Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

Listen to the Early Edition with Ryan Bridge Full Show Podcast for Friday 22 November.
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JD Vance is facing a tricky task on Capitol Hill. 

The vice president-elect has arrived at the Capitol to shore up support for Trump’s controversial cabinet picks. 

He’ll spend the week organising meetings between Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth and key Republican senators involved in their confirmation process. 

US Correspondent Mitch McCann told Ryan Bridge that Gaetz is with Vance today, and it’ll be a tall order to get him confirmed as people have already spoken out against him.  

He says that it would be quite the defeat for Donald Trump if he was rejected. 

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Police hope an increased focus on gang activity will pay dividends.  

The gang patch ban has been in force since midnight.  

Police Assistant Commissioner Paul Basham says in the lead up to the ban, there was an increase in reports of gang members wearing their patches prominently in public. 

He says they get reports on criminal behaviour all the time, so this increase was that combined with a heightened awareness from the public. 

Basham told Ryan Bridge the legislation will create opportunities to catch other crimes.  

He says targeting small groups with high offending rates has a disproportionate effect on crime. 

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There's little doubt there's unnecessary spend at the Transport Agency. 

The Transport Minister's called NZTA's costs eye-watering and excessive, after revealing a near $800 million spend over the past three years. 

That went to road cones, traffic management, state highway maintenance, and capital works. 

Temporary Traffic Management Chair Dave Tilton told Ryan Bridge he believes it's a systemic issue around how much temporary traffic management is deployed. 

He says it's a prescriptive system, which doesn't give room for site-specific considerations. 

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Households and businesses are set to face higher electricity bills. 

The Commerce Commission estimates the average household's monthly electricity bill will rise by around $10 from April. 

The Commission's allowing Transpower and local lines companies to raise prices as they aim to upgrade and maintain the grid. 

Major Electricity Users' Group Chair John Harbord told Ryan Bridge the impact will be more significant on industrial manufacturers. 

He says those large businesses don't buy their electricity from retailers, so the percentage of their bill that comes from transmission is higher. 

Harbord says many of those businesses are already struggling with costs. 

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Everyone hates gangs. Unless you're in them, you hate them because they intimidate, they cause misery, they beat their wives, they do all sorts of awful things. 

But I just worry that the gang patch ban in and of itself is not really going to solve the underlying causes, is it? 

And what I worry about is the waste that could go into this. 

The waste of time, police energy and resources. Every time Betty sees a gang patch, she rings in 111, which is fine because I know it's intimidating. However, that is going to tie up some police time which could be better spent solving an actual crime. 

The other problem here is the design of the insignia, the gang patch. 

So at the moment, the police know the designs of each of the gangs' patches. 

What they're apparently doing is going down through and making subtle changes, adding words like mana whenua, or changing this logo or that logo. 

So, sure, you will take the patch, you will collect it as evidence, you will take it to court, and the lawyers will argue that it's different. 

I mean where are we now with our legal bills and our legal aid bills? What have we actually achieved in doing that? 

Have we reduced crime, or have we increased the cost of administering a fashion police policy? 

That's my only concern. 

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On the Early Edition with Ryan Bridge Full Show Podcast for Thursday 21st of November, gang patches are now banned in public. Are police ready to enforce the new law? Assistant Commissioner Paul Basham joins the show. 

NZTA has spent Almost $800 million on temporary traffic management in the past 3 years, and that doesn't include local council spending. Dave Tilton from the Temporary Traffic Management Industry Steering Group speaks to Ryan. 

Power prices are on the rise as the Commerce Commission allows Transpower and lines companies to increase how much they charge. John Harbord from the Major Electricity Users Group talks about what it means for the country's biggest power users. 

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Democracy is a delicate and fragile thing, and yesterday's protest was a good example of it working. 

People oppose something, they protest peacefully, respectfully, they present a petition, they go home. 

The bill, by the way, that they don't like, well, it's not becoming law. 

You don't have to look far this morning for examples of things going tits up in a big way, and quickly. 

We've basically farewelled freedom in Hong Kong, 45 activists sentenced to long-term prison sentences overnight, kids in the West Bank being killed.

You've got a tyrant in Putin lowering the bar for the use of nuclear weapons, plus you've got US made long range missiles firing on Russia.

But here, we have a functioning democracy. 

Now the hīkoi is over, Rawiri Waititi wants to go further. He wants a separate Māori parliament. He wants two systems.

He references on his website the Irish, Welsh, and Scottish systems. The latter of which controls its own justice, education, tax systems.

How would that work here? Who would fund such a parliament? 

Who would fall under the Māori parliament, given 75% of Māori didn't vote for Rawiri's lot at the last election? 

How would you build a nation within a nation, separated not by borders, but ethnicity? 

Serious question. 

You see, democracy works when we're all in it and we're all in it equally. 

It's true that not every group will get the same outcomes from that system, but that's no reason to throw the system away entirely. 

What it is, sure, is a call to better use that system to effect change through strong and pragmatic leadership, the likes of which Te Pāti Māori has been known for in the past. 

Whether you'll get that leadership from Debbie and Waititi... well, we'll have to wait and see. 

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Freight carriers agree upcoming State Highway 1 repairs are necessary. 

The Desert Road in the Central North Island is shutting to traffic between Tūrangi and Waiouru from January 6 until the end of February. 

NZTA says the detour will add half an hour and an extra 50km to people’s journey. 

National Road Carriers Policy & Advocacy manager, James Smith, says the entire network has maintenance that needs to happen. 

He says they've known about it since August, and the road will end up with a much better finish. 

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Many European countries are accusing Russia of sabotage after the cutting of two communication cables under the Baltic Sea.  

One of the cables links Finland and Germany, while the other connects Sweden to Lithuania.  

It comes as Ukraine's fired its first set of US-made long range missiles into Russia.  

While Russia shot down five of them, the shrapnel from a sixth caused a fire at a military facility in the Bryansk region. 

Europe correspondent Gavin Grey told Ryan Bridge other moves inside Russia are increasing concern in Europe.  

He says Russia has changed its rules around when it can use a nuclear weapon. 

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