Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

A bill that would have required all primary and intermediate schools to offer second language tuition from among 10 priority languages has been torpedoed by Labour despite the party originally supporting the bill. The Labour-led parliamentary committee examining the bill, originally proposed by ex National MP Nikki Kaye, oppose making 10 languages a priority. It says that te reo Māori and sign lan...

Christabel Williams has been crowned the winner of Popstars 2021, taking out the $100,000 prize and proving she is well on her way to living out her music dream. The 20-year-old from Auckland was chosen by Popstars panellists Kimbra, Nathan King and Vince Harder as the deserving winner after careful consideration of her vocal ability, song-writing skills and stage presence. And Christabel's brand-...

A lot of jobs require the wearing of body cams; parking wardens, SPCA inspectors, conservation rangers, a whole host of them.  And yet our police don't.  Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon has called for body cameras to be used by our police, not to protect them or keep them safe necessarily, but as a tool to prevent unconscious bias from entering into police decision making.  Body cameras, say...

Further to the cycling discussion on Monday, Kerre McIvor was reading a Listener piece by the Chair of the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, Dr Alan Bollard. Within the article, Dr Bollard says the proposed Northern Pathway Auckland Harbour Bridge cycleway project has been forecast to cost many times its initial capital cost estimate of 67 million.  It will move less than 1% of the bridge tra...

Further to the cycling chat yesterday, just a follow up.  Reading the Listener and there's a piece in there by Alan Bollard - chair of the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission.  It's a fabulous piece and I do recommend it - hopefully we will have Alan Bollard on the show tomorrow to talk infrastructure, but within the article is a piece that is relevant to the conversation we were having yesterda...

I was heading over to the North Shore on Sunday morning - in the never ending search for the perfect inter-generational home - and thought how lovely to see so many families out cycling.  There seemed to be far more than usual - mums, dads, little kids, babies strapped in the back - and although it was a little irritating, doing 5 ks down Herne Bay's side roads, it was Sunday morning these people...

Today is Gumboot Friday. Mike King says research tells us that the number one support that can be offered to help an at-risk young person is to give them face-to-face counselling. His charity Key to Life, which pays for free counselling for youth, aims to raise $5 million through Gumboot Friday to meet a demand they simply can’t keep up with. Kerre McIvor heard from numerous family members who are...

There is a prediction that house prices won't rise much from here. The Reserve Bank is forecasting zero upward price movement for the next year from June onwards. The Reserve Bank announced yesterday they are keeping the Official Cash Rate unchanged at a record low 0.25 percent, but point to increases sometime next year. The Treasury is expecting house price growth between 2021 and 2022 to be 0.9...

Remember BBQ man?  Man, I wished we'd kept that clip. Our conversation is seared into my memory and those of you who heard it will have remembered it.  Basically, he was off to the beach with his portable BBQ to spend a day there with his daughter, swimming, sunbathing and BBQ-ing because he could.  He was on the bene - he wasn't going to go to work because he couldn't find work that paid him what...

Many countries around the world are seeing a Covid-19 surge, which some are saying should be a warning for Australia and New Zealand. Nations like Taiwan, Singapore, and Thailand, once celebrated for their response to the coronavirus pandemic, are now grappling with a sudden surge in cases, with large swathes of their populations unvaccinated. As long as less than half the population is vaccinated...

A new survey has revealed that Kiwis are fearful of a more visible gang presence in public spaces.  A man died following a shooting in Auckland's Ōtāhuhu in the early hours of Sunday morning, in Rotorua members of the public were caught up in the bedlam near the Rotorua Sports bar, and two people were seriously injured in fighting as well. 60 per cent of the 1000 respondents in the Research NZ Cri...

Dame Cindy Kiro says she hopes to inspire young wāhine to aim for the "very top" after being named New Zealand's first wāhine Māori Governor-General. Shortly after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made the announcement today, Kiro reflected on her own "very poor" upbringing, and the "incredible" journey to get there. "I really hope it is seen as a positive thing, you can reach the very top, and remem...

I know the argument for paying teachers on performance has been around for years - ever since I've been hosting a talkback show.  But its been around for even longer than that.  An article in the Harvard School of Education said that, as early as 1710 said that in England, teachers were paid based on their students' test scores in reading, writing, and arithmetic. But problems with this approach q...

Well, we were right to be waiting in anticipation.  In Grant Robertson's first budget unfettered by New Zealand First, he delivered a true Labour budget, with money for beneficiaries and students, money for Kiwi Rail, more money in the coffers for Pharmac and $1.1 billion in initiatives for Māori and reinstating training allowances for single parents, yep, it had it all.  This was a budget that sh...

Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, has lambasted the BBC for contributing "significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation" felt by his late mother, Princess Diana, in the years before her death, in a rare emotionally charged statement by a royal against the public broadcaster. The Duke's comments come after the BBC offered an unconditional apology over the controversial 1995 interview by BB...

Greens MP Julie Anne Genter wants this government to spend like there’s no tomorrow.  She reckons this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to borrow cheap money and invest in climate change technology and reducing child poverty, and tackle the really big issues that governments have been too politically chary of to invest in.  The argument seems to be, that in the midst of a pandemic, we can reset...

The cyber-attack that's crippling Waikato District Health Board services could go on for days. The DHB's entire IT service was brought down by hackers yesterday morning, crashing phone lines, email and computers. All clinical services at Waikato, Thames, Tokoroa, Te Kuiti and Taumarunui hospitals are affected to varying degrees. Elective surgeries have been postponed and patient notes can't be acc...

The Auditor General has taken a proactive approach to New Zealand's vaccination rollout, and taken a long hard look at whether the health sector could meet the government's goal of vaccinating as many people as possible over the age of 16 by the end of the year.  And in news that won't surprise you, the Auditor General has found the process wanting.  There was some good early progress, in that at...

In an ideal world, every New Zealander who could be employed would be employed.  He, she or they would skip off to work, a spring in their step and a song in their heart, happy in the knowledge that they were well remunerated for the job they were about to do, and knowing that should they wish to move up the corporate ladder, say from caregiver to rest home manager, there was a clear path there fo...

She might not believe the numbers.  She might claim that no-one in her party is out to roll her.  But National party leader Judith Collins would not have enjoyed hearing the results of the latest Newshub-Reid Research Poll that shows her falling even further in popularity.  The latest poll shows Jacinda Arden streets ahead in the preferred PM stakes at 48.1 per cent, although she is down 4.5 perce...

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has shut down the idea that New Zealand will return to life under Covid-19 alert level 2.5 when the borders open. It comes after director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield yesterday floated the vision that opening up the border to vaccinated tourists could require Kiwis to return to alert level 2.5. Speaking on Kerre McIvor Mornings on Newstalk ZB, Ardern said it wo...

You'd like to think you'd be the first to rush in if someone was being threatened, but there is a very real risk in these mad and crazy times that you could literally be putting your life on the line to help.  In the wake of the Dunedin Countdown stabbings, there are stories of tremendous courage on the part of the store manager and bystanders who are now in hospital recovering from their injuries...

The government's making space in managed isolation to get skilled and critical workers into the country. Over the next 10 months, 500 spaces per fortnight will be allocated to support New Zealand's economic recovery. Three hundred seasonal workers will be able to arrive each month from June, 2400 in total by next March. There's also an allocation for construction workers, international students an...

Break out the bubbly. Well, the bubbly we would have had if our winegrowers had been able to harvest their grapes. From next month around 300 of the country's 6200 MIQ rooms will be allocated to RSE workers every month, meaning 2400 RSE workers are estimated to arrive by March next year.  There will also be 400 international students allowed in June for the start of semester two, 240 specialised c...

The Government is hitting gangs where it hurts their pockets. It's amending the Criminal Proceeds Act to allow seizure of assets of people associated with organised crime – for items they couldn't afford with their legal income. Police Association President Chris Cahill told Kerre McIvor this is a positive move for Police - and they could do it with more of their possessions.  "If you can take tho...