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.

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...

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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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After eight years, Kiwi music icon Gin Wigmore has released a new album.
‘Beautiful Mess’ is her fourth studio album, and has been described as her most personal record yet – drawing on her experiences with love, divorce, motherhood, and rebuilding her life.
It’s an exciting day for Wigmore, with the full album dropping earlier this morning.
“It’s like giving birth but way less painful – it's awesome,” she told Mike Hosking.
Despite having other albums under her belt, Wigmore still feels the pressure that comes with releasing new music.
“It’s such a feat to put out an album for me now,” she explained.
“To be focused and have the time to actually do it, and so now it just feels way more of a feat to have had this done, and to have this out today.”
“It just feels like this really great amount of support around it ... it honestly, it feels like Christmas.”
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