.7 percent in the three months to March, and also down from the recent peak of 5.3 percent in the three months to September last year. To provide some context, New Zealand Herald Wellington Business Editor Hamish Rutherford joined Kerre McIvor. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy info...

The Government was warned it's efforts to tackle New Zealand's housing affordability issues could be hampered by wood shortages. The issue has become so significant, Building and Construction Minister Poto Williams is considering limiting timber exports to ensure there is enough in the country.   This comes as the cost of building materials continues to rise, pushing up house prices. Phil Taylor,...

Kiwis are being urged to keep an eye on tightening mortgage rules.   The Reserve Bank wants to halve the number of people borrowing more than 80 percent of the property's value - cutting the number to ten percent. Rules restricting risky lending could be in place from October. To discuss the implications, One Roof commentator Ashley Church joined Kerre McIvor. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/liste...

According to the latest Newshub Reid Research poll, if an election was held tomorrow Labour could no longer govern alone.  They could get there with the Greens, but their absolute majority would be over.  The big winners are ACT, jumping 4.2 per cent to 11.1; National is stagnant, up just 1.7 per cent to 28.7 percent.  That must be a worry for Judith Collins although she told NewsHub they were jus...

Watercare is about to press the “go button” for their giant tunnel boring machine, Hiwa-i-te-Rangi. Hiwa-i-te-Rangi is about to dig her way under Auckland city to create Watercare’s $1.2 billion Central Interceptor wastewater tunnel. It's an almost 15km underground tunnel that will stretch from Grey Lynn to the Mangere Wastewater Treatment Plant and will clean up 80% of Auckland’s waterways by pre...

The Commerce Commission's draft report on grocery store competition has found New Zealanders are getting a raw deal at the checkout. Chair Anna Rawlings says New Zealand groceries are the sixth most expensive in the OECD, but would be cheaper if supermarkets competed more. She says there needs to be an increase in the number of retailers who can compete effectively. Food & Grocery Council chief ex...

National's criticising the Government for buying more state houses than it builds. Figures released through parliamentary questions, reveal that of the nearly 8000 public homes added by the Government, only 3716 were new. The rest are mainly existing homes, bought or leased on the private market. Yesterday, a real estate agent called into the show to say that her company had been approached by Kāi...

An interesting opinion piece has arisen on Newsroom by the Sustainability Council of New Zealand Executive Director, Simon Terry. In the piece, he points out that if our international oil imports were cut,  New Zealand would be at risk of a breakdown of essential services and it would cost us hundreds of millions dollars a day. Terry believes if we paid just one cent a litre, it would keep our own...

The ACT party is set to release its economic policy later this morning but David Seymour has already revealed one of its platforms - allowing privately run MIQ facilities for vaccinated travellers - something he says would ease the squeeze on MIQ and that would also throw a bone to hotels struggling as border closures continue.  The idea's been doing the rounds since we first started requiring ret...

The ACT Party have revealed their ideas for private MIQ, which would allow mothballed hotels to privately offer their services for vaccinated travellers. Leader David Seymour says the facilities would be run under strict testing and vaccine protocols - and help re-open the gates for international students, workers, and split migrant families. ACT is also calling for more certainty in the immigrati...

Thousands of insurance customers could be in for refunds. A Financial Markets Authority and Reserve Bank review's found many insurers hadn't been doing enough to ensure products are suitable, and are overcharging some customers. In some cases, they double-charged customers, hadn't given multi-policy discounts, or significantly overcharged premiums, because of poor IT systems. Financial Markets Aut...

We are one of just 19 nations out of 197 that does not have an armed police force.  Most are island nations like the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Samoa, Fiji, Tuvalu and the like. But Norway, the UK, with the exception of Northern Island, Iceland and New Zealand are the outliers in more developed nations who have decided that they will police by consent and not force.  However, times change, communiti...

We were going to talk about the rise in violence on Friday given the incident in Auckland that saw some oik hold a gun to the head of two members of the public after stealing a car from a local car dealership - before we were overwhelmed with stories from farmers and their supporters heading to rallies around the country - and the sad thing is I knew it would only be a matter of time before the to...

The Act Party, as part of their Law and Order Policy, want gang members to receive their benefits on a card, which would restrict spending on alcohol, gambling and tobacco. However, it doesn't address why young people are still being drawn into gang life. Patched member of the Mongrel Mob Aotearoa Wairoa chapter and youth worker Bronson Tither, is trying to redefine what it means to be in a gang....

If you were listening here on Friday, you'll have heard how riled up farmers around the country are. It wasn't just farmers, they also had support from urban dwellers - aka townies, as well. In an opinion piece on Stuff, Daniel Eb, founder of Open Farms praised the protest and the farmers for finding their voice but says the real test now, is where to from here? How do Farmers channel Friday's ene...

A claim the health system needs to do more to help Maori parents get their children vaccinated. In Counties Manukau, on-time immunisation coverage for Maori eight-month-olds fell from 85-percent last May to 68-percent this year. A report found racism and cultural incompetence in the health system were barriers to immunisation. National Hauora Coalition Clinical Director Rawiri Jansen believes told...

Not such a good morning for the people of Westport many of whom have been left homeless after the devastating floods that swept through the district over the weekend.  The clean-up of the town, population 4600, will likely take months and its estimated hundreds of houses have been damaged.  Kris Faafoi speaking to Mike Yardley this morning says dozens of Kainga Ora houses have been rendered uninha...

First up: The Good News.  The Shorter family, whose son Josh was assaulted in an Auckland bar on Friday night and who is lying in a coma in Auckland Hospital, have been told they can apply for a critical purpose visa and should soon be on their way from the UK to their son's bedside. Immigration New Zealand officials said the family met the very high threshold as we were discussing yesterday.  To...

If we can let in the Wiggles, even though they didn't fill in the paperwork, if we can suddenly find places in MIQ for hundreds of Kiwis who've been in New South Wales, surely to goodness we can find a place for the parents of Josh Storer.  Josh is in intensive care after undergoing two brain surgeries and his family, in a zoom call with his doctors, were told there were three options for Josh.  O...

Orchards across New Zealand are facing worker shortages in the tens of thousands, leaving their fruit to rot on the ground without a labour force to pick it up. There is now the expectation that fruit prices will skyrocket due to the lack of availability. NZ Apples and Pears Chief Executive Alan Pollard spoke to Kerre McIvor about the harsh season they’ve faced. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/lis...

The not-for-profit housing sector is trying to fill a big whole in New Zealand's property crisis, and is having some success. The Kaitiakitanga Housing Community, one of three new Salvation Army housing projects in Auckland, has 36 two-bedroom units, another 10 single units, all entirely self-contained. The Salvation Army projects were built with a $40 million community bond put together by Commun...

Concerns over a new Mongrel Mob-led rehab programme. Almost three-million-dollars in funding seized from gangs, is being used to fund Kahukura. It's based in the Central Hawke's Bay, and aims to get people off the debilitating drug. Mayor Alex Walker says any efforts to stop drug-use are good, but this raises questions. "The part of the shame of this for me too is that it's been connected to a pla...

An issue has arisen around what to do with children who don't fit into the cookie cutter environment of our education system. Mt. Hobson Middle School in Auckland, which caters for neuro-diverse children, faces closure after Education Minister Chris Hipkins  turned down not one, but two applications to fund the school, saying there are existing supports for all learners in existing state schools....

National has slammed the government's decision to  lapse and refund 50,000 temporary visa applications.  Immigration spokesperson Erica Stanford says its further evidence this Government has no plan to reopen New Zealand up to the world post-vaccination and isn’t listening to the desperate calls from businesses for international labour.  And Immigration lawyer, Alister McClymont says the governmen...