The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Livestock exporters say there's no justification for a complete ban on live exports.
The Government is expected to make an announcement on the issue this morning, which TVNZ reports will be a total ban.
Animal rights groups have raised concerns about conditions on live export ships, after 41 people including, two New Zealanders,  died in the sinking of a livestock ship last year.
But Animal Genetics Trade Association chief executive Dave Hayman told Mike Hosking  these groups are being alarmist.
He says the sector does a world class job, and cattle have a survival rate similar to a New Zealand farm.
Hayman says a ban is not inevitable.
“It's a morally and practically unjustified decision, that's based on miscalculated principles, and he hopes common sense will prevail.”
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THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Wednesday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Or Is It Just Me?/Mud Sticks/What Organics Taste Like/The No-Haircut Haircut/So Over Philip

It's such a crap job isn't it? Who on earth would want to be Leader of the Opposition?
Already National are dealing with yet another round of whispers and it's only early 2021 - the election is late 2023.
If the rumours are real and the plotting is thick, and if they can't work out that a few months after an election is not a time to panic and roll people, then they have no hope.
Added to that, is the highly-likely outcome that Labour are going to implode on themselves once we stop focusing on Covid and start dealing with the recession and other ineptitudes they’ve foisted upon us. So in other words – patience, my friends.
Then you get to the very real issue of whether reheating a bloke who apparently no-one liked last time can bring anything other than despair and ridicule. Mind you, Simon Bridges has John Howard to learn from - so anything is possible.
But then this Chris Luxon idea. Think about it. One, is he any good, and two, what's the point of having Luxon sitting as deputy when you know full well all he wants is the top job?
Even if any of this comes to anything, Simon would literally spend every waking moment dealing with the sort of crap Judith is dealing with right now - leaks, back-stabbing, self-interest whispers and scandal. What you want as Deputy is a Don McKinnon - a good pair of experienced hands and absolutely no desire to be boss.
But back to Luxon and the noise that surrounds him. Who would put him in now? He doesn’t value the job he would take on, doesn't value the office. Luxon might be a genius - but we don't know that, because he has barely unpacked his lunch box.
We can't - or at least shouldn’t - be handing out top work for the latest cab off the rank. That’s not how the big jobs get sorted. You have to earn them, you have to look like you belong - that an elevation to the position makes perfect sense. Why we've decided the job can go to any old hack who lobs up, I don't know.
Labour got exceedingly lucky with Jacinda Ardern because Ardern got exceedingly lucky with Covid. Luxon is only a player because Key made being an outside business success the link to leadership. It might be a link, but there is no shortage of people who lead one business who couldn't lead another, far less tossing in the nuances and complexities of politics.
Just turning up isn't a qualification. If the Nats have decided it is, then they deserve everything that’s coming to them. The best thing they could do for the rest of the year, given there is plenty of time and no need to freak out - is cool their jets.

A new Kiwi start-up wants to revolutionise the way we buy groceries.
The start-up, Supie, cuts out the middle man when it comes to grocery shopping so that there isn't the waste that supermarkets experience.
Users would buy directly from the supplier - meaning vegetables will still be in the ground and bread would still be in the oven when you order, meaning no waste and less strict criteria for food to be acceptable for sale.
Supie founder Sarah Balle told Mike Hosking there is growing awareness of food waste, and consumers want to play their part.
"We know that about 45 percent of fruit and vegetables grown in New Zealand don't make it to the supermarkets, and that's because of the way they look
"50 percent of the food we waste in our homes is fruit and vegetables."
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A local consultancy business helping kids get into elite overseas universities does not believe an ongoing scandal will affect his business.
A new Netflix documentary looks into the US College Admissions Scandal – the one that saw actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin actually sent to jail.
The documentary tells the story of Rick Singer, who used a 'side door' scheme to help wealthy parents get their children into the likes of Harvard, Stanford and Princeton through bribes or by having them pose as fake athletic recruits.
Jamie Beaton founded Crimson Education, which promises to help students get into their dream overseas university. However, he told Mike Hosking that his company has avoided being caught up in these types of scandals - which have happened in China and Korea, not just the US. 
He says that it is a multi-billion dollar industry, and there is a significant presence of advice around the world. 
"College admissions is a very high stake process for many families around the world, and for a small share of people, typically based in some privileged parts of the US, the idea of trying to find a back door into what is normally a really rigorous process to get into is pretty attractive. I think [the documentary] exposed some of the vulnerabilities in what is an increasingly important system for higher education."
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The fashion world looks to be entering into the early stages of a new denim cycle.
The boss of Levi's Jeans says they're noticing more consumers opting for loose-fitting denim over the tighter fit.
Auckland stylist Caitlin Taylor told Mike Hosking she believes the pandemic has played a contributing role in this change.
She says people became very used to wearing comfortable clothes during lockdown.
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Shops, gyms, pubs and beauty salons in England have welcomed back customers after three months of lockdown, delivering a crucial boost to retail and hospitality businesses that have been forced to close repeatedly during the pandemic.
Shoppers braved unseasonably cold temperatures as they lined up outside stores in cities on Monday after restrictions on non-essential retail and outdoor hospitality venues were eased.
Stores and pubs have been closed since early January, when England went into a third strict national lockdown to combat a surge in coronavirus cases. The restrictions and a vaccination drive have been credited with sharply reducing the number of new cases and deaths across the United Kingdom.
Brits are expected to flock to shops and pubs for haircuts and pints of beer, but the surge in demand may be little consolation to businesses that were rocked last year by the United Kingdom's worst recession in three centuries. And for some, the relaxation comes too late.
The Forum for British Pubs estimates that at least 2,000 pubs have shut permanently over the past year. Many other retailers have also closed their doors for good despite government programs aimed at helping businesses during the pandemic.
UK stores have missed out on roughly £30 billion ($41.2 billion) in lost sales during the country's three lockdowns, according to the British Retail Consortium, which estimates that 67,000 retail jobs were lost between December 2019 and 2020.
"Retailers are excited about welcoming back their customers," Helen Dickinson, CEO the British Retail Consortium, said in a statement. "While we expect an initial surge in spending when shops first open, the real test will be how this holds up."
Many restrictions remain in place. Pubs, for example, are only allowed to serve customers sitting at tables outdoors. Brits may be willing to brave freezing temperatures for a pint, but the British Beer and Pub Association estimates that only 40% of pubs will reopen on Monday because they don't have sufficient outdoor space. Under the government's plans, indoor hospitality will be allowed no earlier than May 17.
Laine Pub Company CEO Gavin George said he's fortunate that most of his 55 pubs have outdoor areas. George has spent about £250,000 ($344,000) to make those spaces warmer and more comfortable, but even that won't attract enough customers.
"For a pub to trade profitably, it needs to be able to trade inside and outside without restriction. So I'm very keen for the government to stick to its recovery plan," he said.
Kate Nicholls, the CEO of industry group UK Hospitality, told CNN Business that continued social distancing restrictions mean that businesses that open will only be able to make 60% of their usual sales until the lockdown ends completely, which won't happen before June 21.
"We will sadly lose many businesses and it's going to be a long road to recovery. Those that are reopening are going to have heavy levels of debt. It's going to be 18 months before we get back to pre pandemic levels of profit and revenue," she added.
According to PwC research compiled by the Local Data Company, 17,532 shops closed last year in the United Kingdom, while only 7,655 opened. Many more stores that "temporarily closed" during lockdowns may never return, the consultancy warned last month.
Shops that do survive will need to hire staff, resume rent payments and adhere to new safety requirements while grappling with a shift to online shopping and changing consumer patterns as many people continue to work from home.
"Government roadmaps across various parts of the United Kingdom are set to reactivate the high street. But it's going to look very different post-Covid as businesses will have to weather the twin impacts of permanently changed shopping and working environments," Zelf Hussain, retail restructuring partner at PwC, said in a statement last month.

A former Attorney-General says it's appalling Kiwis aren't doing their civic duty.
Fewer than one-in-five New Zealanders turn up for jury service.
One main problem was the $80-dollars a day compensation has little pull.
Former National cabinet minister Chris Finlayson told Mike Hosking he thinks there's a lot of people happy to take from the country, but not prepared to give.
"People need to front up and recognise that, as citizens, they have a duty to do jury service."
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Business trips are expected to stay grounded,  as baby steps are taken to get travelling again.
CNN Business correspondent Richard Quest says it's fair to say business travel won't get back to where it was before Covid-19, but it's hard to say to what extent.
However, he told Mike Hosking travel between company offices will likely take the biggest hit.
Quest says things like day trips from Wellington to Christchurch, or Auckland, will be rarer because  we've shown that work can be online using online conferencing.
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It’s a funny old thing to watch at the moment. It's starting to dawn on the greenies that the 'magic' of the electric car might not be as magical as they thought. Like so many who hop on bandwagons, they don’t do the homework. They essentially pedal their ideology based on clap-trap. For all the buzz around EVs, two stark things have been at play. One - they haven't taken off in terms of sales. Hence you’ve seen the endless push for subsides paid for by others (ie the taxpayer). Two -  very little time has been spent on the environmental issues surrounding their production. Yes, fossil fuels are not environmentally brilliant. But that doesn’t make the production of EVs good - because they aren't.
The battery is up to 40% of a car's cost. From day one, the battery starts to die - meaning in years to come, we're going to have a tremendous number of dead batteries. Further, making the batteries requires a lot of materials that are currently mined in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo -  things like cobalt, nickel, copper and manganese. Rare earths are involved, and they're currently tied up fairly tightly by the Chinese - hence, the market is skewed.
The new development in the debate is that a lot of this stuff can be found on the seabed in the Pacific. Brilliant - let's go get it.
Whoops. Forgot about the greenies. The greenies are aghast at the environmental impacts of mining in the waters off the Cook Islands. Indeed the United Nations, no less, is currently looking at regulating mining. BMW, Google and Samsung have said they will not use any metal sourced from the deep ocean, which is laudable. But it does leave the question... if not the ocean...where? That bastion of unionised and technologically advanced engineering and extraction, the Congo?
And this is the pinch point. You can't have it both ways. You can't extol the virtues of a new form of transportation if you're not prepared to be honest about how it's built. Like so much  in life, it's not black and white. Diesel and petrol still drive engines for very good reasons.
No, an EV doesn’t put carbon out a tail pipe, but a hell of a lot of the earth got attacked to drag the stuff up and out, that made the battery - and you can't hide from that. Or, at least if you try to - it makes you an ideological hypocrite. In the same way, EVs should sell because they're good and desired - not because they're subsidised.
The so-called switch should be made because the switch makes sense, and not because the environmentalists were good with the green wash.