The Mike Hosking Breakfast

A lack of labour is putting mounting pressure on mental health and addiction services. The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission has reviewed the progress of the Access and Choice programme, three years into its roll-out. The report finds capacity has improved in under-supported areas, but, it also shows nearly 800 more full time staff are needed by the end of June 2024. Mental Health and Wellbei...

Scary times for some home-owners, with ANZ the first to react following last week's record OCR rise. It's increasing its home loan and deposit rates, after the OCR was lifted to 4.25 percent last week. ANZ expects house prices to continue dropping until mid to late next year, falling 22-percent from their peak last year. But the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research is forecasting a lower int...

An immigration consultant says changes to the partners of migrants' right to work, will make it harder to attract migrants. A change going ahead next month will only allow partners of green list workers to get an open work visa. Couples will instead have to find accredited employers to sponsor applications for each of them, or have a partner who can visit, but not work. Into NZ Immigration Princip...

A court will today consider the fate of a four-month-old baby boy who needs life-saving heart surgery. The child's parents are refusing blood donations from vaccinated people - wishing instead to use their own donors. Health New Zealand will go to the High Court at Auckland today, seeking guardianship over the baby to allow the surgery to proceed. Barrister Simon Judd told Mike Hosking while it's...

Some fog cannons and a council initiative. That’s your cabinet response to a death at a Sandringham dairy. The suggestion from the Prime Minister was that Cabinet had been speaking for some weeks about the so-called business crime package. It is an odd clam to make, given when Chris Hipkins, the architect of the package, was peppered about it in the house last week he never mentioned it was being...

It's been an incredible year for Kiwi golfer Ryan Fox. After a couple of years hampered by the pandemic - Fox took the European tour by storm and ended up coming second overall in the DP World Tour Rankings. The season saw him take two victories and get eight other top ten finishes. He's now the 27th on the official World Golf rankings. So how does he reflect on the season? And what does he have i...

Calling all art lovers. Works by Banksy and Charles Frederick Goldie will be up for sale tonight at the International Art Centre. The three Banksy limited edition prints could bring up to $325,000 while the three works by Charles Frederick Goldie could sell for up to $2.2million. International Art Center Director Richard Thomson joined Mike Hosking. LISTEN ABOVE   See omnystudio.com/listener for p...

New Zealand's video game industry is booming. Revenue has almost doubled from last year’s $267 million to $407 million in the past year - heading to be a billion dollar industry by 2026. Not to mention digital games are New Zealand’s single fastest growing export and one of our most productive sectors. Chairperson of New Zealand Game Developers Association Chelsea Rapp joined Mike Hosking. LISTEN...

A “significant increase” in fleeing drivers along with a decrease in the number of offenders identified has led to the police’s fleeing driver policy being changed again. Police commissioner Andrew Coster announced that the police pursuit policy would be reviewed next year and a Fleeing Driver Framework would be introduced. Police’s pursuit policy changed in 2020 following a series of high-profile...

Retailers are struggling to see how yesterday's crime announcement will change anything. $4 million will be made available to local councils to assist with crime prevention measures. Funding will also be available for all small shops and dairies to install fog cannons and the Crime Prevention Fund will be extended. Glengarry Wines General Manager Liz Wheadon told Mike Hosking it's not much differe...

Calls for a crackdown on big money political donors. A new Victoria University study suggests no individual should be allowed to give more than $15,000 - with donors giving more than $1,500 having to disclose their identities. It also proposes using a voucher system to fund political parties. Researcher Max Rashbrooke told Mike Hosking donations shouldn't be banned outright, but change is needed....

Pressure is mounting on the Government to fully scrap a provision entrenching parts of its Three Waters legislation. Constitutional experts say the provision, requiring 60-percent of MPs to change part of the law, would pave the way for governments to entrench other laws. Cabinet has agreed to refer the matter back to Parliament's cross-party Business Committee. But National's Michael Woodhouse to...

So the cabinet will today discuss the criteria for the business support package and by this afternoon the list of excuses will be well honed and some adjustments to the abject failure of a policy will be rolled out. The simple question is this - why are they discussing and changing it? The answer is because a person is dead. Making it catastrophically worse is that any number of people have been w...

The nurses union says a Government announcement around pay parity is a step in the right direction. The Government's agreed to ongoing funding of 200-million dollars a year for frontline community health workers. It'll apply to those in private and non-Government organisations - to level pay with those in the public sector. But the Health Minister says it won't mean an immediate change for those i...

The Government appears to be ready to back-track on a move to entrench part of its Three Waters reforms. Under a last minute change to the Government's Three Waters reforms, 60-percent of MPs would have to agree to overturn part of the bill protecting water assets from privatisation. A group of public law experts has written to the Government raising concerns about the entrenchment of non-electora...

Has Radius Care actually cracked the code? The aged care providers have hired 120 nurses from a variety of overseas countries including Singapore, the Middle East and India. This is leaving them with a surplus of 70 registered nurses which many are saying is not a bad problem to have. Radius Care executive chair Brien Cree joined the Mike Hosking Breakfast. LISTEN ABOVE   See omnystudio.com/listen...

Emotions are running high ahead of today's protests following the death of Sandringham shopkeeper Janak Patel. Hundreds of dairy and small business owners will be shutting their doors for two hours this afternoon. There's also going to be a silent vigil outside the Prime Ministers electoral office in Mount Albert at the same time - 12.30pm. Dairy and business owners' group chairman Sunny Kaushal s...

A suggestion the Government isn't doing its homework over proposed changes to speed limits across the country. No cost-benefit analysis is planned as part of the major shake-up to speed limits. Dropping speed limits by as much as 40 kilometres per hour in some places will slow freight movements and add extra costs. Transporting New Zealand Chief Executive Nick Leggett told Mike Hosking that sadly...

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.   The recession: 2/10 It's the final nail in the Government coffin. They printed, they spent, they ran the place into the ground - no one gets three more years on that record.   Adrian Orr: 6/10 Although he did about as much damage, given he and Grant Robertson are interchangeabl...

The death at the dairy in Sandringham in Auckland on Wednesday was always going to be the tipping point in some way shape or form. It was a death that was always coming. It's not the first crime that has led to a death by any stretch of the imagination of course, but it is the first death in a specific crime pattern that has been building in this country all year. It's the death in the crime wave...

There are fears young people will come out worse off from any upcoming recession. Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr has confirmed the bank is deliberately engineering a recession, with plans to hike the Official Cash Rate as high as 5.5 percent. That recession is expected to hit around the middle of next year. Former Finance Minister Steven Joyce told Mike Hosking it will be felt particularly by yo...

The first ODI Black Caps vs India is on today at Eden Park. It will be the first of three matches, following India’s win in the T20 series. Black Caps coach Gary Stead joined Mike Hosking. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Investors are keeping calm, after this week's stark warnings from the Reserve Bank. Governor Adrian Orr has left many mortgage holders reassessing their options, after lifting the OCR to 4.25 percent and warning it could peak at 5.5 percent. He's also confirmed the bank is deliberately engineering a recession, that's likely to hit about the middle of next year. JMI Wealth Director Andrew Kelleher...

The Government are determined to pin Three, or Five, Waters confusion on the farmers. Megan Woods on the Mike Hosking Breakfast on Wednesday said the whole "Five Waters" discourse was because the farmers wanted geothermal and coastal waters to be covered by Three Waters. Federated Farmers said that wasn't the case, but Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta doubled down in the house yesterday whe...

The Government's pay boost to community social workers has been labelled a "game changer". Almost 4,600 community social workers will now receive pay that is on par with Oranga Tamariki social workers. Association of Social Workers Chief Executive, Braden Clark, says their pay is going to increase between $20-30,000. He told Mike Hosking it'll make a huge difference in keeping social workers from...