Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

The Reserve Bank of Australia has opted to keep the OCR on hold for the time being.

The cash rate is set to stay at 4.35 percent, with economists citing moderating inflation as the main factor behind the decision.

Australian correspondent Murray Olds says inflation is reducing at a positive pace- but time will tell what the market looks like in January.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's growing claims local Government needs reform.

A number of councils are proposing double-digit rate rises for the next financial year, or face cuts to essential services.

They're grappling with high interest rates, inflation and looming infrastructure costs.

Future of Local Government Review Chair Jim Palmer says a new operating model is badly needed.

"That includes some form of re-organisation, but there needs to be investment in the leadership competency of local Government, both at a political and executive level."

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So we had the National Māori Action Day protest today.

The protests took place across the North Island this morning and they were big, impressively so.

There were an estimated 300 cars at the Auckland protest, there were about 50 on the Southern Motorway- which created a 3km backlog- and there were over 100 people at each of the Hamilton, Whakatane, Rotorua, Tokoroa, Taupo and Palmerston North gatherings.

That is impressive, those numbers. Because from what I can see, those people were activated by the Māori Party in about 24 hours.

If I'm not mistaken, they put up their social media posts yesterday, it got into the news yesterday- and all of those hundreds of people turned up to protest today at 7am.

Regardless of whether you agree with the Māori Party and what they advocate for or not, it is pretty impressive that they managed to get that many people together in such a short space of time.

That tells you two things, I reckon.

One is that there's a lot of emotion out there about what the Government is planning to do in the race relations area. Those protests, when you think about it, were actually about nothing- but also about everything.

There wasn't just one thing that those people got out to protest about. Nothing has actually happened. If you listen to the number of things people were protesting over, it was a smorgasbord of reasons why they were out there.

The promise of the Government doing anything in the race relations area got those people emotional enough to go out.

Secondly, if the Māori Party can activate that many people when nothing has happened in only 24 hours, imagine what they can do when something actually does happen.

For example, when ACT's Treaty principles bill goes to Parliament. That bill has the potential to trigger a referendum- if it actually gets passed through Parliament.

There's no evidence that suggests this will happen, but imagine how big the protests could be based on what we saw today.

I know that not everybody takes the Māori Party seriously, because they're all about the spectacle. A lot of the stunts that they pull are clearly meaningless and make themselves look foolish to a lot of people.

But do not underestimate them. Because they are dominating the conversation on the first day of Parliament.

We aren't talking about the new Government sitting in Parliament for the first time, we're talking about the Māori Party today.

And I suspect this will be the first of many days where they will dominate over the next three years.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The White Ferns have lost their first ever twenty20 series to Pakistan at home, after conceding game two by ten runs in Dunedin.

Chasing 138 for victory, New Zealand were 29 for four in the sixth over with Suzie Bates the only top four batter to make double digits.

Georgia Plimmer and Hannah Rowe rallied late with 28 and 33 runs respectively but both were dismissed at the death.

Sportstalk host D'Arcy Waldegrave explains what this means for the state of womne's cricket.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

More information has come to light about the slip that brought Omid Scobie's book into the public eye.

It was revealed that his agent sent a draft manuscript of Endgame to be translated into Dutch- a version that named the royals who expressed concern about Archie's skin colour.

Omid Scobie himself has remained adamant that he never put the names of the royals involved into print.

UK correspondent Gavin Grey says it's looking likely that the royals will take legal action.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tonight on The Huddle, Trish Sherson from Sherson Willis PR and former Labour Chief of Staff Mike Munro joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day- and more!

Te Pati Māori has called for people to come together to protest the Government’s “assault on tangata whenua and Te Tiriti o Waitangi”. Is this setting up another bad week for the new Government? How big will the turnout be?

Auckland's City Rail Link is set to cost ratepayers $220 million per year, once it opens up. It's also looking likely the CRL will miss the November 2025 deadline- is this better or worse for Aucklanders?

What did we think of this year's Cop28? Is it a bad look to have people coming together in the United Arab Emirates to reduce emissions and fuel use?

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has expressed concern with the scale of financial challenges left behind by the former Government, which she is still uncovering.

She's accused her predecessors of leaving the books in a much worse state than they appeared in the pre-election unveil.

NZME business commentator Fran O'Sullivan says a lot of Government projects were funded on a short-term basis- and Willis shouldn't have been too surprised.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Police and Waka Kotahi are working together to prepare for possible disruptions from protests planned by Te Pāti Māori.

The party has proposed a nationwide day of action tomorrow against the Government's Māori policy and are rallying people to protest across the North Island.

ZB political editor Jason Walls says it would be difficult for Te Pāti Māori to bring people together on a national scale, so it'll be interesting to see how the day goes.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Experts claim New Zealand's ongoing failure to deal with bad debt is costing the country over $2 billion per year.

Debt management firm DebtManagers says a human-centred and customer-led approach to debt will reduce the issue- as the current one-size-fits all approach isn't helpful.

Executive director Charles Whiting says adding interest and collection fees is counter-intuitive to getting debt repaid faster. 

"We talk about people going into arrears- often debt is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to issues they're experiencing." 

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's growing accusations the previous Government was disingenuous on finances.

The Government books were opened in September in the pre-election reveal - but Finance Minister Nicola Willis says she is now surprised how many projects' funding is about to expire.

Willis says the true scale and urgency of the situation wasn't made clear to her before she started.

"The effect of the Government not having funded these projects is that it made their books look better than they might otherwise have looked."

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.