Andrew Dickens Afternoons

I always found it incredible how many otherwise decent folks who’d never in a million years think of themselves as criminals would think nothing about online piracy. It’s a little bit like those old cardboard cut-outs of police officers in department stores saying, “Shoplifting is a crime!” Really? Were people really in the dark about this? How useful that the cardboard police officer was there to let us know that if you want some new clothes, you’ll need to pay for them.
Obviously, there was a percentage of the population who were in the dark that going to Kmart and not handing over some money for your goods was on shaky legal ground, but I always assumed that percentage was through the floor. Maybe it wasn’t.
I say this because today the website Newsroom published a story about the percentage of Kiwis who regularly pirate content. Turns out almost a third of Kiwis are illegally enjoying content they haven’t paid for on a “regular” basis – roughly every six months – with 10-percent doing it weekly.
With Sky TV in New Zealand behind the research, they believe this piracy is costing them millions upon millions in lost revenue annually.
There are potential solutions, or at least, measures that can be taken that lessen the problem. As the Newsroom article states, “site blocking” technology has worked well overseas with a “22-percent decrease in in piracy for all users affected by the blocks” in the UK. This has also corresponded with the rise in popularity of legal streaming sites like Netflix.
Something else is at play though. Whether it’s watching overseas sport or TV drama like Game Of Thrones, or pre the days of Spotify, downloading music you haven’t paid for, the human race seems to be in danger of losing the concept of exchanging money for entertainment.
I used to have a mate who we’d joke had watched all the trendiest TV shows online before they’d even been made. Season 2 of Homeland? He’d seen it before season 1 had even been given the green-light!
Slight exaggeration to one side, this is a guy who had most likely never committed any other crimes in his life. A family man. Lovely wife. Sweet kids. Online thief. 
How did this happen? The Newsroom piece quotes Sky TV’s Sophie Maloney as saying that people just don’t realise the sheer numbers of people involved in getting any sort of TV to air: 80 people for an All Blacks test and something crazy like over 3500 for an episode of Game Of Thrones.
As a music fanatic I hated how people went from spending $30 for a CD in the 90s to downloading their favourite albums for free. Where was the middle ground! Clearly, our 90s prices were over-inflated and for a time it seemed like iTunes had proved people didn’t mind paying if the price was fair.   
But even with Spotify – a 100-percent legal service – the low royalty rates suggest the concept of valuing art is dying. We enjoy art, we need entertainment for our happiness and sanity, but do we really value it anymore? Perhaps we need a few more cardboard cut-out police officers with their handy signs to remind us.
Tim Roxborogh hosts Newstalk ZB’s Weekend Collective and is filling-in for Andrew Dickens this week from 12pm-4pm.

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Is it time New Zealand put tourists first?
There are growing calls for a new national tourism strategy to help the industry meet with growing demand from tourists and to reverse years of neglect.
When discussing the topic this afternoon, Tim Roxborogh received a suggestion from caller Tony.
He pointed out that our tourism offerings do little to cater to an international audience, unlike many European countries, where the people speak multiple languages and provide many of their offerings in different languages.
LISTEN TO CALLER TONY TALK WITH TIM ROXBOROGH ABOVE

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Will we ever see an event akin to the deadly Spanish influenza? 
That's one of the questions tackled by Dr Robert Webster in his new book, The Flu Hunter. 
The Kiwi-born virologist has dedicated his life to explore the disease, and has documented his study in his latest work.
He joined Andrew Dickens to talk about the disease, his career and the intricacies of diseases. 
LISTEN TO ROBERT WEBSTER TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVE

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Our kids are getting fatter. While the Otago University research published today by the New Zealand Medical Journal isn’t surprising, it is significant in that it confirms what most of us would’ve thought. And that is, children today are bigger than their parents were at the exact same age.
Specifically, we’re talking 15-year olds. Almost 350 Kiwis were tested in the 1980s and here we are, 30 years on and there’s been a 25% decline in fitness in the girls compared to their mothers and a 15% decline for the boys compared to their dads. The study was done in Dunedin.
My first reaction is that it’s cold in Dunedin! Too cold to be outside playing, but the truth is that irrespective of climates, in the developed, a similar trend is being noticed. And it’s not like Dunedin was any warmer in the 80s.
There are some obvious conclusions: kids are hooked on their electronic devices and their health is suffering as a result. But what the research shows is that their parents have gotten bigger too.
Currently, New Zealand has a life expectancy of 81.46 and while that’s about 10 years higher than in was in the 1960s, it’s rate of growth has slowed in recent years. Unless something is done, there’s the prospect that at some point this century, life expectancy could potentially drop. This notion would have been unheard until recently.
So is this a time for despair or a time to reset? The opportunities are exciting. If we now have inarguable evidence of the expanding waistlines not just of our adults, but of the very children of a people who were once fit themselves, then surely we can do something about it.
Schools can be a massive part of this. I miss PE. PE was so much fun. As a lifelong cricket and tennis fan, the last time I played softball or did a beep test was in school PE. I miss the softball but I think I even miss the beep tests too!
A greater emphasis on PE and after school sport programs is one strategy, but so too is a de-emphasis on after school homework. If we’re dealing in research-based policy, the international research about the benefits of homework is hardly glowing.
The other shift in our thinking should come with what we can do with limited money. Build homemade back-boards for kids to bowl cricket balls against. Buy secondhand trampolines. Find an old basketball hoop and put it up. If we move away from the notion that gifts to friends and family have to cost money, we’ve got a greater shot in everyone – regardless of income – being able to be more inclined to play outside rather than in.
None of this touches of diet and the expense of healthy food options, but it is a start.

Our kids are getting fatter. While the Otago University research published today by the New Zealand Medical Journal isn’t surprising, it is significant in that it confirms what most of us would’ve thought. And that is, children today are bigger than their parents were at the exact same age.
Specifically, we’re talking 15-year olds. Almost 350 Kiwis were tested in the 1980s and here we are, 30 years on and there’s been a 25% decline in fitness in the girls compared to their mothers and a 15% decline for the boys compared to their dads. The study was done in Dunedin.
My first reaction is that it’s cold in Dunedin! Too cold to be outside playing, but the truth is that irrespective of climates, in the developed, a similar trend is being noticed. And it’s not like Dunedin was any warmer in the 80s.
There are some obvious conclusions: kids are hooked on their electronic devices and their health is suffering as a result. But what the research shows is that their parents have gotten bigger too.
Currently, New Zealand has a life expectancy of 81.46 and while that’s about 10 years higher than in was in the 1960s, it’s rate of growth has slowed in recent years. Unless something is done, there’s the prospect that at some point this century, life expectancy could potentially drop. This notion would have been unheard until recently.
So is this a time for despair or a time to reset? The opportunities are exciting. If we now have inarguable evidence of the expanding waistlines not just of our adults, but of the very children of a people who were once fit themselves, then surely we can do something about it.
Schools can be a massive part of this. I miss PE. PE was so much fun. As a lifelong cricket and tennis fan, the last time I played softball or did a beep test was in school PE. I miss the softball but I think I even miss the beep tests too!
A greater emphasis on PE and after school sport programs is one strategy, but so too is a de-emphasis on after school homework. If we’re dealing in research-based policy, the international research about the benefits of homework is hardly glowing.
The other shift in our thinking should come with what we can do with limited money. Build homemade back-boards for kids to bowl cricket balls against. Buy secondhand trampolines. Find an old basketball hoop and put it up. If we move away from the notion that gifts to friends and family have to cost money, we’ve got a greater shot in everyone – regardless of income – being able to be more inclined to play outside rather than in.
None of this touches of diet and the expense of healthy food options, but it is a start.

Anyone who has listened to this programme this year will know they I have been calling for an inquiry into our banking and insurance industry
There have been a number of shows where we have looked at what consumers have been presented with, what they been denied, what they felt like they have been pressured into. 
We have seen the banks maintain particularly healthy profits. We have heard how they have linked their instruments meaning that for most customers to get one service you need to get another offered through the same organisation. We have heard accusations of double dipping.
We have also heard allegations of bank and insurance offers being under pressure to upsell, even if it’s not in the customer's interest.
And on top of it all was the shock I heard from callers when I told them that the bulk of the industry is self-regulating. The Insurance Ombudsman is funded by the industry and so the insinuation is always that the poacher is also the gamekeeper
The backdrop to these stories has been the Royal Commission of inquiry into the bank and insurance companies in Australia. Many of the companies investigated there own the companies here and again the insinuation is what would the banks here perform any differently to their parent companies across the ditch.
So now Consumer NZ has joined the call for greater monitoring of banks and insurance companies, claiming Kiwis are being sold products they do not need by companies that are facing a Royal Commission in Australia.
Yesterday Consumer NZ chief executive Sue Chetwin told the finance and expenditure select committee looking into the need for an inquiry that while the New Zealand financial institutions continue to maintain the Aussie problems are not here that’s exactly what the Australian banks said before the inquiry which uncovered bribery and fraud.
Now I have never said that the banks are dodgy, but I have said where is the harm in having a look.
I have plenty of correspondence from people in the industry suggesting that the amount of self-regulation in the finance industry is a worry. Not just for consumers but also for the reputational risk to the industry.
When Chris Hipkins failed to turn up in the house yesterday with emails from the Prime Minister to Derek Handley that is actually a worse look than turning up with emails. We can now imagine that there are emails and we can also imagine them to be very bad.
If there’s smoke around everyone wants to find out if there’s a fire. At the moment there appears to be a lot of smoke around the country on a lot of fronts.

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LISTEN TO GRAHAM TALK WITH ANDREW DICKENS ABOVE
Europe-based Fonterra staff would have travelled at least 9000km to attend a sales and marketing meeting at a Southern California beach resort town, a venue the dairy company says was chosen because of its proximity to LAX airport.
The company is refusing to give details of the meeting at tourist and surf mecca Huntington Beach, which NBR has reported was attended by up to 200 staff from the co-op's New Zealand milk product division at the time Fonterra was announcing a historic annual loss of $196 million last week.
Fonterra responded to questions about the meeting with this statement:
"NZMP is an international business, with the majority of staff and customers based offshore, including a significant number in Europe, the US and South America. Every two years, select members of this team come together for a sales and marketing meeting to review performance and develop strategic plans for the following 12 months.
"The location of the global meeting varies but is always organised near a major airport hub. The venue for this year's meeting was selected due to its proximity to LAX. Books for the event were made several months ago to ensure cost efficiencies."
Huntington Beach is at least an hour's drive from LAX.
It's not unusual for large international businesses like Fonterra to hold conferences overseas, but the farmer-owned cooperative is in the public spotlight for its financial performance, number of managers, and staff salaries. Its annual report last week showed nearly 6000 staff were on $100,000 and up.
Cabinet minister Shane Jones told the Herald last week that Fonterra's new chief executive Miles Hurrell needed to "get out the hedge clippers and start pruning people" and urged the company to drop its "flashy" front.
Fonterra did not respond to the Herald's questions about meeting numbers, where the meeting was held two years ago, how many staff were US-based, and how many came from Europe and South America.

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So happy Suffrage Day. 125 years since New Zealand women were the first women in the world to get the vote.  For those a bit dodgy on their maths that was back in 1893. It seems amazing to us now that women were denied the mandate for more than 50 years after the signing of the treaty and the creation of modern New Zealand.
So the week and the day have been a celebration of women. Today’s paper is wall to wall women and what I’ve liked about it is that they have concentrated on the trailblazers. The women who were first and it then makes you see how many achievements you weren’t aware of.
And I was really chuffed to see our own Ricki Swannell named as one of the 125 trailblazing women of note. Rikki, our workmate, our friend but of course a trailblazer as the first female lead commentator in Rugby. What’s really notable is that, at the time, for all us at ZB it wasn’t notable. It was just Rikki doing what Rikki does best. Bit by bit we’re getting to the point that things shouldn’t seem so incredible because of your gender.
The first men mentioned in an article in the paper turned up on page 20. The 12 deported from Australia yesterday. Then again there were 2 women also deported. The next article was Donna Awatere Huata’s new job as an advisor to Maori on climate change. Which is not notable because she is a woman but because she’s one of the few MPs to have been convicted of fraud and sent to prison and now been given another chance. There’s some equality right there.
So as well as the media content there have been many functions for women. To network and discuss. This has meant a very busy week at my house as Helen rushes hither and thither. 
Yesterday she was at a conference for women in the law and we all know the issues there with culture. But there were also sessions on work-life balance. It finished at 5 and she rushed home put on some glad rags and went to the Women of Influence Awards. The supreme winner was Jacki Clark from the charity TheAunties who has done so much great work for women affected by domestic violence. She’s a great woman and great company if you ever get the chance to spend some time with her.
Last night in accepting the award she said most people think domestic violence is physical, it's not just that. The most common form of it is emotional violence... It's not knowing whom you'll wake up to the next morning. It's like walking on eggshells. So true
So at 11 last night, Helen came home fizzing, full of stories about Jackie Clark and Theresa Gattung and Hilary Barry and Hine Elder and then said what have you been up to?
Well, I said. I worked. I came home. Walked the dog, then fed it and medicated it. I cooked a pork fillet pasta for dinner for Jack and I. Washed the dishes, put the rubbish out and then watched the last hour of the Emmys and then you came home.
And we sat there and looked at each other and then laughed. Welcome to 2018. Kate Shepperd would never have recognised it.

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LISTEN ABOVE AS NEWSTALK ZB POLITICAL EDITOR BARRY SOPER SPEAKS TO ANDREW DICKENS
The Government will lift the annual refugee quota to 1500.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the increase will not take place immediately, but from July 2020.
The increase is 500 more than the current quota of 1000, which took effect from July this year.
Ardern was joined by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway to make the announcement. The decision was made by the Cabinet committee today, she said.
The refugee quota became an issue of contention recently after conflicting comments from Peters and Ardern on whether it would be raised.


Winston Peters, Jacinda Ardern and Iain Lees-Galloway at today's announcement.

But Peters said he supported today's decision.
Ardern said the timing meant that preparations could be made to ensure refugees were well-supported when they arrived.
"I'm proud that the Coalition Government has today agreed to make such a significant and historic increase to the annual quota of refugees," Ardern said."This is the right thing to do. It fulfils New Zealand's obligation to do our bit and provide a small number of people, displaced by war and disaster each year, a place to call home."
Ardern said the policy shift would "change lives".
"Refugees become great citizens, who bring valuable skills and experience to New Zealand and help make our country a more diverse and vibrant place."
Peters told reporters while in Nauru that NZ First had never made a commitment to double the refugee quota.
NZ First had agreed to increase the quota to 1000 but had made no announcement to double it.
"We've got 50,000 people who are homeless back home, and I can show you parts of the Hokianga and elsewhere, parts of Northland, with people living in degradation.
"We have to fix their lives up as well before we start taking on new obligations of the level that some people would like."
For 30 years New Zealand's refugee quota was 750 people per year.
In 2016 the previous National government increased the quota to 1000, which took effect last year.
Labour campaigned before the election on increasing that further to 1500 a year in its first term of government.
Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said the quota increase was made possible through a funding boost in this year's Budget."This included money to build and operate two new accommodation blocks at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre to extend the lifespan of the complex, meet the demands of the current intake of 1000 and help enable an increase in the refugee intake."

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Tempers are fraying in the Bay of Plenty because of the state of State Highway 2 between Tauranga and Katikati. 
As the bay continues to boom and the population grows the improvements to the road have failed to keep up prompting protestors to start taking action.
They call the road the worst stretch of roading in New Zealand and their campaign is called Fix Our Bloody Road. In the weekend they blocked a bridge to protest and today they’ve launched a petition calling for a moratorium on all development of housing alongside the road until something is done.
Now I know the road very well, I’ve been driving it for a quarter of a century. It’s not the worst road in New Zealand but it’s definitely operating beyond it’s capacity. And that capacity is about to be stretched even more.
The area that the road serves is about to boom with housing construction the way Papamoa boomed 20 years. 43,000 extra houses are needed in the Bay over the next 30 years and Northward development is the most obvious. The road is hopelessly out of date.
It’s been the next to do on roading lists for a generation. A tender process for roadwork started in February, only to be mothballed with the change of Government. Simon Bridges was part of the protest in the weekend which I found a little rich since he had the opportunity to do more in the last government. 
Phil Twyford has referred the issue to NZTA. Now while that’s frustrating it, in a strange way, is probably the right thing to do, because I’m sick and tired of politicians thinking they can meddle in roading infrastructure decisions.
These sorts of issues should be beyond political grandstanding and pork barrelling. They are jobs that need doing despite the colour of the government. The so-called holiday highway north of Auckland is a classic. It’s been on and off and too big and too small depending on the whims of politicians.
Auckland’s East West link, which was due to be the most expensive piece of roading in the world was another strange farce.
While State Highway 2 is a nightmare it has real competition from State Highway 16 to Kumeu and Helensville. The only reason it hasn’t become a deathtrap is that drivers have accepted it’s not the open road and you can only go at 70 or 80k.
The real problem with SH 16 is that when the housing crisis really hit home government’s created special housing areas throughout the area that road services. The explosion in houses around Riverhead has to be seen to be believed and these new suburbs are feeding into a road that in places remains just 2 lanes. Who the hell is deciding to build houses where there are no roads or public transport. It just beggars belief.
I know I’ve said it before and now I’ll say it again. The future development on New Zealand infrastructure needs to be in the hands of people who know what they’re doing and think 30 years in the future and those people are definitely not politicians.

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