Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• Karl Vasau: Rowandale Primary School Principal on the rejection of the Government's latest pay offer

  Primary school principals are doubling down on their call for a better pay offer. Principals belonging to the NZEI union have rejected the Government's latest collective agreement offer, including a 4.6% pay rise. They say it's substantially inferior to the deal accepted by secondary school principals. Principal Karl Vasau, the principal for Rowandale Primary School, told Andrew Dickens they're working hard to get huge changes implemented quickly, and they want acknowledgement. He says they're drawing a line in the sand. The Public Service Commissioner says he's disappointed the offer hasn't been accepted. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Jacqueline Rowarth: Lincoln University Adjunct Professor on the global increase in milk production

  Swings and roundabouts for the dairy sector, with prices set to weaken. Research by Rabobank suggests overall global production peaked last quarter, and this quarter won't be far behind. EU and UK are seeing their strongest growth since 2017 and US milk output has increased for five consecutive months. Lincoln University Adjunct Professor Jacqueline Rowarth told Andrew Dickens dairy farmers aren't feeling too glum, coming off good margins. She says they feel good when people want their product, and that joy's clearly spreading to other countries. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Gillian Blythe: Water New Zealand Chief Executive, Local Water Done Well to cost $9 billion more than previously estimated

  Costs to fix our water infrastructure are increasing as we get a better picture of its current state. Every council has now submitted their plan under the Government's Local Water Done Well programme. As Newstalk ZB first revealed last week, the final bill is expected to be almost $48 billion - about $9 billion more than first thought. Water New Zealand Chief Executive Gillian Blythe told Andrew Dickens with all the plans submitted, we've now got a better picture of water infrastructure than we ever have before. She says it's like when you look at your own house and realise you've got to spend some money fixing a roof or painting a window. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Full Show Podcast: 12 December 2025

  On the Early Edition with Ryan Bridge Full Show Podcast Friday 12th of December 2025, primary school principals have rejected the government's latest pay offer, Rowandale Primary School Principal Karl Vasau tells Andrew why. A new report from Rabobank says there's "too much milk for the market", Director at DairyNZ Dr Jacqueline Rowarth shares her thoughts. Local Water Done Well is going to cost $9 billion dollars more than previously estimated, Water New Zealand Chair Gillian Blythe tells Andrew why water is so expensive. Plus UK/Europe Correspondent Vincent McAviney has the latest on more than 600 artefacts of significant cultural value stolen from Bristol Museum's archive and Iceland will boycott the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest. Get the Early Edition Full Show Podcast every weekday on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Andrew Dickens: Why should America check my socials?

  I don’t want to ask what America is thinking, but what are they thinking? As more details of their social media information requests to enter the States came to light yesterday, the less I wanted to go there. To get in I need to supply a wealth of personal information, including DNA and all my social media links. Now I love America and its people, but if I have to jump through all those hoops my first reaction is "forget it". The Land of the Free is no longer the Land of the Free Speech. Say the wrong thing on social media and they may cancel you. This is worse than anything under Biden or Obama, it’s cancel culture writ large. And the irony is that it’s so dumb. If you’re really an enemy of the States, you’ve already cancelled all your social media. This will cancel the tourists, not the terrorists. Righto: here’s the most bonkers thing I heard yesterday out of Trump’s America Secretary of State Marco Rubio halted the State Department’s official use of the typeface Calibri, calling the Biden-era move “wasteful,” and ordered the return of Times New Roman. He called it a part of a push to stamp out diversity. Now how does that work? Well in 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken ordered the typeface change to Calibri to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities, such as low vision and dyslexia, and people who use assistive technologies, such as screen readers. Now that was true, it was invented for people with low vision, and by the way it’s Microsoft Office’s default font and apparently it works, but apparently that’s woke. So back to Times New Roman we go, and the left are saying it tallies with MAGA’s obsession with all things Roman. And it would all be just a funny margin in history if it wasn’t so expensive and therefore wasteful. You’d think that you’d just ask everyone to change their default and off we go. But no. Teams are going to have to check every little unit. Apparently, that’s $145 thousand an agency, and there’s a lot of agencies in American bureaucracy. And here’s the real rub: Times New Roman takes more ink. And then when you calculate the sheer volume of wordage coming out of the American state, the cost actually mounts into the many millions. The right often complains about the cost of crazy left-wing ideology, seemingly blissfully unaware that they’re just as ideologically crazy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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