The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Andrew Laming will quit politics at the next election but the scandal-plagued Queensland MP has resisted calls to stand down immediately.
Mr Laming has been under pressure to resign after he was the subject of complaints from two women who claimed he harassed them online.
He has also been accused by another young woman of taking a photo of her underwear while she bent over.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Sunday revealed Mr Laming would not contest the Queensland seat of Bowman at the next election after two LNP colleagues said his position beyond his current term was untenable.
“I hope for some privacy can be extended to me and my family in this time, and I ask my local community to be kind to them,” Mr Laming said in a statement.
“Being elected to Bowman at six consecutive elections has been the greatest honour of my life. I will not be contesting the next federal election in any capacity.”
Mr Laming said from Monday he would take leave to undergo clinical counselling at his own expense, in an attempt to become a “a deeper and more empathetic person than what the recent events have demonstrated”.
“The common thread of the last week has been not demonstrating anything close to understanding how my actions affect others. I intend to own those mistakes.”
Mr Laming’s decision not to contest the next election comes a day after he was spoken to by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Mr Frydenberg resisted calling for Mr Laming to resign from the LNP immediately, saying it was proper for him to see out his term, despite labelling his conduct as “completely unacceptable”.
Mr Laming could for the rest of the parliamentary term move to the crossbench however that would force Scott Morrison into leading a minority government.
The LNP hold 76 seats in the 151-seat parliament and losing Mr Laming could leave them deadlocked or needing the support of independents of smaller parties to pass legislation.
Asked if Mr Laming was a fit and proper person to stand in parliament, Mr Frydenberg said: “I understand he is, that’s my view”.
“As for him sitting into LNP party room, that will be a decision for the LNP itself.
 “But I think he’s taken the proper course of action to seek that counselling and following that conversation with the Prime Minister not to stand at the next election.”
Mr Laming has taken time off to undergo therapy and counselling and will return to parliament in budget week.
His decision to quit came after LNP colleagues Senator Sarah Henderson and MP Katie Allen on Sunday said he should step down at the next election.
But Labor leader Anthony Albanese said he should resign immediately.
“The fact is that Andrew Laming is not fit to be a Member of Parliament today,” Mr Albanese said.
“Andrew Laming should go. He brings disrepute and disgrace to our national Parliament and he simply should go.”
On Friday, a Brisbane mother told Nine News that Mr laming took a photo of her as she bent over to restock a fridge at a landscape supply business.
The woman said that her underwear was visible and it was reported that witnesses backed up her account.
“The photo was really inappropriate, especially when I was bent over,” Crystal White she recounted.
However Mr Laming said: “I reject the allegation aired on Channel 9 that I took an inappropriate photo with malicious intent”.
Earlier in the week Mr Laming was reprimanded by the Prime Minister Scott Morrison and forced to apologise to parliament for trolling two female constituents, including one who said she was left suicidal.
He was forced to issue a further apology after he seemingly made light of his comments in public Facebook comments where he said he “didn’t even know” what he was apologising for, followed by a series of laughing emojis.
text by Steven Zemek, NCA NewsWire​

The training wheels are still on as officials establish a nationwide Covid-19 vaccine database.
Canterbury DHB has been left red-faced, after an error meant people were able to view information about other people booking their appointment.
A person's name, gender, age and NHI number could be seen, but not their health history.
Malaghan Institute of Medical Research Director Professor Graham Le Gros told Mike Hosking it's the first time this has ever been done -- and the system will go through growing pains.
"Remember, people travel all over the place, and they all want their vaccine, and they will say 'Can I change so I get it down in Dunedin?', so we do need to have those databases in place so we can track and monitor, and know what's going on."
He says not everything will go according to plan.
"Just imagine if the Auckland motorway breaks down as it sometime does and you've got vaccine on one side of the Harbour and you've got to get it to people on the other side.
"We've got to get those logistical things in place. It takes practice." 
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Growth within the small business sector has stalled and is down around 40 per cent, according to a new study by a professional accounting body.
Kiwi small business growth slipped below the Asia-Pacific average last year, and almost two-thirds of the country's small firms were affected by the pandemic, according to CPA Australia's Asia-Pacific Small Business Survey, which has been tracking small business performance for the past 11 years.
Just 29 per cent of small businesses reported growth last year, down from 49 per cent reported a year earlier, the NZ Herald reports.
CPA Australia's New Zealand boss Rick Jones told Mike Hosking the age of business owners has an effect.
"There was a lot more over 50 year olds in the New Zealand small business survey, and without taking anything away from this survey, the over 50 year olds, their uptake of social media and digital platforms is slightly less, whereas the demographic in Asia was a lot younger."
The survey found that the average Asia-Pacific growth rate was 46.2 per cent in 2020, compared with 65 per cent recorded in 2019.
Of the 11 Asia-Pacific markets surveyed, New Zealand small businesses performed the third-worst for growth last year - behind those located in Australia and Hong Kong.
New Zealand also ranked last out of the 11 nations for earning revenue through online sales last year, the survey found.
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THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Monday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Get Off the Bus/I'll Let Him Have His Moment/Quick Job Count/Time To Stop With the Body Image B.S./We Love WFH

Two additional tugboats have embarked to Egypt's Suez Canal to aid efforts to free a skyscraper-sized container ship wedged across the crucial waterway, even as major shippers increasingly divert their boats out of fear the vessel may take even longer to free.
The massive Ever Given, a Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned ship that carries cargo between Asia and Europe, got stuck on Tuesday in a single-lane stretch of the canal. In the time since, authorities have been unable to remove the vessel and traffic through the canal — valued at over $9 billion a day — has been halted, further disrupting a global shipping network already strained by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Dutch-flagged Alp Guard and the Italian-flagged Carlo Magno, called in to help tugboats already there, reached the Red Sea near the city of Suez early Sunday, satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed. The tugboats will nudge the 400m-long (quarter-mile-long) Ever Given as dredgers continue to vacuum up sand from underneath the vessel and mud caked to its port side, said Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, which manages the Ever Given.
On Sunday, excavators dug on the eastern wall of the Suez Canal, hoping to free the bulbous bow of the Ever Given that plowed into the embankment, satellite photos showed.
A snapshot of ships waiting off the entrance to the Suez Canal, early Monday morning New Zealand time. Screengrab / Marinetraffic.com
The next high tide at 11.30pm local time - about 10.30am New Zealand time - coincides with a full moon and is expected to provide the best conditions yet to free the Ever Given.
The BBC reported the tugboats had so far managed to move the ship "30 degrees from left and right", moving the vessel about 30m and footage posted on Twitter appeared to show the tugboats honking their horns to celebrate this small victory.
Workers planned to make two attempts to free the vessel on Sunday night, a top pilot with the canal authority said. The full moon offers a spring tide, or king tide, in which high tides are higher and the low tides are lower because of the effects of gravity during a straight-line alignment of the Earth, the moon and the sun.
"Sunday is very critical," the pilot said. "It will determine the next step, which highly likely involves at least the partial offloading of the vessel."
Local media declared further speculation that the effort was making headway.
Two Suez Canal Authority sources told Reuters that a mass of rock had been found at the bow of the ship, complicating salvage efforts and diverting attention to efforts to lighten the load on the stricken vessel.
Taking containers off the ship likely would add even more days to the canal's closure, something authorities have been desperately trying to avoid. It also would require a crane and other equipment that have yet to arrive.
The pilot spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorised to brief journalists.
On Saturday, the head of the Suez Canal Authority told journalists that strong winds were "not the only cause" for the Ever Given running aground, appearing to push back against conflicting assessments offered by others. Lt Gen Osama Rabei said an investigation was ongoing but did not rule out human or technical error.
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement maintains that "initial investigations rule out any mechanical or engine failure as a cause of the grounding". However, at least one initial report suggested a "blackout" struck the hulking vessel carrying some 20,000 containers at the time of the incident.
Rabei said he remained hopeful that dredging could free the ship without having to resort to removing its cargo, but added that "we are in a difficult situation, it's a bad incident".
Asked about when they expected to free the vessel and reopen the canal, he said: "I can't say because I do not know."
Speaking on Sunday to the pro-government Egyptian...

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been grilled about how he could not have known the depth of the issues faced by women during a heated interview with Tracy Grimshaw on A Current Affair.
During the 30-minute sit down aired on Thursday night, the Prime Minister was questioned about the government’s handling of allegations involving former Liberal Staffer Brittany Higgins and historic rape allegations made about Attorney-General Christian Porter, which are strongly denied.
When the PM said he had been working to understand the outrage being felt by women Grimshaw bluntly asked him: “where have you been?”
“If you are saying you have been aware of the enormity of this issue preceding Brittany Higgins coming out a month ago, if you’d been aware of it,” Grimshaw began to say.
“At a different level,” Mr Morrison said.
“This has taken me deeper into this issue than I have appreciated before.”
He then continued: “You have lived with it every day, you have lived with it I’m sure your whole life.”
“But you’re not on an island,” Grimshaw responded.
“Or maybe you’re in a bubble, you must know, you’ve got a wife you love, you’ve got daughters … how did you not know the depth of it?”
Mr Morrison said he, like many men in the country, had a different experience with the issue.
“This is the difficult part of this. You understand it in a way that only you could. I have a different experience to yours as do many men in this country.”
“It was truly shocking that this could take place here (in Parliament House) to a young woman who had worked so hard.
“We look at these things and go ‘how could such acts of (alleged) violence take place?’
“We are now starting to get beyond this issue where we see it most, in the most violent and other most obvious forms.
“I may not have always got it as much as people would like me to, but I assure you, I am doing everything I can to understand it as best I can.”
Ms Higgins claimed she was raped by a colleague in Minister Linda Reynolds office at Parliament House in March, 2019.
The former staffer lodged a formal complaint with the Prime Minister on Thursday, accusing his office of “backgrounding” against her partner.
She raised the claim earlier this month when she addressed protesters outside Parliament House for the March 4 Justice rallies.
Thousands of people across the nation called for action against gendered violence in parliament after Ms Higgins came out about her alleged rape.
“I watched as the Prime Minister of Australia publicly apologised to me through the media, while privately his team actively discredited and undermined my loved ones,” Ms Higgins told the crowd.
The Prime Minister did not attend the historic rally but said he would meet organisers “in private”.
“I treated that protest the same way I have treated other protests and provided respectful opportunities for people to meet and talk seriously about this issue in the office of the Prime Minister,” he told Grimshaw.
He revealed he had not directly been in contact with Ms Higgins since she had spoken out but insisted his public apology was sincere.
Mr Morrison told Grimshaw he would be willing to meet with Ms Higgins but she had not asked to speak with him.
“She hasn’t expressed an interest in doing that with me but she is very welcome to,” he said.
The Prime Minister also said Defence Minister Linda Reynolds’ comments calling Ms Higgins “a lying cow” were “disgraceful” and “out of character”.
When asked if Mr Porter and Ms Reynolds would be moved from their portfolios, he said he was “working through those issues now”.
“One is on mental health leave and the other is on physical health leave. Linda in particular, had a very serious coronary condition. She is being seeking help for that for the past month, as you can see in the chamber, that distress she was under.
“There is a further effect on her...

Now that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has decided to no longer appear on the Mike Hosking Breakfast show, Mike Hosking takes a listen at who she is now speaking with -  and what are the type of questions being asked.
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Joe Biden's first media conference has been overshadowed by a bizarre blunder, in which the 78-year-old appeared to lose track of what he was saying.
Mike Hosking is joined by Tim Wilson and Kate Hawkesby to discuss this, along with wrapping the rest of the week in news.
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High Performance Sport NZ are switching up their priorities - from medals to player welfare.
Under the change, athlete wellbeing will now be considered before funding is handed out.
Funding will be for four years rather than per year and based on results, and there will be double the amount of financial support to athletes as well as sports who will benefit.
Canoe slalom athlete and silver medallist at Rio, Luuka Jones joins Mike Hosking to discuss the changes.
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An oyster parasite has been found in the wild population in the Foveaux Strait, and one long-time oysterer worries it could mean the end of the industry.
Yesterday, three wild oysters were found to be infected with Bonamia ostreae in a small area near Stewart Island.
Bluff oysterer John Edminstin said if it was true, it could be more than serious.
"If it's that, the future doesn't look very bright at all."
It was scary.
"It could mean the end of it."
The outlook had been relatively optimistic of late, with larger sized oysters being seen.
"We were all quite buoyant about the future of the industry, but now this happens."
He believed it was the first time it had been found in the wild and was concerned it would be hard to contain.
Sharing his concerns was Fowlers Oysters manager Terina Stockwell.
She said she had been spiralling since hearing the news.
"It's pretty devastating but the scientists are coming down tomorrow.
"Hopefully it hasn't spread further because that would be horrible for us."
However, the knowledge no one had fished in the area the infected oysters were found was good.
"That's something to cling on to while we can."
Biosecurity New Zealand (BNZ) will begin further testing of the oysters, although no infection was found in five other sample sites.
There would likely be a small temporary and voluntary "no take" zone declared around the area where the oysters were found until longer-term options were explored.
The parasite was first found in New Zealand in 2015 in oysters from the Marlborough Sounds and then in 2017 in oysters in Big Glory Bay in Stewart Island.
Consequently, a programme was funded to protect wild populations which included removing several flat oyster farms in Big Glory Bay, and running a surveillance programme to look for early signs of the parasite in the wild.
Biosecurity manager Dr Cath Duthie said it was, however, always considered possible that a find in wild oysters could occur.
"Foveaux Strait is a dynamic waterway with strong currents and the parasite can remain dormant.
"For this reason, we commissioned Niwa to do six-monthly surveillance sampling and testing of wild oysters from six different locations in the Strait to find any infections at the earliest possible time.
"We received a confirmed positive laboratory result for Bonamia ostreae from the three oysters [yesterday]."
Commercial Bluff oyster fishers had not reported any sign of the disease and it was not detected in five years of six-monthly surveillance sampling in the area.
"The fishery has been affected for many years by a different type of Bonamia, Bonamia exitiosa.
"The oyster fishing industry has worked through that situation to maintain a sustainable fishery. We'll work to support them to explore ways through this new challenge."
It will work with Bluff oyster fishers, iwi, other marine users and the wider public on the most appropriate and effective response to the situation.
"We've talked to fishing industry partners today and will be in Southland [today] to start talking to the local community. We want to involve local people, including the iwi of the area, in our response."
Bluff oyster quota holders will be able to continue to fish.
Bonamia ostreae is not a food safety issue and fresh Bluff oysters remain safe to eat.