The Mike Hosking Breakfast

At the end of each week, Mike Hosking takes you through the big-ticket items and lets you know what he makes of it all.

Cars: 7/10
New car sales are up 20%. If that isn't a sign of confidence, I don’t know what is.

The excise debate: 3/10
Fantastically disappointing. Labour at $4.6 billion is sad, but not surprising. The Government at $1.6 billion and borrowing. Come on, we wanted, needed, and expected better.

The bond markets: 4/10
It's why we shouldn’t have done the excise business. Money is expensive and getting more so, and no one seems to see debt for what it is – a big fat red flag.

Aeroplane gate: 4/10
Honestly, the coolest flyover ever until the wowsers got hold of it. And the wowsers don’t even know how to fly a plane.

Less booze: 6/10
I think it’s the future. The numbers are down and they will never recover. Between health, fitness, and GLP-1s, the world is different.

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I'm not surprised. But because I'm not surprised, I am disappointed.
Papers released publicly for the first time reveal the Government considered axing their mad carbon auctions.
But, and here comes the disappointment, they didn’t.
They considered dropping them because every time they mucked with the ETS, the confidence in a market they were trying to create was cratered.
This is not just them, but the previous Government also, who were wedded to the idea that an invented market could work, despite the fact it didn’t.
Multiple Governments have tinkered and fiddled. They have set prices and reset prices, but each and every auction has basically been a failure.
Just quickly, if you don’t follow this stuff, there are four auctions a year. You buy credits, if you're a polluter, to offset your environmental damage.
The trouble is no one turns up; there are no bids and the really bad thing about that is there is no revenue.
If this actually worked there could be $2 billion worth of income.
I can't remember how many times I've asked Governments about this, from Robertson to Watts. They all said the same thing, all defended it, and yet the irrefutable proof was, and is, they simply don’t work.
Credits can be bought and sold in a variety of ways. You can plant trees, you can trade other people credits, but when you are literally dealing with an idea that is invented out of thin air and you have no faith in anyway, why on Earth would you turn up and pay the Government money?
Obviously, the answer is you wouldn’t, and you didn’t.
Hence the Government got to the inevitable bit where someone other than me asked "do you reckon this thing is worth sticking with?"
Under Labour I was not surprised they didn’t kill them because that’s what ideology does to you. It blinds you to logic and common sense.
But the current lot you would have hoped knew better. Well, as the papers show, they almost did and yet couldn't quite get there.
So at the next auction, which by the way is September 8th, have a look and see what happens and call me if the answer is anything other than... nothing.
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Friday has arrived, which means it's time for Kate Hawkesby and Tim Wilson to join Mike Hosking to Wrap the Week that Was.
They discussed flight cancellations and the stress of being a parent while your kid travels, at what age you should stop handling your kids' problems, and calls from the Electoral Commission.
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New Zealand's got a shot at Stone Skimming history this weekend.
For the first time, we have an official team at the World Championship in Scotland, with Abbey MacDonald and Jay Reeve flying the flag.
MacDonald is aiming to set a record, as no woman has ever hit the 63-metre back wall of the pond, but her personal best is around 74 meters.
She told Mike Hosking there's no monetary prize for winning the competition, just absolute glory, which is all she's wanting to achieve.
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A former New Zealand Defence Minister believes the US is deadly serious about locating into the Pacific.
The US has declared it will accelerate its military presence in Australia following meetings between the Australian Defence Minister and American counterpart Pete Hegseth in Washington DC.
About a thousand US Navy personnel are set to be based near Perth from next year to support American submarines operating out of nearby naval bases.
Former Minister Wayne Mapp told Mike Hosking the Pacific is a long-term issue for the US, and it needs Australia as the bulwark to kind of underpin defence.
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