The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Te Whatu Ora's defending its equity adjuster-waitlist tool. Ethnicity is a factor in new medical waitlist criteria rolled out in Auckland in February — alongside clinical priority, time already spent on the waitlist, location, and deprivation level. Te Whatu Ora's Dr Mike Shepherd told Mike Hosking that clinical prioritisation always takes precedent. The system’s being rolled out to other northern...

National says prisoner numbers will rise as crime goes down if it wins power in October. The party's new crime policy would make being a gang member an aggravating factor during criminal sentencing. Leader Chris Luxon told Mike Hosking that there'll be more to come in its broader policy to be announced shortly – and more prisoners will be a consequence of chasing down crime. He says the Government...

As the economy sinks, the Government sinks with it. What a shocking week. We have officially been in recession. Don’t let them con you into the “technical recession" line. A recession is a recession and going backwards is going backwards. I have no reason to believe that in the past three months of April, May and now June things have changed. And I have no reason to believe the Reserve Bank is wro...

At the end of each week, Mike Hosking takes you through the big-ticket items and lets you know what he makes of it all.   Recession: 3/10 Welcome to it. This is the tangible outworking of a Government that printed, and spent, and wasted money they never had.   The Auditor General's report into the Provincial Growth Fund reset: 8/10 A valuable piece of work that laid bare the fundamental incompeten...

The New Zealand Blood Service has warned that without more donors we will rely more heavily on imported plasma products. Questions have been asked as to whether it is time we start compensating plasma donors to increase donations. Professor Peter Jaworski has come out with a report highlighting how every country that permits plasma compensating has surplus plasma collections. Georgetown University...

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins believes New Zealanders will recognise the domestic and global factors that have contributed to two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, considered a technical recession, when it comes time to vote later this year. Statistics NZ data released yesterday confirmed market expectations by showing the economy had shrunk in the first three months of 2023. Revise...

A former education boss has slammed a mega-polytech's move to cut 400 of its 10,000 workers as the latest chapter in the "trainsmash that is Te Pukenga". The Tertiary Education Union says staff have been told hundreds of jobs could go. Former Te Pukenga Deputy Chief Executive Merran Davis told Mike Hosking it was expected there'd be some sort of operating model to ensure better education outcomes...

New Zealand may not be in a recession, but it's certainly in a slowdown. On paper, the country has officially entered a "technical recession" after recording two consecutive quarters of negative growth. But in reality, the latest 0.1 percent drop in GDP could be revised up, meaning the recession never happened. Former Finance Minister Steven Joyce told Mike Hosking what is certain, is the economy...

New Zealand continues to be targeted for meth distribution. Authorities have intercepted a shipment of maple syrup from Canada, concealing 713 kilograms of the drug, an estimated street value of $250 million. It's the largest ever drug bust at the border. Methcon Managing Director Dale Kirk told Mike Hosking this is all being done through gangs. LISTEN ABOVE     See omnystudio.com/listener for pri...

What I value about people like Mark Mitchell is they bring real world experience to a situation. Mark was a cop, he was a dog handler and he has been to Ōpōtiki. When he went to Ōpōtiki 20 years ago it was a different world. Yes, we had gangs. We've had gangs for decades and we've angsted about gangs for decades. Robert Muldoon tried to make friends with them. But all these years later it's throug...

Time to catch up with Kiwi actor Antonia Prebble. She's best known for her role as Loretta West in the hugely successful Outrageous Fortune , along with the prequel Westside . Prebble last spoke to the Mike Hosking Breakfast in 2018, since then she's appeared often in Shortland Street and now has a new show to hit our screens tonight called Double Parked - Antonia Prebble joined Mike Hosking. LIST...

It seems the Government are listening - from next year they will be funding medical schools to take 50 additional students. This will lift domestic enrolments to 589 places a year, across both Auckland and Dunedin medical schools coming with a $23 million cost over ten years. University of Auckland Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences deputy dean Warwick Bagg joined the Mike Hosking Breakfast. L...

Our primary industry exports have reached $56 billion - his is 2.3 percent higher than expected and now worth 14 percent of New Zealand's total GDP. This growth has been down to the exports of dairy, seafood and processed food. By 2027, growth is predicted to reach $62 billion with new Fair Trade Agreements with the UK, EU and upgrades to our agreement with China opening doors for more products to...

A new report into our infrastructure is highlighting New Zealand's over-reliance on public debt to fund our infrastructure deficit - which currently is at $210 billion. It warns of two issues - government being too involved in deciding what infrastructure should be built where, and borrowing excessively to fund new infrastructure. Research fellow and report author at the New Zealand Initiative Dr....

Economists are split over whether today's GDP figures will rise or fall. The data for the March quarter will be released at 10.45am. A decrease would mean the country was in a technical recession that quarter. But Westpac senior economist Michael Gordon says when it comes to recession, you need to take the broader view of whether the economy is running below par. He says there's still a very low u...

The Bay of Plenty towns of Ōpōtiki and Whakatāne were effectively shut down yesterday as a Mongrel Mob funeral procession caused massive disruption to the community - including a closed highway that created traffic chaos and fresh gunshots under investigation by police. Bay of Plenty District Police Commander Tim Anderson told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning they were not “out-ma...

"New Zealand is a wet, whiny, negative, inward-looking country." It is almost certainly the quote of the week, unless the next couple of days are out of the box. I would suggest the Massey University people have, hopefully, lined it up as a contender for the quote of the year. In fact, this might well be some sort of turning point for Chris Luxon and his apparent battle with getting traction in th...

Ongoing insistence from the Government, that gang tensions in Ōpōtiki are a police issue, not a political one. Schools and public facilities in the eastern Bay of Plenty town remain closed today due to safety concerns, ahead of today's tangi for gang boss Steven Taiatini. Hundreds of gang members are already in the town, with more expected to arrive in a procession from Whakatāne this morning. Cab...

AA Smartfuel and Countdown's reward partnership is coming to an end. After working together for seven years they have decided to not renew the agreement which is set to expire in 2024, instead they will be launching new loyalty programmes. AA Smartfuel General Manager Ian Sutcliffe joined Mike Hosking. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're about to get a clearer picture of how the economy is tracking. GDP figures are out out tomorrow morning, revealing whether New Zealand has escaped a technical recession. Ahead of that, the latest figures on our current account deficit are due out this morning, effectively showing how much more we're importing than we're exporting. BusinessNZ Head of Advocacy Catherine Beard told Mike Hosking...

The Government says new tree planting laws tackle economic and climate issues. Labour is giving local councils the authority to determine where, and how much, carbon forestry can occur. The change limits trees used for carbon farming, being planted on productive land. When asked if it's a climate initiative or a farming initiative, Forestry Minister Peeni Henare told Mike Hosking it's both. "Farmi...

Donald Trump's Miami court hearing has ended, with the former President pleading not guilty to 37 charges. The charges relate to his handling of classified documents at his Florida resort, after he left office. Some documents contain extremely sensitive information like military and nuclear capabilities. There's no travel restrictions on Trump's bail, after the prosecutors deemed him not to be a f...

For the 55th year Fieldays is back - and this year is the first time since 2019 it is fully open to international attendees. Being the largest agricultural event in the Southern Hemisphere the event has a reputation for showing off cutting-edge farming technology and innovative agricultural practices. Fieldays CEO Peter Nation joined the Mike Hosking Breakfast. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/list...

As the Government celebrates its milestone of putting “1800 new police officers on the beat”, it can be revealed 270 of them don’t have arrest powers and work predominantly within stations. Police Association president Chris Cahill and National police spokesman Mark Mitchell allege the Government has been misleading. “They’re not what the public would call a police officer,” Cahill said. On June 1...

I think we can ask the question of how much is enough, given the numbers we have given you of late. Government expenditure is up 596 percent and income i.e tax take, is up 334 percent. As a result of that, the debt is up 482 percent. If all of that isn't enough, what is? The economy this week gets its Q1 read on GDP. In other words, what we did in January, February and March. The importance of it,...