The Mike Hosking Breakfast

More than four-thousand primary care nurses will strike today, seeking pay parity. Nurses Organisation members claim primary health care and Plunket nurses earn around 20 percent less than their Health New Zealand counterparts, despite doing the same work. They will walk off the job for four hours today in hopes to bring attention to the value primary health care nurses bring. GP Owners Associatio...

I assume you saw the story of the poor old 80-year-old woman in New Plymouth who has been put into hotels by her family to give her a break from her Kainga Ora neighbours. The claim is she has been terrorised. These stories aren't new. Earlier this year we got the revelation that the agency had not evicted anyone despite behaviour no normal person would even come close to tolerating. If this Gover...

MPs Michael Wood and Mark Mitchell joined the Mike Hosking Breakfast to wrap the week's political news. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An expert says low immigration numbers have contributed to a population decline in most regions. StatsNZ figures show populations declined in Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, West Coast, and Southland in the year to June. Internal migration, people moving around the country, is the main driver of population change in 12 of the 16 regions. Massey University sociology professor, Paul Spoonley says more...

Business New Zealand is poking holes in the proposed Fair Pay Agreements legalisation. The rules mean if a thousand employees, or 10 percent of a workforce, agree to start the collective bargaining process, that process is automatically triggered. The Fair Pay Agreements legislation is expected to pass its third reading in Parliament later today. Business New Zealand Chief Executive Kirk Hope told...

The decision by Adidas to cut ties with Kanye West is expected to cost them both. The German clothing giant has dropped the rapper after he made anti-Semitic comments on social media, which saw his Twitter and Instagram suspended. Ye is no longer a billionaire and Adidas is expected to lose around 430-million dollars, and their shares have fallen by 8 percent. US correspondent Richard Arnold told...

The decision yesterday to grant four Uber drivers workplace protection as employees may have been greeted with celebrations by some, but it was short lived. Uber will appeal the decision, but the wider conversation now turns to the gig economy companies and contractors and what this will mean for them. Max Whitehead is an employment relations expert and he joined Mike Hosking. LISTEN ABOVE See omn...

So Te Whatu Ora, or Health New Zealand, has completed its first big taskforce review and has found a solution to help cut surgery wait times. 101 recommendations have been made, some of these recommendations are already in place, but some, Health NZ says, could take years to implement. National director of the Nurses’ Society, David Wills, joined Mike Hosking. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/liste...

Preliminary data shows students are failing to meet minimum writing standards. Data from trials of the NCEA literacy and numeracy tests prove students from lower-decile schools are falling behind, as only two percent of decile 1 students passed the exam's writing section. Some say income inequality's to blame,  as well over half of learners from higher-decile schools passed the writing standards....

A 100-year-old grandstand at Christchurch’s Riccarton Racecourse is set to be demolished. Canterbury Jockey Club has been granted permission to bowl over the historic grandstand, despite opposition from heritage campaigners. The club sought approval to knock down the stand because repairing it would send the club into financial ruin. Chief executive Tim Mills told Mike Hosking the stand has seen s...

I like people who put it simply. Hancock Prospecting said it is unnecessary for sports organisations to be used as the vehicle for social and political purposes. Hancock Prospecting was, the emphasis on was, the sponsor of Netball Australia. It was a $15 million deal that got pulled by the head of the company, Gina Rinehart. As we explained last week, sport these days is less about sport and more...

In the end, all of Boris Johnson’s bluster couldn’t hide the facts: He didn’t have the votes to win the Conservative Party leadership contest and stage a political comeback just weeks after being forced out as prime minister. The former Tory leader raced back from his Caribbean holiday to test the waters and try to garner the support of enough MPs to proceed to the next round. But as British media...

Andrew Saville and Guy Heveldt joined the Mike Hosking Breakfast to wrap the long weekend's sport. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since the clean car rebate came into effect of April this year, $35 million has been paid out to buyers of Teslas - which have a starting price of about $70,000. And while subsidising Teslas, the Government has taxed farmers and tradies who currently have no alternative vehicle option to do their job. National spokesperson for Transport, Simeon Brown, joined Mike Hosking. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystud...

Doctors are delaying their retirement due to the current workforce shortages. Medical Council data shows the average age of doctors is 52 for 2022 -  up from 48 in 2005. At least 50 percent of GPs plan on retiring in the next decade according to the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners. Medical Director Dr. Bryan Betty says there's concern from doctors about who will replace them whe...

A barrister says Covid-19 isn't a suitable excuse to allow people to skip serving criminal penalties. Newstalk ZB can reveal in the year to August, about 82,000 hours have been cancelled under the now-expired Epidemic Preparedness Notice. That notice was used to clear the hours, with Covid restrictions making it difficult for sentences to be completed. Criminal barrister Steve Cullen told Mike Hos...

A report puts New Zealand among the worst for physical activity, with declining levels of school-children opting for walking and cycling. Out of 57 countries, New Zealand's scored a D for what's known as active transport, with school-aged children receiving a C+, with data getting worse as kids grow older. The data shows 55 percent of trips to school are car trips, which account for our overall la...

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.   Groundswell: 6/10 "Part of a growing chorus of New Zealanders who are fed up."   Gaurav Sharma: 6/10 "One of the growing number of New Zealanders who are fed up."   Hamilton West By-Election: 8/10 "I actually like voting, races and contests. This is a particularly juicy one, gi...

Back to the Pfizer "scandal" and the "revelation" that Pfizer admitted it never tested its vaccine to work out whether it stopped transmission of Covid. Like virtually all of these sorts of breathless revelations, the real story is not as simple as it seems. But in simple teams, what is claimed didn't happen. It is not the scandal those who think it is, want it to be. In that is the key to this, l...

The Education Minister has a message for international students: we're open for business. Chris Hipkins will travel to Asia to encourage people from overseas to study in New Zealand. He'll speak at the largest student expo in Korea to promote New Zealand's tertiary institutions, before making similar calls in Singapore and Indonesia. Preliminary data already shows uptake in enrolments, but Hipkins...

Rotorua's new mayor wants the Government help to change negative perceptions people have of the city, due to emergency housing. A report's found visitors are being put off due to safety concerns, causing the city's visitor economy to under-perform compared to the rest of New Zealand. It's cost Rotorua $17 million dollars over three months and if it continues,  the city could lose $92 million in vi...

Imagine your fixed term mortgage rate being upwards of seven percent over the next few years. Well according to ASB we don't have to imagine - it will be a reality. Their latest home loan report says they predict the peak interest rate for fixed term will be between 7-7.5 percent while floating rates could peak at 9 percent - all based on the OCR peaking at 5.25 percent. Chief economist at ASB Nic...

The aviation sector is rebounding a lot better than expected. Auckland Airport has revised its 2023 financial year profit to between $100-130 million, up from $50-100 million. It's due to the high aircraft load factors, meaning how many seats are filled, and the extra flights coming in from early next month. Auckland Airport CEO Carrie Hurihanganui joined Mike Hosking. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio....

The number of people on a main benefit is going down. There are more than 13,000 fewer people on a main benefit compared to this time last year. Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni says the Government's been working hard to get people into employment and off the benefit early. She told Mike Hosking the results are promising. LISTEN ABOVE     See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informat...

Creative New Zealand having been stung badly for their behaviour this week. Having been embarrassed by an embarrassed Prime Minister who went and usurped them for easy political points, they have "spoken out." This is Shakespeare and the funding they rejected because of the "cannon of imperialism." First point, who speaks like that? The "cannon of imperialism?" What condescending tosh. So the appl...