Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Lost your passport in Austria? In need of assistance? If you're a US citizen, there's a new way to deal with common travel problems.
Under the terms of a new partnership between McDonald's Austria and the US Embassy in Vienna, staff at the fast food restaurants will help travellers in need.
"American citizens travelling in Austria who find themselves in distress and without a way to contact the U.S. Embassy can enter -- as of Wednesday, May 15, 2019 -- any McDonald's in Austria, and staff will assist them in making contact with the U.S. Embassy for consular services," reads a post on the US Embassy's Facebook page announcing the move.
These services include providing solutions for a lost or stolen passport, and offering travel assistance, according to the post.
A Memorandum of Agreement was signed on Friday, and the new arrangement came into force on Wednesday.
Some Facebook users were supportive of the move, while others were less enthusiastic.
"Because apparently we are too incompetent to look up the us embassy online??" wrote one, while another asked if the McDonald's partnership would replace a staffed embassy.
"Certainly not. Our Embassy is fully staffed and ready to assist American citizens in need," responded the embassy account.
"This partnership is only one extra way for Americans to connect to the Embassy when they are in an emergency situation."
CNN has attempted to contact both McDonald's Austria and the US Embassy in Vienna for comment.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A film director says his crews have met families of mosque attack victims in preparation for making a movie about the March 15 shootings.
UK-based Egyptian director Moez Masoud says he plans to make a film, tentatively titled “Hello Brother”, the words spoken to the accused gunman as he entered Christchurch's Al Noor mosque.
He says his goal is to help the audience with the healing process and make people understand each other better.
But Al Noor Masjid spokesman Anthony Green found the movie talk "a little bit staggering".
He also briefly met co-writer Rick Castaneda yesterday and found him "sketchy" on details.
"No proper discussion has taken place. Just how it's got to this point is quite surprising, to be honest," Green said.
"I'm not interested in movies. The last thing I want is a Hollywood treatment or dramatisation.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Drama continues in Parliament after Nick Smith was named and suspended from Parliament. 
National MP Nick Smith has been relegated to being a spectator at a Justice Select Committee in Parliament this morning.
Smith is meant to be on the committee looking at our general and local elections - including the issue of foreign interference.
However, he was named and suspended from the debating chamber for 24 hours yesterday, after clashing with Police Minister Stuart Nash and Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard.
There was a flurry of activity between the clerks and Smith at the start of submissions, and a Labour MP questioned his attendance, but he’s remained in the public seating area at the back of the room.
ZB political editor Barry Soper says that even though Smith won't be in the debating chamber today, he expects to see the incident come up amongst politicians. 
Soper told Andrew Dickens that this all started after Smith tried to seek leave for a National bill around roadside drug testing to be moved to the top of the order paper at the next Private Member's Day.
"The Speaker said no, leave is not granted. It's really not for the Speaker to deny leave. What he's duty bound to do is put the question to the House and let the MPs decide, and he overruled that." 
Soper says that this all happened after some disorder in the public gallery.
"After Karen Dow, who's son was killed by a drunk driver, and she called out from the public gallery, and she yelled at Stuart Nash, the Police Minister.
"She had brought a petition for roadside drug testing to Parliament. When she launched that petition at the end of last year,  Stuart Nash had said a discussion document had already been approved by Cabinet and would go to consultation early this year."
Nash denied making the comment yesterday, but Smith still intended to move on his bill. 
"He mouthed something at the Speaker, he was sent on his way, and on his way he said 'soft on drugs, just like the Government'," which is the comment that saw Smith being named and barred from Parliament.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It gives me no pleasure at all to gloat over the government's apparent failure with Kiwibuild.
There are some opponents of this coalition who almost seem gleeful when recounting the disappointments of one of the government's principal policy planks. There are no winners when a bad idea is ripped apart but no-one has an alternative option.
The reason I'm not cheering in the street is that I was hoping that the state could have helped in what I've always considered is a generational disaster.
There are just not enough houses, in the right places, at the right quality and with the right design in this country. It goes back to just after the second world war. From time to time we tried like the state house expansion, but again the sprawling suburbs, the acres of unused land, the absence of transport options only added to our problems.
When this government said it would help with something called Kiwibuild, I wondered how it would work. I'm still wondering. It appears to be subsidising plans that were already happening. The worst part of their promise was not the ridiculously ambitious number but the adjective. They said 100,000 EXTRA houses in 10 years. Extra. I haven't seen extra houses. Actually, I've barely seen any houses at all.
Attacking Kiwibuild is like shooting fish in a tank. What I'm wondering about is the new Housing and Urban Development Authority. What's happening there.
Just to remind you, last November Phil Twyford announced the creation of the new Crown agency with "cut-through powers" to consolidate both Housing New Zealand and KiwiBuild in a bid to tackle housing shortages of all types.
It will have broad powers, including being able to ignore existing council designations, amend or write its own by-laws and grant its own resource consent, and councils will have no veto power. "It's going to be a tooled-up agency that can cut through the red tape." It's main goal was to make brownfield and intensification projects possible which at the moment are being stymied by NIMBYs and Council bylaws.
It's actually quite a good crisis measure. Phil Twyford promised legislation this year and the agency up and running by 2020. Haven't heard a peep yet.
If this is a crisis, then get a move on. It opens up this government to more accusations of talking the talk and not walking the walk.
Meanwhile, the fires keep burning. Yesterday, the Reserve Bank cut interest rates to a record low. They say the economy is looking tepid. Why? The global economy and all the talk coming out of the government.
Bank deposit rates will drop and there's a generation of savers looking to make the most of their nest egg in an environment of cheap loan money, now that the threat of Capital Gains Tax has disappeared.
I opened the lines yesterday and asked what are you going to do in this low interest rate environment? Virtually all said invest in property. It's always been a winner because there's never been enough.
Some are already saying a new wave of property inflation is building up and it will take off next year. Welcome back to the so called crisis. And it is not beyond the pale to blame the current government for it.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

French beauty retailer Sephora has today confirmed its plans for expansion in New Zealand and that it will open its first store in Auckland this year.
Sephora's first local store - a flagship three-storey fitout - will open at 146-152 Queen Street this year. It has not announced when exactly it will open but is reportedly spending more than $5 million on the retail space.
The large store will be housed in a heritage building and will be similar in concept to other flagship stores it has located in major cities around the world. The fitout includes an elevator, interesting lighting fixtures, an outside canopy and elaborate signage.
The store will "pay homage to the retailer's global brand by incorporating iconic black and white striped" designs, Sephora said.
"It will definitely stick out," a source told the Herald last month when news of Sephora's first store broke.
The first New Zealand Sephora store follows further expansion into the Asian markets. The retailer currently operates in 12 countries it classifies in the region including Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and Korea.
Sephora launched its New Zealand e-commerce store at the end of 2015 and has had a local company registered with Companies Office for quite some time.
Pedro Coutinho, interim general manager of Sephora Australia and New Zealand, said the Auckland store would be a "destination like no other".
"We are so excited to introduce our renowned service offering, a suite of the most sought after beauty brands from around the world and a fun place for our clients to experience and explore their own beauty journey," Coutinho said.
"We've listened to what our online clients want from Sephora, and this newAuckland location will help us deliver it."
Sephora Asia president Benjamin Vuchot said New Zealand will be a key market for building the brands presence in its Asian region.
"This expansion to a new market will allow Sephora to continue to amplify global beauty trends locally, elevate what our clients expect of the in-store experience and bring fresh, digital touch points to the retail environment to create a virtual, client-centric cycle."
The Herald has been pressing Sephora for information on its New Zealand launch for quite some time but the retailer has remained tight-lipped until now.
It is also understood that Sephora is working on the fitout for a second Auckland store in Sylvia Park in Mount Wellington, New Zealand's largest mall. It is yet to confirm these plans.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Too often I hear news that concerns me, that a decent society seems to become harder to achieve year after year.
Too often I hear about the behaviour of parents and leaders which provide the wrong example for the next generations.
Today it’s the assaults and physical violence that school principals and teachers are experiencing and it’s how its getting worse.
The findings of the New Zealand Primary School Leaders' Occupational Health and Wellbeing Survey were released this morning. Over 1400 principals have contributed to it.
It found principals, deputies and associates were almost 12 times more likely to be subjected to physical violence compared to the rest of the general population last year – up from seven times in 2016.
Most of the assaults were from challenged students and that’s a legacy of mainstreaming, which is not something that worries me, but it is representative of the extra societal responsibilities that have been laid on teachers' laps over the past 30 years. But the NZEI is already saying this shows that our schools need more resources to deal with a tide of challenged students that appears to grow.
But it’s also notable to see that threats and violence against school leaders by parents are increasing. It’s part of the general disregard for authority that has grown through the years. And how bad is the example being set when parents are attacking or threatening principals and teachers. It’s very hard to get kids to respect and obey their teachers when their parents are prepared to unleash on educators.
It joins a long list of atrociously inappropriate behaviour, most notably the violence statistics that emerged out of our emergency departments at hospitals. People charged with saving life are getting clobbered by fools. Just a week ago a report came out that showed that lives have been lost as ambulance officers wait for safe conditions to enter a scene. Again the very people there to help are being hindered for no good reason.
And it’s all strata of society. Concerns have been raised at the outflux of civil servants at parliament. Allegations of bullying have been levelled at managers, senior secretaries and even MPs.
When the bullying of our kids makes a headline, we get all outraged and hissy but to be honest the kids are just doing what they learnt. New Zealand has a forthright, hierarchical and assertive culture and it means bullying is endemic. To all of us. If we’re worried about bullying sometimes you just need to look at the man in the mirror and make that change.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new documentary has shed new light on the 'second wave' of New Zealand's meth crisis. 
On June 12, 2016 police seized almost 500kg of methamphetamine at a remote beach in Northland. That single find, with a street value of $450 million, was bigger than the total seizures of the previous two years combined. The find sparked the origins of Fighting the Demon, a new documentary from the New Zealand Herald that looks into the new era of meth addiction in New Zealand. For 20 years, law enforcement had fought to eradicate the drug and lost. Now meth is purer and more available than ever before. 
Reporter Kirsty Johnston joined Andrew Dickens to discuss the documentary and what she discovered while working on it.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As we worry about the environment and the human species’ effect on it, I find the debate is so easily derailed.
Yesterday, Raylene Ramsay talked with us in this show about the lack of sunscreen in Tuvalu, the Pacific Nation north of Fiji.  Quoting from a Guardian story she repeated the old mantra that Tuvalu is sinking under the waves because of climate change. Tuvalu is often touted as the country most likely to disappear through sea level rise.
Well, that prompted a mad flurry of texts and emails from listeners claiming that was fake news used to promote the global conspiracy of human caused climate change.
Of course it is a fallacy.  Firstly Tuvalu is not one island, it’s a collection of nine sparsely populated atolls. Being atolls they are barely above sea level, but they’re also dynamic evolving land masses.  And the unfortunate fact is that they are growing because of organic accumulation.
A University of Auckland study examined changes in the geography of Tuvalu's nine atolls and 101 reef islands between 1971 and 2014, using aerial photographs and satellite imagery.
It found eight of the atolls and almost three-quarters of the islands actually grew during the study period, lifting Tuvalu's total land area by 2.9 percent, even though sea levels in the country rose at twice the global average.  Tuvalu’s islands are growing faster than the sea is rising.
But the study does confirm that sea levels are rising.  Which they are.  Just not as much as the climate change activists would like.
The whole problem with the CO2 emission, Global Warming, Sea Rising Crisis is that most of us can see almost no real evidence of it with our own two eyes. Tuvalu is not sinking. If Wellington harbour was 10 centimetres higher than it was a generation ago I’m pretty sure we’d all be more freaked out than we are.
So, overnight we saw the most comprehensive report on the global state of biodiversity to date which found one million species are threatened with extinction.  If comes from the UN which raises denier suspicion and people are cynical after the whole global warming shouting match. But once you get beyond the neat and tidy statements that were simplified for effect, it is a sobering document because you can actually see the changes it mentions with your own eyes.
It points out the rate of species extinctions is accelerating.  Humans have significantly altered three-quarters of the land-based environment.  More than a third of the world's land surface and nearly three-quarters of freshwater resources are devoted to crop or livestock production.  Our insatiable appetites are producing a mountain of waste.  Plastic pollution has increased ten-fold since 1980.
Every year we dump 300-400 million tonnes of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge and other wastes into the waters of the world.  It says this will have grave effects on us.
Let’s take the emotion out of it. Drive this country and see how we’ve altered it.  We have created a new balance. If we pretend we haven’t then there’s trouble.
We are dirty polluting scavengers.  Don’t worry about global warming and the seas rising.  We’re already drowning in a sea of waste.  If there’s a crisis it’s this one, not the fossil fuels. Sure ride a bike if you want, but for goodness sake, Be a Tidy Kiwi

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rowena Duncum joins Andrew Dickens to talk about duck shooting as the hunting season gets underway.
It'll be the first season since the Christchurch mosque attacks on March 15.
Duncum says the season overall shouldn't be affected too much by the attacks, but a few things have been noted.
"This year they've (Fish and Game) pushed the message that hunters just need to be extra sensitive to the public's reaction."
Duncum adds that those participating need to remember things such as how they transport their firearms and the potential reaction to gun shot sounds.
LISTEN TO ROWENA DUNCUM TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVE.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Destiny Church leader Bishop Brian Tamaki's tweet that he was the victim of an attempted "political gang rape" by senior Government ministers is offensive, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.
Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis called it "disgusting".
Tamaki today ramped up his war of words with the Government, tweeting that it looked like Ardern, Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Davis had tried a "political gang rape" on him.
The tweet was his latest response in a battle over Destiny Church's Man Up programme, which Tamaki wants to introduce into the country's prisons.
Tamaki told the Herald today his reference to gang rape was nothing to do with the experience of people who had been raped but referred instead to a "planned assault by Labour's top MPs on his character".
He said that to liken his use of the phrase to the act of gang rape was to "pervert what my real meaning is there because that's nothing to do with that at all".
"The term is about three senior Cabinet Ministers … ranting about a prison reform programme, a successful one at that – Man Up – ranting on social media and one of them criticising me. Don't you think that's a bit more than coincidence?

Finance Minister Grant Robertson ridicules Destiny Church's Brian Tamaki https://t.co/ZLvVReEmj5 pic.twitter.com/lvDHCSBv7P
— Newshub (@NewshubNZ) April 29, 2019



"Our prison system is in a serious condition and Kelvin's got no answers to it."
Ardern told reporters today she had not seen Tamaki's latest tweet but said the use of the phrase "gang rape" to describe his treatment by the Government was offensive.
"If he wants his programme in prisons, if he wants to do good, then he should engage with us, not send offensive tweets.
"He's certainly not helping himself," Ardern said of Tamaki's attempts to get the Man Up programme in prisons.
Davis called the tweet "disgusting. It's offensive on every level. If that's his form of Christianity I don't think many people want that".
"I think it speaks volumes about the sort of person he is. Who writes that sort of stuff? First of all trying to incite violence, revolts in prison, then expect me to allow him to go in there. There's no way that's going to happen."
Davis said he was seeking advice from Corrections on Tamaki's access to prisons but said he had "blown it".
"It would just be irresponsible of me to say 'away you go Brian, all is forgiven'."
He said Tamaki had produced a "Bingo sheet" of numbers on a piece of paper as proof that the Man Up programme worked.
"Just numbers on it, pretty random."
Justice Minister Andrew Little said any decision on the use of the Man Up programme in prisons was a matter for Davis. He called Tamaki's tweets "hot-headed stuff" and out of line.
"He says he's committed to doing his bit to address the issue of family violence, domestic violence and try to turn lives around. You don't do that by what looked like threats."
Little did not rule out the use of the Man Up programme to address family violence but said if Destiny Church wanted public money, it had to be open to scrutiny.
Tamaki warned yesterday of revolts in prisons if the Government continued to deny access to the programme.
The Government and Corrections have repeatedly said Destiny Church has never made an application to run the course in Corrections' facilities.

We will plan thru Private Visits to inmates in every Prison to bring ManUp in nd cause inmate revolts in evey prison..The Human Rights Commission is nxt visit MP Jacinda Ardern..My People Maori r denied access to an Indigenous Progm that works..Im Warning You pic.twitter.com/GwkBrFeRVh
— Bishop Brian Tamaki (@BishopTamaki) April 28, 2019



Ardern said yesterday it was "irresponsible" for Tamaki to incite violence in prisons.
"We've made the...

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.