Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

EV owners in Wellington are getting frustrated. Despite a big push for us to ditch our petrol guzzlers for the electric life, we don't have enough chargers in the city. This is leading to some businesses hogging the chargers, with residents complaining of fleet vehicles parking at the chargers for hours at a time. Liz Yeaman is managing director of Retyna, a consultancy focusing on EVs joined Kate Hawkesby. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Taxpayers' Union is crying foul on Kainga Ora's plans to hire more staff. A leaked briefing obtained by Newstalk ZB reveals the housing agency wants to take on nearly 500 more full-time staff, in the coming year. It's now gone back on that figure, saying the number will be 465, and that almost half are needed to fill existing vacancies. Taxpayers Union Executive Director Jordan Williams told Kate Hawkesby the payroll has been growing fast. He says it only had 1200 staff in 2017, but that jumped to 2200 last year, and it is now on track to reach 3000 by next year. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Kiwi HR company says wellbeing sessions at work or 4-day weeks are never going to be the work/life fix employees are currently demanding. Greaterthan has worked with Callaghan Innovation, Edmund Hillary Fellowship, AJ Hackett International, and other New Zealand organisations to address the changing attitudes of workers since the pandemic. Partner Lucia Die Gil says it’s the dog-eat-dog nature of getting ahead in the work place which is leading to high staff turn-over, burnout and poor productivity. Lucia Die Gil joined Kate Hawkesby. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Newstalk ZB sports reader Andrew Alderson joined Kate Hawkesby for a wrap of Team NZ's Day 3 at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We seem to have a culture of excuses thriving in this country at the moment that is top down. When apologists are at the helm it’s I guess where we end up. I noticed over the weekend it’s now crept into our policing.  We're now making excuses for repeat raiders of retail stores, the same way we made excuses for ram raiders. (Who, to refresh your memory, apparently only needed a bit of a talking to by their parents.) But reports of retail crime have nearly doubled in five years under Labour. That includes shoplifting, vandalism, ram raids, the whole gamut. Police and the retail sector confirm it’s ‘a violent trend.’  So why then are we making excuses for it?  How does that go anywhere towards fixing it? National says this spike in violent retail crime is evidence of a government soft on crime. Hard to argue with? Well not if you’re the Labour party, or it seems even the Police. Police national retail investigation manager was reported saying, "[The increase] is not actually a bad thing.” The increase is not ac

Overseas-based Kiwis are "confused" and "embarrassed" at being told they would receive the Government's cost-of-living payment tomorrow and critics say including those living out of New Zealand in the scheme is "disrespectful" to hard-working taxpayers. Kiwis as far afield as the Netherlands, Sydney, London and Dubai have expressed their concern to National's Nicola Willis, who said many of them felt guilty and that they did not deserve the money. One man working in Dubai had not been a New Zealand resident for nearly 22 years, yet received the same email as more than 2.1 million Kiwis: that his first payment would be in his account within the next two days. His mother contacted the Herald irate at what she said was "incredible wastage of our taxpayers' money". Numerous members of a Facebook group for French travellers in New Zealand also received the payment email despite no longer being in the country. One person had been away for 13 months while others' visas had been cancelled so they couldn't see how the

Prince Charles has landed himself in hot water over a series of dodgy financial dealings. The Sunday Times reports he's accepted nearly $2.5 million from the family of Osama bin Laden. The Prince of Wales's Charitable Fund took the cash from two of Osama Bin Laden's half-brothers in 2013 - two years after the al-Qaeda leader was killed. UK correspondent Gavin Grey told Kate Hawkesby it comes on the back of lots of accusations of bad judgement, and is not a good look for the heir to the throne. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games are about to get underway. The opening ceremony began at 7am New Zealand time. Newstalk ZB sports reporter Kate Wells is in Birmingham and joined Kate Hawkesby. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A regional visitor levy is back on the cards to cover the costs of tourism on small communities as borders fully re-open on Sunday. The proposal was a common theme in new destination management plans written by regional tourism organisations following the Covid-19 lockdowns. Many say they need more financial support to manage the effects of tourism. Regional Tourism New Zealand chair David Perks joined Kate Hawkesby. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This year is on track to be one of our deadliest on record. Latest figures show 320 people died on our roads last year, down more than 11 percent on the road toll in 2018. But the AA says this year's road toll is on track to reach 350 to 360. Road Safety Spokesperson Dylan Thomsen told Kate Hawkesby usually when fuel prices jump, road deaths decrease due to less people driving, but that isn't happening. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Te Papa is collecting relics of our very recent past. The national museum has been adding momentoes from the Covid-19 pandemic to its long-term collection. Among them are concrete barriers, tennis balls thrown at journalists during the anti-mandate outside Parliament, face masks, and PPE. Te Papa spokesperson Kate Camp told Kate Hawkesby she finds the posters from the early days of lockdown particularly interesting. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Vehicle importers are shining a light on apparent faults within the the Government's Clean Car rebate scheme. The Imported Motor Vehicle Industry Association is pulling its support on the programme. It claims the programme isn't appropriate for its supply dynamic, and the Government won't work together on a suitable scheme. Chief Executive David Vinsen told Kate Hawkesby there's an unnecessary level of complexity and confusion. He says customers are incised into a yard with the expectation they'll get a rebate, only to find out they might have to pay a fee. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I note the average time to wait to get in to see your GP is three weeks. That’s the average. For many it’s longer than that. And for some rural areas in this country, you’d be hard pressed to see a GP at all, far less one close to you. You may have to drive for miles to get to even get to one. So we know it’s a problem, but how to fix it? President of the Royal NZ College of GP’s, Samantha Murton, wrote a piece for the Herald yesterday saying how it’s not an easy fix. “We can’t magic away the chronic GP shortage”, she said. She puts it down to the low number of trained GP’s. She says that “our Med student numbers are lower than in many other first-world countries”, and that “they have little opportunity to train outside of hospitals, and early career doctors are not encouraged to work in general practice.” And I know that to be true, we have a daughter at Med school currently and she would concur that not a lot of her peers are there to wind up in a GP’s office. Advocates for the work of GP’s will tell you it

An employment law expert says the Kamahl Santamaria saga should send a clear warning about the dangers of hiring friends. TVNZ Head of News Paul Yurisich has resigned, after a review found he did no reference checks before hiring the former Breakfast presenter. The pair had previously worked together at Al Jazeera. Employment law expert Max Whitehead told Kate Hawkesby TVNZ has suffered huge reputation damage. He says this is one of the most foolish things he's seen someone do. Phil O'Sullivan will remain TVNZ's Acting Head of News and Current Affairs until a permanent replacement is chosen for the role. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Reserve Bank is being urged to show more urgency in its efforts to curb inflation. Governor Adrian Orr has acknowledged interest rate decisions he has made during the Covid pandemic, have contributed to inflation reaching the level it has. National is now calling for an independent review of the central bank's monetary policy response. Infometrics Principal Economist Brad Olsen told Kate Hawkesby central banks, both here and overseas, should have acted sooner once they knew the impact the pandemic was going to have. “When the facts change, when the economy started to shift, when we saw inflation starting to come forward, we had to react. In fact, we took far too long to move from one foot to the other.” LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The heat is steadily seeping out of the country's property market.A new quarterly overview from Core Logic shows the slowdown of sales activity at the start of the year has flowed through to a decline in property values. Property values have tumbled for three months in a row to an average of just over $1 million, down 2.3 percent from the peak. But Core Logic chief property economist Kelvin Davidson says it's important homeowners wanting to sell up don't lose perspective. He says moving house in a slowdown can sometimes pay off - because the next property may have lost more value, providing an opportunity. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’m just wondering how many of you who’ve been overseas these past couple of weeks, maybe for school holidays or just a winter escape, whether you’ve come back refreshed and feeling better. Was it the elixir you needed? Did it revitalize your soul? Has it washed away the pall of gloom over most of us at the moment? I ask because I’ve heard mixed reports. Some say it was everything they needed and just the serotonin boost they’d been missing. Others say it was almost too much, because coming back to cold and wintry old NZ has been a bit of a down buzz and anticlimactic. Others say it’s still a bit of a cluster travelling internationally at the moment, because although they’re not doing masks and they’re over the Covid obsession, there’s still a lack of resources, staff, the airports are chaotic, it’s a gamble whether or not your bags turn up and there are too many queues. The experience is not quite back to its heyday. So as someone who’s yet to leave the border, I’m curious. Because I feel like what we all ne

It's depressing the amount of crime we’re seeing these days isn't it? Racist attacks, brazen ram raids, people getting shot or stabbed or beaten up, it’s actually disgusting and not representative of who we are, collectively, as New Zealanders. And there's still a lack of action on this low-rent crowd of trouble makers. I see retailers are now so stressed about lack of action on burglaries and repeat raids that they’re suffering ‘very high levels of anxiety’, according to one Business Association. And I think it’s a twofold problem. On the one hand, raids and burglaries are still occurring all too often, but also, it’s more and more becoming the victims’ problem. The targets of these raids and burglaries are the ones suffering. They’re the ones having to bolster security, spend excess amounts of money, retrain or counsel staff, and spend sleepless nights worrying about security. How is that fair? How is it possible that hard working, decent retailers are left anxious, out of pocket and scared, while thieves b

Less than half of students are regularly attending school. The latest truancy data shows regular attendance in term one dropped to just 46 percent. It's down on 72.8 percent in 2019 - pre Covid - and 50.5 percent in 2020. Post Primary Teachers' Association President Melanie Webber told Kate Hawkesby the numbers don't surprise her. She says irregular attendance is having more than two days off school a month. Webber says while that adds up and isn't ideal, there is huge variation in the data. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fears for the impact foot and mouth disease could have on the economy, should it reach New Zealand. Biosecurity has been keeping an eye on Indonesia's outbreak for several weeks. And in the past week, non-infectious traces of the disease have been found on meat imported to Australia. Federated Farmers National President Andrew Hoggard told Kate Hawkesby the disease would be catastrophic for this country. He says if it emerges here, meat exports would be stopped immediately until we got on top of it. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.