The Mike Hosking Breakfast

We need to be asking ourselves some big picture questions.
Britain’s green light is on and the travel list is out. We are part of that group of countries where we can roll into London MIQ free. They can’t come here, of course, on the same deal.
Vaccinated travellers all over the world are now starting to get on planes and fly and we as of now are missing out
Singapore is on that list so Brits will be arriving there and spending their money and spreading the word.
Singapore has a containment strategy, not an elimination strategy like us, and they are now ranked as the best in the world at dealing with Covid.
Our issue, according to our esteemed leader who told us a few weeks ago when we asked when the borders would be opening to vaccinated travellers, said that was an open question, which is code for she hasn’t thought about it.
But here is what we know. A vaccine prevents you from dying and even getting really sick. It doesn’t always stop you completely from transmission, it might but it’s not full proof.
Now, that isn’t changing any time soon so obviously there is an element of risk involved.
Covid is like flu. It’s a virus you probably need a jab for on an ongoing basis.
So if that’s your scenario, what’s your call? When do we join the rest of the world or are we going to let the world carry on without us?
At some point a level of normality will have returned and places like Britain and the states are seeing their vaccination programmes as being comprehensive enough to be able to do that
Is it really possible the fear instilled in us by a government bereft of a plan beyond a closed border is really going to let the world get back to life and keep us locked up?
The Australian Trade Minister, for example, has been in London tying up their free trade deal. Has our trade minister left the country? No.  
As each day passes it becomes clearer where this story is heading. Vaccines work, the quicker you complete your programme, the more normal you can become, the world is clearly more than happy to drop restrictions lower borders and get life on a new track.
We sit here unvaccinated, borders closed, and no decision around what is next how and when.
It seems odd and increasingly criminal we can be recognised for a solid Covid response but because of our own fear and lack of planning cut ourselves out of the joining the rest of the world.
When do we start demanding better?

Country music keeps growing in popularity in New Zealand – and the rising stars are getting younger!
18-year-old Carson Taare got invited to the famed CMA International Festival in 2019 - and will be back next year.
And he's also got his own debut album.
Taare joined Mike Hosking to discuss his goal of being the biggest star in country, and performed his song Face for Radio.
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I cheered Rob Campbell the other day. Reportage had him, thank God, telling it like it is.
Campbell is a unionist from decades back who these days sits around board tables. We had him on the programme a few weeks back as a representative of a group of businesses that had written an open letter to the government asking for greater transparency around Covid.
Basically, they asked what the hell is going on? And what the hell is the plan?
What struck me at the time, and I should have asked, was that there weren't all that many signatures. I should've asked, why not?
But now we have the answer. Balls, or lack of them.
We found this out at a speech last week in which Campbell, in front of the Institute of Directors Leadership Conference revealed that various Chairs and Directors had refused to sign the letter.
Why? Because they were, "protecting their own arses." In doing that they were doing "a major disservice to the community."
There were people who were Directors and Chairs of companies who didn’t have the balls to sign the letter. They were worried about reaction, being penalised, and being scapegoated.
What a tragic indictment. Although I must say somewhat of a relief, given I have had many a conversation with people who tell me how grateful they are that this is one of the few outlets that holds the government to account.
When they say that, I think, "I haven't heard or seen your name or company about the place doing the same thing."
And many a time I have had people on the show, who broadly are critical, have questions, or want changes or improvements, and yet express it in the most vanilla of ways. In other words, they're wasting their time, so why bother?
The bigger picture for me, is what is it these people are doing if they're scared to say anything? What's the point in being meek?
If you're in business, especially at a high and influential level, why wouldn’t you want to be effective? Why wouldn’t you want to see your vision for your business and country enacted? When you see waster, poor decisions, or inept leadership, why wouldn't you be speaking out?
Why are you scared? What does that say about you? About your leadership? About your morals? About your gonads?
A poor government and a spineless group of business leaders who are hiding in their boardrooms.
Who aspires to be ordinary? The tragedy is being ordinary seems to be in vogue.

The joy of snow days is no more for New York City public school students.
Instead of building snowmen and finding little hills to sled down, students in grades K-12 will be expected to log onto their digital devices for classes -- a change attributed to the success of remote learning during the coronavirus pandemic.
The New York City public school system, the largest school district in the country, announced the change in its 2021-2022 School Year Calendar.
"On 'Snow days' or days when school buildings are closed due to an emergency, all students and families should plan on participating in remote learning," the New York City Department of Education said in a statement.
Many New York City schools successfully transitioned from in-person classes to remote learning during the coronavirus pandemic, showing that students could continue their education removed from classrooms if needed, said Danielle Filson, NYCDOE spokeswoman.
"In order to meet the New York State mandate of 180 in session school days, rather than cut into spring break, religious observances, or the already short and much-needed summer, we will pivot to remote learning days during rare instances when schools close due to inclement weather," Filson told CNN.
"We are sad for a year without snow days," Filson said, "but we must meet the state mandate and we can leverage the technology we invested in during the pandemic so our students get the instructional days required by the state."
The department and its schools distributed "hundreds of thousands of devices" to students during the pandemic to help them learn remotely, Filson said, which will make it easier to quickly transition back to online learning on snow days.
text by Alaa Elassar, CNN

Could the humble willow be about to be hit for six by bamboo as the future for bat manufacturing? 
A new study from Cambridge University has produced a prototype bamboo bat and found it to be stiffer, harder and stronger than willow.
It's also more sustainable with bamboo growing far quicker and less problems around waste, considering up to 30% of willow is wasted during bat production.
Co-author of the study is Dr Darshil Shah told Mike Hosking that it was an unusual study for them, as they were looking to replace a natural material.
"The problem we were trying to address is the shortage of willow and the increasing reach of the game."
He says that they want more people to play the game, and bamboo bats would help with that.
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There are fears it could easily be game over, for New Zealand's emerging video game industry.
Australia has announced video game developers there will be entitled to a 30 to 40 percent tax break, starting next year.
New Zealand companies are worried it could help draw some of our best talent across the ditch.
Founder of the studio Flightless John O'Reilly told Mike Hosking the sector here feels neglected by the Government.
"I really think they have to look at it now. It's a growing industry, it's highly creative, it's highly technical, it's jobs a lot of people will have here, and the brain drain that will happen with this is quite high, I think."
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In less than a week, people in England will be able to give friends and family a hug for the first time since restrictions were put in place in March last year at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed Monday that he has given the go-ahead for that much-missed human contact from May 17 as part of the next round of lockdown easing following a sharp fall in new coronavirus infections. Other easing measures included the reopening of pubs and restaurants indoors as well as cinemas and hotels, and allowing two households to meet up inside a home.
However, he stressed that people should exercise common sense given that social contact is the main way the virus is transmitted. He also said people should remain vigilant to unexpected changes in the coronavirus data and the spread of new variants that could bypass some of the immunity provided by Britain's successful vaccination campaign.
"This unlocking amounts to a very considerable step on the road back to normality and I am confident we will be able to go further," he said at a briefing from Downing Street. "This doesn't mean that we can suddenly throw caution to the wind ... I urge you to think about the vulnerability of your loved ones whether they have had a vaccine, one or two doses, and whether there has been time for that vaccine to take effect."
The U.K. is now recording around 2,000 new coronavirus cases a day, compared with a daily peak of nearly 70,000 in January. Daily deaths have also plummeted with only four recorded on Monday.
Johnson's announcement was preceded with the news that the U.K.'s alert level was also lowered to level three from four on Monday following a "consistent" fall in cases, hospital admissions and deaths. This means that transmission of the virus is no longer deemed to be high or rising exponentially, though still being in general circulation.
In the easing next week, Johnson said that six people, or two households even if the total is higher, will be able to mix inside homes as well as in pubs and restaurants. The limits on outdoor gatherings have been raised to 30 people. Indoor entertainment activities such as cinemas, soft play areas, adult group sports, exercise classes and hotels are also allowed to reopen next Monday. And students won't have to wear face coverings in class.
Since the lockdown started to be eased in recent weeks as part of a plan the government insists is being driven by "data, not dates," the mixing of households was only allowed outdoors, such as in a garden or restaurant patio, provided that social distancing was followed.
The government previously announced a tentative reopening of foreign travel from May 17, with only a handful of destinations deemed safe enough to ditch the 10-day quarantine requirements upon return. Portugal and Iceland now have no quarantine requirements but other popular destinations such as France, Italy, Spain and Greece will still require quarantining and a series of coronavirus tests.
Similar restrictions are being eased in the other parts of the U.K. — Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — following a sharp fall in new infections as a result of a long winter lockdown and the rapid rollout of vaccines.
Although the U.K. has recorded Europe's highest coronavirus death toll, with more than 127,500 dead, new infections have dropped dramatically. In addition, the success of Britain's vaccine rollout has raised hopes that this easing will not see the same virus resurgence that happened last fall following a lifting of restrictions during the summer.
Around 53% of the British population have received one dose of vaccine while more than a quarter have had two jabs — one of the speediest vaccine rollouts in the world.
The ensuing round of lockdown easing is expected on June 21. The hope is that all other limits on social contacts will be lifted then. Johnson said more details will be laid out...

The European Commission insisted it still trusts the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and that its dispute with the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker is only contractual.
The EU's executive branch has launched legal proceedings in Belgium against the firm for what it believes amounts to a breach of contract after AstraZeneca failed to deliver doses of its coronavirus vaccine in a timely manner.
Millions of doses of AstraZeneca have been safely administered in Europe, but concerns linger over a rare type of blood clot seen in an extremely small number of recipients.
The dispute between the EU and the company has further dented the public's confidence in the efficiency of the vaccine, but the European Commission insisted Monday the AstraZeneca serum remains part of its strategy to have 70 percent of all EU adults immunized this summer.
"First of all, the AstraZeneca vaccine is a very important vaccine for our vaccine portfolio," said Stefan de Keersmaecker, the Commission's health policy spokesman. "Thousands of Europeans are currently receiving the vaccine and it is very much part of our vaccine mix at the moment."
De Keersmaecker spoke after two senior EU officials over the weekend said the EU did not renew its order for AstraZeneca vaccine beyond June and would not buy more doses in the future.
De Keersmaecker confirmed that the Commission did not exercise the option to buy an additional 100 million doses on the basis of the current agreement it sealed with the company.
"But I can't tell you about the future at this stage," he said. "What remains important is that we receive the delivery of the ordered doses."
AstraZeneca's contract with the EU, which was signed by the Commission on behalf of the member countries last August, foresaw an initial 300 million doses for distribution among member countries, with an option for a further 100 million.
The British-Swedish drugmaker had hoped to deliver 80 million doses of that in the first quarter of 2021, but only 30 million were sent. According to the Commission, the company is now set to provide 70 million doses in the second quarter, rather than the 180 million it had promised.
"What we are now doing in our court case before the Brussels court, is to make sure that we can obtain the delivery of doses we are entitled to," de Kersmaecker said.
The legal dispute has eroded the relationship between AstraZeneca and the EU, which reinforced its partnership with Pfizer-BioNTech last week by agreeing to a massive contract extension for a potential 1.8 billion doses of their vaccine through 2023.
The European Commission currently has a portfolio of 2.6 billion doses from half a dozen companies.

Chris Hipkins says he wanted to get his facts straight, before accusing a border worker of evading coronavirus testing for five months.
National MP Chris Bishop says the Covid-19 Response Minister knew on April 8 the worker hadn't been swabbed since November, but sat on it for six days.
However, Hipkins told Mike Hosking there was a reason he didn't reveal there were no results on the border worker testing register, for Case B.
"At that time, they were reporting that they had been had regularly testing, their employer was reporting they had been regularly tested, and an investigation was going on to identify who was telling the truth here."
He also spoke about the 500 extra MIQ rooms that will be available per fortnight, mainly for skilled and critical workers.
That includes seasonal workers, construction specialists, international students and refugees.
Hipkins says there are still 20,000 rooms over the next three months for returning New Zealanders.
"We have actually increased the size of the contingency should anything on the trans-Tasman happen and we need to accommodate plane loads of people at short notice, we have the spare capacity to be able to do that."
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I wasn’t remotely surprised to see Gladys Berejiklian describe our bubble reaction to NSW as an overreaction.
I asked Ashley Bloomfield on Friday of course if he was a bit trigger happy and even he said it was a line call.
But no one is more conservative than Ashley, hence we are so backward on things like borders and vaccines and PPE and testing and border security.
Berejiklian is Australia’s most successful premier. Her state is the best economic performer, she is popular, and she has led far and away Australia’s most successful Covid response.
The Ardern like control freaks in places like Queensland, Victoria, and Western Australia have been caught out the same way we have.
Locking things up isn’t hard, but it’s been Victoria and WA that have had the most problems.
New South Wales have had very few. The Northern Beaches outbreak was handled well, and this current outbreak is hardly the pending disaster a bubble pause would indicate it is.
Like so much of this stuff, there is too much politics at play.
The government will never admit it, but they’re not keen on the bubble. That’s why they dragged their heels.
That’s why Australia opened to us last year and we took till a month or so ago to respond.
Any chance to say I told you so, inconvenience some people and kill the buzz they’re all over.
The end of Covid is in many respects the end of this government. They’ve succeeded through fear. When the fear goes the borders open and we turn our attention back to the shambles their governance has produced, they’re done for.
This is why Gladys shines. She’s aspirational, she doesn’t panic, New South Wales doesn’t lockdown at the drop of a hat or a single case.
They can and do track and trace, their record is not just the best but they’re proud of it.
There is no reason to freak out our side of the Tasman if they’re not freaking out on theirs.
She is right, it was an overreaction, because she is a better leader, and handles these things with more aplomb.
As we have said before, between the lacks of vaccine roll out the pay freeze, the Australian economy quote unquote from Macquarie leading the world, and a little aspiration from Berejiklian, the big red land to the left is increasingly a temptation.
When the migration numbers start backing that view up, don’t say all the warning signs weren’t there.