The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Let me ask you this: if fast-track is the answer, then why do we still have the Port of Tauranga problems?
Surely I don’t need to go through the fine detail of what is one of this country's most embarrassing modern travesties.
It's a story in which a successful business wants to expand so they can be more successful, and yet can't because the court process is never-ending.
The latest chapter of course involves local Māori wanting compensation.
It's not like this business is in nuclear waste or mine tailings. It's simply part of our main way of making money – exports. Selling things to the world.
If ever there was a case for an overarching “let's stop the BS and time wasting" law, the Port of Tauranga saga is it.
It's hard to know who is at fault more; those who started the scrap, i.e. local Māori, or those who allow it to drag, i.e. the judicial process.
But can you not mount a case that if a business cannot be allowed to be a business because they are hindered by argument and the process that allows the argument, at some point a line has to be drawn and an overarching authority (presumably the Government) comes in to settle the matter once and for all?
Arbitration is a possibility, including compulsory arbitration. I have for years argued for it in union disputes, especially the ones like teachers and nurses who are constantly scrapping with stop-work meetings and protests and days off.
State your case, claim/counter claim, if you're stuck then enter the referee and the call is made.
If fast-track was the solution it's patently evident in this case it isn't working and the port are in the fast-track process, having failed in the non-fast-track process. So all the processes and they are still no further ahead.
In my system the arbitrator would ask is this legal? Is this societally acceptable and is it beneficial for the country? I would ask that at 8.30am when the hearing starts and I reckon we'd be done by morning tea.
If an exporting nation can't expand to export more, how broken and backward are we?
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Today on Politics Wednesday, Mark Mitchell and Ginny Andersen joined Mike Hosking to delve into some of the biggest stories of the week thus far.
They discussed the Greens’ tax plan, the truth around the alleged selling off of conservation land, and Chris Bishop’s yoga classes.
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A think-tank is calling on ACC to make rehabilitation its priority ahead of paperwork.
The Accident Compensation Corporation's claims pool stopped growing in April after once increasing 15% annually.
A New Zealand Initiative report says there's evidence to suggest it could be achieving this by cutting back on rehabilitation outcomes.
Executive Director Oliver Hartwich told Mike Hosking that currently a person is considered rehabilitated if ACC hasn’t paid them for five weeks – but this isn’t a real measure.
He says the real measure of success isn’t whether they get them off the books, it’s whether they restore them to health and bring them back into the labour market.
The problem, Hartwich says, is that some people don’t return to work at all, so we have to make sure they don’t linger on ACC, and that it doesn’t become another form of welfare.
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On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Wednesday 24th of June, Five Eyes is warning that the threat AI poses to security could arrive in a matter of months.
Just wait until you hear the latest stats around ACC and whether we are actually being rehabbed or not.
Ginny Andersen and Mark Mitchell talk the Greens’ tax plans, the truth around the alleged conservation land sell-off, and Chris Bishop's yoga classes on Politics Wednesday.
Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Questions have been raised over how a single fibre cable, chewed through by rats, was enough to shut down an entire Christchurch secondary school.
Hillmorton High School has reopened today after asking students to learn from home for two days because of the damage.
The school lost WiFi, phone lines, CCTV, and access to the student management system.
Secondary Principals' Council Chair Steve McCracken told Mike Hosking while the circumstances are bizarre, schools can't operate safely when critical systems go down.
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