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Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

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Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast
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  • Kerre Woodham: Schools need to be teaching civics
    There are a lot of things parents can teach children without schools needing to get involved. Basic hygiene, reading, physical education, even driving – parents should and could teach their children these skills. And I know schools already have a lot to be dealing with as regards to the needs of our children in their classroom, they've got a lot of changes to the curriculum happening. But one area where I would totally jump on my soapbox and say the schools need to be teaching is civics education. It's come to the forefront because while the NSW Government understands the importance of young people having a working knowledge of democracy and the legal system, it announced last year that studying civics would be compulsory in primary schools from 2027. Critics are saying that the subject is too important to be included within a wider syllabus. At the moment, what the NSW Government is doing is putting civics in with human society and its wider environments syllabus, along with other things. Critics argue that civics is so important it should have its own standalone status, with its own standalone support material, and specialist teachers, and the like. I couldn't really agree more, because when you look at everything we talk about on this show, when you look at the subject matters that are dear to our hearts, the genesis of all of the issues that come up comes down to decisions made by people voted by us or people choosing not to vote. So a small number of people get to choose individuals who will make decisions that impact us all, be it local bodies or government. Or we're talking about issues because decisions are made by people who don't understand the social contract and what it means to be a citizen, and that's what civics is all about: understanding that when you are a citizen within a civilized society you have rights certainly, but you have duties and obligations. So if there was a greater understanding of civics, a greater understanding and appreciation of what it means to be involved in a democracy, a greater understanding of the way our governments work, both central and local government, the way our laws work, we would have a more civilised society. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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  • Moana Theodore: Dunedin Study Director on the new tool that can estimate how fast someone's aging
    A new tool can now estimate how fast a person is aging. University of Otago scientists have found a way to use an MRI scan of the brain to quantify the rate of biological aging of middle-aged people to forecast risks of dementia, chronic disease, and death in older adulthood. The technology was developed using data from the Dunedin Study, a decades long health project tracking more than 1,000 people born in the early 70’s. Dunedin Study director Professor Moana Theodore joined Kerre Woodham to break down the findings of the study and how the tool works. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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  • Kerre Woodham: Let's put an end to the fun and start verifying political promises
    I don't know about you, but I want to know how big our Finance Ministers' holes are. I think it's really important to know what political parties’ promises are going to cost us. A nine-year battle to get a publicly funded body to cost political parties election promises, starting with the 2026 election, ended at cabinet on Monday after ACT and NZ First put the kibosh on the plan. Way back when —2016— the proposal came from the Greens, but over time it's been modified, and Nicola Willis’ plan would have amended the Public Service Act to allow the political parties access to public service resources up to 10 months before an election, so they had the information they needed to cost their policy promises. A unit in the Public Service Commission would have been created to coordinate those requests, funded with $1.2 million. Which is chicken feed in the scheme of things. But with ACT and NZ First nixing it, we remain with the status quo, which as Stephen Joyce explained this morning, means an awful lot of time wasting and running around for the opposition parties. “You have to go chasing around OIA’s and parliamentary questions to try and get enough information to build a policy which stands scrutiny when it gets out to the public, and it's a lot of fun for the government of the day to try and withhold all that information and then go, “ah, it’s ridiculously costed policy.”” That really ground my gears this morning when I heard that. Oh, it's all a great lark, it's all such fun having opposition parties running around desperately trying to get the information they needed. And the clue comes from the Public Services Resources. They're ours! Taxpayer money funds those services, it funds those resources. We have a right to know how much is being spent on what programmes, what funding is available, and we have a right to allow that information to be disseminated to opposition political parties so that they can craft their own policies with that knowledge, with that baseline knowledge that they need. Otherwise, they are going to be promising pie in the sky. This should be public information. It's taxpayer money funding services for taxpayers. It should be easy to access, easy to find, and then the opposition parties will be able to craft their policies accordingly. No more silly buggars. It's in the public interest not to have this time wasted. How many staffers are employed by opposition parties chasing after OIAs and chasing after this information, when that work could be better put to spending time with programmes and organisations and departments, and coming to terms with what they need to do the best possible job to deliver for the taxpayer? There is nothing fun about this. There's nothing clever about this. It is expensive time wasting. As for ACT’s no because “we already provide a fully costed budget before each election”, stop being so smarmy and teachers’ pets, you can't mark your own homework. Each party should have to pay out of their own party funds —not out of taxpayers dollars— for an economist, not to run the ruler over their own budgets because we've all seen that, they should each pay for an economist and the economist names should go in a ballot. Each party draws out a name, and that economist runs an eye over that party's budget. So ACT pays for an economist. The ACT economist goes into the hat, the Māori Party draw him out, that's who runs an eye over their budget. I want to know without having to do the sums myself if what a party is promising is viable, and I don't want them to do their own costings, thanks very much. I do want an independent body to look at it. That information should be freely accessible to all opposition parties. Let's put an end to the fun and the silly buggars, and each party's promises before an election should be independently verified, so we can all cast our vote with the best possible knowledge available. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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  • Caryn Zinn: Dietician and co-author of What The Fat? on losing weight, weight loss drugs
    Weight loss drugs are becoming increasingly sought after, with Wegovy hitting New Zealand pharmacies this month. It’s currently not funded, and people will need a prescription to get it. However, people are warning that weight loss drugs aren’t a silver bullet, and lifestyle changes are needed for long term success. ‘What The Fat?’, co-authored by Caryn Zinn, Craig Rodger, and Grant Schofield, highlights a low-carb, healthy-fat diet, and is held up as an effective weight loss tool. Dr Zinn joined Kerre Woodham for a chat about her work as a dietician, What The Fat?, and healthy ways to lose weight. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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  • Kerre Woodham: Have we not learned from slash damage and flooding?
    In the wake of the Motueka valley flooding with warnings that Australia's bomb cyclone is set to bring severe weather conditions to New Zealand, we're on weather watch. Not just the media, although looking at the television screens in my studio —one on BBC talking about the heat waves in Europe and another on Sky News from Australia talking about severe wind, rain and surf in eastern New South Wales— globally we appear to be on weather alert. There will be people living in flood prone areas, people living near streams and rivers, people living in coastal areas, they’ll be understandably wary as the heavy rains come down. What used to be a part or seemed to be a natural part of the weather cycle —summer brings sun, winter brings rain— now seems much more ominous than that. The gentle patter of rain on the roof is replaced by a kind of unease in certain areas. Deluges can be devastating, especially when you combine swollen streams with slash, the debris left over after forestry plantations have been felled. For years, rural communities especially have warned of the extreme danger that slash can cause, and in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023, the government revised the standard slash management rules. But interestingly, the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council found that the piles of woody debris that dammed bridges, blocked riverways and littered beaches in the wake of Gabrielle contained only a small portion of forestry slash. The Council report found the make-up of the debris deposited at more than a dozen sites consisted of a mixture of pine, willow, poplar, and other native timber and debris could not be identified. In all but one of the surveyed sites, there was little evidence of slash, indicating that the majority of pine came from erosion of hillsides and stream banks. It was a different story in Tairāwhiti next door, in Gisborne, where forestry slash was widely blamed for much of the damage caused by the cyclone. The government of the time ordered a ministerial inquiry into forestry practise and slash. So slash can sometimes be blamed for everything, it's the culprit. But as other people have pointed out, it's the fact that it's damn near impossible to dredge rivers to get the silt and the natural debris out of rivers, that also caused problems. It's the fact that we're building near flood prone areas, that are known to be flood prone areas, time and time and time again. But why are we continuing to allow forestry plantations on erosion prone land? I understand why we thought it was a good idea after Cyclone Bola - forestry plantations went into the hills there because that provided employment to locals, and the trees were supposed to hold the hills together. But now we know the dangers of slash and of erosion, where the pine trees aren't doing the job of holding the hills together, where you need different kinds of scrub and bush and grasses and trees to be able to do that. Why are we still allowing them? A) to be grown there and B) to be harvested? When we know that every winter, every time it rains, every time there's the heavy deluge, the local community is at major risk of flooding, again, and again, and again. How have we not learnt from the so many instances of slash and erosion bringing down the trees, smashing the fences, damaging the bridges, causing the incredible flooding events that we see just about every winter? We can't keep doing the same thing time and time again, can we? The farming community around areas that are so badly affected by the erosion, by the slash must get so frustrated knowing that they're having to go out and rebuild fences that will just come down again, if not next one to the winter after. So what do we do? We can't, surely keep doing the same thing again and again, because that in anybody's language is sheer stupidity. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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About Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Join Kerre Woodham one of New Zealand’s best loved personalities as she dishes up a bold, sharp and energetic show Monday to Friday 9am-12md on Newstalk ZB. News, opinion, analysis, lifestyle and entertainment – we’ve got your morning listening covered.
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