Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills

Wellington's Kāpura hospitality network has launched the 'Take 2 for the Team' campaign. It's 900 employees are given an hour off work and a 25 dollar food voucher for each Covid-19 vaccination they receive. When one of Kapura's 35 venues gets a 90% vaccination rate ... the team gets 500 dollars to share. Kāpura CEO Jamie Williams says so far everyone is on board. He says there was a risk some peo...

Luke MacLean-McMahon was 31 and in the shape of his life before being hit by Covid-19. Nearly 19 months later he can't do the sports and exercise he used to love, after the disease damaged his heart and caused a host of other health problems. He'd dismissed the early media reports of a virus spreading from China as overly hyped. Besides, the advice was that for most people it would be a mild illne...

Monday Political Panel: Kieran McAnulty Labour MP for the Wairarapa and Wellington-based National Party MP Nicola Willis on what to do as Covid cases trend upwards, how often the Prime Minister should front on case numbers, a call for more Pharmac funding, and should we have roaming bouncers in Wellington to tackle violence? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new Colmar Brunton survey has found Kiwis have little faith they can access medicine. Forty percent of respondents weren't confident they could get the best medicine available ... if diagnosed with a disease or illness. Patient advocate Fiona Tolich says 70 percent also believe Pharmac needs more funding. She says there new drugs are becoming available every day so they need about a billion doll...

Friday Faceoff: CID Director Josie Pagani and former MP and United Future leader Peter Dunne talk the possibility of mandatory vaccines for teachers, a gang member was given an essential worker exemption to go to Auckland, Mood of the Boardroom Survey show attitudes towards our Prime Minister have soured with business leaders, and should vaccines be mandatory for domestic flights? See omnystudio.c...

A selfless Wellington teenager with inoperable brain cancer has raised more than $200,000 for cancer research in just four days. 15-year-old Jemima Gazley was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer in February this year. "It was so hard to hear, it was the biggest news of my life. But I'm so glad to still be here today," she said. Jemima's Dad Oliver Gazley said the page was a reflection of her kind...

Wellington City Council's discussing how to save its financially troubled social housing portfolio - heading for insolvency by next June. City Housing covers more than 19-hundred properties, with about three-thousand tenants. The council's been begging the Government to let it access the Income Related Rent Subsidy, with rents already higher than in Kainga Ora state housing. The other option is se...

This week on Money Talks director of Mortgage Ability NZ Marcus Hull talks good debt and bad debt with Wellington Mornings host Nick Mills. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former Prime Minister Jim Bolger says he supports longer parliamentary terms. The Government's announced a two-year review of New Zealand's electoral rules. It will look at the parliamentary term, and consider whether the voting age should be lowered. Bolger told Nick Mills when he was PM, he was in favour of four years. "I felt three years was too short, five years was too long and four was about...

Every option being developed for the big-ticket items in Wellington's $6.4 billion transport plan will include mass rapid transit routes to both the eastern and southern suburbs. The original proposal in Let's Get Wellington Moving (LGWM) was to create a mass rapid transit route from the central city to the airport. Later in the project it was revealed a route to Island Bay was also in the mix. No...

Wellington's Mayor Andy Foster joined Nick Mills to talk issues in the city, Covid-19 and take questions from listeners.  Foster says it's inevitable Covid-19 will spread beyond Auckland and Waikato. A person understood to be a close contact of a Hamilton East case has tested positive in Kawhia today - outside the North Waikato Level Three boundary. Andy Foster says he expects Covid to eventually...

The Government has announced that the Earthquake Commission is going to take on twice the amount of risk in a natural disaster, raising its cap from $150,000 to $300,000. The change will take effect over the 12 months from the October 2022 change, as people’s policies come up for renewal. Wellington Mayor Andy Foster welcomes the change.  “This announcement will help go some way to building confid...

Monday Political Panel: Green Party Co-Leader James Shaw and National Party MP Nicola Willis talk Covid lockdowns in Waikato and Raglan as a government announcement looms, a truck driver has tested positive for Covid-19 after travelling from Auckland to Palmerston North, what can be done to prevent anti-lockdown protests, and a brawl saw a busy Wellington street come to a standstill on Friday. See...

This week on Friday Faceoff: Former ACT MP Heather Roy and managing director of Capital Government Relations Neale Jones talk the family finally found after 17 days in the bush, the one-off visa announced by the Immigration Minister this week, Covid plans from Sir John Key's to ACT's, and a Petone store closes after customers were rude to staff. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rob Hewitt was out diving with friends in 2006 off Mana Island when he drifted out to sea for four days and three nights in an incredible story of survival.  He told Nick Mills panic set in when the sun began to set on the first night.  "It was about facing my greatest fear and my greatest fear is dying," he said.  In the hours that followed Hewitt imagined what that would be like. Having been in...

National Party Leader Judith Collins joins Wellington Mornings host Nick Mills to talk about the party's Covid-reopening plan, recent political polls that have seen Collins dip as preferred PM and what she need to do to gain public trust and support.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Staff in retail stores and call centres are facing so much abuse from angry customers that some feel it is unsafe to come to work. Jane Phare reports. A Wellington business manager has closed her boutique Petone shop until further notice, to protect herself and her staff from customers whose abusive behaviour caused her to be on the verge of burnout. Ana Warnock, who is in the process of buying Th...

Raj is a Wellington chef - who's been separated from her husband and nine-year-old daughter for three years. Her family are in India and have not been able to join her in New Zealand. She's relieved at the news of the 2021 Resident Visa. Raj says told Nick Mills the past few years have been difficult because . She says it's very hard for her without her husband and daughter, and is especially upse...

Our music reviewer James has a strange theory that music that is either number 1 on the charts or released in the golden month of September in the last 50 years is superior to all other music!!! What???? Listen to Nick and James journey from Earth, Wind and Fire to Kool and the gang, Grunge and the Gorillaz and in cash in the attic, find out if you are hoarding a 45 jukebox record that's worth as...

A summit is underway today asking how New Zealand can keep teenage girls in sport.  Sport NZ has found the amount of time teen girls spend playing sport drops between the ages of 15 and 17-years-old. CEO Raelene Castle says it's a complicated situation and sports uniforms may play a role.  She told Nick Mills part of a strategy could be to have more women not only participating in sport, but manag...

NZ Herald's Wellington Business Editor joins Nick for his weekly slot, talking more rising house prices in the capital, the Government's self-isolation trial to run instead of MIQ, and the Wellington Mayor's plans to insure the money the Wellington City Council invests into big events. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hutt City Mayor Campbell Barry joined Nick Mills in studio and chatted a number of topics, including housing affordability, the Government's Three Waters proposals, and the nearly $25,000 paid out after the council's chief executive launched a personal grievance claim, arguing that it had not provided a safe working environment for her. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informat...

With 54 of Wellington's suburbs now having a median value of $1 million, the housing market has become "fiercely competitive" - and first-time buyers have little hope. The latest CoreLogic data has revealed there are now 54 $1 million-plus suburbs in the Greater Wellington region – up from 42 recorded in the last quarter. Seatoun is the region's priciest suburb with a median value of $1.93 million...

Wellington Mornings Monday Political Panel: Labour MP for Wairarapa Kieran McAnulty and Wellington-based National MP Nicola Willis debate John Key's criticism of the government's Covid response, Amazon taking Lord of the Rings production to the UK after an idea for private MIQ was shot down, and calls to tackle a crisis of violence against women following the death of Auckland woman Lena Zhang Har...

Transmission Gully is driving frustration throughout the Wellington region. The 1.25 billion dollar motorway North of Wellington was set to open today. But it's been pushed back by the resurgence of Covid-19 in August, compounding earlier delays. Transporting New Zealand CEO Nick Leggett says told Nick Mills he is not happy. He says it's been dysfunctional project from the start and the cost and t...