Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Welcome to budget week and welcome to the immediate aftermath of the Covid pandemic. 
Is the pandemic over? No, far from it. 
Temporary labour shortages as the virus works its way through the population means everything will be difficult for some time yet. Nearly half our music station staff were off last week after one company super spreader event. Productivity was knocked for 6. Who needs the Government to lock us down when we do it to ourselves. 
Meanwhile, the post-pandemic hangover affects the whole world and it's having a political fall-out. 
In Australia, Scott Morrison looks in doubt as Labour blames him for a cost-of-living crisis. In America, Biden is losing ground because he's blamed for a cost-of-living crisis. Boris Johnson will be lucky to survive as Labour hammers him for a cost-of-living crisis. 
All the Governments that have steered the world through Covid are now being made to pay for it. 
They're being blamed for the profligate spending that kept businesses afloat. But at the time they were blamed during lockdowns for not doing enough. There's no pleasing some people. 
But as Liam Dann pointed out in the weekend, simplistic tribal politics is the driver of opinion and not reasoned economic debate. 
So, on Thursday Grant Robertson will announce his government spending. $6 billion dollars' worth it's said. On health and climate change mostly. 
Already many people are criticising the spending without knowing what it is. 
National's Christopher Luxon criticises spending unless it's targeted.   
And he's criticising the Government for not having spent more money on ICU beds. He says that's what he'd invest in. 
So, I'm not sure he understands what that means. I'm not sure that we all do. 
An ICU bed is nothing. It's a bed and some kit. 
The problem is the staff for that bed. 
It takes six nurses a shift to staff an ICU bed. That's 18 nurses a day. 
But New Zealand is already 4,000 nurses short.  
So, if you want more ICU beds first you need to find more nurses. Thousands and thousands more nurses. They don't grow on trees. And you have to pay them. Pay them well. Better than they are now. Because you will have to attract nurses from overseas. Plus, you'll have to train new ones. If you can find them. 
Honestly. Fixing health problems is going to cost 10s of billions of dollars because of 40 years of underinvestment since Rogernomics. 
So, is it right to criticise the Government for spending on something that we should have spent on before? Is waiting till better times truly prudent? 
The question is, if not now, when?

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Newstalk ZB Chief Political Reporter Jason Walls joined the show to unpack the Emissions Reduction Plan and explain how it all works and what it will cover.
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After taking over the world tiny brick by tiny brick, the global phenomenon LEGO® Masters NZ is coming to TVNZ 2.
Hosted by Dai Henwood, LEGO Masters will test the imaginations and the building skills of six teams in our first national brick-off.
Dai’s sidekick, Brickmaster Robin Sather will set a colourful mix of new and classic LEGO building challenges, which will be judged on aesthetics, technical and storytelling ability. All in the hopes to find the first team in Aotearoa judged worthy to hold aloft the coveted LEGO Masters trophy.
Brickmaster Robin Sather joined Andrew Dickens to chat about the show.
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Well, here it comes. 
A budget and an election. The season of politicians treating us like idiots and believing they can bribe us into their camp. 
Labour has released details of police and crime funding that will be announced formally in the budget on May 19. 
It's a 562-million-dollar package which always sounds impressive. But as always, it's spread over 4 years. In fact, when you look at the numbers and think of the current rate of inflation and cost escalation the whole thing is barely treading water. 
The headlines are about helping businesses through this ram raid epidemic. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no detail of this help because it doesn't exist yet. How stupid do they think we are. It's an example of a political party trying to shoehorn its existing policy into the news cycle of the day. 
It's just the same as National swearing black and blue that its intentions to cut tax are to help people through an increase in cost of living while knowing full well that a tax cut is even more inflationary than the same amount of government spending. People spend tax cuts on smaller consumables and not on building new hospitals. When asked if New Zealanders know how to spend their money better than governments do, you can say yes. On themselves but not on community initiatives like new roads or public transport or police forces. 
Meanwhile, ACT releases its alternative budget which features a 5.3 billion dollar cut in Government spending. They swear black and blue that health, education and policing would not be touched, but the list of cuts is impressive. 
Say goodbye to the Forestry Programme, Research and Development Tax credits, film subsidies, both international and domestic, pest control, pine control – all shovel ready projects – all funding for Callaghan Innovation. And if you're connected to any spending for Māori or women or Pasifika then say goodbye to the gravy train. Then to cap it off they want to raise the super to 67 by 2025. Which is just 3 years away. The super will rise every 2 months for 2 years. 
This is an austerity budget in all sense of the words and you'd have to wonder who would vote for it. Has nobody in ACT got a memory that goes back to Ruth Richardson's Mother of All Budgets back in the 90s and the pain that put New Zealanders through? It would be impossible to implement. It's virtue signalling. 
So, 3 parties and 3 waffly bits of policy which all miss their mark.

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As the Government dropped the latest iteration of its Three Waters water reform on Friday, I was left with the question: “what on earth do you want to achieve with all this?”  
For more than 2 years, local and central Governments have been struggling with the issue of water reform.
Reform is necessary as too many New Zealand households have substandard water and wastewater services. Meanwhile, antiquated pipes are losing 20% of the water we’ve gathered.  
Meanwhile, most of our cities and towns have done a good job in collecting and distributing the water we’ve collected and disposed of the waste we’ve produced.  
But the other half has not done a good job and it’s inherently due to underinvestment.  
They have underinvested because either their rating base is too small or their electorate cannot see the benefit in higher rates or water charges to fix pipes they can’t see. 
So, we need to fix them. Why the Government has made it such a minefield is anyone’s guess. 
The government’s answer is to gather up all the assets. Put them in 4 big groups and let the entities borrow off the assets and fix up the bad areas.   
Understandably, this hacks off the places that have done a good job, who see their hard work being siphoned off to subsidise the bad players.  
But the Government has also chosen to shoehorn a co-governance factor into the whole she-bang which has caught the attention of the race warriors both for and against. Even though the co-governance model is now so watered down as to be nothing but a bit of virtue signalling with no teeth. But it doesn’t matter. Expect politician after politician to stir the pot that the water’s being given to the Māori. 
Already that issue is enough for National to say they will reverse and repeal Three Waters when they get into government which they have a fair chance of doing. 
Water is too important and too basic to all human beings to be turned into a political football. Surely reforms need to be accepted by us all and not controversial. 
The problem has never been governance but money. My solution has always been to set up a $100 billion dollar water infrastructure bank and fund the necessary work. Too bad it ends out on our core debt.  
Getting water right is the first thing a grown-up society does. Ask the Romans.

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If you're in Christchurch, you'll now need a resource consent to rent out accommodation through Airbnb or any other online booking platforms.
The consent won't expire once you've got it, but to get it will cost at least $1000.
Airbnb don't like it and are calling the move the most restrictive and outdated home sharing laws in Australasia.
Christchurch City Councillor Mike Davidson joined Andrew Dickens.
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In just her second Olympics Zoi Sadowski-Synnott has completed her collection of medals, but a historic second gold will have to wait. 
The snowboarding sensation has been forced to settle for silver in today's big air final in Beijing, upstaged by defending champion Anna Gasser. 
The Austrian seized gold in a breathtaking climax, becoming the first woman to land a 1260 in Olympic competition with the penultimate jump in the final. 
That left top qualifier Sadowski-Synnott with one last shot to retake the lead but, unlike in her slopestyle victory nine days ago, she was unable to respond and couldn't quite land a 1260 of her own. 
The silver medal will still sit triumphantly alongside her slopestyle gold and the bronze she claimed in big air four years ago, when Gasser first took top spot on the podium. 
Sadowski-Synnott has now claimed the majority share of all the medals New Zealand have won at the Winter Olympics, and nothing about her performance in Beijing suggested she would be stopping at three. 
The 20-year-old said yesterday that the nature of the competition meant the top riders all knew what one another's best tricks were and felt genuine joy when their rivals landed a jump that had taken countless hours of hard work. 

Zoi Sadowski-Synnott performs a trick during the women's snowboard big air final. Photo / Getty 
Standing at the top of the ramp after Gasser had stormed into the gold-medal position, any joy for Sadowski-Synnott was put on hold as she took a few deep breaths and prepared for her final action of these Games. 
But after she barely failed to land her attempt at a 1260, a jump she completed while winning double gold at the X Games last month, it was clear the Kiwi was as excited as anyone with Gasser's performance. 
The pair exchanged a couple of big hugs while the scores were confirmed, Gasser taking gold with a combined 185.50 from her two best jumps as Sadowski-Synnott consigned to silver with 177.00. 
It looked like that order would be reversed after the first two runs, with Sadowski-Synnott quickly carrying over the form that saw her take top spot in yesterday's qualifying. 
The Wānaka local watched her 11 rivals jump first and then immediately flew above them all on the leaderboard, her frontside double cork 1080 coming with huge air, a long grab and silky-smooth landing, riding away with a wave to the small Kiwi contingent in the crowd. 

Zoi Sadowski Synnott waves to the crowd. Photo / Getty 
It was the same trick that set alight qualifying, only the judges were even more impressed, the 93.25 score topping her competition-best of 91.00 yesterday. 
Only Gasser (90.00) was near Sadowski-Synnott after the first round and kept up the pressure with a backside 1080 to earn a second-round score of 86.75. 
Sadowski-Synnott soon replied to retake the lead by the finest of margins, putting down a backside 1080 that was perhaps safer but no less sleek, sneaking ahead of Gasser by a quarter of a point. 
The Austrian then showed just why she was the defending champion, as her unprecedented jump received a score of 95.50 to leave Sadowski-Synnott in need of perfection. 
That was a level the Kiwi, for once, wasn't quite able to achieve, but it will surely be a matter of when and not if Sadowski-Synnott stands atop an Olympic podium once more.

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It's been a fortnight since I was on ZB and I have watched on in wonder as the world has slowly gone potty. Maybe it’s Covid fatigue, but everyone seems to have lost their minds. 
Let’s work backwards.   
Is everybody else as embarrassed and amazed at the behaviour of our Speaker over the weekend as I am? Trevor Mallard’s actions over this past weekend have frankly been childish. He took a ticklish situation and made it worse. Sprinklers and Barry Manilow are water off a duck’s back to these people and he just gave them a motivator to stay even longer. Mallard’s texts took his immaturity to the world. They’re laughing at you, Trevor. Not with you. 
That’s not all. Mallard’s call to keep press on the parliamentary balcony and not talking to the protestors was another clanger. Politicians don’t tell the press whom to talk to, Trevor. Who do you think you are? Well done to Barry Soper for getting down and dirty. 
The rush to evict the protestors from parliament’s grounds is bad call. If they are taxpayers, it’s their land. Protestors occupied parliament grounds for long periods of the Springbok tour without this argy bargy. Occupy protestors spent the best part of a year on public areas in our cities. When protestors are on public land, If they’re not causing trouble then let them be. 
However, outside parliament grounds is a different story. The Wellington City Council’s abdication of their responsibility to keep Molesworth Street and the adjacent transport hub open was a bad call. Allowing the protestors to curtail the free movement and business of your ratepayer’s reeked of your impotence. That road should have cleared on Day 1. 
And on Day1 someone should have gone out and met the protestors. The demonisation of their concerns and dismissal of them all as nutters and crazies by all the politicians was highly disrespectful. 
But the protestors have also not covered themselves in glory. There are some people with valid grievances there. But there’s a lot of people from out of the rabbit hole. So, the protests lack of organisation and clarity is appalling. Too many narratives and too many of them are there only to disrupt and wreck.   
You can’t call yourself freedom fighters or defenders of freedom as you take other people’s freedom away. And when you start talking about hangings and executions you are now the enemy of a free society and not the defender. 
This has been an embarrassing week for all those involved and the rest of us who are trying to keep this show on the road are looking on with bewilderment.

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In this crazy topsy turvy world that is the Covid pandemic it is possible to feel enormous sympathy with Charlotte Bellis, but also little sympathy at all.  
So, what the hell happened?
Charlotte needs to find a new place to live and have her baby because the place she chose to live in, Qatar, makes it illegal to be unwed and pregnant.  
So, she escaped to the father's homeland of Belgium but under EU rules she could only stay there for 3 months. With nowhere else to go, the couple return to Kabul where the regime can spot a PR gift when they see one.  
All the while she’s trying to win a place in the New Zealand MIQ lottery and failing. Even though people are going for overseas holidays and returning, others like Charlotte appear to be not so lucky. Pointing out the lack of rationality in a lottery-based system. 
Then New Zealand closes its borders to its citizens because MIQ is full of Omicron infected Kiwis, but there is no Omicron in the country. The action buys time to make sure more New Zealanders are vaccinated against the inevitable Omicron surge.  
So, Charlotte applies for an emergency exemption but is refused because being pregnant is not an emergency. She had no medical appointments and wanted to come home in a month but the emergency provision is only open for the immediate fortnight.  
It’s a bureaucratic bungle by Charlotte. Sadly, she hit a faceless pen pusher who operated under rules and not common sense. She’s told she’s got the paperwork all wrong and needs to reapply.    
Instead, she snaps, hires a PR firm, contacts an opposition MP and goes to war on the Government.  
On one hand, the crisis is all of her own making.  Rules are rules. However, on the other hand, it is also the making of a bureaucratic public service regime that seems to show no ability to think for itself.  
I have no doubt that an answer will be found quickly now that the politicians whose jobs depend on public favour are aware of the implications and the worldwide reputational impact on our country and then this firestorm will be over.  
Now I’ve been a big supporter of MIQ. Despite the fashion to say it’s failed; it’s actually been the most successful quarantine programme in the world aided by our geographic position. It’s why we have had such a low infection, hospitalisation and mortality rate.   
However, things need to change.  
MIQ was closed to hold back Omicron. Now Omicron is here, it’s time to reopen it.  
Time to start phasing it out in favour of home self-isolation.  
My suggestion would be that once we hit the 1000 cases a day level that should be the trigger. According to the doomsayers, that'll be in a fortnight and then there's plenty of time for Charlotte to get home to have her baby in May.

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Well let’s start with the good news.  
For all the griping about MIQ, I think we owe the system a debt of gratitude.  
Without it there would have been no summer. Without it we would have rolled straight from a Delta surge into an Omicron tsunami.  
MIQ bought us time. Which is what it's always designed to do. It was never created to keep Covid out forever because that really would be a hermit kingdom. In my eyes it’s all been about suppressing and mitigating the outbreaks so they fit within our meagre capacities. And that happened. 
While the community went down to just a dozen cases in the community a day, in MIQ Omicron surged to over 500 cases. But the border held firm until now and that's a good thing 
So, I’m glad that the people who were obsessed with opening up the border at the end of last year were not listened to.  
So, let’s also hand it to summer. The good weather and the virtual absence of Covid meant money in the bank for struggling businesses.  
The Mercury Bay Informer, published out of Whitianga, reported last week that the Coromandel had had the busiest December in the last 3 years. I spent 3 weeks on the Peninsula and I can tell you it was going off.  
Contrast this with New South Wales last week who reported some of their worst economic data of the outbreak, and this was without a lockdown.  
Omicron’s efficiency in making people too sick to work cleared out the town. Those who were still healthy kept away for fear of getting sick. It was like a voluntary lockdown and that’s the new part of the phenomenon of this pandemic.  
When the Prime Minister yesterday said we were taking precautions to protect the vulnerable I thought she got that wrong.  
Omicron is not so much about saving lives now that we have the vaccine. We have to work together to protect the entire economy which is again under threat  
We must expect workforce shortages across the economy, but especially in frontline roles that can’t be done from home; healthcare workers, supermarket workers, truck drivers and other parts of the supply chain will all be affected.  
Businesses are going to have to figure out how to cope with extreme levels of sick leave.   
Meanwhile our health system is still woefully exposed after decades of under investment. On Thursday, 68.3 percent of ICU beds were occupied and 84.7 percent of general wards or hospital beds were full. That's in summer and with almost no Covid-19 in the community.  
None of this can be solved with money or solved overnight.  
There are only two things that we can deploy. The vaccine and personal responsibility combined with common sense.

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