Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

On the Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive Full Show Podcast for Friday, 17 July, 2026, we talk to Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard about a second case of bird flu - this time in a native hawk.
Rail Minister Winston Peters on why the new interislander ferries will be named Kupe and Cook.
We ask Parking Association chairman Mike Kelly about the best excuses he's heard for getting off parking tickets.
And on the Sports Huddle, Nick Bewley and Matt Brown tell us who they'll watch - the All Blacks or the Warriors.
Get the Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive Full Show Podcast every weekday evening on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Trade Minister Todd McClay addressed media with his Swiss counterpart Helene Budliger Artieda at the Future of Investment and Trade (FIT) Partnership ministerial meeting in Auckland to announce trade partnership talks.
Limited details are available as the talks are in the early stages.
"What we've agreed today is to start a formal trade investment dialogue," McClay told Heather du Plessis-Allan.
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Question for you: was Donald Trump's speech to the American people a classic case of muddying the waters?
For Trump, it was a relatively short speech, about 40 minutes, in which he claimed there had been Chinese interference in the 2020 presidential election, that there were extreme vulnerabilities in the election system that need to be closed and that China obtained more than 200 million American voter registration records. He then released a trove of documents that he claims back up these allegations.
Now, the allegation that China interferes in the elections of Western liberal democracies is not new and, frankly, isn't even controversial. We know the Chinese do this. They've been doing it for years across multiple countries: the United States, Canada, Australia and even here in New Zealand. We've been subjected to interference as well.
The claim that China somehow involved itself in the 2020 presidential election is also neither new nor controversial. That allegation has been made before. The question then is: if none of this is new or controversial, why give a speech? Why set aside time to address the American people and revisit it all over again?
Whichever way you look at it, I think it's probably safe to assume it's because he's concerned about the midterm elections coming up later this year. He is either trying to rally support for the Save America Act, which would effectively return the United States to in-person voting with voter ID requirements, a system that would likely favour Republicans, or he's laying the groundwork for an excuse in the event Republicans perform poorly in the elections anyway.
Or it could be both.
And, given it's Trump, you can't rule out the possibility that he's going through this whole exercise so that, a few months from now, he can blame someone else, perhaps the Chinese, if Republicans underperform at the ballot box.
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In a speech to the American people Donald Trump has once again claimed fraud in the 2020 election, this time alleging Chinese interference.
Former Republican Communications Director, Doug Heye, told Heather du Plessis-Allan, "I think trying to make any sense out of this speech is a fool's errand."
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Rail Minister Winston Peters revealed the names of the two new ferries headed for New Zealand in 2029.
The new ferry names are Kupe, after the first Polynesian navigator to discover New Zealand, and Cook, after Captain James Cook, who led an expedition to New Zealand with the Endeavour in the 18th century.
Peters confirmed that KiwiRail would continue to own the Interislander ferries once they arrive, the Government had refused to commit to full KiwiRail ownership.
He told Heather du Plessis-Allan, "we're just gonna get on and do the job, but most people will be delightfully happy with it."
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