The election is just a matter of months away, and although nothing is certain, one thing we can be fairly sure of is that no one party will win a majority the size Labour did last time round, and that the next New Zealand Government will be cobbled together with minor parties.

We'll either see a National/ACT, maybe another minor party coalition government or a Labour/Greens/Te Pati Maori kind of government. So when the minor parties come out with their manifestos and public pledges, it's worth listening to what they have to say, as these policies may well become part of the makeup of the next government.

The ACT party came out all guns blazing when David Seymour launched ACT’s election campaign in Auckland over the weekend. They want all 17 year old defendants to face trial in the District Court, not the youth court and believe corrections should take over management of youth justice residences. At the moment, young people appear in the youth court until 17, and that had been a policy borne out of the theory that if young offenders were treated more kindly, there would be less crime.

Since coming into force, one of two things has happened since the 1st of July 2019, either 17 year olds have halved their offending rate, or they kept on offending and are only prosecuted by police half as often. David Seymour told Mike Hosking on the Mike Hosking breakfast this morning ACT’s policy would focus on victims rather than the offenders.

The Greens too were busy. They released their election manifesto over the weekend and it was the usual stuff. An extra week of annual leave for all! Yay! Free lunches in every school. Extend citizenship to all Maori born overseas, and allow councils to introduce new taxes, and funding, music and community venues so organisations didn't have to rely on dirty pub charity grants to function. All good. Couldn't argue with much of it.  

How would they fund it? Taxing the Super rich of course. ‘A tax on the richest few will raise money we can use to build a climate-friendly, wiser and more prepared Aotearoa that we can all be proud of’ said Marama Davidson, co-leader of the Greens.

So looking at ACT, looking at the Greens, are you paying attention to the policies that they are putting out? Or are you still going to vote for who you always voted for because really, it doesn't really matter.

I cannot tell you how much it does matter.

Just listening to people over the past couple of weeks going uh, whatever. It's not “uh, whatever.” We have an obligation to vote in a way that we believe is going to make a great New Zealand for our children and grandchildren. It's not all about us. And whichever side you go for, you've got to go in with the mindset that it's not about you, and it's not about the next three years.

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It's an election year, so of course the law and order drum is being beaten.

It's beaten every time there's an election, with one side saying the other isn't doing a good job - but it's not just because it's an election.

The law and order drum is being beaten because innocent New Zealanders are being beaten in their homes and their places of work, in the street.

The hammer attack on a woman behind the counter of her dairy in broad daylight this week is yet another example, as if we needed any more of the brutality and lack of humanity we've seen so much of in the past few years.

We've got dairy owners now serving from within cages in their own shops, security guards outside so many stores, security camera footage of children, some in their pyjamas being driven round homes by adults, by their caregivers, to steal whatever they can find from their neighbours’ homes and backyards.  

This is not a New Zealand to be proud of.  

New Zealand doesn't feel as safe as it used to, and the Police Minister confirmed that on Newshub this morning.

Crime has risen exponentially and violent crime is up. She is right that family harm incidents have pushed up the violent crime stats, but the retail crime is real.

Finally, the one good take out from that interview is that finally, at last, you've got a government minister who is not gaslighting us, who is not saying no, no, no, it's all in your heads.

No, it's the hammer that's in my head.

Not some kind of fearful fantasy of my own imagination. Somebody from the government is finally telling the truth.

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At least 20% of New Zealanders are believed to be neurodivergent, but there is very little awareness, understanding and support for people with conditions such as ADHD, Autism and Dyslexia.

Sonia Gray has a neurodivergent daughter and is an ADHDer herself. In a 10-part series she talks to dozens of experts and people with a lived-experience of neurodiversity to better understand how we can support and celebrate those whose brains are wired differently. 

No Such Thing as Normal is brought to you by NZ Herald and Team Uniform, with support from NZ on Air and launched June 10th. New episodes are available every Saturday.

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There are fears students won't be taught relevant science knowledge after a leaked copy of the proposed new science curriculum was released.

The new draft focuses on contexts - the Earth system, biodiversity, food-energy-water, and infectious diseases.

The writers argue they are going for a holistic approach, and that basic physics, chemistry and biology haven't gone ignored.

Crimson Global Academy Principal Mark Phillips is concerned that this curriculum discourages Kiwi students from aspiring and achieving. 

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Newsroom reported on its website yesterday that targets or output measures for issues such as the time taken for police to respond to traffic emergencies and burglaries have been dramatically adjusted.

Police have twice as long to get to emergency events in urban areas, 45 minutes in town, 60 minutes in rural areas, and they are required to respond to fewer burglaries within 48 hours.

In a briefing from police provided to then Police Minister Stuart Nash, the Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming said demands on the force had grown, therefore the targets needed to be readjusted.

The time taken to attend emergency events in urban areas 90 percent of the time has been increased to less than 45 minutes because last year's target of 20 to 25 minutes wasn't met.

For rural events, the measure was increased to less than 60 minutes from 45 minutes last year.

Last year’s standard was that 98 percent of burglaries would be attended by police within 48 hours. This year, that's been reduced to greater than 85 per cent.

Police dubbed the previous standard aspirational.

Police have been warning demand is outstripping their resources with increased mental health and family violence callouts alongside emerging crimes such as cyber-crime taking up far more time.

As well, there are easier and more diverse ways to report crime, but it really is the mental health and the family violence that's taking up police time as the Deputy Police Commissioner Jevon McSkimming told Tim Dower this morning.

Honestly, when you think of the waste of money and the opportunities lost and the flow and effect - as Jevon McSkimming said - of police having to deal with it because there hasn't been an increase in the workforce to enable the burden of assisting those with mental health conditions to be spread across many more shoulders.

We had the lovely young woman who rang and who said she can only take Maori and Pasifika patients now, and those under 18, because there aren't enough counsellors available for the need - and even if you wanted to go private, you couldn't because there aren't any private ones as well. 

I am not going to be bashing the police for having to reconsider their response times.

If anybody thinks for one wild second that the response times haven't been met because the police have had their feet up on the table, back at base eating doughnuts, watching Netflix, you are delusional.

These men and women are working every hour God sent doing their job, doing this job of social workers, doing the job of mental health counsellors, doing the job of bloody parents who are woefully failing their own children.

So anybody who wants to put the boot into police for failing to meet their target times, don't ring me.

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Paying for groceries is now the biggest financial burden affecting Kiwis during the cost of living crisis.

Allyson Gofton, one of New Zealand's leading food icons, joined Kerre Woodham to share healthy eating tips during this tough financial time.

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Now, if you were told that you would be dead in 10 years but you had the potential to save yourself if you chose to do so, would you?

Rationally, intellectually, of course you would. Especially if it was as simple as taking a pill. You'll be dead in 10 years, take this pill, you'll save your life. You'd do it to see the kids grow up and spend time with the people you love, you'd take the opportunity of a second chance, a second life,  and make the very most of it.

But there is no magic pill. If we want to live long, healthy lives, it's a day by day decision. There is no magic pill, so many of us are choosing willfully to eat, drink, and drug ourselves to early graves. And along the way, we're costing the country a fortune.  

It's all very well for people with time and knowledge of different foods and different food ingredients and enough money to fill a grocery trolley to bang on about food preparation and making soups out of leftover vegetables.

For people doing it tough, there are no leftovers. It's a completely different reality. I have more time than most. And is our family fridge filled with neat, colourful glass jars packed to the brim with salady goodness for the week ahead? It is not. But just because something's hard doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done.

I follow Dave Letele on Instagram and the stories of transformation that come out of his gym’s are amazing. These are people that are prisoners of their own flesh, who are unable to participate in the lives of their families. Unable to move. And yet step by step, starting off quite often in bed or on the couch, they can turn their lives around. Whatever Dave and people like Dave are doing is working.

Maybe the 60 experts should have gone down to Dave's gym and asked him what his people do, what he does, what does he say? What, what are the motivators for change? How do you get people to take that first. It's not even a step. That first raising of the arms in the air from their beds that gets them from there actually into a gym and saving their own lives.

The answer surely must come from the people on the ground, not from those who theorize and posit and postulate who have no idea what it's like to be in the 5XL t-shirts of those who are battling every single day.

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The Green Party has announced another plank in their bid to end poverty, and that is a limit on how much landlords can increase rent every year.

An earlier policy of the Greens, also designed to end poverty, was their wish for a minimum level of income, and that would be funded by a wealth tax. Now they want to see renters protected through a limit on increases, and a register setup of property owners to monitor compliance.

The limit if the Greens have their way would be 3% a year, or when wage growth or inflation is lower than three per cent, the limit should be tied to either the inflation rate or the average wage increase minus 1%, whichever is lower. The limit would apply to new tenancy agreements too, stopping landlords from hiking up the rent when new tenants moved in.

The Property Investors Federation says the policy would worsen a shortage in rental property by prompting more landlords to sell up and more rental deals being done on the black market, where tenants had few protections. But Green Party Co leader Marama Davidson says rent controls were needed because unaffordability of rents was causing so much harm, to so many people.

When it was pointed out to Davidson that rents had increased at a much greater rate under the Labour government. She said it was the many MP's who owned homes keeping the status quo on renting out of self-interest.

From what I've heard, both from tenants and from landlords, when landlords get good tenants they don't want them to go. They want to keep them and their property. It costs them money to have the house empty while they try and find somebody else to take over the tenancy.

If they have set a rent then they tend to keep it at that. But I would very much like to hear from those of you who are at the coalface who, who have struggled to find a rental.

Is the problem when it comes to affordability, the rent itself or the cost of living in general?  

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In the wake of news that a whole raft of cost-of-living subsidies and temporary tax cuts are set to end tomorrow, along with all the other news headlines, I had to Google reasons to be optimistic this morning.

We've got the end of the fuel tax discount and the subsidy for road user charges for diesel vehicles coming to an end. Half-price public transport fares will stop for most as well. Children under 13 remain free, as do half price fares for community card holders and people under 25.

But for most people, especially those who rely on public transport to get to work, fares are going to go up and fuel is going to go up.

Budget advisers say the additional increase in spending on fuel and transport is going to put people doing it tough right now under even more pressure, further into hardship.

They say that about 10 to 15 percent of the weekly income is spent on petrol and transportation - for those who need budget help and budget advice, this is just going to make it even tougher for them.    

How long do you think the tough times are going to last? Economists say about 18 months.

Are you going to be able to weather the tough times and for some of you are you looking at the news headlines and thinking well that doesn't apply to me, things are fine here.  

We're noticing it in our household. We've three working adults who have all got jobs.

We're certainly not on the bread line, but if we're noticing it, I shudder to think what it's like in some households.

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Yesterday I touched briefly on the fact that yet another study has come out showing that alcohol is considered one of the most harmful drugs and numerous studies around the world, the latest from New Zealand, show the level of harm it does to others, as well as the level of harm it does to users.

And of course more people use alcohol than they do meth, so obviously more people are going to be affected. But when you look at just a sample of drunk driving stories - this is a handful.  

A 19-year-old woman's drink driving breath test was very high. Police said at the time of her arrest, another motorist had followed her when she became concerned by her driving and when the car stopped, the motorist removed the key. The woman was fined $800, sentenced to six-month supervision, disqualified from driving for 28 days, after which she must have an alcohol interlock device fitted.  

A man who police described as one of the worst recidivist drink drivers in Whangārei has been sent to jail for his 13th drink driving conviction. Shailendra Kumar Deo was so drunk behind the wheel on two occasions within two days of each other that members of the public had to pull him over and call police. The court heard how he was so incapacitated that on both occasions he was unable to complete breath testing procedures.  

A third story. A recidivist drink driver who killed a woman while once again driving under the influence initially blamed the fatal crash on a rabbit running onto the road.

The judge said there was only one reason why a person was killed and that was because Holley Levorsen-Persson got behind the wheel while drunk. She was sentenced to 11 months home detention for drink driving, killing a person and driving while disqualified.

So is this a health issue - an addiction issue? Should we be focusing more on the addiction centres, the rehab centres?

If you've got people who are being sentenced for drunk driving appearing on the 8th, 9th and 11th, 13th charge - then that says that's a much bigger problem than just drink driving, surely. But people need to be safe from these recidivist drink drivers.  

It would be fine if the only people they killed were themselves – but once they stick that key in the ignition, they're making a choice to drive. But it's not only them that they kill. They kill innocents on the road as well.

Is it a failure in policing issue?

Certainly Naila Hassan, who spoke to Mike Hosking this morning, from the police, inferred that if police were dealing with so many mental health issues and family harm issues, then perhaps they'd have a better chance of meeting their target.

But again, a lot of the mental health issues are around alcohol. A lot of the family harm issues have alcohol in them as well. Are we doing this wrong?

I mean, according to the AA and according to a crash investigator the checkpoints work. The police had a target of 3 million drivers being breath tested for a reason. Because they too believe it works.

They haven't met that target because they're doing the job of social workers and mental health workers. So is it more police? Is it trying to get the focus back onto road policing?

Getting those checkpoints up, keep making them visible? Or is it a health issue that we should be dealing with?  

Either way – it’s unacceptable. 111 drunk driving deaths in 2022. I don't know how many of them were innocents and how many got what they quite frankly deserved, but I'd love to hear from you.

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