The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Federated Farmers have quite rightly raised what you would loosely call "the alarm" around a rush of new deals between councils and local Māori.
The rush is on because of the Government's new Natural Environment and Planning bills.
They were released late last year, saying you can't do local Māori deals under it. It's passed its first reading and is sitting at committee level and due back soon.
Like rust, councils don’t sleep, so the deals are being inked. Canterbury is the latest, but deals have already been done in Manawatu, Whanganui, Northland, and Taranaki.
Obviously, we could focus on the duplicitous nature of all this. We could focus on the fundamental dishonesty of giving people a say over major matters without having to ever face a voter.
But let us, for this moment in time, wonder aloud whether this very sort of thing might be a reason for the softness in the National Party vote at the moment.
We are late in the term and, yes, there was a lot to do to try and stitch up the chaos Labour left behind.
But the Māorification of this country was a centrepiece for all the players in the current Government, and yet you can argue, and I do, that it never got the attention it needed.
It never seemed to have the urgency.
It started with the smaller, you could argue, simpler stuff i.e. Māori names for everything. There should have been stroke-of-pen edicts that ended the nonsense on the spot.
We had the vote at local level around Māori wards. That was democracy in action as some kept them, some didn’t. But at least we had a say.
But stitch-up deals with local tribes who decide what gets done and doesn’t, simply because of race, is a gargantuan example of what needed addressing on day one.
Here we are on day 962 and we still haven't closed it off and, given it's July and Parliament rises in September, there are only a handful of sitting days left. ChatGPT tells me there's only ten.
I assume they plan to pass it in that time, but in the ensuing period the piss is well and truly being taken.
Delivery is everything in government.
On this, even if they deliver, they have looked lackadaisical in their approach, hence the bleeding of support.
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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.

ACT: 8/10
A lot has yet to unfold but the Paul Henry move, so far, looks like a stroke of political genius.

NZ Inc: 7/10
An encouraging week with manufacturing, services, and confidence all up. Slowly but surely.

The World Cup: 8/10
There isn't an economically associated story I have seen that hasn’t been glowing and/or upbeat about it. It's a massive success.

Brendon McCullum: 6/10
On balance, he's been a net gain for England cricket, and he has kept 66% of the jobs.

Keir Starmer: 4/10
To hear him leave was an exercise in self-important gibberish. He lasted five minutes and cocked it up to the point they knifed him. Give the man the Legion of Honour...

LISTEN ABOVE FOR MIKE HOSKING'S FULL WEEK IN REVIEW
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Like so many debates in this country, another one has restarted, this time around Superannuation.
Some economists have taken to their calculators and looked at who earns what in retirement.
9% of over 65s are earning more than $100k a year.
3.6% are earning more than $150k a year.
A smidge over 2% are earning more than $180k a year.
Now that’s almost 15% earning at least a six-figure salary, which I was pleasantly surprised about given the general Super debate is predicated on the idea everyone in retirement can't make ends meet, are cold because they haven't got a heater, and generally aren't eating properly because lamb chops are beyond the budget.
Anyway, upon crunching these numbers said economists asked: why don’t we means-test Super?
They are of the camp Super is not affordable.
That is still in some doubt, and while it is in some doubt, we haven't been able to get past the first hurdle and the first hurdle is: why don’t we raise the retirement age?
Close followers of this increasingly laborious debate will have noted we can't even get any sort of agreement on age, so why you would raise a means test is beyond me.
Age at least doesn’t change the fundamental underpinnings of Super i.e. it's an entitlement and age is the sole trigger.
Means-testing puts it into a whole new category, and the category would be called a benefit. Age becomes secondary to your means.
"Welcome to your golden years. Oh, you're rich? Well, nothing for you".
But what about my contribution to the tax base and the state of the nation? "Oh yes, they were old rules that only counts if you're broke".
If you ever opened that Pandora's box, you may as well do away with Super altogether. Because once you turn it into a benefit you may as well call it Jobseeker – you're simply 68-years-old and unemployed.
When in the modern age, given the reason for upping the age of entitlement is partially based on the idea that people live and work longer, are you actually no longer working?
If 65 is too young to retire, when is a good age? That's another debate that will go nowhere.
There should be a new rule: don't start new debates until old ones are settled.
And given we are still at 65-years-old after literally decades of going nowhere, then means-testing Super is wasting our time.
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US President Donald Trump is set to make a nation-wide address today, and elections and voting machines are on the agenda.
The primetime speech is expected to reveal information from newly declassified intelligence on investigations into US elections, and what the White House says are voting machine vulnerabilities.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says that people will find details of the address "shocking", and that the issue should be nonpartisan.
US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking that Trump has been pressing claims about fraud and interference since his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
He says over 60 lawsuits have been filed since challenging the results, all of which, barring one that gave him a minor point, lost.
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It’s Friday, which means Kate Hawkesby and Tim Wilson are back with Mike Hosking to Wrap the Week that Was.
They discussed Paul Henry’s shift into politics, Kate’s degree and whether working while studying makes you do better, and life in America.
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