The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Two powerhouse actresses are leading one of Prime Video’s next big TV shows.
‘Ride or Die’ is an action comedy about a couple of best friends who have to go on the run after one of them is revealed to be an international assassination.
It stars Hannah Waddingham, of ‘Ted Lasso’ fame, and Octavia Spencer, Academy Award winner for ‘The Help’, as Judith Burton and Debbie Claybourne.
Though this is the first project the two have worked on together, Spencer says the way they fell into a rhythm was seamless.
“We were the only two people thought of for our roles, and then we both are active producers,” she told Hosking.
“We are vested in this from different vantage points, so it was easy.”
Waddingham agreed, telling Hosking they didn’t have to think about that bit at all.
“There was no kind of work required to find the chemistry – it was just there in spades.”
Waddingham was approached directly for the role by Spencer and the show’s creator Tessa Coates, Spencer saying they knew she was going to be as committed as she was.
“There’s nothing about that role that no one thought that Hannah would not be able to do."
“I mean, it’s a role of a lifetime, and my character is a role of my career,” Spencer told Hosking.
“And we both are playing characters that we've never, they're complete departures from anything that we've done.
Unsurprisingly, ‘Ride or Die’ is filled with action sequences and stunt work – none of which, Waddingham says, is CGI.
“I’ve got the bruises to prove it.”
“If I was going to get on board with this woman [Spencer] and with Tessa Coates, with this glorious piece of work, I wasn’t going to be the weak link.”
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It's hard to reconcile but the power of self interest is never to be underestimated.
Retail NZ is loving the look of the EU, who this month started a new tariff on cheap goods.
It's three euro per package for anything under 150 euros.
It's aimed at Temu and co.
It's an easy argument to make because who likes Temu? Who likes cheap, nasty, tacky, plastic-y stuff that pollutes the world and is made in mass factories, paying people dirt wages, if not slave wages? But the answer is, apparently, heaps of us.
Nothing sells a product to more people, more often, than a cheap price tag and that is why China is a powerhouse and that is why your Temu's have conquered the world.
So Retail NZ wants us to "do an EU" and tariff the same way.
The trouble is we are free traders. We basically invented free trade, we are good at free trade, and in terms of doing business with the world, no one operates an easier-access marketplace than us.
And boy have we, and we are, doing well out of it. Given that, you can't then go and be something else when it suits you.
Tariffs are poison because for every person you protect, someone else picks up the bill. And for every tariff you generate, you invite another player to generate one back.
We are the luckiest of consumers right now because we have lived through a moment in history where tariffs and their destructive outreaches have been on full display with thanks to the US President.
For a while there it looked like the free trade train that had built up a serious head of steam over the past 50 years was in danger of being completely derailed. The US unilaterally and randomly applied numbers to goods pulled out of a hat.
The Supreme Court quelled it. It's still not over, but Trump is going back and forth.
As a result, normal-ish business will be resumed with a Rubio, Vance, or Newsom-type White House.
In the meantime, as we revel in our continually record-breaking revenue streams from beef and lamb and kiwifruit to India, the US, China, and the EU, it's no time to be sending mixed messages on the way we conduct business.
Retail NZ – back in your box.
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The NRL is staying on Sky.
The television broadcaster has secured the rights for another seven years, starting in 2028 and running through until the end of the 2034 season.
The deal is reportedly worth $61 million a year – up to $20 million more than before.
Sky TV CEO Sophie Moloney told Mike Hosking that they definitely believed, and this has confirmed, that they are the right home for rugby league in New Zealand.
She says they’re absolutely thrilled that the combination of their premium sport and free to air offering has delivered this outcome.
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Questions are circling about how much progress New Zealand's actually made in the years since 1970.
An NZ Initiative report suggests it's a mixed bag, with genuine improvements that are largely going unseen alongside stubborn problems that refuse to budge.
On the positive side, fewer people are dying on the roads and life expectancy at birth has risen almost 11 years.
But on the other side, education and housing are lagging behind.
NZ Initiative executive director Oliver Hartwich told Mike Hosking the improvements they’ve tracked almost happen automatically – there are fewer road deaths because cars are getting safer and we’re living long because medicines are improving.
He says the issues we’re stagnating or falling behind on are the ones where it would demand bold reformers to actually improve the situation.
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On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Wednesday 8th of July, what will happen with the Official Cash Rate?
Sky boss Sophie Moloney speaks from Australia after securing the NRL rights in a record deal.
Ginny Andersen and Mark Mitchell talk emergency declarations, the perils of door knocking, and whether we might get election fatigue 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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