Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

Fears the Government has only increased uncertainty for councils with delays to amalgamation plans. 

The Government won't evaluate council's proposals until next year, despite giving them a tight timeline to put the plans forward. 

Local Government New Zealand Regional Chair, Deon Swiggs tells Ryan Bridge pushing back the date is disappointing because a lot of time and money has been put into the plans.

He says there's just one silver lining. 

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The North Korean who tricked their way into a job with Kiwi company to make Kim Jong Un some cash was so yesterday's news.  

The nerds and cyber cops are now worried about yet another AI hack.  

The Aussies' Health NZ-equivalent was breached a few months back. 

The culprit? An OpenAI robot.  

Albanese announced the breach at the UN in NYC. 

In doing so, he revealed that OpenAI (Sam Altman) sat on this information for months without telling Canberra.  

Two red flags immediately leap out of this story.  

First: how did the Australians not know somebody had leapt over the castle gates to snoop around on public and non-public information? And if they didn't know this had happened, what hope is there for the rest of us? If our friends can do this and we only find out because they tell us, what about our enemies? 

Which brings us to the second point... Altman and Co. are supposed to be the good guys. They set up OpenAI as a non-profit to benefit humanity.  

They've since been commercialised.  

But if this is how the well-intentioned behave, what do we expect from the bad guys? 

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On the Early Edition with Ryan Bridge Full Show Podcast 2026, the Government's decided to put council amalgamation on ice, Canterbury Regional Council Chair Dr Deon Swiggs tells Ryan councils aren't happy with the decision.

Fonterra farmers are getting a pretty healthy payout, Dairy NZ CEO Campbell Parker tells Ryan if it's enough to keep farmers going through El Nino. 

The American diplomat who famously called New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance a 'relic' says it wouldn't rank in the top 10 problems for the US in the Pacific today, former US Ambassador and East Asia/pacific Assistant Secretary Christopher R. Hill shares his thoughts with Ryan. 

Plus, UK Correspondent Vincent McAviney has his last international cross on Early Edition after a decade, sharing the latest on a fire at a Starlink satellite station in central Poland and German prosecutors investigating a man aged 105 over allegations that he was an accessory to multiple counts of murder at a Nazi prisoner of war camp in World War Two.

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The future of professional rugby is on the agenda at today's New Zealand Rugby summit. 

The organisation is weighing up decisions regarding the future of Super Rugby and the NPC, with an aim to cut $20 million a year in costs. 

Newstalk ZB's Nick Bewley told Ryan Bridge today's summit will be more a "meeting of the minds" as opposed to having any kind of vote. 

He says they may decide to go down a very different path, or do nothing at all, but it feels like something needs to be done since NZR is losing money. 

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Nurses fear a shorter Police handover for mental health patients could compromise staff and patient safety at ED.  

The fourth stage of Police withdrawing from callouts involves cutting the handover time from an hour to 30 minutes after the initial 15 minute target was ruled unsafe.  

Nurses' Society National Director David Wills says Police stay in ED to offer support and restrain the patient when necessary.  

He told Ryan Bridge about 20% of the time, handovers exceed an hour.  

Wills says 30 minutes is potentially highly problematic as it puts a lot of extra pressure on health professionals and ED staff.  

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Relief cooler heads are prevailing over a discussion around an LNG import terminal.

Energy Minister Simeon Brown had intended to sign a contract with a supplier before the end of the year.

But New Zealand First says there's time yet to decide the best approach, whilst ACT isn't sure a deal is possible before the election. 

Smart Energy Alliance spokesperson Andrew Eagles told Ryan Bridge the process has been rushed up to this point.

Eagles says it would cost New Zealanders up to $2.7 billion over 15 years, and so it's right we slow down and consider this fully.

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Energy is everything, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.  

The LNG terminal is on ice 'till after the election. Shane Jones told Ryan Bridge Today as much last week.  

The Taranaki project hasn't been green lit by Cabinet and there's no way it will be pre-election. There's also no way a contract of that sort would be signed by what is basically a caretaker government. 

The Methanex closure buys time, but how much, we don't know.  

The thing they said we need, the terminal, is now at the whims of the election and coalition talks.  

Businesses and factories don't close just because of costs, they close because of uncertainty. Investment dries up. You need reassurance you've got inputs to produce outputs.  

How many more closures will we see before we have options, and back-up options, signed, sealed, and delivered? 

In Australia, they're just waking up to the fact data centres run 24/7 and therefore, when the sun don't shine and wind don't blow during a cold winter's evening, these beasts need a power source.  

There's an energy conference there this week and business leaders are telling Albanese they need coal and gas back-ups to operate his $200 billion promised pipeline of data centres. 

The problem with politicians is that we vote for them. To appeal to use, they do and say things that aren't necessarily in our long-term interests.  

Case in point, Trump's looking at a diesel export ban to lower prices in the US to try and lower gas prices ahead of the midterms.  

The only upshot, if we can call it that, of this year's squeeze on oil and 2022's electricity crunch is that voters are alive to the fact we actually need a plan to keep the country running, preferably one that actually gets delivered. 

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On the Early Edition with Ryan Bridge Full Show Podcast Thursday 24th of September 2026, David Seymour may be the one hitting the brakes on LNG Terminal contracts, Smart Energy Alliance Spokesperson Andrew Eagles explains what this means for the future of the deal. 

The future of professional rugby will be on the agenda at today's NZR summit, Newstalk ZB Canterbury Sports Commentator Nick Bewley has the latest. 

Police and Health NZ are moving into the final stage of mental health callout changes; National Director Nurses Society David Willis tells Ryan how the transition has been going. 

Plus, US Correspondent Mitch McCann has the latest on 

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The Reserve Bank took too long to pull back on drastic Covid measures.  

An independent probe's found the Monetary Policy Committee made the right call by slashing the OCR early in the pandemic, reducing the risk of a severe downturn.   

But it didn't respond quickly enough to our recovery, leading to the spike in inflation. 

ASB Senior Economist Mark Smith joined Ryan Bridge to unpack the findings. 

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Workplace harm's costing the country billions of dollars a year.  

A report from the Business Leaders Health and Safety Forum has found workplace harm cost the country $5.5 billion in 2025.  

Forum Chief Executive Francois Barton says that's made up of a mix of injuries, illness and deaths. 

He told Ryan Bridge the industries with the highest rate of harm are the primary industries – construction, farming, manufacturing, and areas in transport and logistics. 

Barton says the blueprint for safety isn't more helmets, hi-vis, and checklists, it's about how we can change the work itself to make it safer. 

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