Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

What will it take for public servants to be held accountable for their most egregious mistakes? Not even talking the little faffy silly ones. We're talking really, really big mistakes. Never was a group of people more misnamed than public servants. The current generation are not servants of the public, for the most part – many of them appear to have absolute contempt for the public they are supposed to serve.
The latest and perhaps the most salutary is the MBIE boss Nick Blakeley. The Privileges Committee has found that Blakeley and former Immigration New Zealand head Alison McDonald deliberately misled, what you and I might call lying, deliberately misled Parliament. And the Privileges Committee said their conduct was an insult to the public service. That is damning. The reason why, in a select committee hearing back in March, Blakeley and McDonald were asked about the progress of an expensive biometric upgrade program, and they failed to disclose that the project had already been cancelled. When the truth was revealed that the people responsible for the failed program had just kept going, just kept taking taxpayers' dollars knowing that the money was going to be wasted, when asked direct questions about it, they lied.
Immigration Minister Erica Stanford was quite rightly apoplectic. Blakeley has offered his resignation to Public Service Commissioner Brian Roche, who rejected it on the basis that Blakeley had only been in the role six weeks. Yeah, but he lied, and so did Alison McDonald. And despite Blakeley uttering weasel words on Heather du Plessis Allan's show last night, explaining just how the lie came about, he should have been sacked.
NB: The committee found that the incomplete information that we provided amounted to a contempt of Parliament, to deliberately misleading Parliament. That's extremely serious and I'm deeply disappointed that the ministry and myself have fallen well short of expectations. At the time, there were budget and commercial sensitivities that we understood couldn't be discussed in a public forum. We got that wrong, we should have taken a different approach. That's what I said to the Privileges Committee when I gave them evidence.
HDPA: So you went to Brian Roche, and you said that you're prepared to quit, and he said don't?
NB: I offered my resignation. He came to his judgment. He pointed out one of the factors.
HDPA: What was his judgment, Nick? Did he say don't quit?
NB: One of the factors that he took into account was that I hadn't long been in the role. That was also noted in the Privileges Committee.
HDPA: Who cares? You're the one sitting there fibbing. That's the most important thing. Nick, did he say to you don't quit?
NB: He said he thought that would be the wrong response and that he will be holding me account for how I respond and that is what I'm focused on doing now.
HDPA: Yeah, well, that's disappointing. I think you should have quit because how are we going to know next time that you're telling the truth or just giving us a Nick special?
NB: Look, I have accepted the finding, I've apologised, I'm fronting up and I'm going to be fixing it. We're going to be much better prepared in future for select committees.
God, I love my colleague. While I do believe that nothing short of a public flogging in the town square will begin to drive the message home to public servants that they need to be more accountable, more responsible, more careful in how they spend our money, more like the private sector and taking ownership for snafus, until the public floggings begin, a good grilling from Heather du Plessis Allan will do as a good down payment. No wonder she's the broadcaster of the year, second year running. A "Nick Special" may well enter the lexicon as a euphemism for a lie.
We think 'Gliding On' and 'Yes Minister' are clever, funny comedies from yesteryear, but public service incompetence, public service lies, public service cover ups, public service treating ministers like children, it's alive and well. And when it involves the wasting of so much taxpayer money, when it involves complete and utter contempt of Parliament, nothing my Minister needs to worry her pretty little head about, I'll deal with this, throwing good money after bad so your own incompetence is not exposed, when you're asked directly about it, you lie, when it involves bringing the good hard working members of the public service into disrepute, there is nothing bloody funny about it.
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The Government has decided it will cap annual council rate increases at 4%. We've been talking about it for more than a year now, but the cap will take effect in 2029 – councils will need to consider the cap from next year. Local Government Minister Simon Watts told Mike Hosking the reason for it was to ease pressure on households, and although the national average will be savings of just $34 a week, Simon Watts said for many ratepayers the cap will be meaningful.
"The key of $34 is across the country, but if you're living in Waitaki, down the bottom of the South with a 17% increase, that's a $600 increase on an average bill of three and a half grand, and you know, that's not immaterial by any stretch. And also then you've got to think about the compounding as well. You know, as these bills increase, three numbers: 14.2% increase last year, 9.2% average increase in rates this year, under us it's going to be 4% going forward. That's going to be the limit, and if you think about the compounding effect of that over years, that's some pretty big savings over a 5 to 10 year period for a household."
As I say, we've been talking about a rates cap ever since National got into office – I still don't think it's a good idea. If a council doesn't know how to budget properly, a rates cap, having less money coming into the coffers, is not going to suddenly make them sound husbands of the ratepayer dollar overnight. They're not going to be able to balance their books all of a sudden just because they have less money coming in. And yes, I'm sure we can all think of barking mad vanity projects that our rates money's been spent on, and that incenses us but the Australian experience shows us that a rates cap will see reduced services, delayed infrastructure repairs, and outdated facilities. Duh, of course it will. There's been a rates cap in some Australian states for around 40 years, and work just gets deferred and deferred and deferred or not done at all.
And if the political aim of a rates cap for local government is to ease the financial pressure on households, impose fiscal discipline, and get back to the basics of what councils should be doing, why don't we have a tax cap right back at you, central government? How about you lead by example? I'd really love to see the central government impose fiscal discipline and get back to the basics rather than the nice to haves and the glory vanity projects.
Are you for or against a rate cap? In some ways it'd be lovely to see a tiered approach to rates given that we've got away from the sense of community where we give a bit so that others might gain. You could have economy, premium economy, and business rates. Economy, you get the absolute bare minimum, but it means you don't get access to swimming pools, libraries, art galleries, and we'll fence off the playgrounds and the beaches, and you'll have to pay to get in. It's not a serious suggestion, but something will have to give.
As Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown said last year, putting a cap on rates is not going to solve anything. It will just defer it for a couple of years, then in the end, when it has to be done, ratepayers will be paying even more. He says councils are faced with making decisions that involve significant investment and should not be restricted by governments telling us what we can and cannot do. So are you Team Simon Watts or Team Wayne Brown? Are you for the rates cap or are you saying this is just going to be deferred expense and a bleaker, less enjoyable community in which to live?
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Dolly Parton's legacy is being remembered as one that will last lifetimes.
The beloved country music star has died aged 80.
She'll be remembered for songs like 'Nine to Five', 'I Will Always Love You', and 'Jolene' – just some of her 25 number one hits.
Kiwi politician and country singer Suzanne Prentice opened for Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers when they visited New Zealand in the late 1980s, and remembers how kind and down to earth Parton was.
She told Kerre Woodham the star seemed to look after everyone who came into her realm.
"She was truly a star of our time, so I don't think in our lifetime, we'll ever see anything like Dolly Parton again."
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Stars are paying homage to the late Dolly Parton, who's died aged 80.
Her team has revealed to CNN that the singer songwriter died after a brief battle with cancer.
Tributes from those close to the singer like Billy Ray Cyrus, Sabrina Carpenter, and Kaycee Musgraves have swamped the internet.
Kiwi Country singer-songwriter Tami Neilson told Kerre Woodham Parton was her Northern Star.
She says there would not be a Tami Neilson if there wasn't a Dolly Parton, and that would be the case for many country artists.
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National, as you will have heard, is pushing ahead with its social media regulation bill, but it's going to have to do the heavy lifting itself. Neither New Zealand First nor ACT, its coalition partners, are supporting a ban on social media use for under-16s. Labour may yet come to the rescue of the bill, but by crikey, Erica Stanford's going to have to jump through hoops to get them to come onboard. They will want their pound of flesh before they agree to support the bill.
The Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Erica Stanford, said they are determined to progress the bill because the Government could not accept the harm being done to a generation of New Zealand children. One in three children aged between 13 and 17 are now spending at least five hours on social media a day, according to the government fact sheet. Social media is exposing them to harmful content, addictive technology, and pressures they are simply not equipped to deal with, and it's affecting their family life, their mental health, their sleep, and their education.
The PM said obviously parents have a role to play in monitoring what social media platforms their children are on, but that's if the parents know they're on the social media platforms. There's a piece from Chris Schulz in the Spinoff saying he didn't realise his teenage son was on Instagram until it was far, far too late. They know now, and their 12 year old is well and truly locked down social media wise. But for many parents, they simply don't know. The kids can do workarounds. The Prime Minister says we have protections to keep children safe in the real world, but we need them in the virtual world too. Erica Stanford told Mike Hosking this morning that they don't expect every child to be protected from the harms of social media simply because an Act of Parliament is passed, but it will send a strong message.
"We knew that this was really important. We know that, you know, it's been done overseas, but it's been really hard for them to get traction overseas, and we wanted to be fast followers. If we'd done something immediately and not learned from Australia and the mistakes that they made, we'd be in a very different position. But I'm a lot more confident now that we've taken the time, we've taken on, you know, on board this work and been that fast follower. Now we've got all this evidence from the UK and the EU and Australia, you know, we're able to be in a position with a much stronger piece of legislation. And remember, it's the very first time in our country's history we have a dedicated online safety bill for children."
And really, it can't come too soon for some kids. Once you know something, once you see something, once you read something, you can't unsee it. You can't unknow it. There are some horrific images that our children, and they are still children, are exposed to. In the olden days, this is pre computers, pre digital era, there were still things you could find, but you had to really work hard to find them. You had to work really hard to find pornography and hardcore pornography. You had to work really hard to find graphic video images. If people wanted to insult you, bully you, be cruel to you, they would, but they had to see the whites of your eyes. They had to see the effect it was having on you. These days with technology, it's in your kid's bed with them. This cruelty, this vileness, these pornographic acts are all in bed with your 13 year old.
The legislation is going to require high risk social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook to take reasonable steps to check users are over 16, and that will involve several methods, including using existing account information, facial age estimation, digital ID services, and formal ID. And to those parents like the one who sent a text to Mike: "I am a parent. I am currently responsibly using time and app limits in ways that make sense for my family. Your policy will forbid parents from making these choices. This does not back me or parents like me, rather the opposite." To that parent, I say cool your jets. Do the police come knocking on your door if you let your 13 year old watch an R16 movie? No, they do not. You can make the rules for your household and your kids.
But interestingly, also in the fact sheet, a survey of young New Zealanders found half of those surveyed, half of the teenagers surveyed, felt they had been given access to social media too young. That's that whole point of you cannot unsee and unknow what you've seen and been exposed to. 39% said they wished social media had never been invented. This is just as Erica Stanford says, it's sending a strong message to the tech companies that you are responsible. It's helping create a norm that social media is not for under 16s, that children grow up knowing they cannot have access to it legally until they're 16 and it's backing parents who want to keep their kids off social media for as long as they possibly can.
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