Andrew Dickens Afternoons

The rise of e-scooters has got everyone talking.
It's been two weeks since the rental scooters appeared on Auckland and Christchurch footpaths, and they have been the subject of much debate since then.
Some experts believe that New Zealand is not ready to have them as our footpaths aren't wide enough, while ACC has already received 14 injury claims related to the devices.
Auckland Council is now deciding to re-examine the rules, furthering the debate about how safe they are. 
Callers to Andrew Dickens were divided, with some fans of the scooters and how convenient they are, while others are unhappy with how fast they travel. 
LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVE

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With the Prime Minister putting a stake in the ground and swearing there’ll be no more regional fuel taxes as long as she’s in charge, I’ve been wondering who exactly the winners and losers are out of this.
Obviously, the Opposition will be strutting around claiming victory. It was their incessant hectoring on the issue in the House that finally prompted the PM to say enough. Anything to make them shut up with their constant whingeing.
Mr Bridges will be breathing a sigh of relief because finally something went right and he can chalk up a victory.
But is this a victory for the nation? A victory for common sense and logic? On that, I’m not so sure.
Firstly the rumor that further regional fuel taxes were to come is hard to substantiate. A bit like Jami Lee Ross’ claims to be fair. There is no smoking gun. The legislation specifically prevents them before 2021. 
It is true that 14 councils indicated that they’d quite like them at this year’s Local Government conference and, yes, the government heard them out but that’s a long way from them becoming reality.
So this was the Opposition stopping something that hadn’t even started.
And secondly, is it a good thing that no Jacinda Ardern led Government will ever use them as a tool at all?
I know that fuel taxes are ugly and blunt. They’re instantaneous and easily observable and they do hurt the poor more. But don’t for one moment think that without them we won’t end out paying the bill because we will.
The Auckland Regional Fuel Tax is to raise $1.5 billion towards infrastructure. And using that money the authorities will be able to borrow another $3 billion more. All up that’s $4 billion dollars odd towards a $28 billion bill for infrastructure.
Without the tax, you’d have two options. Either do $4 billion less work. Then you’ll slowly end out paying the fuel tax as you sit in congestion burning your slightly cheaper petrol.
Or they do the work and pull the $4 billion out of you through rates.
And that’s the thing. It doesn’t matter how they do it, you’re still going to have to pay for it one way or another.
But I don’t blame Jacinda Ardern for doing what she did faced with such a chorus of people who want the world but don’t want to pay for it. After all, that’s what we’ve been doing for half a century and look where it’s got us.
In time this win might come to be seen as a pyrrhic victory.

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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have three. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have one on the way. Ordinarily, the British settle for two (as do Kiwis). So how many children makes for the happiest families?
Talkback caller Paddy told Andrew Dickens he had two kids but would love to have more. He said the increasing costs of having children was just going to be to much to make it viable.
Another caller said she came from a family of eleven, but it is now increasingly uncommon to see families produce so many children, with childcare being a major expense.
LISTEN ABOVE TO TALKBACK CALLERS SPEAK WITH ANDREW DICKENS

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Kiwi musician and Legacy Winner at the Vodafone Music Awards Sharon O'Neill is returning to the country for a brand new tour.
Sharon will be before two concerts at The Boathouse and the Hornby Working Men’s Club in Christchurch, and a concert at the Upper Hutt Cosmopolitan Club in Wellington, a first for her career.
The 'Maxine' singer will be accompanied by a 7 piece band on the ‘Home Again II Tour’  including her partner and musical director Alan Mansfield on Keys, Clinton Brown on Bass, Dean Hetherington on Guitar, Simon Williams on Saxophone, Ric Hetherington on Drums, Aly Cook & Chrissie Small on Backing Vocals.
She spoke with Andrew Dickens about the tour and her legendary career.
LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW ABOVE

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A bus strike across the country has highlighted the use of split shifts.
Bus drivers in Auckland and Hamilton went on strike at the last minute today over better pay and allowances.
Another issue that has arisen is the prominent use of split shifts within the industry.
Many drivers or relatives of drivers called Andrew Dickens to reveal their experiences working split days, which often leads to employees waiting around for hours and working longer than eight hours. 
Union members say that drivers are often away from home for around 14 hours, and often work the longest hours in the country without the benefits for it.
However, some callers were scathing over the bus driver's plight, with some accusing them of being lazy and viewing their work as a burden. 
Others pushed back, saying that there is no option for them to take a break from their work while on split shifts, and they have limited family time as a result. 
LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVE

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Is Gisborne the best part of the country?
That's what Margaret seems to think. 
Tech company The Straker Group moved their headquarters from Auckland to Gisborne in order to give employees a better chance of buying a home. 
The move has proved a success, and managers believe they will hit 20 staff by next year.
Local Margaret told Tim Roxborogh that she thinks everyone should spend time in the sunny city.
She told him about the joys of living there, including how it's perhaps the only place in the country where you can phone the shops up to warn you are coming.
LISTEN TO MARGARET CHAT WITH TIM ROXBOROGH ABOVE

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The question is, did anyone get up this morning thinking ‘hurrah, it’s Labour Day’? Or is this anniversary largely irrelevant to New Zealanders?
Given how few people would actually work a 40 hour work week these days, Labour Day feels largely redundant as a holiday.
Is this the weakest of the flock of public holidays, and re-name it to something else?
Does it resonant with anyone? I’ll be honest, in terms of its resonance with me, I’d have to rate it a big fat zero.
Hawke’s Bay got it right. They take the day off on Friday – it’s their local holiday – and they tie it in with Labour Day, so everyone gets a four day weekend.
Why can’t we have a day like New Zealand Day or Sir Edmund Hillary Day, something where we can celebrate the qualities that we share in common.

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Wall-to-wall calls today showed that there is still only one thing on the public's mind. 
Talkback callers expressed their outrage over the behaviour by not only Simon Bridges and Jami-Lee Ross, but the National Party in general.
Dallas told Tim Beveridge that although they are not in charge of the country, they still hold a responsibility to represent Kiwis properly.
“They are the opposition and are still running the country. I am afraid the calibre of the National Party is just pathetic."
Another caller made a comparison between Todd Barclay's behaviour earlier this year.
“In private, what sort of a character are you to publicly air private conversations, it really is despicable behaviour.”
LISTEN TO THE TALKBACK FEEDBACK ABOVE

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It’s been over a decade since the anti-smacking legislation came into force, removing the reasonable force defence to parents prosecuted for assaulting their children. Now new research out of Canada suggests that young people are less likely to resort to violence in countries where there is a full smacking ban.
Yes, I know as soon as many of you hear “new research” you may be inclined to stick your fingers in your ears and go, “blah blah blah”.
But I would be interested to know how much our attitudes have changed over time and whether the passage of time or evidence, such as that presented by this research, has any impact on people's views on the smacking legislation
I confess that when the smacking law was being debated I was against it. Perhaps because of my own conservative instincts and a fear of injustice.
Possibly I also rebelled against the language used by the chief proponent of the Bill Sue Bradford, who insisted on framing it as a battle between supporters of the legislation, and those parents who wanted to continue to “hit and beat” their children if I recall it correctly. That was no way to win hearts and minds for sure.
The fear of injustice was more an insecurity about how the law would be enforced and that loving reasonable parents might find themselves dragged before the courts.
Fast forward 10 years and I have changed my mind.
Speaking of injustice, the law as it once stood had seen some horrendous miscarriages of justice with some violent abusers somehow managing to escape justice due to the way the old legislation was being interpreted. So, the law had been failing our most vulnerable. It needed fixing. I wonder how many others have changed their minds. In saying that, I wouldn’t be surprised if we are almost as divided as we were back in 2007.
Perhaps the difficulty many people have with social issues such as this is that we prefer to trust our own instincts and are deeply suspicious of those who would tell us how to run our own lives. So, when it comes to studies and research on this issue, we remain deeply suspicious of those observations and conclusions when they conflict with our own.
Maybe this distrust of strangers or instinctive xenophobia, also explains this lack of willingness to trust what scientists and modern studies reveal.
For me, thankfully the evidence of my own life backs up my willingness to listen to revelations of these studies
For example, I would be mortified if I found myself caught in the trap of using violence to get my point across to my own children.
Also, I am not sure I have heard from too many of today’s parents who would wish to change the law to recover their ability to smack their kids. Most of the people I hear from who remain opposed to the legislation, with due respect, represent previous generations of parents who wish to defend the way they disciplined their children under the previous law.
Earlier this week while discussing the teaching shortage crisis, I had a caller who raised this issue and said that he had had no problem disciplining his children, as he knew just how hard to smack them to make them cry. Hmmm...
Now his kids may have turned out absolutely fine, with happy childhoods and successful lives. But I guess when it comes to these issues, we also have to protect the most vulnerable and I am in no doubt that removing physical force and violence from the equation when disciplining our kids has been a great move.
And now, brace yourselves, we are beginning to see evidence that supports this point of view.
*Tim Beveridge is filling in for Andrew Dickens while he is on Larry Williams Drive this week.

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I started to draft an editorial about the National Party situation last night, and I thought I had finished it, polished it up this morning. 
But now I understand how that Banksy painting felt being pushed through the shredder. It’s not just a week that’s a long time in politics - the last twelve hours have been. 
But as the saying goes, if you are going to go down, go down in flames. 
Jami-Lee Ross has thrown not just himself and Simon Bridges under the bus, but he has trashed his entire National Party family as well. 
In addition to describing Simon Bridges as ‘corrupt, dishonest and unfit to be leader of the National Party, he also called for businesses and donors not to make further donations to the National Party while Bridges is the leader. 
In addition to that, he stated ‘many people shared my views within the caucus’, or words to that effect. 
In doing so he has basically undermined the integrity of his entire caucus - claiming, in my view, that none of them would have the guts to stand up to Simon Bridges, or that they would be too cowardly to stand up to him. 
Effectively, he’s saying they would betray their own principles all for the sake of collective solidarity. 
Where to from here? 
Lots of accusations and a heck of a lot of detail that’s going to be trawled through and debated over the next days, weeks, months. 
Days, weeks, months. We’ve got a by-election coming up. 
The choice now for the caucus is stark, and simple, and straightforward. 
Because at this point the moment we have to go on evidence. All we’ve got is Jami-Lee Ross effectively throwing a grenade into the room and watching everything play out. 
They’ve got to get behind Simon Bridges and show a strong, unified caucus, because that’s all they can do. They can’t respond to any of this because otherwise it gives power to someone who seems, arguably, disgruntled and self-destructive. 
The words that came to mind when watching Jami-Lee Ross was megalomaniacal. This idea that only he can save the party, that everyone else will sacrifice their principles, but only he has the answers, and I’m not convinced by that at all. 
This will perhaps be the worst day of Simon Bridges leadership, but ultimately it could prove to be the best day.
Perhaps this gives him the opportunity, if he can survive this – well, if he can survive this, he will be rock solid, he’s going to be unassailable, but that’s a huge but. 
But if he can survive this, it has provided him with a gold plated opportunity to transform his leadership. 
Up until now, he’s never seemed that comfortable with the mantle of leadership. So maybe it’s an opportunity for the real Simon Bridges to stand up. 
That’s the choice that awaits him, and it’s a pretty simple one.

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