Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Northland's MP believes National's plan to introduce drug testing for beneficiaries is a smart move.
It's proposing ten thousand random drug tests next year – ramping up over the years.
It also wants to reduce payments from April 2028 for people who've collected it for two of the previous three years, with a smaller cut for those with children.
Grant McCallum told Kerre Woodham there are employers who have casual work or things like fruit picking available, but can't get workers because they can't pass a drug test.
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Everyone on board vessels up to six metres in length must wear a lifejacket, starting from today.
Maritime NZ says the nationwide rule means all people heading out on the water have a better chance of coming home.
On average, 17 people die in recreational boating accidents each year, with two thirds not wearing properly-fitted jackets.
Maritime NZ's Matt Wood told Kerre Woodham the rule change not only lifts the minimum standard nationally, but removes the regional differences, which makes the overall messaging clearer.
He says they believe it will make a tangible difference, as when this rule was introduced in Tasmania in 2001, fatal boating numbers halved straight away and have stayed that way since.
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Anybody who is taking money from the rest of us because they can't find a job should be ready, willing, and able to work when work is there to get. There should be an unwritten contract, and I think there is amongst most of us, that we as New Zealanders look after our fellow New Zealanders when they need a hand up until they can get back on their feet and get back into providing for themselves and providing for others who might suffer misfortune. And if people are simply using the money the rest of us are giving them to sit around at home and do drugs or skip off to the beach with their barbecue or wander through the wheat fields whistling, then sure, of course there should be penalties.
But why didn't National introduce the "get tough on druggy beneficiaries" when they were running the government, when they introduced traffic light rules around beneficiaries in the welfare system? If they believed in it so strongly, why didn't they do it then? To do it now, to say, "oh well, vote for us and this'll happen", when they're languishing in the polls looks desperate and cynical and plays into the hands of their opponents. "Oh, we're not polling well. I know, let's bash druggy beneficiaries because the punters will love that." And indeed the punters will.
But unemployment is at an 11 year high. The economy is not booming despite the promises National made last election. Drug use is rampant and while that I do not believe is something the Government can fix, the need for more detox centres and public rehab clinics is acute. Total government-funded mental health and addiction beds tracked by Health New Zealand increased from 1,317 to 1,368 over the past 12 months. An extra 51 beds is great, but that's like sticking your finger in the dyke, the need is so great. Perhaps 5,100 beds would be more meaningful and make more of an impact. What do you do if you live in Kaitaia or Moerewa or Ohakune where sawmills are closing and factories are shutting down? No, if you're not going to sit around and take drugs, you're going to move to Australia. That's what you're going to do.
I do not think it is unreasonable to expect people to be ready for work when they're taking money from you and me, but I do think we need to be slightly more aware that for some young people and definitely for some older people, finding a job in a recession that's been engineered and that hasn't recovered as quickly as the Government promised might be a bit tough. And that addiction services might need more funding to try and get people off their drugs and more ready for work. Had National announced a one two yesterday, drug testing for beneficiaries and more funding for rehab, I might believe the assertions that it's all about the young people. As it is, I think yesterday's announcement was more about helping their list MPs claw their way back into Parliament.
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This election is highlighting yet another war being fought on the ideological battleground that is education. Charter schools, as they operate now, are in the sights of Labour because they're doing something different. To be fair, Labour's never liked the idea of schools operating under their own curriculum. Nothing new there. As Chris Hipkins told Mike Hosking this morning, they're all for new ideas in education, so long as the schools follow the party line.
CH: I believe that when you're spending public money on education, there needs to be good, strong accountability. Schools, there should be a level playing field. There are gaps in our education system. Some of those charter schools are doing interesting things. They can do that within the public education system.
MH: Interesting or good?
CH: Well, some of them are good. And but we demonstrated last time, I think of the charter of the schools that were set up as charter schools last time, most of them are still operating. They're still operating within the public education system and they're operating successfully.
Yes, but under the party line, aren't they? Not doing their own thing. Partnership schools, as they were once known, opened in 2014 born out of frustration from parents who could see the state school system was failing their children. They were closed by the Labour Government in 2018 and either shut their doors or became state integrated or special character schools. The charter school model was brought back following the 2023 election. David Seymour, the Associate Education Minister and champion of charter schools, says families are choosing charter schools precisely because they offer something different.
You can see by attendance whether they're working for parents or not. Seymour cites Northwest College. That grew from 22 students in March 2025 to 150 by July of this year. Five of the first seven charter schools, he says, exceeded their attendance targets in the first year. Five exceeded their achievement targets. At Tipene, initial assessments on February 25th found more than half of students were below expected level in maths, reading, and writing. By the end of the year, 81% were achieving at or above the expected level in maths, 79% in reading, 80% in writing.
Parents are choosing to take their children to these different schools. Schools that are run differently, that operate differently, because their kids run and operate differently on different programs. You know, a state school education works pretty well for most kids. The quality of it, well, we can debate that, but for most kids, they fit in. The school suits them, they suit the school. But for other kids, it doesn't. It doesn't work at all. And until the charter schools came along, there was really very little you could do. You just had to try and mash a square peg into a round hole. And it wasn't comfortable for either the school or the student or the family.
If you've got a school that opens with 22 students in March 2025 and then just over a year later the school rolls grow to 150, doesn't that indicate that the school is working? And it's working because parents are telling each other about it, they're sharing the results they're getting with their children. They're saying we don't have to come and pick up the child from school because they simply cannot be there. They're saying our child is willing to get up and go to school. That is a win for a lot of families. Forget about what happens when they get there. The fact they walk through the school gates is a win for a lot of families.
And there's got to be flexibility. I just cannot understand why everybody has to march to Labour's drumbeat. You know, what about what happened to interpretive dance off on the side somewhere? You know, some people are more interpretive dancers than they are rigidly marching in formation. And if the schools are working, if there's accountability, if the teachers are accredited, if you're ticking boxes and teachers and principals and families have the freedom to find the best way to educate a certain cohort of children, then everybody wins. The poor little square pegs who are trying to be mashed into the round hole aren't disrupting the rest of the class. The teachers aren't expected to do specialist teaching when they're generalists. They're not feeling frustrated and cross because they can't give that one child everything that one child needs and they know they're not giving the other 32 the time and attention they deserve.
I just don't understand why, so long as you've got quality control, and surely the parents would dictate that, if you've ticked off all the quality control boxes, why can't Labour let people educate their own children the best way they see fit?
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Hopes new rules will stop people stripping our beaches of kaimoana.
From November 1st there will be a ban on collecting and recreational gathering of shellfish and mussels from Auckland and Coromandel's rockpools and intertidal zones.
There will also be daily limits on crabs, octopus, prawns, sea cucumbers, and squid.
Protect Whangaparaoa Rockpools founder Mark Lenton told Kerre Woodham a local ban on Whangaparaoa, which started in March, has done wonders.
He says there's been a natural regeneration of life.
However, Lenton says guarding the coastlines can be a dangerous job as the law can be tough to enforce.
He says fisheries officers wear stab-proof vests and he's been threatened while patrolling.
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