Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Has there been any start up in New Zealand history that has received more free publicity than Lime E-Scooters?
Sure, loads of the publicity is bad, but then again, is there anyone in this country that doesn’t know the company’s name and their business model. And that’s despite the fact that the scooters are only in two cities. It's incredible.
Now hold on to your hat, Lime is looking to put the squeeze on in Dunedin and Queenstown and, as we heard yesterday, Wellington, with the council already torn as to whether they should let them in or not.
Personally I’d say this to those cities.  In the immortal words of Shane Jones, tai-hoa on that. Let Auckland and Christchurch iron out the wrinkles.  And there are plenty of wrinkles that need to be ironed out.  
Where can you ride, how fast should you ride, and can we put safety equipment on the scooters?  Should they be parked in designated areas? And most importantly, who’s going to pay for all this?
I’ve been thinking that Lime must be loving New Zealand. It’s a Californian company that launched in 2017 and their scooters are found in 80 cities across the world.  But it’s only New Zealand where we have the ACC meaning any liability for injury from Lime scooters is absent.
They’ve had all this publicity which hasn’t cost them a cent.
And I presume that all the safety measures that may be suggested in the future will be worn by councils.
Yesterday a friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook of a sign that’s popped up in an inner city street. It’s a big orange thing paid for by the Council that says, 'SCOOT SAFE.  E-SCOOTERS ARE COOL.  BE A COOL E-SCOOTERIST'. It’s on the pavement so it’s been stuck down and it’s rugged because people walk all over it everyday.

Auckland Transport has had to put safety signs up due to e-scooters, likely costing a lot. (Photo / Facebook)
How many footpaths are these signs sprouting up on? There could be thousands of them.
I’m picking these are pretty expensive signs.  And ratepayers are paying for it.
If we decide that there are areas that the scooters should be banned from I presume we’ll need to put all sorts of signage all over the shop as well.
What is Lime contributing to it?  Sweet F-All.  
As we learnt during talk back in their very first day in New Zealand, Lime paid the princely sum of $136 to the Christchurch City Council for the 3 month permit to operate. Not per scooter either.  $136 bucks for 400 scooters. There’ll be 700 on Christchurch streets within the month.
So far in New Zealand Lime has been given permission to mine our city owned streets for cash for nothing. Not only have we handed them a blank cheque we’ve also started paying heavily for the safety measures and liability the company has caused.
So my message is. Throw Lime out at the end of the trial. Then if we want them back lets make sure the council and ACC clips the ticket of every ride and Lime pays a more realistic price for the right to operate. 
At the moment, they’re taking us for millions.

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A public stink is piling up over a planned rubbish dump north of Auckland.
Waste Management has approval to buy forest land in the Dome Valley for a 24-7 landfill.
Locals nearby fear rubbish juice will leach into the nearby Hoteo River which feeds the Kaipara Harbour.
A group set up in response, Save the Dome, is planning to fight it as the company still needs resource consent.
Founder Dave Sawyer told Andrew Dickens they called a meeting for locals to talk about it.
"We had over 130 people. Every single person in that room said we'd fight it with everything we've got." 
LISTEN TO DAVE SAWYER TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVE

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So I need to warn you that there are forces abroad that are prepared to fudge the facts to get their arguments across.  They are guilty of spreading fake news.  Whether by design or accident.  Their arguments are fired on by ideology. So if they see any so called fact that supports their beliefs they’ll pounce on it.  It’s important to remain vigilant.  And when you spot it it’s important that it should be corrected.
So this morning we heard that a leaked AT report on cycleway usage says the demand may have been over-estimated.  Which would mean the business case was flawed.  Of course, many council and cycleway critics seized on this.  Aha, they said.  We told you so.
We were told cycleways aren't the future, don’t get used, cost a fortune, and inconvenience the rest of us. The schemes were called potentially fraudulent, dishonest and a scam.
At the heart of the issue was usage numbers. One cycleway was predicted to have 986 daily cyclists.  Two years later it has 333. Another 975, two years later 375.  The Quay St cycleway though was on track.  The estimated use 1060.  two years later in 2018, 1111.
Now this would be shocking if it wasn’t for the fact that the projected usage was for the year 2026.  Not 2018. 2026.  Something that was missing from the original print article bust is now on the online article.
The figures being compared after two years should be compared after 10.  And remember this is a 40 year business plan and the full city bike system is still far from finished. And one last point, this is a report that has been leaked to a journalist and its authors describe it as a work in progress.
So knowing all that that you could have written a completely opposite headline: ‘Demand for parts of the unfinished Auckland urban cycleway are eight years ahead of schedule’.
Another headline could have been: ‘Auckland cycleway numbers increased 15 per cent in the past year’.
Which is absolutely true. It’s in the report.
But that doesn’t fit the beliefs of the anti-cycleway ideologues.  Who then used it to make the bogus claim that councils want you out of your car against your will. You can stay in you stalled car as long as you like.  Cycleways and Busways are about giving you another option if you want.  It’s actually about choice.
So what is true about the cycleways.  They’re expensive.  15 per cent cost overruns.  The council is guilty of gilt edged, Rolls Royce construction. I didn’t need a cycleway painted pink and lit up like a Christmas Tree.
But don’t let the fake news purveyors fool you.  Auckland’s urban cycleway usage is actually on schedule.

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Teachers still have their supporters, but others are turning against the striking profession.
This week marks the second wide scale teachers' strike this year, with rolling strikes taking place across the country.
Primary school teachers have rejected their latest pay offer, which was a $700 million package from the Government.
The rejection has bristled several callers to Andrew Dickens Afternoons, who think that teachers have become more focused on the money than their claims of doing it for the kids.
However, there is still vocal support for the educators, with one former teacher telling Andrew that the profession has changed a lot since she was a teacher, with too busy classrooms and a rise in problem children.
LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVE

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It has been over 50 years since television started broadcasting in colour in the United Kingdom.
It turns out, some Brits haven't got the memo.
There are over 7,000 people across the UK who have licenses for black and white television sets.
The BBC reports that London has the most, with 1,768 licenses. 
The figures have been released by the TV Licensing, reminding people they still must pay the annual fee that all Brits must pay to access television services.
Shockingly, there were still over 200,000 licenses for black and white televisions as recently as 2000. 
LISTEN TO JULIETTE SIVERTSEN TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVE

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So the rolling teachers' strikes begin. The largest mass industrial action that has been seen in a long time. And the question remains whether this will increase or decrease support for their cause.
And this is the risk. This morning, Chris Hipkins, like a grumpy parent, expressed his “disappointment” with teachers to anyone willing to hear him. He repeatedly pointed out that his offer of $750 million was the best he can do right now. He priced the teachers' demands at $2.5 billion. He claimed over and over that the teachers' union has not negotiated or changed its terms at any point in the process and he invited them to take the $750 million and come up with a plan that will satisfy them. But no.
All this is designed to reduce the public’s support. As frazzled parents struggle to care for strike stranded children, the Minister’s last hope is that the unions buckle knowing that they’re losing the moral high ground.
It’s a funny old situation because I very rarely hear anyone saying the teachers are not deserving of more. And their case is good.
In the weekend, I was forwarded a social media post from a Fielding based principal. She looked at the offer and pointed out how the public perception was at odds with the reality. How the bonus learning support funding announced recently was not nearly as good as it looks on the surface. How comparing teachers and police officers and nurses was a fallacy.
She pointed out that a teacher who is joining the profession after spending 4 years at university - will receive an increase of around $19 per week from this offer straight away. While a teacher who has been teaching for over 10 years - and has a full degree - will receive around $27 a week extra. The so-called big money doesn’t come until 2020.
And then she explained how a teachers job is more than just a 40 hour week and a rate of pay. She wrote this.
“Today I have a teacher working the full day at school putting on a cooking show. I have another teacher spending the whole weekend in Wellington taking students to a sporting challenge. I have teachers replying to messages from their personal cell phones, arranging meetings after hours, and spending their evenings at discos, meetings and cultural events. I have teachers arriving at school at 6am to meet students for events, and the list goes on and on. So reports of 9-3, with 12 weeks holiday are simply ridiculous. My teachers work huge hours, and give up time with their own families. I know from all the emails and documents I receive from my staff well into the evenings and weekends - that they continue to work long hours at home.”
And it’s all true and to teachers, I say thank you. The respect we all have for you is because you realise you have a calling and a social responsibility and that you go many extra miles.
But I’m not hopeful that anything will change. This is a problem caused through 10 to 15 years of neglect from both the employers and a lack of advocacy by the unions.
 
It is not solvable in one pay claim.

So the rolling teachers' strikes begin. The largest mass industrial action that has been seen in a long time. And the question remains whether this will increase or decrease support for their cause.
And this is the risk. This morning, Chris Hipkins, like a grumpy parent, expressed his “disappointment” with teachers to anyone willing to hear him. He repeatedly pointed out that his offer of $750 million was the best he can do right now. He priced the teachers' demands at $2.5 billion. He claimed over and over that the teachers' union has not negotiated or changed its terms at any point in the process and he invited them to take the $750 million and come up with a plan that will satisfy them. But no.
All this is designed to reduce the public’s support. As frazzled parents struggle to care for strike stranded children, the Minister’s last hope is that the unions buckle knowing that they’re losing the moral high ground.
It’s a funny old situation because I very rarely hear anyone saying the teachers are not deserving of more. And their case is good.
In the weekend, I was forwarded a social media post from a Fielding based principal. She looked at the offer and pointed out how the public perception was at odds with the reality. How the bonus learning support funding announced recently was not nearly as good as it looks on the surface. How comparing teachers and police officers and nurses was a fallacy.
She pointed out that a teacher who is joining the profession after spending 4 years at university - will receive an increase of around $19 per week from this offer straight away. While a teacher who has been teaching for over 10 years - and has a full degree - will receive around $27 a week extra. The so-called big money doesn’t come until 2020.
And then she explained how a teachers job is more than just a 40 hour week and a rate of pay. She wrote this.
“Today I have a teacher working the full day at school putting on a cooking show. I have another teacher spending the whole weekend in Wellington taking students to a sporting challenge. I have teachers replying to messages from their personal cell phones, arranging meetings after hours, and spending their evenings at discos, meetings and cultural events. I have teachers arriving at school at 6am to meet students for events, and the list goes on and on. So reports of 9-3, with 12 weeks holiday are simply ridiculous. My teachers work huge hours, and give up time with their own families. I know from all the emails and documents I receive from my staff well into the evenings and weekends - that they continue to work long hours at home.”
And it’s all true and to teachers, I say thank you. The respect we all have for you is because you realise you have a calling and a social responsibility and that you go many extra miles.
But I’m not hopeful that anything will change. This is a problem caused through 10 to 15 years of neglect from both the employers and a lack of advocacy by the unions.
 
It is not solvable in one pay claim.

New Zealanders are responding on land and at sea to WW100's call to create a Roaring Chorus to mark the centenary of the armistice that ended the war in 1918.
There are multiple community commemorations nationwide incorporating a Roaring Chorus in various way, and the Southland region is no different.
Southland's Town Crier Lynley McKerrow joined the Andrew Dickens Afternoon Show to explain what Armistice Day means to her, and what plans she has to recognise the historic day.
LISTEN TO THE FULL AUDIO ABOVE

New Zealanders are responding on land and at sea to WW100's call to create a Roaring Chorus to mark the centenary of the armistice that ended the war in 1918.
There are multiple community commemorations nationwide incorporating a Roaring Chorus in various way, and the Southland region is no different.
Southland's Town Crier Lynley McKerrow joined the Andrew Dickens Afternoon Show to explain what Armistice Day means to her, and what plans she has to recognise the historic day.
LISTEN TO THE FULL AUDIO ABOVE

The International Netball Federation has caused controversy by stating the primary focus at the international level will remain female only netball.
International netball is strictly sanctioned for females and is one of the only single-gendered sports to be solely permitted by its governing body - the International Netball Federation.
Callers to The Andrew Dickens Afternoon Show called out double standards, with gender equality now a major issue in today's climate. Many said feminists can't have it all their own way, and this is a prime example of reverse sexism which is often ignored by those who champion the cause.
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO ABOVE AS CALLERS SPEAK TO ANDREW DICKENS

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