Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Remember yesterday when we were talking about the declining rates of hazardous drinking among young people? Good news. And then so many of you positing that it's because they're popping pills and taking other drugs. Bad news. It looks like you might be right.  

The 2024 New Zealand Drugs Trend Survey has found that the price of drugs is dropping, the meth market saturated, and drug use has increased in just about all the regions. The availability of LSD and other psychedelics is growing, prices have been dropping for the past seven years, Kiwis’ cocaine use is up the wazoo —I suppose you could put it up the wazoo, it’s usually up the nose— but that's everywhere in all the regions. Cannabis is everywhere and the price has dropped marginally.  

The fact that meth has reached record-low prices is because new players are entering the market. Just as with anything that you manufacture, doing it yourself in New Zealand is more expensive than importing it from overseas, and that is concerning. Professor Chris Wilkins from Massey University says new players have entered the market and our drugs are no longer just a bit of marijuana growing locally.  

CW: It's a global market, so a lot of the methamphetamine we have traditionally used has come from Southeast Asia, but Australian police are saying that 70% of the meth they now see is actually from North America, South America, actually are Mexican cartels, and they're essentially just like in the other market, they're seeing a market opportunity and they're selling at a cut price.  

MH: There seems to be a tremendous amount of cocaine about the place?   

CW: That's right. So there was another really surprising finding was that the level of cocaine use, level of cocaine availability, obviously in Auckland, but also in Northland, the Bay of Plenty, but really all over in New Zealand and this may well be some overlap with that Mexican cartel and of course, they're in the cocaine trade, and if they're selling meth to New Zealand and to Australia, then cocaine is also another thing that obviously got access to.  

So yeah, the Mexican cartels sending down their meth and saying, “look, hey gift with purchase, you might like to try a little bit of cokie wokie when you’re taking your meth supplies”. So the survey says drugs are becoming increasingly prevalent, but illicit drug users are still in the minority if you believe the New Zealand Drug Foundation. You might think from that report and from what Professor Wilkins was saying that at every party in every town across New Zealand, there are mountains of cocaine and rows of meth pipes lined up on every table like little party favours, but the Drug Foundation says drugs like meth, MDMA and opioids are used by a relatively small percentage of the population.  

According to their figures —self-reporting— 3.6% of the population aged 15 and over used MDMA last year. That's around 152,000 people. 1.1%, around 47,000, used amphetamines, and 0.4%, around 18,000, used opioids. They rely on self-reporting, and the New Zealand Health Survey, which is self-reporting and wastewater testing data – which you think would be more accurate, but surely there must be more people using drugs than those who are appearing in the wastewater or those who are self-reporting? Otherwise, how are so many people able to make a living peddling drugs? Why would the cartels bother sending drugs into New Zealand if it wasn't worth their while? Are we seeing a disconnect between the numbers of people who are self-reporting and the actual trade itself?  

Do we need to know exactly what the extent of drug use is in New Zealand before we can have a conversation about drug use in New Zealand? If there are many, many people, like if it's more than 1%, if we're talking about 10% of the population using illicit drugs, then you'd think it would be time to take the Portuguese approach and decriminalise drugs to control the source and supplies so that it wasn't in the hands of the gangsters and the mobsters. And we really don't want Mexican cartels here, do we? 

But then you can't just take the Portuguese experiment, which has worked in Portugal and import it holus-bolus into your own country. In Canada, in British Columbia, they became the first and only province thus far to decriminalise the possession of a small amount of hard drugs to reduce the barriers and stigma “that bar those with severe drug addiction from life saving help or treatment”. It's running on a pilot basis until 2026, but already it's a disaster. It's come under increasing pressure from British Columbian residents and political opponents, who have called it a harmful experiment with all the drug users out in the streets and slumped over and unconscious, no safeguards for the public, and one that utterly failed to reduce drug overdose deaths.  

Remember the synnies that were doing so much damage, especially among the homeless people? They seem to have self regulated and thought, no, we're not going to use those because we're going to end up dying a horrible death.  

According to the latest Drugs Trend Survey, drug use is increasing across most drugs across all regions of New Zealand. The price is dropping, its hoots wahay, party time as we go into summer. But according to the Drug Foundation, 3.6% of the population using illicit drugs, it's not a huge amount of people, is it? So where are we at? What numbers do you believe? Is it worth having a moral crisis and raising the alarm about the amount of drug use and the cartels moving into here, or is it a relatively small number of people? How is it that 3.6% of the population can support all those gangs and all those cartels? 

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Pros and cons in the latest NZ Health Survey. 

Hazardous drinking rates have fallen from 20.4% in 2019 to 16.6% this year, and daily smoking rates have remained steady. 

However, the number of daily vapers has increased from 33,000 to 480,000 over the past eight years. 

Daily vaping has also increased more quickly in younger age groups, especially those aged 15-17 and 18-24 years. 

Asthma and Respiratory Foundation Chief Executive Letitia Harding told Kerre Woodham that the data they’re seeing correlates to when regulations were introduced. 

She says that the regulations rolled out quite slowly, and the Ministry of Health went about it wrong. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

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The hīkoi we were discussing last week has gone down the country through the weekend, rolls into Wellington City, and should arrive at Parliament around midday. Police say they don't expect any problems, certainly nothing like the descent into chaos we saw at the end of the last demonstration at Parliament. We'll see.  

So far, it seems hīkoi participants have abided by the organisers’ requests. There's all sorts of rules and regulations before you can join the hīkoi, and participants are following them thus far, adhering to the principles of peaceful protest. The police have been working with the organisers, and they told Mike Hosking this morning: so far so good. It does mean, of course, that a lot of police will be tied up at the hīkoi, and if they're there they're not out investigating crime. And they need to be nabbing criminals and hauling them before court and engaging in crime prevention if police Minister Mark Mitchell is to keep his job.  

Back in August of 2023, Mark Mitchell told us that if New Zealanders hadn't started to see a change in public safety within a year of his appointment as Police Minister he would resign – so how's he doing? Well, ram raids are down 61%. Foot patrols are up 30%, so that's got to be good news - a visible police presence does an awful lot to help prevent crime. Aggravated robbery is down 11%. Robbery, extortion and the like are down 6%. Serious assaults are down 3%. However, counting against him, common assaults didn't go down, and theft had increased 12%. So how does he think he's doing?  

“I just thought it was coming up 12 months and it was important for me, I did that to hold myself to account because we were in such a bad place as a country that the expectation is that whoever took over as Police Minister, it's a huge responsibility, you've got to show that your things are changing. Otherwise, I wasn't the right guy for the job or the right person for the job. So we are starting to see change.  

“Like I said, we've got a long way to go, but we're starting to see some trends moving in the right direction. And I want to say that's not attributable to me. I mean it's, it's the fact that, yes, I've got the, the privileged position of Minister so I can bring everyone together ... the Auckland CBD is a good example. We brought the Residence and Ratepayers groups together, the business associations, our social service providers, Māori Wardens, CPNZ, KO, MSD, police, St. John's, we've all come together, we've been aligned. I had my latest meeting on Friday and we're seeing real success. So I've been going around the country trying to pull that together and trying to get some real change and it's happening.”  

So how do you think he's doing? You know, just based on your community, your neighbourhood, your retail area, how do you think the Police Minister is doing? I think the stats speak for themselves. Of course, as he also said in the interview with Mike, you're never going to get rid of crime altogether. There is never going to be a day where the police wake up and log no crime, ever. That's just not the way human beings are. But in terms of your community, your neighbourhood, your shopping precinct, do you feel safer?  

I mean, certainly I no longer have a low-level sense of alert when I'm going into a mall and walking past a Michael Hill Jewellers store. You know, there had been so many and a number in our area had been hit, so when I was taking the kids to the mall – I wouldn't say I was fearful. I certainly didn't stop going. I wasn't fearful, but I was on alert. Anything that looked a little bit out of the ordinary and I was going to get out of there with those children before hell broke loose. So, I'm more relaxed I think. There isn't the posturing and the advertising and the visibility of gangs in my hood. A few red sneakers, but hey, they might just like the colour.  

There aren't the same sort of video footage from doorbells and street cameras of families taking little ones out to go robbing in the early hours of the morning. I haven't seen that being posted for quite some time. So yeah, I feel as though things are getting better and the stats would seem to indicate they are.  

Is that because a line has been drawn in the sand? Is that because the focus of the police has shifted slightly? I would certainly say the foot patrols would have helped. Is it an indication from police and indeed from the community? It was voters who said up with this we will not put. We could have gone one way, we went this way when it came to the polling booths. We don't want to see any more softly, softly. We would like to see a line in the sand when it comes to crime.  

There's a lot more to do. There's a lot more work to do around addictions, there's a lot more work to do around mental health because a lot of those are precursors to crime. The crime is not actually the problem, it's the addictions that are. But so far, if you were to mark Mark Mitchell, what would you give him a B plus? A minus? A very good start? 

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Foodstuffs North Island chief executive Chris Quin has confirmed that the company will appeal the decision by the Commerce Commission to block its proposed merger.

Speaking on Newstalk ZB this morning, Quin said the company’s advisers had been working their way through ComCom’s reason for the decision for the last few weeks.

“The biggest concern in the document seems to be about whether suppliers would be worse off as a result of the co-op merging between the North Island and South Island,” Quin said.

“Our internal teams have the view that we passed that legal test and that the proposition we put up should have been cleared.”

Foodstuffs will appeal the decision in the High Court and expects to have officially filed its appeal by November 21.

Quin reiterated Foodstuffs' position that the two regional co-operatives in the North and South Islands don’t compete with each other in any way. 

He said that if the co-operatives were merged it would make them “incredibly more efficient”. 

On the suggested impacts on suppliers that ComCom posited, Quin said he briefed hundreds of suppliers after the decision last month. 

“We get a lot of conversation with them almost every day on meeting with one or other and the advantages for suppliers would be dealing with one not two,” Quin said. 

“The possibility would be you could do a deal to be nationally ranged, so we see a number of advantages for suppliers.” 

He believed a merger would allow Foodstuffs to make prices much more competitive, ultimately benefiting consumers. 

Mary Devine, chief executive of Foodstuffs South Island, also said the merger woujld bring long-term benefits to customers and communities, citing increased efficiency and faster innovation. 

“Combining our operations allows us to streamline operations, reduce overheads and better invest in new technology and services that our customers want,” Devine said. 

“This isn’t just a merger - it’s an evolution to ensure we remain competitive and sustainable for the future.” 

Now that Foodstuffs has confirmed its appeal, the process will likely be a lengthy one. 

Foodstuffs North Island and Foodstuffs South Island operate some of New Zealand’s best-known supermarket banners – New World, Pak’nSave and Four Square – and while each retails only in its respective island, the companies already collaborate across various business areas, including marketing and home-brand purchasing. Their combined revenue was nearly $13 billion in the last fiscal year. 

In their application to the commission for clearance to merge, the parties essentially argued that they do not compete at either the retail or wholesale level and they would be more efficient and better equipped to drive down grocery prices as a single streamlined entity. 

However, the commission was not convinced the benefits of such an arrangement would flow to customers and moreover, its main concern was that a merger would reduce the number of buyers in the “upstream market” for grocery supply from three to two – this market is currently dominated by the two Foodstuffs entities and Woolworths NZ. 

In its decision, the commission noted that this reduction would be a structural change and would likely lessen competition in multiple acquisition and retail markets. It also emphasised that competition in the country’s highly concentrated grocery market was already weak. 

Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business and retail. 

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If I asked you how many demerit points you have right now, reckon you’d be able to tell me? 

If you could, then you’re better than most people. Because, unless you get enough demerits to have your licence suspended, then I think most people don’t care. 

And a study out today is telling us that we do need to care if we want to make the roads safer. 

The people behind the study are telling us that most of us won’t care until we have tougher penalties for speeding. And I’m with them. Because, if we keep on doing things the way we do, not much is going to change. 

Here’s the gist of what this study connected with the University of Canterbury is telling us. It's found that drivers ticketed for speeding are nearly three times more likely to be involved in a crash. 

And you know why that is, don’t you? It’s because the fines for speeding are so piddly that people just take their chances. 

The speed cameras don’t help, either. Because, if you get ticketed by a speed camera,  you don't even get the demerit points. Because it can be difficult to prove who was driving. 

So, while the speed cameras are useful, they're not going to do much in terms of slowing people down if, the only impact, is paying a piddly fine and still keeping your licence. 

Which is why I like the idea that these researchers are floating today. That if you get a speeding ticket and keep on speeding, you get a higher fine each time. 

I’d go a step further than that, though, and say that the fines themselves need to be way higher than what they are now. 

As one of the people involved in this study is pointing out today, it’s crazy that you can actually pay more for a parking fine than for a speeding fine. 

So rank up the fines each time someone is caught speeding - but sting people for a lot more than we do at the moment. 

The other idea that these experts are putting out there today is, essentially, means testing people when they get fined for speeding. 

Which might sound like a good idea. But it’s not.  

Because someone who speeds is just as much of a menace on the road whether they’re driving some sort of Flash Harry 4-wheel-drive or whether they’re driving a Demio or a clapped-out old Toyota. 

Besides which, when you drive too fast on the road you are breaking the law. So I think giving speeding fines to people on how rich they are, or otherwise, makes no sense. 

Not to mention the fact that it would be an absolute nightmare to run. 

Can you imagine getting pulled over by a cop? Getting some sort of ticket. Then having to go home and submit your income details and whatever else they’d need to determine what means you have to pay the fine. 

It might sound like a great idea when you’re writing your research paper at university and trying to “push the envelope” a bit. But it would be a disaster. 

Although, to be fair to Dr Darren Walton at the University of Canterbury, he hasn’t just plucked this idea out of thin air. He says, in Switzerland, speeding fines are scaled to wealth. 

But I don't see how that would encourage someone with plenty of money to slow down. They’d just go “pfft” and pay the fine. 

And I don’t buy this argument that speeding fines need to be “equitable”. That’s what the university guy is saying. You speed, you get caught, and you should pay exactly the same fine - whatever your financial situation. That’s what I think. 

But, if this research is telling us that drivers ticketed for speeding are nearly three times more likely than other drivers to be involved in a crash, then something does need to change. 

And I do like the idea of scaling-up the speeding fine system. So that, each time you get a ticket, you have to pay a higher fine. 

What do you think? 

LISTEN ABOVE

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Crikey, when I suggested yesterday that it might be a good idea if you've never seen Parliament TV, you could always tune in and see the first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill.  

Crikey, I expected fireworks but not quite to the level that was on display yesterday. The House was temporarily suspended as the legislation was being voted on, after members of the Te Pati Māori performed a haka in front of the bill's author David Seymour. Gerry Brownlee cleared the public gallery, suspended the House, and once order was restored about 20 minutes later, Te Pati Māori's Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke was “named” for starting the haka with the speaker. Gerry Brownlee called her behaviour appalling, disrespectful, and grossly disorderly. Being “named” is one of the most serious punishments in Parliament. If you're named, you are suspended for 24 hours, and your pay is docked. Doesn't happen terribly often – former National Party MP Nick Smith was named three times in his parliamentary career, but apart from Smith, it really is a pretty rare punishment.  

Newstalk ZB's political commentator Barry Soper said the behaviour was the worst he's seen in 40 years of covering politics. Former Speaker of the House Sir Lockwood Smith said he too thought it was the worst he'd ever seen.  

“That would have to be as bad as I've ever seen. I guess, you know my feeling after it was just one of real sadness, you know? Real sadness to see Parliament treated that way. You know, you can't blame the Speaker – I don't think you can blame Gerry at all. I think in the end he had no choice but to suspend the House and let things settle down, have the gallery cleared. I think, you know, some of the rot has started a way back – the whole standard of the place has been lowered in, you know, recent years. And I think you know, this is just when, once you start letting things slip, it just, you know, another inch happens or another centimetre and so it goes on.” 

Well, the bill isn't going anywhere, but not until there's been six months of public submissions. ACT, National and NZ First agreed to support it to a first reading as part of the coalition negotiations – one of the dead rats they had to swallow to form a government. And look at the latest poll, the major parties have gained. Nationals up 3.9%, Labours up 1.2%, ACT and Te Pati Māori are both down. That says to me we don't like extremism, we don't like political opportunists making hay, we don't like people at the very extreme of politics. For the most part, we want a relatively quiet life. We just want to be able to send our kids to school and know they'll be educated. We want to be able to ensure that we can go shopping and not be mugged, that we can sleep safely in our own homes, that we can drive from point A to point B without falling down a pothole the size of a three-story skyscraper. We all want the opportunity to be able to work, look after ourselves and if the worst comes to the worst, fate deals this a cruel blow, there will be a safety net there. Oh, and it, you know, perhaps if we have an accident, there's a health system that can pick up the pieces there too.  

The extremism doesn't, for the most part, win votes. I've had David Seymour on here before and put to him that this whole Treaty Principles Bill was a huge part of campaigning and yet on voting day, on Election Day, ACT didn't get nearly the votes they thought they were going to get. National made it very clear they were not going to support the bill. They had to, in the end, form a government to first reading. They didn't want a bar of it. And neither do, I would argue, most New Zealanders of whatever ethnicity you might be.  

But come back to Lockwood Smith's point when it comes to Parliament, are MPs really role models and exemplars of behaviour we should all be seeking to emulate? Sir Lockwood Smith seemed to think so, that there's a standard within Parliament that needs to be set and maintained for the good of society. I don't think that's true. I think they are representatives of New Zealand and as such, they represent us. And we have become more tribal, less likely to debate an issue more entrenched in our beliefs, if you don't support me, you're against me. Less likely to listen and agree to disagree.  

What we saw in Parliament is pretty much what you see on social media every day. People yelling at each other, not listening, not debating, just taking a stance and sticking to it, and that's fair enough. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Everybody is entitled to put forward a proposition. You can hear the other side out and you can maintain your own position if that's what you wish to do.  You can change your mind if you wish. But David Seymour knew exactly what he was doing. ‘Oh, hey, I'm just putting it up there for discussion’. Oh, come on, it was political opportunism. He got exactly what he knew would happen. He's not stupid, he's many things, but he is not stupid.  

So all we saw in Parliament, I think, is a reflection of what we see just about every single day in social media, on the text machine. We've seen it over numerous different issues. I think this and if you don't think like me, there's no such thing as debate anymore. 

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You have woken up to the news that New Zealand businesses can now take meaningful action to drive down the gender pay gap. You need no longer wait for governments to legislate – the power is in your hands. The launch of an online calculator to help do so was announced yesterday by the Minister for Women, Nicola Gregg. The previous Labour government announced plans last year before the election to require public and private companies with more than 250 workers to publish a gender pay gap report. Earlier in the year, Acting Minister for Women Louise Upston said the Government was committed to addressing inequity in the workplace, but she said “we do not want to overburden businesses with unnecessary costs and regulations.   

So the Gender Pay Gap Toolkit was set up by working with businesses and organisations like Spark, ANZ, Tonkin + Taylor, to make sure it's user friendly and has a common methodology. It was also shaped and road tested, apparently, by many other organisations across the country, including Transpower, the Port of Auckland, Champions for Change, and Global Women. Although the pay gap has reduced steadily from 16.3% in 1998, its stuck at around 9 to 10% for the past decade, except for 2015/2016 when it hit 12%. So, it's come down a bit and now it's stabilised.  

My colleague Heather du Plessis-Allan had a hot take on why the gap remained stubbornly in place, which she shared with her audience last night. It's up to women, she says, not employers to fix the gender pay gap: 

“Here's my tip if you are a woman and you don't want to have a gender pay. Don't take maternity leave. Make the baby's father take the paternity leave and don't always be the one to stay home with the kids when the kids are sick, make the father stay at home with the kids when the kids are sick, because I think that is now part of our problem. We are literally, as women, a more unreliable workforce than men, because think about this: I mean this is brutal, but it's true, right? If you've got an equally qualified man and woman standing in front of you, let's say early 30s, married, but haven't had babies, are you going to hire the lady? Because I don't know about that.  

“I'd look at the lady and go oh, she hasn't had babies yet, so now she can have babies, now she's going to want take a year off for every single baby. Now, when the babies sick, got a bit of a cough, the woman's going stay at home. She's unreliable. The guy is more reliable. Guy gets the job. Right. I know that this is hard, and I know we want it all in the modern age, right. We want heaps of money, we want all the big jobs, and we also want to be the ones who stay at home and raise the babies when they come out. But life is tough, and choices are tough, and I suspect women are going to have to start helping themselves a little bit here by getting the dads to do the heavy lifting too, instead of just complaining that life ain't fair.” 

So she has a point. If you are going to take a couple of years out of the workforce to be the primary caregiver and you’re female, then you're going to have missed work opportunities, missed promotion opportunities, and that's just the way it is. If you're not around for two years, your employer can't gauge just how effective you are, how good at working you are.  

At the same time, we all know the first three years of a child's life are vitally important. Every single child psychologist will tell you that. If you're given $100,000 to put towards your child's education, stay at home for the first three years or employ a primary caregiver to do the same. It just has to be a person who can talk to the baby, speak to the baby, take it out, stimulate it, and it has to be a kind of one-on-one relationship. A best practice according to child psychologists. Not always able to do that, we all just muddle along the best we can. I was back at work when my daughter was six weeks old. I hired a nurse, a young trainee, a graduate nurse to look after her. Not ideal, but needs must. The money had to come in somehow. I tried to keep breastfeeding that first year and managed to do so pretty much, but it was a struggle.  

If you want to have children and many couples do, I think it's a lot easier these days to share the load. I mean, we've had a child sick at home and their parents have divided the time. Dad stayed home three days because he can work from home. Mum has stayed home the last two days to give him the best possible chance of recovery and to allow everybody to get the most important parts of their job done on the days they really have to go into the office. They've had to juggle it between them. It's not expected that the mum has to give up five days of working in the office to stay at home. I just don't think there is that expectation among young parents.  

I think there really should be a shared responsibility between men and women. Perhaps the mother has the first six months off, then the father has six months off, so that when you do have a man and a woman applying for a job, they're both 32, they both have the same level of qualifications for whatever job they're applying for, then an employer can look at them both and go. I know that at some point, if they want children, I'm going to lose that person for six months, be it the man, be it the woman. If there is an expectation that the man will take time off too, an expectation from within the family, from within the community, from within the workforce, that men are just as likely to take six months off as women are, that kind of evens the playing field. So I think Heather had a point: it's not always going to be possible for a woman to give birth and then skip back to work the next day, leaving the man literally to pick up the baby. But I think if there is an expectation that it will be equally shared between men and women, it will help level up the playing field. 

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Police have announced Operation Nickel, a nationwide operation focused on the enforcement of the Gangs Act 2024. What is the Gangs Act 2024? It's the specific piece of legislation that enforces the prohibition of the display of gang Insignia in public places. It provides for the issue of dispersal notices to stop gang members from gathering in public places, and it also makes provisions for non-consorting orders to prevent specified gang offenders from associating or communicating with each other for three years.  

Basically, it's to make life uncomfortable for the gangs who've had a pretty free ride of it over recent times. Paul Basham, National Controller for the operation, says the display of gang insignia in public places will not be tolerated. When the new laws come into effect, he says, the police will actively enforce any breaches. As part of the operation before the legislation came into effect, police engaged with gangs and community representatives about the requirements of the Gangs Act and what the police intended to do with the legislation. He said gangs are well aware that once this law comes into effect, they are not allowed to wear a gang patch in public. If they're sitting at home watching The Chase, fine. Pop your gang patch on and be the business.  

Police staff have spoken to gang leaders and made it clear that anyone breaching the new laws can expect enforcement action, he said, and if we come across anyone wearing gang insignia in public, we will not be taking the excuse of ignorance as a defence.  

He spoke to the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning and said he is confident the Gang Disruption Units are set up and ready to go.  

“You know, it's inevitable that we will be responding to reports of gangs breaking the law but you know, in addition to that, those units will be proactive, gathering intelligence, looking to work with other police units, and taking opportunities to sort of fulfil their mandate, which is in line with the purpose of the Act, which is to reduce the ability of gangs to operate and to cause fear and intimidation and disruption by the public.  

“So those units are really clear in terms of what the purpose is, and from the 21st of November they'll be into it, and I think too, you'll see them, you know, sharpening their tradecraft and their skills relative to the provisions of this legislation. And so we just see it as an awesome tool to allow us to continue the work that we do pretty much up and down the country every day anyway, in the way that we police the gangs.” 

So there were about 400 meetings up and down the country. As the police said, this is what we intend to do, this is what the legislation is. So fair dues. It doesn't mean though that if you see a person wearing a gang patch, you think, ‘crikey, they're breaking the law’ and you jump on your phone and you dial 111, that the police will be able to descend upon the offending individual, blues and twos at the go with the full weight of the law. There may be higher priorities for the police in that situation. Police Assistant Commissioner Basham says they will gather evidence allowing them to follow through with enforcement action at a later date.  

As I say, the gangs have had it pretty cruisy for some time now. That whole ‘let's work with them’ approach was tried but I don't think it was terribly successful, and I think enough time had passed to see that it wasn't actually working for the majority of us, for the rest of the community. Might have been working brilliantly for the gangs, went gangbusters, in fact, but for the rest of us, not so much. So now gangs are being told you want to live outside the community, you want to live outside the laws, you want to break the law to make a living, then expect that your life will be difficult. The community has decided enough is enough, and we don't want to see that anymore. We don't want the flaunting, and we don't want the swaggering, and we don't want the ‘we are sticking two fingers to you’ shoved in our face.   

Gangs argue that they're not all bad. That they provide a form of family for children and young people who have been failed by their own families. And in part that is true. You can only imagine how woeful the families are they've come from if they think that the gang is a good idea. They argue they do good work. Remember at Wellsford, north of Auckland, when the local Head Hunters had a charity motor bike ride and raised $2,500 and decided to donate the money to the local volunteer fire brigade? Yes, the fire brigade was advised to give the money back and there was harrumphing about that, but let's face it, they were just looking for a bit of PR. Which is a very cheap amount for good PR - $2500 is chump change for the Head Hunters. They could have donated the proceeds of a couple of baggies and be done with it.   

The Tribal Huk – remember them? Ngaruawahia? They were making and delivering sandwiches to socially deprived children at schools in the region long before the government was doing it. They also made headlines for their attempts to rid Ngaruawahia of methamphetamine which meant that the leader, Jamie Pink, came under fire during a confrontation in Ngaruawahia in 2016. The Huks ran a Christmas party for children. They gave money to schools for drug education. Good, good boys. No, not really. When a dispute arose within the gang, Jamie Pink, the leader, repeatedly smashed the blunt edge of a log splitting axe into the legs of his former mate so that the bones were sticking out of the skin on both knees. The man needed operations to insert screws and rods into his leg so he could walk again. And Punk Pink is currently serving seven years at His Majesty's Leisure.  

You've got the Mongrel Mob Kingdom. Remember them? Our frequent caller, PR woman, Louise. We haven’t heard from her in a while. She's been lying very low, probably because the Mongrel Mob kingpin turned out to be wolves in sheep's clothing. If you're going to be a gang, be a gang, be done with it. Sell your drugs, live your life – it's basically a pyramid scheme to the young ones who are thinking should I get a 9-5, which is really hard, and you have to get up five days a week, or should I go and sell drugs for the gangs? It's a pyramid scheme - only a few get really, really rich. If you're a grunt at the bottom, you get the abuse, you get the jail terms, you get very little money. You might get a few baubles or trinkets from the top guys and that's about it.  

It's a misogynist – if you're looking for diversity, equality, and inclusivity, you're going to struggle to find that in a gang. They don't seem to have places for women. You can work under them, but not in the way you might want to. Just be a gang, and be a crim and be done with it. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Or renounce the patch and the crime and come join us. It's not that bad. It really, really isn't.  

You don't have to join the gang, there are other options. But for God's sake, don't dress yourself up and pretend that you're decent people, providing an alternative to the wayward and the forlorn, that the patriarchal, oppressive government has failed to provide - that is total BS. 

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Is the electric vehicle market really dying?  

Nissan is axing over 9,000 jobs as sales slump in China and the US and Toyota has said that the California regulations around EVs and emissions are unworkable. 

EVs are being discounted by a third in Britain as manufacturers rush to meet their end-of-year sales targets.  

In New Zealand, October saw the second strongest month when it comes to car sales, but despite heavy discounting, EV sales have slid backwards. 

BYD NZ General Manager Warren Willmot told Kerre Woodham that globally, EV sales are actually up around 30% in September, with China contributing heavily to the market. 

He said that last month, 53% of all new cars in China had a plug, whether they’re plug-in hybrids or fully electric.  

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Take a look at your children, or your grandchildren if you have them, when they're at their most delicious – seven, eight, nine-year-olds, full of hopes and dreams, and starting to come into themselves properly. Their character’s forming, you see what they're good at, what they love doing, where their passions lie, supported and nurtured by families and communities who love them.  

Your kid's basic belief that life is good is informed by the love and the care that they've received from before they were even born. Before they were born, they were loved. While they were growing, they were loved. From the time they hit the outside world, they were wanted and loved. Their potential is limitless.  

Imagine those same 7-year-olds, but they grew up abused by the very people who should have been caring for them, or who were ripped from their families and put into the pastoral care of organisations that were supposed to act in loco parentis. Whose carers presented to the world as decent, good men and women who stood in front of their institutions, and they mouthed platitudes, and the community was grateful. Because these troubled children, these problem children are out of sight and out of mind and being given a good upbringing by the decent God-fearing and women who were doing God's work on earth.  

Hospitals and orphanages and schools and churches are the places that those who still have their innocence believe are places of comfort and of safety. For thousands of small, vulnerable Kiwi children, they were places of torture and abuse and places where their faith in humanity was broken. The children were broken. How the hell do you recover from that? Many don't, many haven't. Many survivors of abuse haven't lived long enough to hear the apology from the Government today.  

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith Care delivered its report to the Governor General back in July, 14 kilograms of paper and each piece held stories of the horrors that went on right within our communities – just about every community in the country. The apology is the first part of the official response, redress will be dealt with later. Some survivors have said an apology without compensation is worthless, and that successive governments have had plenty of time to work out a framework for compensation. And while a light has been shone into the dark corners where predators hide, and many of those predators have faced the glare of prosecution and conviction, have been held to account for some of the damage they've done, all survivors spoken to say the inquiry, the apology, the compensation are worthless if the abuse of society's most vulnerable is allowed to continue.  

Abuse survivor Jim Goodwin spoke to Early Edition and he's not confident that things will change: 

“How will they provide support for survivors and what will they do about preventing abuse in care in the future? That's what I'm worried about. Compensation is important, but it's only part of what survivors need. Survivors need to be able to access ongoing support, like counselling support, for their lives. That's quite difficult for a lot of survivors at the moment, so I hope that the government will change that, but compensation is only a part of it.” 

Absolutely. Jim's right: compensation is only a part of it. You hear of some exceptional individuals who are able to —I don't know how— find some purpose, find some meaning, find a lifeline, and make their way in the world. They can open up their hearts enough to trust one or two people, and they can find their way. So many cannot and have not. They're just too broken. Their parents have failed them, people in authority have failed them. People who said they could trust them, who knew how to groom small, vulnerable children desperate for love, desperate to belong, those predators knew what they were doing all right, they knew which ones to choose.  

So how on Earth do you recover from that? We've really got to ensure that where we can, the fundamental framework, where we can get in and see what's been done – we can't with families, we can't open the door of family homes and get in there, and put the torch on, and shine that light, and flush out those predators. We can in institutions and organisations. And we can't fail these children again because that's what they are. They might be adults now, but they are still the children that were broken by the very organisations that were meant to save them. 

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