Holiday Breakfast

National leader Judith Collins has taken aim at the Government, urging them to accelerate the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination, given the increased risk of the new variant which is devastating the UK and South Africa.
Collins and her party want front-line workers, such as those working in managed isolation and quarantine facilities (MIQ), to get the vaccine as soon as possible.
She told Tim Dower in the past community, transmission has started at the border.
"The Government told us on the 16th of November... that New Zealand was at the front of the queue for these vaccines, and that's clearly not true. We've got our MIQ or our border staff who are not vaccinated at the moment, we've got our healthcare workers and those who work in aged care who should be our priority people for vaccines."
Collins says the Government has been silent on why this has occurred.
"We've got Canada saying they have five times the amount of vaccine they need to immunise their entire population... and we've got the New Zealand Government saying 'well maybe we will start it in possible April'... well that's simply not good enough."
Yesterday there were four new imported cases of Covid-19, one of which came from the UK, via the United Arab Emirates.
On Sunday, the Ministry of Health revealed there had been 31 new imported cases since Thursday – all in managed isolation.

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Newstalk ZB is back with another edition of Hidden Spots on Summer Breakfast.
This is where we take you on a bit of a virtual road trip around the country - and give you tips on attractions you may not know about.
The Maniototo Curling rink is the centre of the winter sport in New Zealand, and a must to visit if you are on a road trip in the small town of Naseby, situated between Oamaru and Cromwell in the South Island.
Rink manager Ewan Kirk told Tim Dower upon moving to the area, he had to join the club.
"When you move to these parts it's like being in Rome -you got to do it.
Mr Kirk says after being a volunteer he took charge of the club, and his Scottish heritage has aided his desire to remain involved in the sport.
"The climate is conducive to the outdoor game here and our Scottish friends... who also invented curling brought that idea to us here in the gold era, and we took it up from then."

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Police have put the brakes on training new officers, despite a rise in gun violence and gang activity.
The delay has left hundreds of recruits in limbo and means the Government is still well short of its promise last term to put an extra 1800 cops on the streets by last year.
Candidates of an upcoming training wing were initially scheduled to attend the Royal New Zealand Police College in February.
But they were told in a document obtained by the Herald on Sunday that their training would be deferred until later in 2021 after recruitment requirements were reconsidered.
The decision will mean a six-month drought of new cops hitting the streets between March and September.
A wing of 60 recruits is set to be deployed in March at the end of the last scheduled four-month training.
Police say the earliest next intake for training is scheduled to start in May, so no new officers will be available for work until September.
Police halted recruitment in June last year, because of an increase in applications during the Covid-19 lockdown, but assured those already in the pipeline that their training would continue.
In a statement, executive director of people and operations Kaye Ryan said attrition rates as low as 2 per cent meant there was now "less of a need for police recruits," despite police falling more than 400 short of the 2017 Government Coalition Agreement goal of adding 1800 new police officers above attrition over three years.
Ryan said the growth target was always funded over a five-year period.

Police Association president Chris Cahill. (Photo / Mark Mitchell)
But Police Association spokesperson Chris Cahill said he believed police had to stop training because they had got ahead of their five-year budget. He urged that the money be brought forward so training could restart immediately.
"Labour are actually budgeting this over five years from June 2018 to June 2023 and we think that's crazy because they said if it could be done, they would do it in three years," he told the Herald on Sunday.
"New cops are needed now more than ever. We've got over 200 police staff working in the managed isolation facilities so that's 200 staff not out on the street. Why would you not get the recruits through while you've got people wanting to join and police have the capacity to train?
"Our members are telling us they've seen some real gains with the extra numbers which came through, it had a real effect on morale in the police and their ability to do the job. By cancelling wings, we risk losing all those gains."

The Government fell short of its growth target of 1800 new police over three years. (Photo / Getty)
Last month, Auckland Mayor Phil Goff called on police to boost the number of frontline officers to crack down on drug trafficking and organised crime as the city wrestles with spiralling gun violence.
Gang membership is also on the rise nationwide. At least 900 people reportedly joined a gang in 2020, an increase of 13 per cent on the year before, according to police figures.
National's police spokesman Simeon Brown said the postponement of training in light of this reflected a "lack of commitment" from the Government to its "goals in law and order in keeping New Zealanders safe".
"What's happened is failure in the Government not achieving their promise and kicking the can down the road," Brown said.
"It's time we take this seriously and actually ensure we have the police resources to match.
"The public are waking up to the fact that crime is on the rise, particularly organised criminal activity, and they need the police to be as effective and as well-resourced as possible."
Cahill added his concern that the May intake would mean just 40 recruits were trained and would only go ahead if attrition rates increased.
He feared the extended delay would risk them losing candidates with great potential in the police...

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There is dissatisfaction amongst New Zealand employees.
According to a Council of Trade Unions (CTU) survey, half of New Zealanders say their income has not kept up with the cost of living while their workload has increased.
The survey also shows 40 per cent of workers have less job satisfaction compared to 2019.
The CTU says these are systemic problems and the whole framework of employment law needs to change.
CTU National Secretary and Treasurer Melissa Ansell-Bridges told Tim Dower laws have not changed much over the last few years.
"The improvements we've been seeing over the last couple of years are great, but they're not enough to actually address the issues in the work place.
"What we need to see is a fundamental change to the framework of employment relations and industrial relations in New Zealand."

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The biggest tenancy law reform in 35 years is almost upon us.
From next month, landlords will not be able to evict for no reason after 90 days.
Other changes to the Residential Tenancies Act, include allowing tenants to make minor decor changes and install fibre broadband.
Some landlords are concerned, with one investor threatening to leave his properties empty as it is going to be too hard to evict people when he wants to redevelop.
So should landlords be pessimistic? Or is this a positive re-balancing of the landlord/tenant relationship?
One Roof commentator Ashley Church told Tim Beveridge the particular investor, who is a self-described developer, is not overreacting.
"A very big difference between a developer and an investor. For a developer to say he will leave his properties empty, that's actually a reasonable thing to do. Developers only have tenants for a short period of time while they're deciding what they'll do with the property."

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Act Party leader David Seymour was one of a few New Zealand politicians who enjoyed a successful 2020.
Seymour and his party secured 10 seats in the General Election.
He told Tim Dower it was not a good year generally for opposition parties due to Covid-19.
"When there's an external threat... people like to rally around the leader, we've been doing this since we lived in caves. Opposition parties around the world generally got smashed, I'm really proud Act has bucked that trend."
Seymour didn't want to go into too much detail on National's struggles, and wasn't sure if things would have been different had Simon Bridges not been rolled as leader.
"You spend a lot of time on hypotheticals... the problems that the National Party faces, it's easy to focus on any particular individual. My view is you got to have a product that is centred on being helpful to the voter.
"They've lost a lot of seats, and it really depends on whether they view Act's success as a cost to them or actually an opportunity for better Government in 2023."
Seymour says if it's the former, National will continue to be held back in their bid to get back into power.

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The biggest tenancy law reform in 35 years will come into effect next month, and many landlords are unhappy.
From February 11, major changes to the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 become law, embedding tenants more firmly and making it harder for landlords to evict, with a far more limited range of reasons.
Anthony Appleton Tattersall - an accountant specialising in property - says it's not a single issue but "progressively more responsibilities and costs being pushed on them over time".
Mr Appleton Tattersall told Tim Dower he believes the removal of the 90 day no tenancy law is unnecessary.
"It's only affecting, the numbers I've read, are two to three per cent of tenants in a given year, and they tend to be for reasons of anti-social behaviour."
He says the law doesn't typically affect good tenants, but most other law reforms are "good and well-justified".

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Kiwi conservationist Pete Bethune has walked out of a hospital in Costa Rica after a deadly snakebite almost claimed his life two weeks ago.
He was bitten by the highly venomous Fer De Lance snake in a South American jungle just after Christmas.
Initially fearing he would not make it out alive, Bethune managed a difficult three-hour trek, clambering and dragging himself through unforgiving terrain to reach his boat.
Bethune told Tim Dower he is one happy camper to be alive and back on his ship.
"I gave myself a bit of a fright... when I first got bitten I thought I was a dead man, we were so far from being able to get out of that jungle in terms of distance. I know the history of the Fer De Lance snake - some people are dead in five minutes, some it might take four or five hours."
By the time he got to a hospital, his left leg had swollen to at least double the size of his right after the viper sank its fangs into his lower calf.
Bethune says there are ongoing issues, which include a bladder problem and muscle issue on his calf. However medical professionals expect both to clear up soon.

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We are on the road again, down south this time to the Banks Peninsula in the South Island.
Okains Bay is a hidden gem in the area, which has a museum that is home to one of the most important collections of Māori taonga, art and carvings.
Okains Bay Museum chair Helen Brown told Tim Dower the unofficial mayor of Okains Bay Murray Thacker was the founder of the museum.
"He was a local farmer who started the museum initially at his own home before purchasing the old dairy factory in Okains Bay... maybe around 1966, and over a period of years converted it into the museum we have today."
The museum officially opened on Waitangi Day in 1977.
Ms Brown says they are most famous for their collection of Māori taonga, which she describes of national significance and rivals collections held by larger museums.

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The summer holidays have seen many of us take a break from work - and, it turns out, that break could provide a chance to correct how we're sitting when we get back to work. 
Sports biomechanists Greg Pain - who works largely with rehab - joined Francesca Rudkin to explain how we are sitting incorrectly, other forms of pain, and to answers questions from listeners. 
LISTEN ABOVE

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