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.

The war: 6/10
It ended the way at least some thought it would: within six weeks, with last minute high drama. Now there'll be a bit of back and forward, but eventually, like all Middle East conflicts, we will all go home.

Artemis II: 7/10
I have failed to get as fizzed as some, but the other side of the moon is cool. The photos were cool, even if you saw the same thing 50 years ago.

The pilot rescue: 6/10
Brilliantly executed and brilliantly sold, especially by Pete Hegseth. But you only rescue a bloke in a cave if someone shot you out of the sky. Ol' Pete didn’t tell you too much about that.

Commodities: 9/10
Another week, another record for NZ Inc. Pretty much everything we sell is going gangbusters.

Macron: 7/10
World leader of the week. When having been insulted by Trump, he told him to be serious and stop talking every day. He sounded adult at a time when Trump sounded deranged, petty and childish.

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Here is an irony for you.
Could it be that the Prime Minister, the one so disliked by the media, is actually so good at his job that his numbers are a result of his excellence?
The pollster David Farrar has broken down the NZ First poll numbers this week.
Now, small warning – the NZ First poll numbers are not accurate given NZ First went up 4%, which is a 30%-ish swing in their favour.
As I said this week, parties don’t go up or down at that rate ever. But it is true to say NZ First is on a bit of a roll. Multiple polls show a growth in support.
Farrar's breakdown showed the majority of the new support has come from National.
Why? Well NZ First for some will be what National aren't: straight up and down, hard arse and no nonsense. Winston Peters and Shane Jones tell it like it is and in a divided world there is an appeal to that.
There was a good piece in the Sydney Morning Herald reporting the same thing. Major parties have cocked it up for decades, so Pauline Hanson comes along and it's her time to shine.
Back here, what has Luxon got to do with it? Well, whether you support the Government or not, he has held together a very successful collab, with three parties for the first time ever in an official arrangement.
They work together and get along together and that has brought faith in the idea that you can have MMP and small parties can not only survive but prosper. All three parties will go to the election this year in good standing.
You have not been able to say that in the MMP era before. From the Alliance Party to the Māori Party, to the Greens, to NZ First themselves, all minor parties have previously suffered, if not vanished, while in Government or in Government arrangements.
The Luxon CEO approach, open to much media derision, has in fact paid dividends, so much so that his own party might have bled support. Such is the confidence he has been able to foster in a mature and adult arrangement, whereas the election draws closer, it isn't every man for himself.
Ironically, it's the downside to success. But as I said earlier this week, the days of major parties being well into the 30s is going, if not gone. You can't have 10-12% smaller players and hold 35%+. The numbers don’t work.
If the left ever got a solid third player, Labour would face the same issue.
National won't be enjoying this truth. But if you're an MMP fan, the maturity of what we have seen this past two and a bit years cements the future for potentially stable and adult Government.
It's the model as to how it should be done.
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Home-base preparations ahead of Artemis II's crew splash down off California's coast on Saturday afternoon.
The four astronauts are on the return trip to Earth after their historic lunar flyby.
NASA landing and recovery director, Liliana Villarreal says a ship's heading towards the capsule landing zone.
The crew will then be helicoptered to dry land, for post-flight medical checks.
US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking the ship will pierce the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of just over 40,000 kilometres an hour – seven times the speed of sound.
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Friday has come once more which means it’s time for Kate Hawkesby and Tim Wilson to Wrap the Week that was.
They discussed the state of the conflict in the Middle East and the ceasefire negotiations, the follow up to the ‘Jury Duty’ TV show, and the upcoming return of the Artemis II.
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New research has highlighted an issue hidden beneath our feet.
A Ministry for the Environment report shows E. coli has been detected in almost half of monitored groundwater sites since 2019.
Nitrate levels have risen more than a third in the past two decades, and 63% of New Zealand's lakes had poor or very poor health.
Water NZ CEO Gillian Blythe told Mike Hosking a critical piece of information highlighted by the report is that what we do with some water environments won’t show up for decades.
She says that things they were doing in the early 2000s are only beginning to appear now, so they need to think about not just the day-to-day decisions, but also the impact on generations and the environment in the future.
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