The Mike Hosking Breakfast

There's a battle of the ideologies on display as ACT looks to cut art spending on roading projects.
It's very ACT, i.e. fiscally disciplined. Every $1 million on roading needs to be $1 million on roading, not 99% on roads and 1% on art.
The art is an issue for several reasons, mainly for me because most of it is unimpressive.
I'm not actually against art per se. I like art. I prefer private operators to pay for it, but I wouldn't die in the ditch trying to cut it.
It makes sense. We have no money, we need more roads, and so it's fairly obvious you make every dollar go as far as it can.
And I suspect broadly most people feel the same way, so it's an easy headline and a political point to make in a campaign.
But public art can be amazing. The trouble is a lot of ours isn't.
On the highway out of Christchurch heading towards Kaiapoi there is some good work. At what they call Spaghetti Junction in Auckland there is what loosely looks like red light stalks. They're awful.
On our way home on the new highway north of Auckland there are a bunch of Māori soldiers or chiefs, sort of metal cutouts that are rusted.
It’s a look. I don’t like it, which is the other bit about art. It's fraught.
There is also obviously an overt Māori fixation around it. There's not a lot of Siddell's or Sydney's about the place. There are more conceptual, race-based interpretations that you might argue may not get a lot of commissions if it wasn’t for the NZTA.
So you have the battle between to do it, or not, and also if you do do it, is it any good?
But to the ideology, ACT are about efficiency and that’s good, given our parlous state fiscally.
The defence came from the transport wonks who said, "look, its only 1.4% of the overall budget", the inference being that we shouldn't worry about it because it's nothing. And yet, do the math.
For every 72-odd roads, that's another free road if you don’t spend your 1.4%. Would you rather have another road or a bunch of eclectic sculptures?
I think the inescapable conclusion is art is for better days, more affluent times, in countries that have productivity levels way better than ours and that have handled their finances better than ours.
Art is a reward, not a must have.
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Proving there's always mileage in a car show, it's time for a new era of the Grand Tour.
There'll be three new hosts behind the wheel, Francis Bourgeois, James Engelsman, and Thomas Holland taking over from Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May.
Holland and Engelsman have hosted the YouTube channel Throttle House together for over a decade, while Bourgeois is a well-known social media trainspotter and mechanical engineer.
The trio has big shoes to fill, and Holland told Mike Hosking they've been careful while making the show, as they know how much it means to so many people.
"The whole team focused on, I guess, making the show that we would want to watch were we not on it," he explained.
"I made sure that was in my mind the whole time, going like, is this good enough for me if I was watching it?"
The inter-host dynamic was a huge draw of the original show, and fortunately there seems to be no lack of chemistry between the new hosts.
Bourgeois told Hosking their first conversation would be familiar to most car enthusiasts —a discussion of who's driving what— but the building blocks of friendship grew quickly.
"We're having laughs, we're going through into these chemistry tests, we're having drinks together in the bar afterwards."
"It feels like our friendship was actually kind of ready to go and it was rocketing away by the time we were filming the first episode."
They're hopeful the new iteration of the show will receive the same support as the last, Engelsman saying they have a lot of ideas for the future.
"We went through so many for what would be in this series that were either not possible because of seasonality or timing, that now we can tackle if there is a season 2 and more," he told Hosking
"I think there's more hope than there's ever been for a successful reinvention of the show, while honouring the formula and then the musical note that it hits with the audience."
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A young Kiwi pool player is taking his game to the world stage.
22-year-old Sheridan Burmester's heading overseas for a major international campaign, competing in tournaments across Vietnam, Bali, and India.
He's also heavily invested in growing the game back home in New Zealand, similarly to things like darts, which has growing mainstream appeal.
Burmester told Mike Hosking they just need some support and recognition to supercharge the sport.
He says a lot of people don't know anything about pool being global or that you can even compete in the game.
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The Michelin effect's in full swing, with a Christchurch venue full every night through the depths of winter.
Fifteen Kiwi restaurants were awarded stars in June, with the Michelin Guide promising to attract 36 thousand extra overseas visitors annually.
A Tourism New Zealand business case, including overseas evidence, shows this could bring turnover growth of up to 50% for venues.
Inati co-owner Lisa Levy told Mike Hosking since the announcement, they've seen bookings far in advance they've never seen before.
She says tourists obviously plan around their holidays, but they're seeing a lot more domestic tourism as well as international.
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On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Tuesday 8th of September, Resources Minister Shane Jones discusses the first projects funded by the Gas Security Fund, and we're already starting to see the Michelin effect on our hospo industry.
We've got another carbon auction happening today, and David Seymour believes we should bin them.
The new Grand Tour hosts have big shoes to fill, and Francis Bourgeois, James Engelsman, and Thomas Holland tell us how exactly they'll fill them.
Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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