Politics Central

One of the advisors on the new local version of The Apprentice has defended taking part in a show linked to former US President Donald Trump.
Trump, who had been well known internationally in the 80s and 90s for his business dealings, found new fame after starring in the original Apprentice which he hosted for 15 seasons, plus seven of the celebrity-centric spinoff. 
TVNZ is bringing back the local iteration 11 years after a one-season attempt, with Mike Pero this time filling the main slot, alongside newly announced advisors Cassie Roma and Justin Tomlinson.
Cassie Roma, who comes to the show from a background in social and digital media and is known as 'The Kindness Warrior', told The Weekend Collective that she despises Donald Trump, and had many "deep conversations" with TVNZ and the production company to clarify that The Apprentice Aotearoa would be different from the flagship series. 
"I was given assurance that the new Apprentice was going to be one built on kindness - it's going to be hard, it's going to be business time, but it would not be with Trump." 
She says that all three advisors believe in kindness and compassion is a key part of any business.
Roma says that the production company kept their word and avoided descending into Trump-style TV. 
"I think the first question I had from the press was 'how are you not like Ivanka Trump?', and I was like 'in every single way except that we are both white women'."
However, she clarified that it is not a 'kumbaya' and people will still be told 'You're Fired' - but says that business can be done without "being an arsehole", and she did not witness one contestant being bullied. 
LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australians are looking forward to the trans-Tasman travel bubble.
The bubble starts at 11.59 tonight, meaning travellers won't have to quarantine when they travel between Australia and New Zealand.
Queensland Tourism Minister Stirling Hinchcliffe told the Weekend Collective Australians are excited about the bubble.
"Huge anticipation. People are really looking forward to seeing our Kiwi friends and family come back."
He says the state has a lot of tourism spots for Kiwis.
"There's so many Kiwis who would normally want to travel the world and look at fantastic locations across the globe, and in Queensland, we have it all."
Meanwhile, Australia's Prime Minister has hinted international travel may resume in the second half of this year for vaccinated Aussies under essential purposes.
Scott Morrison says it will depend on home quarantine being a success.
"If that works, then that means you've freed up your hotel quarantine, and that means essential workers can start to come in.
"Potentially we can do more with other populations in a very controlled and very safe way, but the idea that one day everything is going to open, that's not how this is going to happen."
LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australians are looking forward to the trans-Tasman travel bubble.
The bubble starts at 11.59 tonight, meaning travellers won't have to quarantine when they travel between Australia and New Zealand.
Queensland Tourism Minister Stirling Hinchcliffe told the Weekend Collective Australians are excited about the bubble.
"Huge anticipation. People are really looking forward to seeing our Kiwi friends and family come back."
He says the state has a lot of tourism spots for Kiwis.
"There's so many Kiwis who would normally want to travel the world and look at fantastic locations across the globe, and in Queensland, we have it all."
Meanwhile, Australia's Prime Minister has hinted international travel may resume in the second half of this year for vaccinated Aussies under essential purposes.
Scott Morrison says it will depend on home quarantine being a success.
"If that works, then that means you've freed up your hotel quarantine, and that means essential workers can start to come in.
"Potentially we can do more with other populations in a very controlled and very safe way, but the idea that one day everything is going to open, that's not how this is going to happen."
LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Queenstown's mayor predicts an influx of Australian visitors will bring a bumper ski season for the tourist town.
The first quarantine-free flight lands into Queenstown at 2.30pm Monday from Sydney after the trans-Tasman bubble officially opens at 11.59 Sunday night. 
Mayor Jim Boult told the Weekend Collective there's been good bookings in hotels.
"Late April, May, early June are usually the quietest months of the year for us. We think we'll have a pretty good time over that time, but we're seriously excited about the ski season."
He believes young Aussies could provide some of the staffing shortfall this ski season, with many hotels and hospitality businesses scrambling to find staff now that the tourists are returning.
Boult says 5,500 migrant workers were a big part of the workforce before the borders closed.
"We think around 2,000 of them have left the district, that has left a big hole.
"But we're trying to attract young Aussie across to work in the ski season."
He says worker accommodation won't be an issue this year.
Air New Zealand is running 30 flights across the Tasman - carrying more than 5,000 people. 
Qantas has scheduled 25 flights, and there are four from Jetstar.
LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An Auckland University vaccinologist is concerned about the speed at which people here are being vaccinated.
Many have accused the government of a lack of transparency regarding the number of people who have had shots.
It comes amid reports that a new Covid-19 vaccination clinic in Ōtara, South Auckland, could be vaccinating five times the number of people that are booked in.
South Seas vaccination clinic, in the old Manukau Institute tech building, was on its second day of operation today working through people in group one and two due to get their Covid-19 jab.
Today, there were just 100 people booked, with the possibility of a few walk-ins booked by a GP or a non-government organisation.
It meant the clinic was vaccinating only 20 per cent of the people it could be.
It has led to National and other voices declaring the rollout is moving too slowly - but vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris told the Weekend Collective it's difficult to find vaccination numbers to see exactly where we are. 
"There's no dashboard for that as this point. Unlike when we always knew every day how many cases we had, we don't have that count of information flowing yet." 
She says that it was always going to be something that would need to ramp up - but the questions is are we where we'd like to be at this point. 
Dr Petousis-Harris says that the number of jabs every day does seem to be going up, but there is the feeling that we are behind where we should be. 
LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A former ACT leader says it's possible that National could no longer be the main opposition party sometime in the future. 
Richard Prebble, who was one of the founding MPs of the ACT Party and leader from 1996-2004, this week cast doubt on National's leader Judith Collins to stay in the position - calling her a dead leader walking over a failed attempt by her and her deputy Dr Shane Reti to get the caucus to oppose Labour's fluoridation plan.
"Collins was not defeated over her views on fluoridation but her tactics. Her erratic captain's calls during the election concerned National MPs. Last week confirmed their doubts about her judgment.
"Labour is on the ropes on housing and how to return to normal and Collins wants to fight the government on fluoridation!" Prebble wrote in the NZ Herald.
Speaking to The Weekend Collective, Prebble says that this week's Roy Morgan is the latest evidence that National continues to be on the decline, while ACT's popularity is on the rise - as evidenced by the Party adding nine new MPs at last year's election. 
Prebble says that under an MMP style Parliament, it's very possible that either Labour or National could stop being a major party, citing Israel's Labour Party as an example. 
"It used to be the most successful Labour Party in the world, and had been the government most of the time in Israel's history. They are now reduced to seven MPs in a Parliament of 120."
He says that it is not inevitable, but it is a possibility, particularly given National's current trajectory. 
"If you ask me to predict that's going to happen immediately, I would say that's very unlikely but I wouldn't exclude it." 
He says that National's problems are bigger than Judith Collins, with their selection process and several problem MPs likely leading to the Party losing the conservative vote.
Prebble says that any potential leadership replacements have to move quickly before the party's prospects get any worse - and Collins has to go by Christmas. 
LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Prince Philip, the late husband to the UK's Queen Elizabeth II, will be laid to rest on Saturday local time (Sunday early morning NZT) next week, in a ceremony that will be colourful and steeped in tradition, but low key by royal standards.
Philip, who was officially the Duke of Edinburgh, died peacefully at Windsor Castle on Friday morning at the age of 99. He was the nation's longest-serving consort -- a term given to the spouse of a reigning monarch -- and they had been married for 73 years.
Harry, the Duke of Sussex, will attend his grandfather's funeral, but his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, won't be present, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said. The couple are living in California and a doctor had advised the duchess, who is pregnant, against travelling to the UK, the spokesperson said.
The couple gave an explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired in March, in which they told their side of the story in their rift with the royal family, making explosive allegations against some of its members and the establishment.
Philip's long-standing funeral plans had been adapted to respect certain Covid-19 restrictions, with all the usual elements that involve contact with the public removed. The College of Arms, which oversees many ceremonial aspects of the royal family's work, had earlier confirmed the duke would not lie in state anywhere accessible to the public, which could have seen thousands of people lining up to view his coffin.
Current Covid rules in England limit the number of people who can attend funerals to 30.
In a nod to the duke's preference for driving himself, without a chauffeur, his coffin will be carried by a Land Rover from Windsor Castle to St. George's Chapel, for the ceremony.
The procession will begin at 2:45 p.m. and will be led from Windsor Castle by a band of grenadier guards, along with several heads of military units. A Royal Navy piping party will pipe "The Still" whilst the Land Rover is stationed at the foot of the West Steps. There will be a gun salute and a national minute's silence at 3 p.m. ahead of the ceremony.
The duke's death has been marked in a sombre fashion, as the royal household and UK government have asked the public not to gather or leave flowers at royal residences, with the country still under strict Covid-19 restrictions.
But gun salutes were held across the nation, as batteries fired 41 rounds, at one round per minute, at Windsor Castle, the Tower of London in the capital and at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland, among other locations. Australia, a Commonwealth nation, also paid its respects with a gun salute outside Parliament House in the capital, Canberra, on Saturday morning.
Tributes have flooded in from the UK and abroad for the duke, who had recently spent a month in two London hospitals, undergoing heart surgery and treatment for an infection, before returning in mid-March to Windsor Castle.
Paying tribute in a televised statement, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the duke had "earned the affection of generations here in the United Kingdom, across the Commonwealth, and around the world" and had lived by an ethic of service.
"Like the expert carriage driver that he was, he helped to steer the royal family and the monarchy so that it remains the institution indisputably vital to the balance of our national path. He was an environmentalist, and a champion of the natural world, long before it was fashionable," Johnson said.
But the duke was also a controversial figure. For many Britons, his defining characteristic was not his public service but his off-the-cuff and often offensive comments, including some that were undeniably racist.
The BBC said Friday it was receiving complaints about too much air time dedicated to the duke's death, after the public broadcaster cancelled hours of its usual programming to make way for wall-to-wall coverage of Philip's life and death.
The BBC set up a...

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hopes we'll know this week exactly when to get our passports ready for quarantine-free travel to Australia.
An update on the possibility of a trans-Tasman bubble will be given on Tuesday.
Epidemiologist Michael Baker told The Weekend Collective he is expecting a solid timetable to be announced.
But, he says travellers must proceed with caution.
"People travelling across the Tasman will have to go in with their eyes open, realising that if an outbreak were to occur, they would have to stay put."
LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are hopes a new bill will fix confusion around the Easter trading rule.
Online businesses can trade without restrictions over Easter while traditional shops cannot.
The regulations also vary from city to city, further adding to confusion for both retailers and customers. 
Act Party small business spokesperson Chris Baillie has introduced a new member's bill which would change all that.
Party leader David Seymour told the Weekend Collective our current rules are an absolute mess.
“The laws are just filled with loopholes, New Zealand has now moved on from being a primarily religious society.”
LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Christopher Luxon "tested the waters" this week with his maiden speech in Parliament. 
The former Air New Zealand CEO turned Botany MP told Parliament: "It seems it has become acceptable to stereotype those who have a Christian faith in public life as being 'extreme', so I will say a little about my Christian faith.
"It has anchored me, given my life purpose and shaped my values – and it puts me in the context of something bigger than myself," he said.
His faith had a strong influence on who he was and how he related to people.
"I see Jesus showing compassion, tolerance and care for others. He doesn't judge, discriminate or reject people. He loves unconditionally."
Former Minister Peter Dunne told The Weekend Collective that Luxon handled the issue well in his speech. 
"In a way, that's a little bit of signalling to that evangelical Christian base in the National Party that he's one of them, while flagging to everyone else that he's not a threat." 
If it means that he is looking to make a go for National's leadership, Dunne says that his business experience will tell him not to make an attempt until he has the numbers.
"That means make sure you have the numbers in the caucus, and make sure you can win the election."
He says that David Shearer and Don Brash are two examples of former party leaders who were promoted too early based on promise and crashed - so Luxon will need to get some experience under his belt first. 
LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.