Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

It's thought Countdown's $400 million rebrand is a waste of time, money and poor timing as many Kiwis struggle to pay for their groceries. The supermarket chain will revert back to Woolworths early next year, 12 years after changing to Countdown. Sign changes start next month, along with store upgrades. Massey University Marketing expert, Bodo Lang, told Kate Hawkesby there's a danger the Australian ownership becomes more noticeable in the rebrand, and puts New Zealanders off. He says there's also a risk the rebrand's costs will be passed onto consumers, at a time food prices are already at record highs. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Police Association's questioning how much difference the Government's latest crackdown on youth crime will make. New measures have been announced — including coercing young people to commit crime an aggravating factor in sentencing. Posting criminal behaviour online will also be considered an aggravating factor in sentencing. President Chris Cahill told Kate Hawkesby that it's great that there's a focus, but we'll have to wait and see what actually becomes a reality. He suggests judges will continue to bend over backwards to give as many discounts to offenders as they can. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Taking your electric vehicle on holiday may be about to get easier. ChargeNet, Z Energy, and Openloop have come together to launch a charging roaming trial, which would allow drivers to charge at any of the three networks. Currently New Zealand drivers need individual memberships with each charging provider. ChargeNet Chief Operating Officer Martin Miles says this move will help to attract more people to this sustainable mode of travel. He says they want to make charging point access as simple as possible. The trial starts early next year. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Investing platform, Sharesies, isn't a fan of National's new Kiwisaver policy. National's pledging to let under-30s dip into their fund for a tenancy bond. Money would transfer directly from their savings to Tenancy Services, returned at the end, or transferred to the next rental arrangement. Sharesies Co-Chief Executive, Leighton Roberts, told Kate Hawkesby that Kiwisaver's main goal is to save for retirement, and secondary purpose is for first-home buying. He says at the moment we aren't achieving good outcomes on either, so adding additional factors that could compromise either isn't the right move. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So another poll out last night showing a right block government —just— and slipping support for Labour. What's interesting though, is it's the second poll in a row to show Christopher Luxon edging up in the preferred PM stakes... so, is he turning a corner in terms of likeability? Because he's seemingly been a hard sell. Though people are sick of the direction the country’s going in, they’ve been unconvinced he’s the saviour. And let’s be honest, personality politics dictates that we have to love or hate the person who fronts the party. It’s not the reality of course. The Party is a whole team, but we seem to be obsessed with the front person. No better example of that than Jacindamania, which then turned to so much vitriol against her that she ended up stepping down to save the party’s chances. Chippy came in as the great hope; he had boy next door vibes, he loved a sausage roll, people were enamoured with the prospect of fresh blood. But he too has gradually eroded that popularity. Which leaves us with the

Extreme weather is causing problems in several parts of the world. Southern Europe is bracing for a second heatwave in a week, with record temperatures expected to be broken in places like Italy, Greece, and Spain. Europe Correspondent, Gavin Grey, says one of Spain's Canary islands has been hit hard. He says in La Palma, troops are evacuating more than four-thousand people and four and a half thousand hectares of woodlands have been destroyed by wildfires. Almost a third of Americans are under extreme heat advisories, while at least four people have been killed by severe floods in Pennsylvania. In South Korea, the death toll has risen to at least 37 after flooding across much of the country. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The country's infrastructure industry is describing National's $500-million road transport policy as a good start. The party has declared it will redirect funding from road safety initiatives to pothole repairs and road renewals, if it wins the election. Infrastructure New Zealand Chief Executive Nick Leggett told Kate Hawkesby that the man power exists to make this promise a reality, but there has to be a guaranteed pipeline of work. He says if the work is there, the resources will follow. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A chance for businesses to reconnect with a changing China. The China Business Summit began in Auckland at 7am this morning. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will speak —covering topics like trade and investment— and insights from his recent trip to China and Nato Summit attendance. The Chinese Ambassador and the New Zealand China Council are also attending. Council Executive Director, Alistair Crozie told Kate Hawkesby that it's significant, being the first in-person summit since Covid. He says no-one's been to the market until recently and this event gives businesses a chance to get to grips with how China's evolved. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Labour released its party slogan over the weekend and it says ' In it for you', which as some cynical person observed sounds like something you'd say on Tinder to secure a date. What it says to me, is that the two main parties slogans this election year very much reflect their parties approaches. One is a slogan which is ambiguous:  what's it even mean, 'in it for you'? Sounds kind, has the feel good factor I guess, sounds like it got work shopped in a focus group on a white board and people went 'oh yeah, sounds nice.' But what's it actually mean? And that's the problem. It's just more words, platitudes, word salads, things that sound potentially kind or good, or about us, but we're not sure. The great irony of course being that this party, since its 2020 mandate, has been in it for them. One hundred percent for them, not us. In fact their raison d'etre has been to tell us how we should all be living, what we should be doing, whether we should drive cars or take public transport, when we're allowed a RAT tes

I said earlier this week that my hero of the week was any CEO who walks the talk and works the floor and gets amongst the team. That was off the back of my parents having Greg Foran, Air NZ CEO, check them in at Auckland airport. He’s out there often apparently, doing various jobs inside various departments to learn more about the airline and be present, and it’s a good look – it’s appreciated. But then I’ve found something else this week that I appreciate; common sense. Or at least people who speak it – and we seem to be thin on the ground on those people these days. But in light of the Sam Cane pitch invader saga All Blacks forwards coach, Jason Ryan, has come out and blasted pitch invaders. Which is good, because for a while there it was looking like we were busy apologising to them and handing them a bunch of free rugby merch for their troubles. Which made no sense to me, but then a lot of the weird woke stuff that goes on these days doesn’t make sense to me. Like how we seem to kowtow to offenders more t

Plastic pollution in Lake Rotorua is reportedly comparable to lakes in Europe and the US. Three places in New Zealand have been part of a global analysis of plastic pollution levels in freshwater lakes. Deniz Özkundakci is a University of Waikato Associate Professor and freshwater ecologist. He told Kate Hawkesby it's disappointing we're seeing high levels here. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

News that business owners are struggling to make ends meet isn't surprising to some in the sector.  Research by accounting software company Xero shows almost half of small to medium business owners aren't paying themselves. Business mentor and Whanganui Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Helen Garner told Kate Hawkesby the statistics are dismaying. Garner says there are ups and downs in business, but with money not moving as it should be, these are not ideal times. She says there is no way of telling at the moment how long this will last. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Capital gains and wealth taxes may not accomplish the goals advocates think they might. After investigating, Chris Hipkins has ruled out those changes while he's Prime Minister.  Deloitte tax partner Robyn Walker says wealth taxes don't bring in a huge amount of revenue, but create higher administration and compliance costs. She says there are unintended consequences which have been seen in overseas countries,  like Norway. Walker says the wealthy and "the want to be wealthy" have fled the country. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s no evidence a BBC presenter who allegedly paid a teenager for sexually explicit photos committed a crime, London police says as the broadcaster’s wife publicly identified him for the first time as veteran news anchor Huw Edwards. Metropolitan police said it made its decision after speaking with the alleged victim and that person’s parents. The parents had complained to The Sun newspaper last week that the BBC had allowed the presenter to remain on air after they told the broadcaster in May that he paid the youth more than $72,000 starting in 2020 when the person was 17. As the scandal remained atop the news all week, colleagues at the BBC had called for the unnamed presenter to come forward. Edwards is one of Britain’s best-known news broadcasters. Photo / BBC It was only early Thursday morning that his wife, Vicky Flind, issued a statement identifying Edwards. She said her husband was suffering from serious mental health issues and was hospitalised. Flind said after “five extremely difficult days fo

So more than a hundred million users have signed up for Meta's new Threads platform - making it the fastest growing online platform in history. Can you believe that? How do more than a hundred million people still have so much to say that they need to say it on a whole new platform? It was set up to rival Twitter; it's kind of a Twitter 2.0 but they’re trying to make it ‘kind’, they say. Clearly they don’t understand how the internet works. Anything that even for one moment purports to be ‘kind’ is corrupted eventually - the internet is just not a ‘kind’ place. Even Instagram, which started out as the least nasty of all the social media platforms, still has keyboard warriors coming for you, still has trolls lining up in your DM’s to ask if you were wearing a seatbelt in that last video, or if you really should let your children walk around without shoes on. But with the proliferation of platforms, there are just more outlets for more people to say more stuff - most of which is either irrelevant or of no impor

The court system backlog continues. Families are waiting on average nearly 500 days for answers to Coronial cases - and over 170 for District Court case resolutions. Family Court decision wait times have tripled in five years, forcing people to wait over 1000 days for answers. King's Counsel barrister Marie Dyhrberg joined Kate Hawkesby. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We shouldn't see any surprises from the central bank on the Official Cash Rate today. Most economists are picking no change after Reserve Bank head Adrian Orr indicated they were done. It's expected to be confirmed around 2pm this afternoon. Christina Leung, Principal Economist at the New Zealand institute of Economic Research joined Kate Hawkesby. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People are questioning the BBC's response to allegations of inappropriate behaviour against a high-profile presenter, with a second person coming out with complaints. The second lot of allegations are from a person in their 20s, who met the presenter on a dating app and allegedly received abusive messages and was pressured to meet with them. The BBC has confirmed it didn't speak to the presenter until last week, despite initial claims being made in May. UK Correspondent Gavin Grey told Kate Hawkesby the BBC took only two attempts to contact the complainant. He says the presenter's identity is still unknown but they are suspended. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I tell you what’s a good look - CEOs who walk the talk - and we’re seeing a bit more of it these days which is great. Because I think we’re at a time now where we expect more of our leadership, one of the things we expect most is that they’re the real deal. That they ‘walk among us’ and seem a little bit human. More and more you’ll see bosses or those in leadership roles sitting at desks in open plan offices rather than being squirreled away in a vault somewhere removed from the hoi polloi. When I started out my media career many moons ago as a naïve 21 year old intern at TVNZ, bosses were tucked away in upstairs offices. You got summoned to them by a PA who would brief you before you went in – so as to prepare you for ‘face time with the boss’. “He’s in a good mood today you’re lucky..”, or “hope you’re not going to be too long in there because he’s flat out today..” There was this constant middle man go between, between you and the manager. Even walking up to see the manager was a big deal. People would see

A new study has confirmed exercising before an operation will substantially improve your recovery. Researchers at Otago University collated data from their own and other existing studies and found high intensity interval training can reduce the risk of surgery complications by 56 percent. Lead researcher Dr Kari Clifford says even a brief four week programme makes a difference, while also giving patients agency at a time when they may not feel in control. Clifford says it's something meaningful they can do before their surgery that will actually improve their outcome. She adds getting people out of recovery sooner will alleviate pressure on the sector. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.