Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

A tax adviser thinks the Government's housing policy will push up new home prices. New investors will be stung under the bright line test if they sell an existing home within 10 years. They also won't be able to claim home loan interest repayments as a business expense. Greenmount Advisory managing director Bruce Bernacchi told Kerre McIvor those things won't apply to new houses. "A lot of new bui...

Mega-moves to halt a housing bubble. Almost $4 billion is going into a fund for housing infrastructure, and the Government's doubling the bright line test to 10 years. It's also lifting the ceilings for income and regional house price caps for first-home buyers. Finance Minister Grant Robertson says we can't afford to allow spiralling house prices to put our economic recovery at risk. One Roof pro...

The Government's moving to curb speculation and close tax loopholes in the housing market. It's announced a suite of measures, including a $3.8 billion housing acceleration fund, and lifting the First Home Grant caps to tackle the red hot market. Finance Minister Grant Robertson says they're also doubling the bright-line test from five years to ten years to reduce the attractiveness of flipping re...

A former Finance Minister has offered his thoughts on how the country can bounce back from a GDP slump. Figures released last week showed a one percent decline in the last quarter, contributing to a largest ever annual fall of 2.9 percent.  Steven Joyce, who served as Minister for Finance under Bill English, told Kerre McIvor that as the financial support dries up, the true cost of lockdown will b...

Former Police Ten 7 host Graham Bell has spoken out in defence of the show after calls were made for it to be scrapped and argued that critics should examine the causes of crime instead. Bell spoke to Kerre McIvor this morning after Auckland councillor Efeso Collins made a public call for TVNZ to stop broadcasting the highly rating reality show. Collins says it feeds on racial stereotypes of young...

A producer's speechless The Lion King musical has an immigration exemption, when local shows need support. 126 border passes have been granted under the "other critical worker" category - for a limited run of the stage production from June. The production will employ more than 300 local workers, but only put five young Kiwis on stage. G&T Productions Terry O'Connor says he's gobsmacked. He told Ke...

Dumping landline surveys won't stop Colmar Brunton's poll capturing all of New Zealand. The company's latest poll has ditched house phone calls, and now makes contact through mobile phones and online polling. Concerns have been raised about whether older generations are able to be contacted. But Kantar head of analytics Jason Shoebridge told Kerre McIvor they have a harder time getting young peopl...

An Auckland bar owner who was forced to sell his home to keep his businesses afloat is angry the move to Alert Level One has taken so long. Mat Jorgensen told Kerre McIvor his blood boil is boiling, as he has been burning through $10,000 a week to keep his business alive from the Government's crippling Covid-19 restrictions. He says they were never able to make money under Level Two. LISTEN ABOVE...

The Government's investigation into a pumped hydroelectric scheme to make New Zealand become totally powered by renewable energy resources will take at least a year longer than anticipated Labour's promise that 100 percent of New Zealand's electricity will be renewably generated by 2030 could be jeopardised by delays to its flagship NZ Battery project. Dr Jim Hinkley is a Senior Lecturer in Renewa...

A confronting topic is being brought to the forefront in a moving new series.  A New Zealand Herald series "The Brains Trust" is looking at dementia, a terminal disease that can last up to eight to 10 years, and has no cure. The cruel disease is growing rapidly in our ever-ageing population. Deborah Pead, who's mum suffers from dementia, told Kerre McIvor it's hard to watch someone go through it....

This tricky virus seems to be playing very hard to get, doesn't it?  I know that Covid 19 exists and that if you get it bad, it's a very nasty virus to get. But given that we've had a young man sweating it out in an enclosed space with other gym goers and a previously undisclosed dodgy lodger going door to door and STILL nobody has it - surely even the most hysterical Covid alarmist would have to...

No new community cases - good.  The entire country in a form of lockdown - bad.  I get that Auckland needs to take precautions given the level of faffing around done by people deemed to be infectious but why on earth is the South Island locked down?  Why in fact is anywhere south of Hamilton locked down?  We might have an easier case to make for opening up the rest of the country if hordes of Auck...

Should the New Zealand government cancel student loan debt? That’s the argument being made in an opinion piece on Newsroom. London-based reporter Laura Walters writes: "As part of a generation that’s been hit by one economic challenge after the next, student loan debt is just one of myriad factors that is making me reconsider what my life will look like. "Rather than offering interest-free borrowi...

Land Rover Horse of the Year organisers have cancelled the 2021 event after 48 hours of discussions left them realising they wouldn't be able to clear the hurdles put up by Covid uncertainty. A spokesperson for the Hastings event wrote on Facebook on Monday night that it was not a decision that had been made lightly. Horse of the Year, a fixture of the Showgrounds Hawke's Bay Tomoana, draws 1500 c...

A review of the Government's drug buyer Pharmac will focus on the timeliness and transparency of its decisions. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Andrew Little announced the independent review's terms of reference at Parliament today. The Pharmac review will focus on two areas: how well Pharmac performs against its current objectives and whether this could be improved whether Pharm...

We've talked before about the shocking state of our kids' teeth.  More than 5000 children and teenagers have dental surgery under general anaesthetic every year for problems associated with neglect.  Dental decay is the most common chronic health condition in New Zealand and it causes serious problems for the children who have rotting teeth.  I have heard some parents say, what does it matter?  Th...

According to research from Inland Revenue and Treasury, the wealthiest New Zealanders pay just 12 per cent of their total income in tax on average. The same research found 42 per cent of the wealthiest New Zealanders were paying lower tax rates than the lowest tax rate paid by people who earn their money from an ordinary job or a benefit. The reason for the disparity between New Zealand’s wealthie...

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says lives will be 'incomparably better' in England's spring and summer as he sets out a plan to fully ease lockdown rules by June 21. A paper published yesterday shows the two vaccines approved and in use in Britain showed high efficacy rates in trials. The first doses of Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccines in Scotland led to a substantial fall in Covid...

A Christchurch man says the scene that confronted him ten years ago felt like it was straight out of a movie. Lawyer Andrew Riches was sitting in his office when the building started shaking and filing cabinets fell down. He ran outside and was one of the first rescuers at the PGC building, which had pancaked, claiming 18 lives. Riches told Kerre McIvor when he heard people calling out for help he...

Calls for a purpose built quarantine centre that is located miles away from our cities and our biggest population masses are growing.  All the big names in immunology - Nick Wilson, Des Gorman and Michael Baker - have said its absolute madness to house returnees carrying the different Covid strains into hotels in our biggest cities.  We have 18 hotels in Auckland, three in Hamilton, two in Welling...

A Christchurch man says the scene that confronted him ten years ago felt like it was straight out of a movie. Lawyer Andrew Riches was sitting in his office when the building started shaking and filing cabinets fell down. He ran outside and was one of the first rescuers at the PGC building, which had pancaked, claiming 18 lives. Riches told Kerre McIvor when he heard people calling out for help he...

Unsafe lead levels have been found in the blood of East Otago-based children. It was revealed earlier in the month unsafe levels of lead had been discovered in the southern towns of Karitane and Waikouaiti. The levels go back to as early as July 2020. Back in 2017, a Government inquiry found 20 per cent of the country's tap water was not up to standard, with as many as 750,000 New Zealanders expos...

The Salvation Army's released its annual State of the Nation report focusing on areas such as crime, housing, and poverty. One of their biggest concerns is that the large increases in hardship are going to linger long after the Covid-19 pandemic - exemplified by food parcels given out last year, doubling to more than 110-thousand. They're urging the Government to take harder action against the hou...

Remember Shamima Begum? The entitled little schoolgirl who ran away to be a terrorist with two of her mates, married two terrorists, gave birth to three babies who all subsequently died and then demanded the right to return to the UK and that the UK return her citizenship - she was stripped of it in the interests of national security.  She's still battling for the right to return to the UK claimin...

Researchers are looking into how to expand Covid-19 detection - with a Kiwi at the forefront of developing more accessible technology.  Air New Zealand employees undertaking regular surveillance testing are participating in a Institute of Environmental Science and Research study, that will test saliva for the virus. The study will include the SalivaDirect Covid-19 testing technology developed by N...