Holiday Breakfast

The Government's new Traffic Light System appears to be watertight from a legal point of view.
Under the new system announced on Friday, people who are unvaccinated could miss out on going to restaurants, festivals and gyms.
It will kick in once DHBs meet vaccination targets.
Auckland University Law Professor Bill Hodge told Tim Dower the orders are justifiable interferences with the Bill of Rights Act.
“New Zealand has obligations under the World Health Organization, under various international conventions that say ‘you got a duty to keep people safe from endemics and pandemics.’”
Hodge says the Government is using a combination of carrot and stick to encourage vaccination.
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Victorians are close to reaching two major vaccination milestones and will see a raft of restrictions ease as soon as next weekend, it was announced on Sunday.

Premier Daniel Andrews announced two sets of rules - one was for when the state hit 90 per cent double-dose vaccination on November 24.
The other set of rules would be triggered on Friday at 6pm, when the state was expected to have fully vaccinated 80 per cent of its population.

Ninety per cent of Victoria’s population above 16 will be fully vaccinated. Photo / NCA NewsWire
All the rules changing at 90 per cent
By November 24, 90 per cent of Victorians above the age of 16 should be fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
The fast uptick of vaccines will trigger a new round of extra freedoms, Mr Andrews said on Sunday morning.
“(Once the vaccination rate reaches 90 per cent), there will be a fundamental change, a massive change in many respects, to the rules that we have all been living under,” he said.
“There will be no (capacity) caps anywhere. There will be no density limits anywhere.
“Masks will only be required in high-risk indoor settings, such as public transport, prisons, hospitals, and aged care.
“We will retain the vaccinated economy, all those requirements, all those settings, where you can only get in if you are double vaccinated.”

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announces a new round of freedoms. Photo / NCA NewsWire
All the rules changing at 80 per cent:

Travel from Melbourne to regional Victoria will be allowed.
Most indoor settings, including restaurants, pubs, gyms and hairdressers will open with no caps subject to a 1-person per four square metres limit - all staff and patrons must be fully vaccinated.
Most outdoor settings will remain at 1-person per two square metres limit (up to 500 people) - where staff and patrons are fully vaccinated.These indoor and outdoor settings will also apply to weddings, funerals and religious gatherings if all attendees are fully vaccinated.
Caps of 30 people will apply for weddings, funerals and religious gatherings if vaccination status is unknown.
Entertainment venues will reopen. For indoor seated venues including cinemas and theatres, there will be a 75 per cent capacity of up to 1000 people, and for non-seated indoor entertainment venues, there will be a 1-person per four square metres limit with no patron cap.


There will be no caps in hospitality beyond November 24. Photo / NCA NewsWire


Outdoor seated and non-seated entertainment venues including stadiums, zoos and tourism attractions will be open with a limit of 5000 people where staff and patrons are fully vaccinated.
Events – such as music festivals – will be able to host up to 5000 attendees - The chief health Ooficer may also grant an approval for larger crowds for significant events and venues.
Masks will remain mandatory indoors but no longer required outdoors. It is highly recommended you continue to wear a mask outdoors where you cannot physically distance.

It comes as the state recorded 1935 new locally acquired Covid-19 infections on Sunday as the virus spreads among the state’s younger population.
Eleven more Victorians also died from the virus in the past 24 hours, the Department of Health also confirmed.
About 90.3 per cent of Victorians above the age of 16 had received one jab of the Covid-19 vaccine, and 73 per cent were completely inoculated.
Earlier, it was confirmed one group of Victorians was experiencing more infections with the virus than anyone else.
Twenty-nine per cent of all of Saturday’s new cases on Saturday were in Victorians under the age of 19.
That day, there were 1750 infections.

Victoria Covid-19 Commander Jeroen Weimar said Covid-19 is infecting the young. Photo / NCA NewsWire



Children aged under 12 remain...

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A Maori health expert has serious concerns about the Government's new Traffic Light System.
Hauora Coalition Clinical Director Rawiri Jansen told Tim Dower a separate vaccination rate for Maori is needed, and the 90 per cent vaccination rate is too low.
"If you get 90 per cent vaccinated, that's about 140,000 Aucklanders not vaccinated."
The system will be rolled out once DHBs reached 90 per cent vaccination targets.
Jansen says the reopening of the economy is being prioritised over the health of the people.
“It’s a lot of people pushing really hard to, I don’t know, get out and have their lattes or have their holiday.”
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There's doubt what happened on an Alec Baldwin movie set would happen in New Zealand.
His 42-year-old photography director, Halyna Hutchins, is dead after the actor fired a gun he was told contained blanks while filming Rust.
New Zealand Stunt Guild professional, Andrew Cottle, told Tim Dower real firearms are often used in this country but there's never any live ammunition on set.
But he says a blank can also maim or kill someone.
“We stipulate with all of our firearms that you never point a loaded firearm at a person and pull the trigger because the gas coming out the end is coming out very quickly and it’s very hot.”
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Health and safety will be paramount when Auckland and Waikato schools reopen to select students tomorrow morning.
Schools in Level Three areas will reopen tomorrow for Years 11, 12 and 13.
Ventilation, mask-wearing and social distancing will be used to keep students safe.
Grant McMillan, the Principal of Manurewa's James Cook High School told Tim Dower he won't be taking any risks.
“If at any time I’m concerned, if I believe that things are no longer safe, I’ll go straight to our board of trustees and ask to close.”
McMillan says he’s made a roadmap for every student at his school.
“So we are going to use those maps with our students and get them where they need to be before the 10th or 17th of December.”
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The birth of Meghan and Harry's second child has been met with congratulations.
The pair named the girl Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, Lili for short.
The name has nods to Queen Elizabeth and the late Princess Diana.
CNN's Royal correspondent Victoria Arbiter told Tim Beveridge the couple managed to keep the birth under wraps for a while.
"When we think about the fact that this news didn't break until today, it's quite remarkable that Harry and Meghan were able to keep this secret.
"Living in California, no doubt they have been under surveillance from paparazzi outlets."
She says this is cause for celebration.
"Here we are, a couple of months since Prince Philip died.
"We've had horrible royal news this year between rifts and Oprah interviews and everything else."
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A group of forty world-class athletes putting their names to a letter to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Sport over what to do with transgender athletes in sport. 
They want wider consultation on a draft policy Sport NZ has sent out to rainbow groups, proposing ways to allow trans women athletes to compete against biological females at club and community level.
Olympic gold medallists Danyon Loader and Barbara Kendall are among the signatories, alongside former Olympic swimmer and sports medicine specialist, Professor Dave Gerrard - who says safety can't make way for inclusion.
He told Tim Dower he says the debate should look at the "irrefutable" evidence that any transgender female athlete who transitions after male puberty is at a "decided advantage" on the sports field. 
He says there is a lot of emotion drawn into this, and the rainbow community should not feel threatened. 
"It is not a transphobia statement. It is really a question of fairness." 
Gerrard wants to look at the number of transgender athletes that are likely to involve, and administer a process that allows them to be included in sport but not where it might be at the risk of safety to others. 
He does not think there should be a separate transgender class at the Olympics as there are not enough athletes to warrant it. 
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The world's largest treasure trove of British cars is up for sale in Hawke's Bay in the hope the museum they belonged to can once again be opened to the public.
It features hundreds of cars - from Morris Minors, to Austins, Vauxhalls and Triumphs - literally stacked on top of one another
They were brought together by the late car aficionado Ian Hope. His nephew Mark Hope told Tim Dower that the cars are known for leaking oil and smelling like it, but that's why they love them.
"When you walk through that place, the feeling you get is amazing.
"It's an incredible feat that Ian has achieved."
He says they need someone with the same passion Ian had to take over the museum, and they need to make it safer to be open for the public. 
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New Zealanders are being urged to be prepared for the grim reaper -- no matter what stage of life they're at.
A new survey by Public Trust has found less than half of us have a will.
And about a third of us fear we won't have enough to pass on to our children.
Public Trust Chief Executive Glenys Talivai told Tim Dower people aren't just worried about financial inheritance, but also other things like heirlooms.
"It was also about how people will be remembered, and equally very special things that might exist in families, such as heirlooms."
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The Victorian government is facing increasing pressure this morning to lift Melbourne’s lockdown amid a string of low case numbers in the state and as the city enters day 11 of its fourth lockdown.
All eyes will be on Monday’s numbers after officials in the state refused to budge on Sunday despite pressure from fed-up Victorians and business groups to end the lockdown early.
Victoria recorded four new positive local cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, including two in aged care, but the risks posed by the Delta variant are forcing officials to be cautious.
Acting Victorian premier James Merlino said lockdown is likely to run until midnight Thursday, citing the highly infectious Delta variant covid mutation which has struck 10 Victorians already.
Mr Merlino said the state is living in a “different environment” with the new variant compared to its lockdown last year.
“There’s a reason why public health is so concerned about the Delta variant,” he said. “It is much, much more infection than what we were dealing with last year.”
“The last thing we want to see is this variant of the virus getting out, and becoming uncontrollable,” he said.
“I want to get there as quickly as you do.”
Mystery still surrounds how the cluster began in West Melbourne with “health investigators” scouring sequencing results from labs across the country. The outbreak in West Melbourne has grown to 10 cases of the Delta variant with a primary school teacher the latest to test positive.
Mr Merlino said his “expectation” was by the end of lockdown on Thursday, “we’ll be in a position to have further easings of restrictions in regional Victoria and careful easing of restrictions in Melbourne.”
He went on to say the decision would be based on public health advice.
“We’ve just got to drive this thing to the ground.”
“We do not have the luxury of picking and choosing the public health advice that we receive a stop in I hate going into lockdown, like every single Victorian I want to be out of lockdown as quickly as possible, the way to do that is for people to get tested, for people if you are eligible to get your vaccination, for people to follow the rules.”
But the financial pressure is increasing day by day for both businesses and residents. A survey by Tenants Victoria showed 66 per cent of respondents said they were financially impacted by lockdown. An estimated average loss was $817.
Deputy chief health officer Allen Cheng said lifting the lockdown was a “day by day proposition” but added that Thursday’s planned easing of restrictions, was “our expectation”.
“If we can, we will,” he said of it potentially lifting early.
Mr Cheng said health authorities are examining cases carefully and working with other labs to see if there is any further information that can be obtained from specimens regarding the state’s hunt for the delta variant outbreak.
Chief executive of the Australian Industry Group Innes Willox has called for the Victorian government to devise an immediate path out of lockdown to save the state’s businesses.
“This lockdown has been marked by exaggerated language and doomsday prophesies from Victoria’s health leaders that have not come to pass,” he said.
Currently, he says it’s costing the economy nearly $360 million.
Last week, Professor MacIntyre told the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas the variant spreading in Melbourne is “more transmissible” and “more contagious” and that it has a particular mutation that’s “more likely to make it more vaccine resistant than that strain, so that’s a big concern”.
“There’s more virus in the air, we know that SARS Covid-2 is airborne so an area where someone has been indoors might be more at risk with this particular virus.
“The biggest risk is breathing in the virus through contaminated air indoors, in settings that are poorly ventilated.
“The stakes have been raised with this variant because we know its more...

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