The Mike Hosking Breakfast

WHAT YOU SHOULD HAVE HEARD (highlights from Monday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Golfing Buddies Battle for Followers/Poll Numbers Pose Questions/Fake Queues and News

The Mana Movement and the Maori Party will today unveil a plan to work together at this year's general election.

They'll formally sign an agreement in Whangarei where they will outline how they will co-operate in the Maori seats and who will stand aside where, to ensure chances of winning seats are maximised.

The move could potentially pull the balance of power away from New Zealand First leader Winston Peters.

AUT History Professor Paul Moon told Mike Hosking the Maori Party is likely to work with the National Party on supply issues and the Mana Party could be on board too.

He said such an agreement would make them "quite a strong voting-block".

Mr Moon said Labour had been aware of the deal for some time, which is one of the reasons it tried to promote Willie Jackson as a high-profile Maori candidate.

"It looks like Andrew Little tried to get that and didn't succeed, it just backfired on him because he obviously had ... MPs that weren't happy about it.

"It's looking worse and worse for Labour."

The Prime Minister says the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a goer as far as Australia and New Zealand are concerned, but says there are nine other countries to work around.

Bill English says there will be meetings between trade ministers over the next couple of months.

At a media conference over the weekend, he said New Zealand and Australia would work together to convince other TPP members to progress the deal, following the withdrawal of the US.

He told Mike Hosking a lot of the other countries have been set to get these gains and want to deliver growth to their economies, just like we do.

"We think it's possible, a bit of confidence starting with us, and we may find Singapore's pretty interested in it as well, and we'll see where it goes from there, but it's not going to be that easy."

Meanwhile, English is promising to have a hard look at what went wrong with communications about the Port Hills fires, but said there are always going to be differences of opinion.

Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee has slammed the Christchurch and Selwyn mayors for taking so long to declare an emergency, and says the fire highlights the need to review and improve civil defence.

English said there's always a tension between local knowledge and a central decision-making process in Civil Defence.

He said the more centralised that decision-making is, the more likely it is it doesn't actually know what's going on.

LISTEN ABOVE AS PRIME MINISTER BILL ENGLISH SPEAKS WITH MIKE HOSKING

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The Civil Defence Minister is on the ground in Christchurch, but is adamant he's not calling the shots.

LISTEN ABOVE: Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee speaks to Mike Hosking

The fire in the Port Hills has burnt across more than 1,800 hectares.

Close to a thousand people have been evacuated and at least eight homes are thought to have been lost.

Gerry Brownlee said the State of Emergency - declared at 6 last night - should have been declared sooner.

He told Mike Hosking he's concerned not enough is being done, but he says it's up to the Fire Service to ask for further help.

"What does concern me is that for a couple of days we've been told nope, we've got everything we need, we don't need any more resources."

He said he'll be meeting with a number of people today, to see how the Government can now help.

"One thing I do want to make sure is that I'm not in the road of anything that people who are particularly charged with the responsibility to deliver, but I think being around is an important thing."

The Fire Service said the Port Hills' steep slopes are the main reason why the blaze has been able to spread at such alarming speed.

LISTEN ABOVE: Selwyn District Mayor Sam Broughton speaks to Mike Hosking

Principal Rural Fire Officer Richard McNamara said the extreme angle of the terrain behind Christchurch has allowed the fire to tear down slopes, fuelled by wind and dry vegetation.

"It's burning on a slope and for every 10 degrees of slope that fire is going to double in intensity and speed."

Selwyn District Mayor Sam Broughton told Mike Hosking native vegetation burns a lot more slowly than pine and macrocapa - and questions do need to be asked about what should be grown on the Port Hills.

"Those questions will be asked but in the end we're dealing with an emergency situation right now."

"Certainly once this is dealt with there will be time for that discussion."

Broughton said it's been a very unpredictable fire with the situation changing very quickly.

"There's been a fantastic effort from the firefighters, as with Police and Defence Force and many others behind the scenes.

UPDATED 9.02am Criticism has been made of the slowness in calling in Civil Defence as the fire around the Port Hills in Christchurch rages on.

The Prime Minister told Mike Hosking all the questions that need to be asked, will be asked, but right now the focus is on getting on top of the fire.

"It's getting more threatening to some parts of Christchurch there, and they've got a tough day ahead of them.

The fire in the Port Hills has burnt across more than 1800 hectares, displacing close to thousand of people from their homes.

Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee says the State of Emergency should have been declared sooner.

But English said the focus should be on stemming the fire.

“Look I haven’t seen the arguments for and against it but the big said the focus at the moment for Gerry and the firefighters is getting on top of that fire. It’s getting more threatening to some parts of Christchurch and they’ve got a tough day ahead of them.”

The Government response included mobilising the Defence Force.

He said the Fire Service and civil defence system was “totally focused” on protecting the people at risk of the fire and putting the fire out.

English said no one could have anticipated the large scale fire on the Port Hills.

The Prime Minister will not be going to Waikanae and Queenstown as previously planned but will be heading to Christchurch in light of the fires.

English was to visit the opening of the new road from McKays Crossing to Peka Peka in Waikanae, as well as the Five Mile Development in Queenstown and the Kawarau Falls Bridge Project in Frankton.

Mr Brownlee will arrive in his home city today, but won't be the one calling the shots.

He said it's up to the Civil Defence Controller to ask for more national or overseas resources to fight the fire.

"Certainly from a government perspective we want to help as much as we can, and as I say the military are on standby. There's a large number of military personnel available to be deployed as the controller or fire officer determines."

Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel told Mike Hosking that she was "very worried" for Christchurch.

"We've been going through what's happened overnight, obviously there's been more evacuations so we're looking at 450 properties approximately that have been officially evacuated, with police doorknocking and the army in support as well, so it is very serious."

She said people have been reporting seeing the fire very close to their properties near Port Hills.

"It looks as if up to seven properties have been affected by the fire, it's difficult to say until light arrives to get a full handle on how many properties that have been destroyed."

Dalziel said the blaze was a "difficult fire".

"We had two seperate fires, one that started in the Selwyn district, managed as a significant rural fire, then fire erupted on the city side, ultimately the worst fears were realised and the two fires came together yesterday.

"It is close to areas of population, I don't want anyone to diminish that, we do have problems with people rubber-knecking."

She said people need to "stay at a distance" away from the fire.

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