Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Work ethics – where do we stand on those? Is it a generational thing? Do you continue to soldier on despite Covid changing the way we see coming to work while sick? Do you still soldier on? Do you pause and take a break if you can feel a sniffle coming on because you want to A) ensure you don't infect your colleagues and B) ensure that you've got the best possible chance of getting better by staying home? Is it a generational thing or just an individual thing?
Gerry Brownlee, the Speaker of the House, is cracking the whip. At scrutiny week yesterday, he proposed changing Parliament's sitting hours and expressed a strong view that Parliament did not sit long enough. During the 30 weeks that Parliament meets for business, it generally sits from 2pm until 10pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays with a dinner break —and this is harking back to 1953— with a dinner break from 6pm to 7.30pm. None of this snatching a thing of pre-packaged sushi and scoffing it at your desk for ten minutes. No, no, no. When the House sits, there's a dinner break from 6pm to 7.30pm, and then the House sits again. On Thursdays it sits from 2pm until 6pm.
Governments can move motions to extend sitting hours to the following morning or they can put the House into urgency, but that doesn't happen very often. Gerry Brownlee has proposed extending Parliament's sitting hours, but he wouldn't tell the media the specifics of the proposal saying it would be unreasonable to do so while all the parties were considering it. Of course, many MPs do much more work than just sitting in the House debating proposed legislation. If they're good MPs, they'll work every day of the week. I mean our electorate MP, I see him at every community thing, every community clean up, every school fair, and that's with two small children – a new baby and a toddler. When you're doing it properly, it's a job that's tough on people and on relationships.
And while we might like the idea of them all working longer hours and getting our money out of them, working longer hours and more days is all very well and good, but if MPs are just rehashing the same old ideas and arguing amongst themselves and point scoring and whatever, we wouldn't be getting value for money out of them, we'd just be getting more of the same. Working longer doesn't necessarily mean working better, does it? If you're the sort of jobsworths that sit there and work their hours, don't add anything, don't come up with any innovation, do something that way because it's always been done that way and we don't deviate from doing that way because that's the way it's always been done. I don't really think that you're getting value for money there.
And on the same day that Gerry was reported as calling for MPs to work longer and harder, there was an interview on Stuff with journalist and men's health campaigner Jehan Casinader talking about Gen Z getting it right when it comes to prioritising work-life balance. He said in the interview, “We hear Gen Z described or Gen Zed described as the snowflake generation, but I think they're actually just showing the rest of us how to prioritise what's important in our lives. They have better boundaries, they're more emotionally open, they're better at articulating their needs and they're focused on how do I get my work to support my life rather than the other way around." Jehan said, “I think that's challenging for a lot of older people because they grew up with the opposite story: sacrifice your health, sacrifice your wellbeing, do whatever you need to do to provide for your family, keep your employer happy." But I do think he says that we're seeing a cultural change.
And I have to say I am probably in that generation that turns up for work. I don't think there's anything wrong than doing whatever you need to do to provide for your family and keeping your employer happy. But then I've always had good employers, so you want to work when you've got good employers. I haven't had a crappy one. And my work's interesting, so I guess that's a bit different. Who's right, who's wrong?
I'm all for MPs sitting longer, but it's really difficult because when you are an electorate MP particularly, although I'm sure there are some good list MPs as well who work every hour God sends, but it's a bit harder to quantify what they do. Sitting longer in the House isn't necessarily going to ensure better legislation, more innovative legislation, great ideas, bright ideas. I think there should definitely be penalties if you don't turn up for the bare minimum. Looking at you, Te Pāti Māori. I don't know. Who's got it right, who's got it wrong? Is it a generational thing or is it an individual thing? And should our MPs be sitting longer and more often?
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Our economy was well on the way to recovery, driven by a resurgence in manufacturing, before the fuel crisis hit.
Stats NZ data out today shows GDP rose 0.8% in both the quarter and year to March.
Equipment manufacturing, food production, accounting and businesses services, wholesale trade, and agriculture were all doing well.
But mining had a big drop, as well as residential and non-residential construction.
NZ Herald Business Editor Liam Dann joined Kerre Woodham to unpack the figure.
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I'm going to start with good news today. Now, I know we don't normally, but it is such good news I have to comment, and it's also a topic dear to all our respective talkback hearts. And that is that almost all of Parliament is backing the 30 year infrastructure plan. You'll have heard it in our news, the Coalition Government comprising National, ACT, and New Zealand First, as well as Labour and the Greens, have committed to the Infrastructure Commission's blueprint for major works in this country, and bloody well done to them, I say. To get this sort of rare across the house support, the Commission must have done an excellent job of prioritising works, justifying the order of works, outlining what needs to happen for these works to be done. Chief Executive of the Infrastructure Commission, Geoff Cooper, is absolutely delighted, as he should be.
“I think this is a great step forward. It is a significant opportunity for New Zealand to get to get better outcomes for infrastructure, and it's not every day that you've got the government and the opposition parties saying, “Yep, we can see a plan forward here."”
There are 16 recommendations, 10 priorities for the next decade, and this had to happen. We don't have to imagine the cost of a stop-start approach to vital infrastructure; the numbers have already been crunched. A report out earlier this month showed that pausing, cancelling, and delaying infrastructure projects has cost New Zealand an estimated $11.8 billion in the last 25 years. Auckland Light Rail, Transmission Gully, the Interislander Ferry replacements, just in recent times have all been paused, delayed, or scrapped. Both main parties have been guilty of prioritising ideology over the country's wellbeing, but now, hopefully, the next generation won't have to see money literally disappearing down drains.
Kieran McAnulty, in his foreword to the Infrastructure Commission's plan —the Government, Chris Bishop, Kieran McAnulty, and Julie Anne Genter from the Greens all wrote a foreword to the plan— put it very well. He said both Labour and National-led governments had announced projects without funding them, watched costs balloon, and then scrapped what the other side started. He said every time the plan changes, we lose time, we lose money, and we lose the skilled people who build these things —too many of them— to Australia. That's the problem this plan sets out to fix. He said the plan offered a long-term, evidence-based path that did not belong to any one government, a prize bigger than any single policy. That is very well stated.
Green Party infrastructure spokesperson Julie Anne Genter said the party supported all 16 recommendations in the plan and said the Party overall welcomed the Government's intention and urges that this commitment to long-term planning and evidence-informed decision-making continues to drive investment in long-lived assets. Now, Labour and the Greens have some reservations, but not enough to put a spoke in the wheel, not enough to hold up this fantastic blueprint for the future. Ultimately, they have come together to support a long-term vision for the country that will benefit all future voters, whatever party they support.
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The Opportunity Party says a property tax shake-up's front of mind.
The Party needs 5% to break into the Beehive, and has been scoring between 3% and 6% in polls.
The centrist party's proposing a blanket Land Value Tax, claiming it'll bring house prices down by up to 15%.
Leader Qiulae Wong told Kerre Woodham they want land banking to become less attractive.
She says it's about shifting the income tax burden on to land tax, so people can't just grow wealth from property.
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More than a million households could be overpaying for power this winter, as more Kiwis struggle to pay the bill at all.
Around half of Kiwi households haven’t switched providers in five or more years, which is potentially costing them hundreds of extra dollars a year.
Consumer NZ says that sticking with the same provider can result in a “loyalty tax”, as better deals are often only offered to new customers.
Consumer Powerswitch Manager Paul Fuge told Kerre Woodham everyone grumbles about prices and their company, but they think it’s time something has to be done about prices.
He says it's causing harm to consumers and the economy, and it can’t keep going the way it is, so they've started a petition.
Fuge says that while some people have always struggled to pay their bills, the number of households struggling is increasing every year.
“Middle New Zealand is now struggling to pay their power bill, and that’s not acceptable.”
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