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Unrest is spreading in the US over immigrant deportations.
Donald Trump is sending hundreds of US Marines and has ordered 2000 more National Guard troops to go to LA's immigration protests.
California Governor Gavin Newsom's called the US President's orders deranged and has filed a lawsuit.
US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking of the 2000 National Guard troops deployed, only 315 were mission assigned, the other 1700 having no particular responsibility.
He says that 100 arrests have been made, but no charges have been laid.
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So, the great rates upset has begun to unfold.
Auckland this week got its long-awaited council valuations.
Why people get excited about them, I have no idea.
It's a rough guesstimate by a council. It takes into account the broadest of criteria, but people seem to live and die by them.
The upset of course has come from the fact that the value of a lot of properties has dropped, while the rates bill is going up. So we get the cost-plus-accounting scandal that is council economic policy exposed.
This is happening all over the country and it's a specific and broad-based problem. It's broad-based because it's inflationary and it's specific because depending on where you are depends on how bad the scandal is.
Auckland properties are down 9% while rates are up over 7%.
In Wellington values are down 24% and rates are up 16%.
Nelson values are down 9% and rates are up 6%, so this whole idea that rates are linked to value is of course complete crap and always has been.
In short, councils are inept and will spend forever, will waste your money forever, will plead poverty forever and will always find something that is critical and needs doing now.
For example, Christchurch got shafted last week by Chris Bishop, when the council rejected the Government's intensification plan.
The council didn’t like it, spent three years and millions of dollars to go back and forward and to achieve what? Nothing. That's council for you.
As Auckland mayor Wayne Brown said, "it is what it is". He's right because he knows a couple of home truths; no one is turning up for local body elections, so very few people will be held to account, and he also knows a lot of people will moan but ultimately do nothing about it.
If ever there was a reason to get exercised over the way we are being played, this is it.
Your asset has dropped but the bill is up. The bill, in theory, is based on the asset value. Nowhere else in life is this scam played and gotten away with, apart from local body politics.
We have too many councils, too much representation, too many boards, too much incompetence, and every year the bill for it rises.
Democracy only works if you take part.
What better reason can there be this year than to get your voting paper, look at the value of your property, look at your rate rise, put a name to the con and vote them out.
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A new rideshare option is skidding into the New Zealand market.
Bolt, hailing from Europe, is promising better deals for both drivers and customers, while challenging the duopoly that currently dominates.
They’re first launching in Auckland, aiming to bring a breath of fresh air to the market.
General Manager Adam Muirson told Mike Hosking that for the last couple of years, the competition has been stagnant at best, leading to increasing prices, limited choice, and decreasing service levels.
He says that there was a growing sense of frustration among drivers at that lack of competition, and the sheer number of applications they’ve received leading up to the launch has reinforced that.
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It’s unlikely New Zealand will be in for a repeat of last year’s power shortage.
Our winter stocks are in better shape thanks to improved lake levels, extra gas supplies, and an enlarged coal stockpile has added security to the system.
And although customers are still battling high energy prices, a major government review is expected in the coming weeks.
Meridian CEO Mike Roan told Mike Hosking that they’re deep into investing in the sector so they can overcome the challenge represented by lost gas supplies.
He says they’re currently stabilising the impact, and in the long term, they’re in good shape.
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On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Wednesday 11th of June, we've got a new mental health report that shows the $1.9 billion spent has seemingly been wasted, and we talk all things energy with Meridian.
Fieldays begins today and is sure to be successful, considering how well the rural sector has been doing of late.
Ginny Andersen and Mark Mitchell talk the new stalking laws, the regulatory standards bill, and solar power on Politics Wednesday.
Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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The select committee process has proven useful in substantially strengthening anti-stalking laws.
Originally proposals on making it an offence had a maximum penalty of five years in prison, capturing three specified acts within one-year.
But it'll now be triggered after two acts within two years.
Labour's Police spokesperson Ginny Anderson told Mike Hosking it's an example of why the process is an important part of our democracy.
She says it's been great to work collaboratively, to listen to submissions, to understand what Police can do and to make the changes to strengthen the law.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell told Hosking that police take these things extremely seriously, and they now have the tools to be able to give a meaningful response.
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Fieldays kicks off at Mystery Creek today.
The rural sector’s somewhat bullish from its record profits across dairy and red meat, and pundits are expecting farmers to be “speaking with their wallets”.
Big crowds are expected, with many looking to take advantage of the new tax rebate on the big ticket items.
CEO of National Fieldays Richard Lindroos told Mike Hosking it’s the largest agribusiness event in the southern hemisphere, with over 100,000 going through the gates over the four days.
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Experts say specialist addiction and mental health services need rapid improvement.
New research from the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission has found three New Zealanders die every week due to accidental and preventable drug overdose, with fatalities up 88% from 2016 to 2023.
At the same time, despite growing demands, fewer people are seeking specialist help.
Commission CEO Karen Orsborn told Mike Hosking the biggest concern is the falling access to mental health and addiction services.
She says they’re seeing high vacancy rates, particularly for specialist staff and psychiatrists, and that has a big impact on the system.
Orsborn says that’s where they want to see some faster action.
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New Zealand's $47.2 billion franchise sector is being celebrated.
Today marks the first World Franchise Day.
The model first took shape in New Zealand in the 1970s – with now almost 550 franchised brands including in accommodation, hospitality, education, childcare and retail.
Franchise Association Chair Brad Jones told Mike Hosking they’ve had some great growth in the sector over the last few years.
He says they’re 11% of New Zealand’s GDP, and if motor vehicle sales and retail fuel are included, that brings them to over $73 billion – 17% of GDP.
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Assurance stronger anti-stalking laws are the right move to protect victims.
Originally proposals on making it an offence had a maximum penalty of five years in prison, capturing three specified acts within one-year.
But following the Select Committee process it'll now be triggered after two acts within two years.
Chief Victims' Adviser to the Government Ruth Money told Mike Hosking the change allows greater prevention and targets the pattern stalking follows.
She says it's not about charging the moping boyfriend, who's sent a non-harmful text and is feeling a bit sad.
Money says it’s important earlier intervention can be taken, and police need the powers because stalking behaviour can escalate into violence and death.
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We got the press release recently from the Restaurant Association where they said there were flat sales, cost pressures and regional divergence was the theme.
I have changed my mind a bit on hospitality.
More broadly, I wonder whether there are too many vested interests in this country who get in the way of real progress.
The hospitality story has been a long, arduous and well told one.
We hear hospitality is shot, hospitality is a disaster, no one makes money and no one wants to work in hospitality.
Yet my increasing observation is that is not true.
If you take a very large industry as a whole and average everything out, you might well be able to find some dour times.
But what is increasingly obvious, not just from personal experience but a lot of anecdotal expert opinions as well, is a lot of hospitality is not only fine, it's actually going quite well.
The thing about hospitality is it is malleable. You are not a log exporter reliant on a single market to either buy, or not buy, your tree.
In hospitality you can vary what it is you are offering and what I see is a lot of people doing really good things and, as a result, they are doing very nicely thank you.
It took us over a week to get the last table for lunch the other day at a local that, in our experience, has changed hands and boosted their product and offering and as a result has gone from a quiet, regional operator to a booming tourism business rushed off its feet.
Same place, same name, new product - whole different result.
The other thing about hospitality is it doesn’t require any skill to enter. Anyone can buy a café, and a lot do, and I have seen them, often immigrants, as it's an easy entry point. They take over a going concern and wreck it, change a menu, employ the family, kill the service and they're dead in a week.
We are over supplied of course. So in your area where you have a choice of a dozen places, only two have to be good before they boom and the others wilt.
So the Restaurant Association telling us things aren't flash is not the real story.
Bits aren't flash, but then if you are not up to much in the first place - they never will be.
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The problem with committing to things that may well come back to haunt you, is down the track, at some point, the mistake starts to hit you in the face a bit and some hard decisions are required.
My sense of it is we have become too reliant on pine trees to meet the Paris climate target.
The sheep farmers have worked that out as the protests around land conversion have once again been reignited, with posters put up by the Meat and Wool folk with the line: "I am not the problem".
Since 1982 we have gone from 70 million sheep to 25 million.
In the last seven years a quarter of a million hectares has been swapped from sheep to trees.
This of course was always going to happen. What's the easiest way to meet a target on carbon? Trees.
Cutting and slashing, whether its farm production or the economy, in general was never going to be palatable. So trees were easy.
But you might have noticed a couple of major things have happened;
1) Paris looks increasingly shaky in terms of people meeting targets, or indeed people even being interested in meeting targets.
2) Stuff grown on the land with legs is fetching very good money all over the world and as far as us earning a living goes, we have never made more from farming.
Carbon offsetting, which is what planting trees is called, has restrictions in other countries. But I bet you anything you want that other countries aren't as reliant on sheep and cows as we are.
We used to have tourism back us up. But last week's numbers tell the sad story - dairy is worth $20 billion, while tourism is at $12 billion. Even offal comes in at $9 billion.
Tourism used to vie for first place, hence the Government threw another $13 million at it yesterday to try and attract another 70,000 or so new visitors.
Trees also kill communities. Farming is life. A forest isn't.
As laudable as Paris was all those years ago, if we had thought about it, if we had been less evangelical, we might have stopped to think just what it was we were asking of a small economy.
And the simple truth is we were asking so much, a quick shortcut like trees was always going to be adopted with alacrity.
Saving the planet, as people get tossed off the land, is not an equation we should be proud of. As the protest poster with the photo of the sheep says, I am not the problem. And it's right.
The zealots are.
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Warriors legend Shaun Johnson will be back on our screens – this time, without a rugby ball in hand.
He’s supercharging his fledgling media career, fronting a new weekly TV show dedicated to the analysis of rugby league.
Johnson signed a new deal with Sky TV for ‘League Lounge’, which launches Wednesday, and will broadcast on Sky and Sky Sport Now, with delayed release on Sky Open and YouTube.
He told Mike Hosking he wants to speak to what the audience might be feeling and seeing from the game and help educate them.
Johnson says that if he can offer a bit of perspective as to what may be going on with players’ performances, it might buy a bit of time to start seeing better results.
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On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Tuesday 10th of June, it's good news Tuesday, so we have good news on our teaching numbers, business sales, and tourism.
But there’s bad news regarding corruption – we are way too complacent, and a new report suggests organised crime is corrupting our officials at a lot of different levels.
Warriors legend Shaun Johnson has a new midweek league show coming out, so we talk to him about League Lounge and life after professional sport.
Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Now is the time to sell your business.
According to ABC Business Sales, the number of buyers enquiring about purchases is up 30%.
Demand is currently outstripping supply, as new listings are down 10% on last year.
CEO Chris Small told Mike Hosking much of the interest is led by migrants, and hospitality, services, and construction are the three sectors people are primarily looking to buy in.
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Solar energy company Lodestone is expanding to the South Island.
It's constructing a solar farm in Canterbury's Clandeboye, with first generation expected next year.
It will generate 43 gigawatt hours of renewable electricity annually, similar to the company's sites in the Upper North Island.
Managing Director Gary Holden told Mike Hosking there are six more consented sites in their portfolio.
He says they're trying to build a solar farm in every area they can, to follow the populations.
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Outgoing New Zealand Rugby boss Mark Robinson believes he's leaving the game in a better place than he found it.
He's confirmed he will leave the job at the end of the year, bringing to an end a six-year tenure that started just before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Robinson says he's proud of what's been achieved during a turbulent period.
He told Mike Hosking that the next six months are critical for their role both domestically and internationally, with both their involvement in the establishment of international calendars and competitions as well as the opportunity they have to reset the financial model for the New Zealand game.
Robinson likes to think those would both be signed off by the end of the year, and that in conjunction with his family moving over to Australia, makes him feel it’s time to move on.
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A tick of approval for the Government's new tourism funding boost, aiming to generate an extra $300 million in spending.
Minister Louise Upston's announced a $13.5 million injection into Tourism New Zealand, targeting markets in Australia, the US and China.
It's hoping to bring an extra 72 thousand visitors over coming years.
Tourism Holdings CEO Grant Webster told Mike Hosking it'll provide recovery from the post-Covid hangover.
He says this is the most ambitious Government from a tourism perspective in around eight years, and looks forward to helping the economy grow.
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New Zealand's heading down a precarious road of corruption, with organised crime networks targeting our institutions and borders.
An independent advisory panel on Transnational Crime says we need to take urgent action.
It says police officers, immigration officials, and private sector employees are facilitating corruption.
Group chair Steve Symon told Mike Hosking they talked to senior officials in enforcement agencies, former gang members, and frontline staff.
He says the problem with organised crime is it's everywhere you look, and it's seeping into all areas of business which deal with potential for drugs coming into the country.
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The Education Minister says several factors are at play in making teaching an increasingly attractive career option.
New figures released to Newstalk ZB show the teaching workforce increased 2.5% last year – the largest annual increase since records began back in 2009.
First-time enrolments in teaching courses are also up, 6.3%.
Erica Stanford told Mike Hosking the Government's doing several things to attract and retain teachers.
She says that includes good resources, world-leading professional learning and development, on-site training programmes, and paying teacher fees.
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