Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

Legendary broadcaster and writer Phil Gifford has passed away at the age of 79.

A veteran broadcaster and sports journalist with his career spanning over fifty years, Gifford worked across print, radio and television.

Phil was also a host on Newstalk ZB, more recently on the afternoons show alongside Simon Barnett between 2019 and 2021. They reunited after hosting local Christchurch breakfast shows over the 90s and 2000s.

Someone who worked with Phil back in the glory days of broadcasting was fellow veteran sports broadcaster, Brendan Telfer, who joined John MacDonald to remember Phil.

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I’m no fan of the current Government. In fact, I’m no fan of any of the political parties at the moment.

That said, you’ve got to give the current lot credit for what we saw in yesterday’s Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update (PREFU).

Is it enough for them to get another term? I’ll tell you what I think shortly.

But the overarching result is that the government’s finances are better than expected.

The books could be out of the red a year earlier than forecast. With a $4 billion surplus, $1.5 billion higher than was forecast just a few months ago, expected within three years.

When I first heard those numbers, I thought, “Why would you change course now?”

For me, there is a lot not to like about the current government.

Despite what it says, I think it has a general disdain for people who are down on their luck. ACT, especially.

And that doesn’t sit well with me.

Then there’s all the culture war nonsense pushed by NZ First. Making English an official language. Laws to define what a woman is. Proving you’re Kiwi enough to live here.

So there’s a long list of all the things I don’t like about the current government.

But you’ve got to give them credit for the state of the books.

So do I think they deserve another term?

Based on yesterday’s results, I would say yes. Reluctantly.

But there’s another reason too. I think Labour has blown it and doesn’t deserve to be back in government.

I’ve got no idea what they’ve been doing these last three years.

It seems that Chris Hipkins thinks all he has to do is start swearing in speeches and get fired up during interviews and he’ll be Prime Minister again.

He’s dreaming. And the state of The Government’s books could be the final straw.

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Labour Leader Chris Hipkins has admitted he hasn't yet read the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update (PREFU) in full, but he is confident the funding for his party's policies is there.

Speaking to Canterbury Mornings, Hipkins says Labour will take time to crunch the numbers before coming out with their fiscal plan, which will be out by the end of next week.

"You've got to give us a little bit of time to digest it. There's a lot of numbers in it and you want to take the time to do that properly"

Hipkins also discussed his views on Green Party Co-leader Chloe Swarbrick calling for big portfolios if they create a coalition government, and his reaction to the passing of former Labour MP and Speaker of the House, Adrian Rurawhe.

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I’m all for pay equity for women, but. Which I’ll get to.

First, though. At a public meeting in Christchurch last night, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was asked what the most important thing a Labour-led government would do for girls and women.

He said reversing last year’s pay equity changes. And that he would do it within his government’s first 100 days in office.

He said: "I think probably the most reprehensible thing I have seen in my time as a member of Parliament was the Government's decision last year with no notice, with no warning, with no consultation, to pass under urgency a law that cancelled pay equity for tens of thousands of women."

I agree with him there. The way it played out was appalling.

There were about 180,000 workers with pay equity claims underway. They were all dismissed pretty much overnight under urgency.

Hipkins went on to say: "I want to give you a reassurance that within the first 100 days we are back in Government we will reverse that change."

Adding that care and support workers will be first in the queue, because he says they have waited long enough.

That’s because when the coalition rushed through its pay equity changes, and there were those tens of thousands of workers with pay equity claims underway, about 80,000 of them were care and support workers.

It was May last year when the Government announced it was pulling the plug on any existing claims and was going to make it harder for any future claims to get through.

Saying it was doing it because the pay equity rules were “muddied and unclear”.

The truth was, it was doing it to save $12.8 billion and save Nicola Willis’ skin. Because it was just days out from the Budget.

ACT leader David Seymour was even crowing that Brooke van Velden had single-handedly rescued the Budget.

So it was smoke and mirrors and, the way it was done, was an absolute shocker.

I’m all for pay equity. I find it so dismissive of people who say “Oh yeah, equal pay and all that but, sorry girls, we just can’t afford it.”

So no argument from me that something needs to be done to make good for that appalling move by National, ACT and NZ First.

But I can’t support the way Chris Hipkins wants to go about it.

And, instead of the usual 100 days’ nonsense, I want to see this thing looked into properly.

I want to see a thorough select committee process, or something similar, used to get the facts. Which would then allow an approach to be developed to sort out real inequities in a realistic way.

So it’s a yes from me. But do it properly. Don’t rush it.

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How shocking is it that a woman died on a stretch of State Highway 1, in South Canterbury, that NZTA had known was dangerous but hadn’t done anything about it?

I’ll run you through the details. But I hope NZTA is listening to the coroner who is saying today that a median barrier is needed where the crash happened.

I also hope NZTA wakes up to the fact that median barriers are desperately needed on a lot of other roads, as well.

In fact, there was supposed to be a median barrier where this crash happened. But it didn’t go ahead because the money for it was used on something else.

So in January 2018, Kellyanne Pattinson was driving south and was killed when a truck veered across the road and hit her car.

It was on State Highway 1, near Pareora in South Canterbury.

She wasn’t doing anything wrong. No excessive speed. No alcohol. The truck driver wasn’t in the wrong, either.

But he lost control, veered across three lanes and crashed into her.

That happened because it had been wet and excess bitumen had come up to the surface of the road, turning it into a bit of a skating rink.

Technically, it’s known as “flushing”. And, the thing is, NZTA knew about this problem, but hadn’t done anything about it.

In the six years before this crash, there had been five other crashes within 250 metres of where Kellyanne died. All of them involving northbound drivers losing control of their vehicles.

Not long before it happened, a contractor had raised concerns about this issue with the excess bitumen floating to the surface in the wet and making the road slippery.

I don’t know when the median strip that was supposed to have been installed on this stretch of State Highway 1 would have been installed if the funding hadn’t been pulled or spent elsewhere.

So I can’t say whether Kellyanne would still be alive if it had gone ahead, as originally planned.

But Coroner Alexandra Cunninghame is saying today that it’s still needed.

Apparently, there was also a plan to install one earlier this year. But NZTA told the coroner it didn’t happen because it didn’t “align with Government priorities”.

Which isn’t good enough, as far as the coroner is concerned. She’s saying today: “Had the project proceeded, I would have been satisfied that adequate steps had been taken by NZTA to ensure public safety and to reduce the chance of further deaths occurring at the crash site.”

Which is her way of saying that enough hasn’t been done and the road is still dangerous.

So a median barrier is needed there to stop head-on collisions.

But that’s just a start. Because I reckon they are the only way to prevent vehicles from crashing head-on and we should have them on a lot more roads.

The only other options are to keep our fingers crossed, as we do at the moment on most roads around the country, and hope some clown doesn’t do any dodgy overtaking.

Or keep our fingers crossed and hope it doesn’t rain and make the roads slippery.

Neither of those are good enough for me.

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Can you believe how quick Christchurch City councillors are to throw around the cash?

Agreeing yesterday to give $1.2 million to Orana Wildlife Park, just 10 days after the park came out crying poor. Saying it was on track to run out of cash by the end of March and needs to find $4.1 million to keep paying the bills.

They said at the time that they'd be trying to raise some of the money themselves. But would also be asking our local councils for help.

And first cab off the rank is Christchurch. With councillors voting yesterday in favour of handing over $1.2 million.

What does that say about the Christchurch City Council that, within just 10 days, it does this? It tells me that it's a pushover.

The way the votes went were 13 in favour and 3 against. So a decent majority.

There were some dissenting voices around the council table, who weren't happy.

Councillor Nathaniel Herz-Jardine, who, by the way, I think is showing himself to be a very good councillor, said the council should be focusing on the basics. Such as roading, water, affordable housing and community facilities.

According to The Press, Councillor Jardine reckons that agreeing to the $1.2m will eventually see the council contributing $5 million annually. Which, over 25 years, would add up to about $125 million.

I don't know about the $125 million. But I think he's right.

Because what does the City Council agreeing in just 10 days to hand over $1.2 million say to the people running Orana Park?

It tells them that, when push comes to shove, the council will come to their rescue time and time and time again.

Before it hands over the $1.2 million, Christchurch City Council wants to see the park's half-year financial results and wants to see what it's doing to improve the finances.

But that will just be a box-ticking exercise. Orana Park knows it's got the money. And it knows there'll be more where that came from.

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Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger is backing the councils 1.2-million-dollar boost for the city's struggling Orana Wildlife Park, but won't deny whether money will be dished out in the future. 

Speaking on Canterbury Mornings, Mauger said the council would wait to see how successful Orana Park's fundraising efforts are before considering any further support.

"They haven't even started fundraising yet, so it'd be interesting to see what they what they do get."

"We'll just wait and see."

The Mayor also discussed a range of other city issues, including airport noise restrictions affecting housing developments, the new Brougham Street cycle bridge, the Canterbury Museum redevelopment, the latest on the temporary stadium site, and Christchurch City Holdings Limited's work exploring potential asset sales.

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I don't know whether the Christchurch City Council anticipated this kind of thing, but there is proof today that it got it wrong with its decision to limit new homes being built under Christchurch Airport’s flight path.

And I think it needs to reverse its decision. It was only last year when the council made it and, already, it’s backfiring.

Because we’re finding out today that development company Williams Corporation has abandoned plans for a university housing complex in Ilam, next to the University of Canterbury, because of these ridiculous restrictions.

It was to be $80 million worth of apartments, 177 of them, that were to be sold to private investors to rent out, as well as to people wanting to live near the uni, such as university staff.

The land is on Kirkwood Avenue and is zoned for housing, but it’s also inside this airport noise contour, which means the airport gets to have a say on any housing developments in the area.

This is 6 kilometres from the airport and part of a total of 600 hectares of land under flight paths in Christchurch where housing developments are limited because of jet noise.

Which means, thanks to the city council, our airport, which is 75 percent owned by the council, is the only one in the world with such tough restrictions.

What makes them even more ridiculous is that it wouldn’t matter if Williams Corporation wanted to build under the flight path and insulate these apartments to the max with quadruple glazing. It’s the noise outside the house that matters.

According to The Press, the airport initially said no outright.

Then it went back and said it might reconsider if a minimum number of the apartments were only used during the university year.

Because the issue the airport has with the development is its “scale and intensity”. I’ve got no idea what that has to do with noise.

But that didn’t suit Williams Corporation because its plan was to build these new apartments and sell them to either landlords to rent out to students, or to people such as university staff who want to live close to work.

So the airport’s idea was never going to work.

As Matthew Horncastle from Williams Corporation says: “It meant we couldn’t sell one of the homes to a university lecturer or a local cleaner. It could only be for transient accommodation, and to rent out for less than a year at a time.

“It’s not an easy market, and that would have created too much additional risk for an $80 million development.”

Too right.

These restrictions also don’t make sense when you consider that there are truckloads of people already living under the flight path.

That isn’t lost on M. Grace-Stent, who is a housing affordability advocate, who says the airport is not an unknown quantity.

They’re also saying today that the lack of accommodation around the university is pushing up costs for students and that these building restrictions under the airport flight path are totally unnecessary. And I couldn’t agree more.

And before other developments get given the chop because of them, the council needs to get rid of them.

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If Labour’s $2 billion fees-free scheme didn’t lead to an increase in student numbers but did reduce student debt, was it still worth it?

The coalition government doesn’t think so and is scrapping the scheme, saying it’s better to invest in things like trades training.

But I think the risk is we look at this $2 billion, which has come to light today through information provided to Newstalk ZB under the Official Information Act, and assume straight away that it was one big waste of money.

When it started, it was the first year of fees that were free. Then it changed to the final year of study. Most of the money went to university students, with the rest going to people signing up to study at polytechnics, private training establishments, industry training organisations and wānanga.

As far as Tertiary Education Minister Penny Simmonds is concerned, it was a huge waste of money.

But, as someone who got in touch with me about it said: if you sit at home and do nothing, you get the dole. But if you get off your butt and go and study, you get nothing but a big loan to pay off.

They said the fees-free scheme might not have been the best way to go about it. But there is an inequity between people who don’t want to do anything and who get support from taxpayers, and others who try to make something of themselves and don’t.

And that’s where I’m at too. Yes, $2 billion is a truckload of taxpayer money. Yes, as we’re finding out today, it was $2 billion that didn’t actually achieve what it was supposed to achieve, which was getting more people into tertiary education.

But the other side of it is that the 300,000 students who took advantage of the scheme did come out of their studies with less debt than they otherwise might have. And what’s wrong with that?

Penny Simmonds says students will still be supported through the student loan scheme.

But don’t they deserve more than the government telling them to borrow more?

The Green Party is upset. It says the scheme increased Māori participation in tertiary education by about 20 percent.

But, more to the point, it doesn’t think it’s acceptable for the government to say it’s supporting students by piling more debt on them. And I agree.

Yes, some students can access the student allowance. But the bar for that is so high that most end up not qualifying for it.

So they put everything on the student loan and walk out the door with a whole lot of debt.

The fees-free scheme was far from perfect. But surely our tertiary students deserve better than just being told to go and borrow more money.

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I could try to be understanding about this. But I can’t.

Because, how on earth did we get to the point where kids are turning up at school in nappies, and unable to hold a pencil?

If someone’s kid can’t do those things by the time they turn five and start school, then they have failed.

The same goes if they’ve let their kid spend so much time on devices that they’re incapable of having a conversation.

In case you think I’m lumping kids with genuine learning and physical challenges together with kids who can’t do these things because their parents or caregivers have failed them, I’m not.

But when you have National wanting to ban screen time in early childhood centres and limit screen time for Year 1 to Year 3 primary school students so they can focus more on things like learning to hold a pencil and write, you know something’s gone wrong.

You also know things have gone wrong when you hear Education spokesperson Erica Stanford wanting to broaden pre-school checks, because kids are turning up not even knowing the basics.

This is the part of this new policy that I really like. It’s sad that it’s needed, but I like it.

And if you're thinking it’s not all that bad because these kids will eventually catch up, think again. They will catch up, but on average it could take as long as three years.

National thinks part of the solution is to get kids in early childhood centres, and five, six and seven-year-olds at school, off devices and focusing on the basics.

And to test kids before they start school to make sure they can do these very basic things.

All of which I support.

But it won’t do much good if we continue to let these hopeless parents off the hook.

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