Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

• Josie Spillane: Highlands Motorsport CEO on the Street Smart driving programme, lottery

  The Street Smart programme is a hands-on, one-day driver training course for young drivers, teaching crucial real-world skills beyond basic testing, helping reduce road deaths across New Zealand. The course focuses on decision-making, hazard perception (like "rabbits" on the road), distraction management, peer pressure, and emergency manoeuvres in a controlled environment with professional coaches. Highlands Motorsport CEO Josie Spillane told Kerre Woodham they’re deeply committed to making generational and legislational change around driver training in New Zealand, but until they get to that point, they’re doing what they can to ensure young drivers have the tools to make key split-second decisions. The Trust has launched their first lottery to fund the programme, giving Kiwis the chance to win one of three 2025 Subaru WRXs, and go into the draw for three once-in-a-lifetime motorsport experiences. With only 10,000 tickets at $100 each, Spillane says the odds are better than Lotto, and help make a life-saving difference for youth on the roads. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Hamish Firth: Mt Hobson Group Director on the Government's RMA reforms

  An urban planner says the Government’s RMA reforms are well overdue. It's unveiled plans to replace current Resource Management Act laws with two new pieces of legislation, one for the environment and one for planning. It sets clear limits on council regulations and is expected to save $13 billion in consenting costs. Mt Hobson Group Director Hamish Firth told Kerre Woodham we’ve been bungling along with a system that results in us all having horror stories. He says there’s continuous subjectivity in the Resource Management Act, and the Government’s doing the right thing in replacing it. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Kerre Woodham: The Supreme Court ruling on disabled carers makes sense

  Two parents who care for their severely disabled adult children have been recognised as homeworkers and are now entitled to receive the minimum wage, along with other associated employment conditions, after a landmark ruling yesterday from the country's highest court. They're now deemed to be employees of disability support services. And the families who battled to be recognised for the work that they do are hopeful the Supreme Court decision paves the way for other carers who are in a similar situation. The case was brought by two parents, Christine Fleming and Peter Humphreys, who each care for their severely disabled adult children. Their physical and intellectual disabilities require constant supervision and around the clock care. Were it not for the care provided by their families, the two adult children would be needing 24/7 care somewhere, and some substandard accommodation, and that would be funded by the taxpayer. The decision to deem the parents to be employees was unanimously reached by the five judges of the Supreme Court, and it comes seven years and seven months after the case was first filed in the Employment Court, and more than two decades after family carers first went to court, complaining they had the right to be paid for the care they provided that the taxpayer would otherwise have to provide. From what I recall of the story over those two decades, it's complicated because there are some family members who believe it is their sacred duty to care for their children, and that by becoming employees it diminishes that bond. So not everybody thinks the same way. You know, you might share similar circumstances, but you look at it in different ways. But it just makes sense, doesn't it? That if you have a child, be they seven months, seven years, 17, 27, however old they are, and it has been deemed that they need 24/7 care, and you are providing that care, you should be reimbursed for it, whether you've got a sacred bond between parent and child or not. Otherwise, we, the taxpayer, would have to fund it some other way. It's similar to a story I covered on Fair Go a trillion years ago. A young man had been left tetraplegic in a car accident. He was legally entitled to 24/7 care, but he only received limited funding to cover that care. So unless his caregivers gave their time voluntarily, and many chose not to, and fear it, they weren't being paid, but he would be left alone and abandoned. He nearly died a couple of times because there was nobody there, despite the fact he was entitled to it, but the money didn't cover 24/7 care. It seems that some government departments rely on the bonds between parents and their children and the kindness of strangers to provide the care that legally, by right, should be afforded our most severely disabled New Zealanders. I can't imagine what it would be like as a parent of a disabled child, knowing that time is ticking by. You try to set your children up so that they will be looked after when you're gone. But it would be terrifying having to try and care for the child in the here and now, while making provision for them in the future. Quite often it falls to other siblings to provide that care. There's a need to try and work to afford the sort of care that the adult child is going to need now and in the future. Like the love you would get from knowing your child, fabulous. But there's also the basic needs you have to provide for. You know, you get a lot out of being with your child, no matter what age. You know, it's a relationship that you have. It is one that is special, unique, but it's also a job, and if you weren't doing it, somebody would have to. So I would love to hear from those families who are in that situation and what that means for you from here on in. Not all family members will want to be workers of disability support services, and I get that, but at least the pay it paves the way for there to be the option for them to be recognised as such. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Kerre Woodham: Is there still a place for Te Pāti Māori in Parliament?

  2024 was an epic annus horribilis for the Greens - you remember Golriz Ghahraman, Darleen Tana, Julie Anne Genter, et al. It went on and on. It was arguably the worst year on record for any political party in this country ever. But wait, hold my beer – we have a new champion. 2025 is shaping up to be an even more horribilis of an annus for Te Pāti Māori, who may well factionalise themselves into extinction. It all started so well. And by started, I'm going back to 2004 when Labour MP Tariana Turia's protest against her own government's Foreshore and Seabed Bill led to her establishing Te Pāti Māori. Despite it being pretty much a single issue party at genesis, it lasted the distance thanks to the political pragmatism and mana of Dame Tariana and Sir Pita Sharples, the other co-leader. They were able to walk in both the Pākehā world and Te Ao Māori, and they kept the party together. Te Pāti Māori winning six out of the seven electorate seats in the 2023 election was a triumph. As was its opposition to the coalition government's Treaty Principles Bill and galvanising everybody together. But since then, Te Pāti Māori has turned upon itself and the ugly mudslinging being played out in the public arena has seen support for the party plummet. This time last year, Te Pāti Māori got 7% in the 1News Verian poll. Last night in that same poll, they recorded just 1%. Bang, crash, pow, brace for impact, as Maiki Sherman might have said, but didn't, when reporting the results last night. Te Pāti Māori threw out two of its MPs amid accusations of a dictatorial style by its leadership. The dispute took a new twist in court last week though, when a judge ruled MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi should be reinstated as a party member. John Tamihere emerged from the party's AGM in Rotorua over the weekend absolutely triumphant and grinning like a Cheshire cat, the cat that's got the cream. Those opposed to his presidency simply didn't have the numbers to get rid of him. According to the party's constitution, it appears the only way Tamihere can be removed from the role of president is if there is consensus among the electorate council representatives. So he has a stranglehold on Tāmaki Makaurau, Waiariki, and Te Tai Hauāuru – Waikato seems to be neutral. Ikaroa-Rāwhiti said they weren't happy about the expulsion of Whaitiri and another MP, Ferris. Te Tai Tokerau, Te Tai Tonga, they want John Tamihere gone. But it looks like he'll be clinging on. May well be a Pyrrhic victory. If Te Pāti Māori can't find a way to work through their differences, and I don't see how they possibly can. Tamihere will be the head of a political party that isn't in Parliament, that is completely and utterly irrelevant. He'll have his toys, but no one to play with. While all of this infighting is occurring, as Christopher Luxon said, not one single piece of legislation has been crafted by Te Pāti Māori MPs to further the betterment of their constituency, of their people. As he said, not one of them has turned up with ideas, with a plan, with a way to make the world a better place for the people who voted them in, to use the machinery of Parliament to advance the cause of their people. They are simply not doing their job while they're involved in this sort of infighting. I would very much like to hear from those who have supported Te Pāti Māori in the past, who as recently as 2023 might have installed a Te Pāti Māori MP in Parliament by voting in the electorate – where to now? Is there still a place for Te Pāti Māori in Parliament? They look like they're doing their level best to disembowel themselves and eat their own entrails in front of us all. It's unedifying, but worse than that, it is letting down the very people who voted them into Parliament. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• John MacDonald: Coster has no evidence to back up his claims

  Whether-or-not you saw former police commissioner Andrew Coster’s TV interview yesterday, you’ll know about the allegations he’s making. He thinks people are running for the hills after the Jevon McSkimming scandal and aren’t telling the whole story in terms of what they knew and when they knew it. Especially current police minister Mark Mitchell and former police minister Chris Hipkins. Isn’t it weird that someone who served in the police for more than 25 years - who, I imagine, determined at some points during that time that there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute - thinks he can make all sorts of accusations without one shred of evidence to prove it? That’s what I took away from yesterday’s interview. Can you imagine the police charging anyone with an offence with zero proof or zero evidence? Yet that is exactly what Andrew Coster did yesterday. He made these allegations that Chris Hipkins and Mark Mitchell aren’t being upfront. Then, in the next breath, admitted that he had no record or evidence to prove it. That would be “case closed” if it was a police investigation. And, because he can’t prove it, I can’t believe him. This is someone who spent 28 years looking for evidence of guilt. He’s got no evidence to back-up what he’s saying - so I’m not buying it. Chris Hipkins and Mark Mitchell are both denying Coster’s claims. Chris Hipkins says he “was never briefed on Jevon McSkimming's relationship with Ms Z during his time as minister of police or prime minister. Andrew Coster claims he told Hipkins in 2022 in the back of a car while they were on an official trip in the South Island, when Hipkins was police minister in the Labour government. And, Mark Mitchell is pushing back big time on Coster’s claim that he knew earlier than 6 November last year. On Newstalk ZB this morning, he said Coster’s claims were “absolute nonsense”. He said this morning - as he has since the Independent Police Conduct Authority report came out last month - that he first became aware on 6 November 2024, when Andrew Coster was told by the Public Service Commission to brief him on the situation. Mitchell says he didn’t buy Coster’s narrative that McSkimming was the victim. He says he’s a father and that he pushed as much as he could as a minister to make sure the woman at the centre of all this was looked after. So it’s “he says-he says”. But Andrew Coster has no evidence to prove his allegations so I can’t believe him.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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