Andrew Dickens Afternoons

So if the first major poll of the year is to be believed then Labour is well loved. Prime MinisterJacinda Ardern is the best person to lead the nation by a country mile and Simon Bridges just can’t cut through when he’s being beaten by Judith Collins.
That last finding is surprising because it’s not as though Judith Collins has been striding across the news and being very visible. A quick search shows that Simon Bridges has made the news 10 times as much as Judith Collins, who once a week fires off a Kiwibuild attack and once a week gets an opinion piece written about her as a possible leader.
That all leads me to say that Judith Collins always had more base appeal than Simon Bridges and Mr Bridges, despite a wealth of time on our screens and our radios, has not grown his support. This poll is an indication of Bridges' weaknesses, not Judith Collins strengths.
Then there’s the strength of the Prime Minister’s support which never fails to gobsmack her opponents.  I have often warned that National supporters are sounding a little too much like Democrats in the States. Still unbelieving that their party managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat they keep praying that Jacindamania will suddenly implode and she’ll disappear.
Well, that still hasn’t happened and what this poll actually says to me, is that we have one of the poorest crops of politicians that I’ve seen on all sides of the house. The ones who are rating are the best of a bad bunch.
I’ve been asking people lately which politicians they rate. Which ones they feel comfortable with and who they think is competent. Grant Robertson is coming up more and more. Mark Mitchell. Kris Faafoi. Stewart Nash has some traction for a while until he went nuts over some barbells and a friend of mine called him Trevor Mallard lite, which I thought was quite good.
When Jacinda is mentioned much is made of her ability to sell her parties ideas. He so called PR speak and proficiency. Yet I’m not so sure she’s still got the knack
What’s interesting looking back over the stories published by the media over the past 6 months is the absolute caning the government has got from what conservatives call the left wing biased mainstream media. Sroubech, Kiwibuild, Capital Gains Tax, the Provincial Growth Fund.  The Working Groups.
So Jacinda and her team know that the knives are out on any slip-up and they should be ready to fight back. After Waitangi Day Mike Hosking pointed out that the Prime Minister had over-egged the Maori unemployment figures. It wasn’t a biggie, the figures are the lowest in a decade, but they haven’t been caused by this government, but as Mike said it went to credibility. So this morning he put it to Jacinda. She must have known it was coming, but she fudged and claimed not to know the context. Just as she also fudged the Wanaka Kiwibuild story.
She got a caning from apoplectic opponents on the text machine.
To me, it seems that someone isn’t keeping their eye on the ball. Either in her office when it comes to briefing or maybe the PM is believing her own Teflon press.

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Hungary's government is greatly increasing financial aid and subsidies for families with several children, the country's prime minister said Sunday.
The measures announced by Viktor Orban during his "state of the nation" speech are meant to encourage women to have more children and reverse Hungary's population decline.
The benefits include a lifetime personal income-tax exemption for women who give birth and raise at least four children; a subsidy of 2.5 million forints ($8,825) toward the purchase a seven-seat vehicle for families with three or more children; and a low-interest loan of 10 million forints ($35,300) for women under age 40 who are marrying for the first time.
Orban, who has made "zero tolerance" for immigration his main theme in the past four years and was elected to a third consecutive term in April, said the initiative is meant to "ensure the survival of the Hungarian nation."
"This is the Hungarians' answer, not immigration," Orban said.
The prime minister also listed some of his government's economic achievements — such as low unemployment — and vowed to fight poverty.
Orban then turned his attention to May's European Parliament elections, repeating his accusation that the leadership of the European Union wants to fill the continent with migrants, most of them Muslim.
"We have to understand that the European peoples have come to a historical crossroads," Orban said. "Those who decide in favor of immigration and migrants, no matter why they do so, are in fact creating a country with a mixed population."
Europe's left-wing has become "the gravedigger of nations, the family and the Christian way of life," Orban said.
After his speech, several hundred members and supporters of Hungary's main opposition parties held an anti-Orban rally that started in Buda Castle. The event also was aimed at protesting recent heavy fines the state audit office imposed on several opposition parties. A small group of protesters used their cars to block traffic from crossing the Chain Bridge over the Danube River for most of the day.
Opposition leaders said the fines, which cannot be challenged in Hungarian courts, were politically motivated and meant to hinder their campaigns for the European Parliament and municipal elections in Hungary later this year.

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So I woke up this morning and turned on the radio at 6.15 and the first words I heard was Niva Retimanu saying, “café that wrote Asians on docket called racist, read more at NZHerald.co.nz".
I thought here we go again. More excessive outrage, more calls for retribution, more explosive reaction back, more argument.
Why are we all so up for a fight these days? Easily offended and then ready to fight back with no holds barred, often about relatively minuscule things. One can only suppose that we are so comfortable in our lives that the irritants in it get amplified. Mosquito bites become snake bites.
So I’ve read the article. On Sunday, a café wrote Asians on their docket to identify the party that had ordered. The New Zealand born, Asian woman concerned has complained and posted to the cafes Facebook page. The paper has reported that the page was inundated with complaints.
READ MORE: Racism row: Comment on Auckland restaurant receipt leaves woman shocked
So I wandered over to the café’s Facebook page. Funny sort of inundation. There was the original complaint and one other poster who was supporting her. So firstly this is not outrage but it’s worth a moment’s reflection
Is describing an Asian as Asian racism? If so here’s a question, was the film called Crazy Rich Asians racist? Should we have complained and got the thing called Crazy Rich Singaporeans?
The thing about racism is that the victim gets treated worse or given some sort of prejudice based on their race. This looks as though all they were doing was trying to ensure the order went to the right people, and they wanted the most unique or differentiating aspect of the group to do it.
The other thing about racism is that it has to be a slur. That the race offended has to be thought of as inferior. But there’s no suggestion of inferiority on the docket. There was another racist docket affair at the end of last year in New York but there the Asian was described by her eyes and a descriptor that I won’t use on the radio. So that was definitely a thing
On Friday, when we were discussing a bit of low-level sexism a guy phoned the show and said when trying to understand another’s point of view you need to put yourself in their shoes. So if I was the only European at a restaurant that serves Asian food and the waiting staff put European on the docket would I be offended? I don’t think so. If they called me white trash or honky or something I might for a moment.
My problem with this story is the original complainant who found being described as her own race an insult. I wonder why that is? I presume that throughout her life she’s heard being described as an Asian as being part of a slur, and now it’s got to a point where in her own mind whenever she hears herself described as an Asian she takes offence.
That is sad. The ultimate goal of racism is to reduce the power of a race and this complainant has just played along.

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Should New Zealand change it's name to Aotearoa full time? 
A petition has been launched to officially include the Maori name in our official title. 
The possibilities were highlighted on Waitangi Day, when the New Zealand cricket teams wore Aotearoa on the shirts for their test against India.
Andrew Dickens says that the change got him thinking about how things can progress slowly and eventually be accepted.
"Little by little, inch by inch, things change. When in the nineties, a woman decided to sing the New Zealand national anthem at Twickenham, first in Maori and then in English, there was shock and outrage, but now it's perfectly acceptable."
Most talkback callers were in favour of the change, saying that it simply makes sense to incorporate it until our name. 
Caller Jamie says that if the flag referendum had included the option of a name change, he would have voted in support. 
However, callers were less enthusiastic about including more New Zealand history in our education.

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Two news stories are raising the profile of a growing movement to push back against having children.
One Colombian couple, Natalie and Andres, took to Facebook to make a firm stand against having children, posing with a photo for his vasectomy appointment.
Their reason? As well as the usual reasons around having disposable income, the two say they want to "contribute to the conservation of the planet that is so over-populated and damaged."

Their claims raised eyebrows and propelled them into the global spotlight, with over 56,000 people sharing their post and over 1,600 commenting. 
It comes as one man has made global headlines for taking action against his parents for giving birth to him. 
Raphael Samuel, 27, from Mumbai, believes that his parents should have asked for his permission before conceiving him, likening the actions as being akin to kidnapping and slavery. 
His mother told the DailyMail she is pleased her son is a fearless, independent thinker, and will accept she is to blame if he can provide a "rational explanation" as to how they could have asked his permission.

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What a lovely Waitangi day. We spent the morning at the beach. Had a meal at a café and fell asleep in the afternoon. Then fired up the barbecue and sat down to watch the cricket in Wellington.
It was a bit of a surprise to see everyone rugged up like it was autumn, but I’m sure the cool change was welcome, particularly in Nelson where two terrible fires were raging. Perhaps not so much at the Phil Collins concert in Hawkes Bay!
It was a lovely night of cricket watching as both the men and women’s cricket teams took good revenge against the Indians.
It was particularly pleasing to watch the women. The White Ferns posted a good enough 159 for four. But the Indians at the 12th over were cruising at 102 for one. We’d given up watching and were cooking in the kitchen, listening to the radio and then the collapse happened and it was riveting. The final nine wickets falling for just 34 runs.
We’d rushed back to the TV. The crowd was in good voice. What a good thing for women’s sport. Sharing a big stage they showed that drama is drama, no matter who’s playing.
Then the men came and completely conquered.  Seifert’s great opening knock. Given a surprise place at the top of the innings because of Guptill’s back injury he took the chance with both hands scoring 84 runs off 43 balls, featuring six sixes. Roy of the Rovers stuff and now he’s in fine contention for this year's world cup.
The Black Caps went on to set a stadium record then skittled the Indians with Tim Southee, in particular, looking sharp.
The whole time they were playing in a shirt that said Aotearoa. Both the White Ferns and the Black Caps had swapped out New Zealand for Aotearoa on the front of their shirts in commemoration of Waitangi Day.  This had passed me by during the week and so I was taken by surprise.  Apparently, it’s not the first time this has happened, they did during an ODI series against Zimbabwe in 2015
The shirts looked great. I liked it. I wondered if NZ Cricket was brave enough to have the same shirts for the rest of the season, which they’re not. 
The shirts led to a conversation about why we’re called New Zealand from the boys, which horrified me to be fair. So I told them about Abel Tasman arriving in 1642 and naming us after a province in the Netherlands. It was priceless to see their faces and hear them asking what on earth Zealand has to do with us. It’s a fair point. It’s also a fair point that Simon Bridges made at Waitangi that we need more New Zealand history taught at schools.
I told them I have some radical friends who reckon that within 10 to 20 years we’ll be called Aotearoa. That didn’t worry them but they said it would be sad to lose New Zealand as it was all they had ever known.
Now I’m not going to suggest that we start changing the name of the country.  Anyone who lived through hosting talkback during the flag debate knows that’s never going to win friends or influence people.
But I am going to say that when you step aside from your own personal history with the country and the flag, and you look at the reasons we made the decisions to be called New Zealand with a particular flag you realise that it’s bonkers in 2018. With a new generation coming up that is not as attached to these traditions and history, then perhaps my radical friends are right.

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"I don't think this government has the leadership or communication to get a fair capital gains tax across the line."
Andrew Dickens asked the question 'Can this government deliver a capital gains tax which is fair to all?' on his afternoon show.
Callers into the show expressed their opinions on the issue.
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO ABOVE

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The record holder for the most liked image on Instagram is now using the popularity for good.
world_record_egg was launched at the start of the year as a harmless attempt to claim Instagram's record, besting the 18 million likes that Kylie Jenner had racked up with a photo of her daughter, Stormi.












View this post on Instagram

Let’s set a world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram. Beating the current world record held by Kylie Jenner (18 million)! We got this 🙌 #LikeTheEgg #EggSoldiers #EggGang
A post shared by EGG GANG 🌍 (@world_record_egg) on Jan 4, 2019 at 9:05am PST





The campaign was successful, rapidly suprassing the target. The photo, of a simple egg, now has 52 million likes.
Now, the team behind the egg have stepped into the spotlight as they use the fame for good. 
They have launched talkingegg.info, a site that collates links to various mental health services around the world.












View this post on Instagram

Phew! I feel so much better now 😊 If you’re feeling the pressure, visit talkingegg.info to find out more. Let’s build this list together 🙌 #EggGang #WeGotThis #TalkingEgg
A post shared by EGG GANG 🌍 (@world_record_egg) on Feb 4, 2019 at 4:06am PST





In an ad to mark their new venture, the egg, known as Eugene, is shown cracking into pieces under the pressure of its fame, but is reformed after talking about it.
Speaking about the campaigne, 29-year-old London-based advertising executive Chris Godfrey told the New York Times that he came up with the record-breaking idea as a way to challenge the title being held by a celebrity.
As for why he picked an egg, Godfrey told the newspaper: “An egg has no gender, race or religion. An egg is an egg, it’s universal."

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Last week at this time I criticised the Prime Minister for not appearing for her regular Tuesday state of the nation interviews with the country’s electronic media. She had a logic for it but I said it didn’t make political sense. Her government is under attack on many fronts and after near enough two months of silence I thought it time she stood up and defended her beleaguered policies.
Well today she turned up for her first of the year. It’s February 5th. But anyway she’s back and I think it’s fair to say that she didn’t take advantage of the opportunity and re-energise her supporters or the country.
This was most evident when Mike Hosking asked why how the government got the immigration numbers so wrong. If you missed the story, the statistical methodology has been changed and under the new method net migration is less than it was previously thought to be. Depending on which statistician you listen to the numbers are down 10 to 20 thousand people.
What followed between Mike and Jacinda was a mind numbingly boring discussion on what the numbers were which reminded me of two statisticians arguing about how many eggs were in a carton. 12 or a dozen. You could hear the listeners up and down the country screaming at their radios.
A more fluent leader would have had some fun with that one. “What’s the problems Mike? Less immigrants means we need to build less houses and the crisis will end sooner. Next question?”
This bugs me because this is a self proclaimed transformational government. Labour governments often are. Savage’s welfare state, Douglsas’ neo liberal unbundling of the economy.  Meanwhile, National governments like to manage and keep their eyes on costs and not scare the horses. That’s why the last National government didn’t work that hard on RMA reform even though they went on about it for a decade.
But this government is definitely transformational. They want change. But when confronted with change the electorate is often spooked. When the electorate hears change, in their head they think it won’t work.
This is a government that has been talking change but promoting it terribly, just look at the Kiwibuild saga.
But the biggest change of all could be their plans for a new tax system. The tax working group has presented it’s report in the past week and we’ll get to see it on February 21st.
So far the only transformation talk we’ve heard is the introduction of a capital gains tax and that definitely spooks the electorate. And the government’s opponents have already started chanting More Tax, More Tax. Even though the government says it has to be revenue neutral. In other words the government can collect no more tax than it already does. This stipulation has been sold terribly.
You know, the Taxpayers Union sent me a booklet the other day explaining their view on a capital gains tax and they actually said they could support it under five conditions and one of the five was revenue neutrality. It seemed amazing to me that the nations most organised haters of taxation have so far in this debate been the best promoters of a capital gains tax there has been.
A well designed Fair Capital Gains tax could indeed be transformational. A well designed Fair Capital Gains Tax could be a very good thing. A well designed Fair Capital Gains Tax could send capital to where it’s needed like companies and jobs instead of into hidey holes like property. But at the moment I don’t think the government has the leadership or communication chops to get a Fair Capital Gains Tax across the line.

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Some Tauranga families living in hardship are struggling to provide school lunches for their children as back-to-school costs mount. responsibilities  
KidsCan's data shows that one in every five children in low-decile schools around New Zealand will head back to class this year without enough food.
Tauranga Budget Advisory Service manager Diane Bruin said there had been high demand for food parcels during the school holidays as allocated food money was paying for back to school costs.
"A number of young mothers have been seeking food assistance this week due to back to school costs," she said.
"We don't want to see children without food or school uniforms."
Bruin said children going back to school without food and uniforms was a "growing issue" in Tauranga, as well as high accommodation costs.
Tauranga principals were also noticing the back to school pressures on vulnerable children.
Tom Paekau is the principal of Merivale School. Photo / File
Merivale School principal Tom Paekau said the decile 1 school was graded as the lowest decile school in the Western Bay of Plenty because of the "social inequities and underprivileged" in the community.
However, the principal said, unfortunately, there were inequities and underprivileged children that existed in all Kiwi communities.
Paekau said it was up to the school to provide the best pedagogical outcomes for their tamariki [children].
"While there are pockets of struggle within the school, we try to alleviate some of the financial strain on our whanau through sponsorship and support from external agencies," he said.
Children were provided food through the school's breakfast club, Milk For Schools, Fruit in Schools programmes and lunch donations, Paekau said.
"This means no child ever goes without food at Merivale."
The school was also this year able to discount all back to school stationery packs.
Greerton Village School principal Anne Mackintosh said schools had become more of a social agency by ensuring children had the necessities provided by volunteers such as KidsCan.
"Without their amazing hard work and generosity, some of our students would indeed go hungry and not have clothing, shoes etc either," she said.
"It is a grim state of affairs and a very sad indictment on what is happening socially, economically and politically to our children, our most vulnerable."
Mackintosh said the school had extra food baskets in all classrooms for children to help themselves if they needed.
"We don't monitor it as it is a deeply personal thing and some children feel very embarrassed if they do not have food nor do they want to present their parents in a bad light. We respect this," she said.
Platters with sandwiches, muesli bars and fruit were also available at lunchtime.
KidsCan's chief executive Julie Chapman said this time of year can be overwhelming for families on the breadline.
"Every day they survive on very little. So there's no money for new stationery, or school bags, or expensive uniforms - many don't even know how they'll afford to put food in their child's lunch box," she said.
Some parents won't send their children to school because they felt ashamed they can't make ends meet, Chapman said.
"Those that do go, start on the back foot because they don't have the right clothes, and they're hungry."
How KidsCan helps:

The charity helps to feed an average 20 per cent of the roll in 742 schools
More than 30,000 children a day are filled with baked beans, bread, spreads, yoghurt, fruit, scroggin, super grain bars, hot meals in winter
Last year, KidsCan gave out 5.27 million food items, including 245,000 servings of baked beans, more than 130,000 loaves of bread and 1.6m packs of scroggin
In 2018 the charity clothed 47,350 kids in warm jackets, and distributed 27,886 new pairs of shoes and socks. Girls received 22,000 boxes of...

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