The Mike Hosking Breakfast

The NRL yesterday gained some new fans for their tough policing of the game and high shots this season.
29-year-old Australian captain Boyd Cordner announced his retirement due to multiple concussions robbing him of his confidence to properly compete in the NRL.
Cordner hasn't played since getting knocked out in November last year and although he was declared physically fit he said deep down he knew he wasn't 100% recovered.
He follows Roosters teammate Jake Friend who also retired mid-season because of concussion.
Former New Zealand league player Richie Barnett told Mike Hosking retirements like this highlight a need to educate younger players.
“We always sort of wait until you reach the top echelon that you start to look at the policies and procedures, but I think it really starts when you're young."
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A virology expert says Boris Johnson is making the right call in extending England's lockdown restrictions.
The British Prime Minister has delayed the easing of restriction by four weeks, from next Monday to July 19 due to rising cases of the Delta variant of Covid-19.
Cambridge University's Chris Smith, founder of the Naked Scientist podcast, says the original date was set when the UK was dealing with a less transmissible variant of the virus.
He told Mike Hosking Johnson is changing his plan in response to a changing situation, with the Delta variant taking hold.
“The effect of that was to mean that more people were getting infected more quickly than the modelling had predicted. And that meant that the disease was outpacing the best efforts to vaccinate the population.”
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An official apology for dawn raids that racially targeted Pasifika families and have been described as "state-sanctioned terrorism" is being welcomed by those impacted as a "very small start to the healing process".
But advocates say to be truly meaningful the apology needs to be accompanied by a strong education campaign, compensation and pathway to residency for current overstayers.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stood alongside Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio yesterday as they announced the Government would officially apologise for the immigration raids of the mid-1970s that disproportionately targeted people of Pasifika heritage, suspected of overstaying their visas.
A study a decade later showed Polynesians had made up only a third of overstayers but more than 80 per cent of all prosecutions for overstaying.
The announcement follows years of campaigns calling for such an apology, led by the Polynesian Panthers, which intensified this year on their 50th anniversary, and a petition delivered to Parliament.
Polynesian Panthers foundation member and University of Auckland Associate Professor of Pacific Studies Dr Melani Anae said the apology would go some way to start the healing process, but more practical measures needed to accompany it for the healing to truly begin.
The Polynesian Panthers, including Melani Anae (front left), played a prominent part in campaigning against the raids. Photo / Supplied
"It's a very small start to the healing process that needs to happen in New Zealand in terms of its race relations with Pacific people and communities.
"I am applauding the Government for this announcement but I wait with bated breath for the detail that is to accompany the apology as it unfolds."
She wanted changes to the education system, including making the study of Pacific history and Pacific studies compulsory in the New Zealand history curriculum.
"It would give the students in our schools an understanding of their world beyond New Zealand and other places in the Pacific, and understanding race relations, and looking at the dawn raids as a dark side of history where there was state-sanctioned terrorism in your face in the 1970s and a call for that never to happen again.
"Those horrific stories are still causing intergenerational trauma and harm. This apology will go some way to start the healing but there needs to be practical measures that accompany that apology for the healing to truly begin."
Will 'Ilolahia, original chairman of the Polynesian Panthers, has been calling for compensation and pathway to residency for current overstayers to accompany the apology - a position backed by Auckland Council Manukau Ward Councillor Efeso Collins.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the Government has agreed to make an official apology for the dawn raids targeting Pasifika people in the 1970s.
The Green Party is also calling for a broad amnesty programme for people who overstay and real pathways to residency.
Ardern said the apology - to be delivered in an official ceremony at Auckland's Town Hall on June 26 - would be in line with past government apologies - such as to Samoa for New Zealand's administration in its earlier years, and New Zealand's Chinese community "for the discrimination suffered by those subjected to the poll tax and other practices".
However, this apology would and not look into any amnesty or compensation issues, she said.
Immigration issues would be looked at as part of a wider review process.
"Communities at the time felt targeted and terrorised and there is clear evidence the raids were discriminatory and have had a lasting negative impact," she said.
"An apology can never reverse what happened or undo the damage caused, but we can acknowledge it and we can seek to right a wrong."
Sio said on the issue of amnesty and compensation he had a " personal view that I won't be sharing today".

Concerns have been raised over New Zealand's continued export of shark fins.
Figures from Seafood NZ show we exported nine tonnes of fins to Singapore last year, and four and a half tonnes to the Pacific Islands.
In 2014, it was made illegal to remove fins from sharks caught in New Zealand waters and throw back the bodies.
The fins that we've been exporting are taken from sharks that end up in by-catch or are found well off-shore.
Shark scientist Riley Elliott told Mike Hosking we might be operating within legal bounds, but there's still an ethical concern.
“The question therefore remains, is it ok to farm rhinos to provide a sustainable source of rhino horns when that industry that is devastating populations around the world and is highly illegal elsewhere.”
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It was labelled a shock, but is it really? 
The City Rail Link in Auckland ,the gargantuan mess that is ruining businesses, behind time and over budget, will in fact, it is reported, need billions and billions more to achieve what they said it would.
It’s at $4.4 billion currently - and just think about that number.
The CRL is 3.5kms long – that’s well in excess of $1 billion a kilometre.
It will need another $6+ billion to carry the number of passengers they say it will.
And here is the con. They claim it will carry 54,000 an hour, but that’s not 54,000 an hour at $4.4 billion: that’s 54,000 at the extra $6 billion, and yet they don’t tell you that.
And that’s before you get to the bit where just because something can do that doesn’t mean it will.
You’ll need 54,000 wanting to get on a train and history already proves that public transport doesn’t work, isn’t liked and isn't used. Post-Covid lockdown, train usage isn’t back to normal or anywhere close, nor is bus use nor is ferry use. The only thing that is is the roads.
All up, this CRL dream is a $12 billion project - now where have you heard the $12 billion figure recently?
That’s right, the $12 billon they had set aside for shovel ready projects and the infrastructural revolution about to explode across New Zealand.
Except, as we found out the other week, that has been cancelled and reworked because guess what? What they said they could do for the money, they can’t.
So roading projects are off and cycle bridges are in.
The tragedy of this is that despite us all agreeing infrastructure is badly needed, we don’t know how to do it properly, and even the projects we do start, they will never achieve what we ultimately want them to.
The cycle lane at almost $1 billion won’t be a billion, the same way the CRL isn’t $4.4 billion – which of course didn’t start out at $4.4billion, it started out way, way less.
So for $13 billion, we will have a cycle lane and a 3.5 k train loop all in Auckland all not being used, all not solving the issues they were allegedly set out to solve.
This is a lesson and the danger of ideology run rampant and power freaks using other people’s money.
It’s an astonishing bill for not a lot.

Covid-19 restrictions are likely to remain in place in Victoria for at least the next four days.
The Australian state has another two community cases of Covid-19 this morning, who are contacts of existing cases.
But officials still haven't sourced six "mystery cases".
Melbourne media personality Steve Price says the state's restrictions probably won't lift until Friday, at the earliest.
"The restrictions are ridiculous. Completely stupid. Given the lack of Covid in the community, now people are just jack of it. Businesses are going broke at a rapid rate."
 
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An Auckland real estate agent has had enough of unruly berms.
Northcote's Rick Mozessohn is offering extra pocket money to local kids to maintain the grass on his street.
"I'm gonna pay each set of kids 100 bucks and what they'll do is basically go along my street and mow any of the berms that look like they need a bit of TLC. I probably have about three or four kids doing it at the moment.
Mozessohn believes the berms should be maintained by the council.
But he told Mike Hosking whenever he drives past one which is overgrown he has a borderline mental breakdown.
 
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Challenges when it comes to reducing the amount of antibiotics dished out.
An Auckland University-led study has found a drop-off in prescriptions during last year's Covid-19 response didn't result in more patients turning up at hospital.
The researcher says GPs should aim to reduce the number of antibiotic prescriptions they write by around a third.
Australasian College for Emergency Medicine president John Bonning told Mike Hosking there's a lot of drive from patients that want something from their appointment.
"People are paying the money and they feel they've shortchanged it, they're just getting an opinion. But people need to ask the questions: what are the benefits, what are the risks, what are the alternatives and what if I do nothing?"
 
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Most rental properties aren't meeting the Government's Healthy Homes standards.
Data from Betta Property Compliance shows only about a quarter of homes are passing initial compliance inspections.
The new standards set out minimum requirements for heating, insulation and moisture in rental properties.
But Property Investors' Federation chief executive Sharon Cullwick told Mike Hosking the standards are unrealistic, and don't reflect how buildings are built.
"They're not the same as the building codes. So what needs to happen is the building code needs to change and therefore every house that's finished from now will actually pass the healthy home standard."
 
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Plenty of agreement from world leaders, at the latest G7 Summit.
Joe Biden and Boris Johnson have met with the leaders of other powerful countries in Cornwall, on the first leg of Biden's first overseas trip since taking office.
The group had major disagreements about Brexit, and what it meant for the future of Northern Ireland.
But correspondent Peter Anderson told Mike Hosking on most other issues, like Covid-19 and climate change, everyone was on the same page.
"It was rather like a family wedding - you have guests coming with a history of disagreements and squabbling. There have been a few sideswipes, but largely it's been harmonious and all smiles for the official photos."
Biden has also met with the Queen at Windsor Castle, and is now in Brussels for meetings with NATO and Vladimir Putin.
 
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