The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Questions are being raised on whether MIQ exemptions are being given out fairly.
Mother of six-year-old Luca, who has a range of medical conditions, has been trying to get medical exemption to do their 14 days of managed isolation in their home in New Zealand, but has been denied.
Arlene Goodwin told Mike Hosking she's been trying to get home from New York since December last year.
"It's disappointing that this far into the pandemic there still isn't enough spaces to meet demand and that there's inconsistency's of who gets an exemption."
Goodwin says she was clear in her application that going through managed isolation could cause Luca's condition to get worse.
But she says she's had to bite the bullet and book a space in MIQ because they need to get home.
MIQ says all of their medical needs can be supported within a managed isolation facility.
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Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon didn't mislead lawmakers or act improperly over sexual harassment allegations against her predecessor, a senior lawyer said Monday in his report into a scandal that has roiled Scottish politics.
James Hamilton, a former chief prosecutor in Ireland who advises the Scottish government, concluded that Sturgeon didn't breach the code of conduct for government ministers. Sturgeon would have faced intense pressure to resign if she was found to have broken the ministerial code.
Sturgeon welcomed the lawyer's findings, calling them “official, definitive and independent.”
“I sought at every stage in this issue to act with integrity and in the public interest," she said.
Hamilton’s probe centers on the Scottish government’s handling of sexual harassment allegations against Alex Salmond, who served as Scotland’s first minister before Sturgeon took office in 2014.
A second inquiry, by a committee of Scottish lawmakers, is due to publish a report on Tuesday. British media have reported that the committee voted 5-4 in favor of finding that Sturgeon gave an inaccurate account to Scotland's Edinburgh-based parliament about when she learned of allegations against Salmond.
Sturgeon has accused the opposition members of the committee of voting on party lines rather than on the evidence.
The political and personal feud has pitted Sturgeon against her former friend and mentor Salmond, and is wracking Scotland’s governing Scottish National Party.
In 2019, Salmond was charged with sexual assault and attempted rape after allegations by nine women who had worked with him as first minister or for the party. He was acquitted by a criminal court in 2020, and claims the allegations made by several women were part of a conspiracy to wreck his political career.
Scotland’s highest civil court ruled in 2019 that the government acted unlawfully in its investigation of the claims against Salmond, and awarded him more than 500,000 pounds ($695,000) in legal expenses.
Hamilton’s findings are unlikely to silence all the questions about the Salmond case. His inquiry had a narrow focus, looking at whether Sturgeon told the truth about when she learned of the allegations, and whether she “attempted to influence the conduct of the investigation” into the harassment complaints.
“There is undoubtedly scope for political criticism of the manner in which Scottish government handled Mr. Salmond’s proceedings,” Hamilton said in his report. “That is not a matter for me to express any view upon.”
The political drama in Edinburgh could have major implications for the future of Scotland and the U.K.
Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum was billed at the time as a once-in-a-generation decision. But the Scottish National Party says Brexit has fundamentally changed the situation by dragging Scotland out of the European Union against its will. A majority of Scottish voters backed “remain” in the U.K.’s 2016 EU membership referendum. The U.K. as a whole voted narrowly to leave the bloc.
A Scottish Parliament election is due in May, and the SNP leads in opinion polls. Sturgeon says if she wins a majority, she will push for a new independence referendum and challenge British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the courts, if his government refuses to agree.

A travel operator is seething after the Government's decision on a two-way travel bubble with Australia.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says an announcement on a starting date will not be made until April 6, angering those in the tourism industry.
First Light Travel Managing Director Bent Narbey told Kate Hawkesby it's not the news he was hoping for.
"We were very disappointed as the Government's had 12 months to figure out a plan."
Chief pilot at Air Milford Antony Sproull says operators wouldn't have expected much from the Prime Minister's update.
"We're pretty used to not having any definition or firm understanding of the future."
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The Police Commissioner is unimpressed with the Race Relations Commissioner's comments about racism in the police force.
Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon has been weighing in on the debate about cancelling  TV show Police Ten 7, telling Newstalk ZB the show reflects systemic discrimination against Maori and Pacific people within the force.
Police Commissioner Andrew Coster says Police are trying to play their part in addressing inequity.
He told Mike Hosking Foon's comments undermine those efforts.
"Labelling all 14,000 police staff racist isn't accurate, and aren't helpful for addressing inequity where it exists."
Coster says if people want to see meaningful change in the justice system, people need to stop throwing labels at each other and get into the evidence.
Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon says the show reflects systemic racism within the police force.
But Police Commissioner Andrew Coster says there is no such thing, and the show covers only a small part of what police actually do.
He says there's a lot more to policing than what's in the public eye - and television tends to show what they think people want to watch.

Tourism operators say they're in limbo, until a trans-Tasman bubble date is set in stone.
The Government won't be making an announcement on when the quarantine-free flights will start, until April 6th.
Jacinda Ardern says they need to meet criteria around contact-tracing for Australian visitors, and suitable systems for airlines and airports before a bubble could open. 
Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Chris Roberts says they understand safety's paramount, but delays are frustrating.
He says they would've liked a firm date because without that it's difficult for businesses to plan and accept bookings.
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I assume you're fizzing as much as me, for today is let's fix the housing crisis day.
It started last year when Grant Robertson wrote to Adrian Orr and said, "Adrian these houses, man alive can you believe what's going on?"
Orr put the letter in the bin, but it did allow Robertson to tell us all that he was onto this mess and he had written to the Reserve Bank Governor. Based on the Labour Party philosophy that talking is doing, he was doing.
Then sort of nothing happened until Robertson said he would have more to say on housing. Also, Jacinda Ardern chimed in and said, quite perceptively I think, that prices can't keep going up the way they are.
Interestingly last week Stuff had a chart that showed, unfortunately for Ardern since she said prices can't keep going up the way they are, those naughty prices clearly had not listened and followed the Ardern instructions. Prices kept on going up.
So back to Robertson who had written yet another letter to Orr, this time telling him to take house prices into account when setting the Official Cash Rate. This now meant Orr had to take jobs, inflation, and housing into account. That makes him more a magician than Governor.
But also, Robertson was going to help with a big suite of real estate magic that was going to sort this mess out once and for all.
Unfortunately, I think due to lockdown or some meetings that couldn’t take place, presumably because they don't know how to use Zoom, that announcement was delayed
But today is the day. So, what to expect? Well, the Brightline, obviously. That won't make any difference. The number of investor flippers isn't high and therefore doesn’t affect the market unduly.
The main reason, of course, first timers are getting squeezed is not just because of price, but also the deposit. 20 percent is too much, but that won't get touched today. I hope I am wrong.
HomeStart numbers might get shifted a bit, allowing more people to access it.
But fundamentally, what we already know, especially those of us who have been in housing for decades and seen all this a number of times before, governments don’t shift markets. Short of Robertson personally paying your mortgage, there are no magic bullets.
So, today's great risk is, yet again, they’ve over sold this thing. In opposition, they lampooned the then government over prices, and yet look at their record after four years.
If today fundamentally changes anything, I'll eat my indoor-outdoor flow.

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Tuesday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) I'm Sure Something Will Happen Eventually/Housing Crisis Solved, Could Be Pricey/Better Than France/You Can Never Have Too Many Elections

The real estate industry wants the government to back off.
The Government is making a housing announcement at 9AM this morning.
It's expected to address supply and demand issues as well as obstacles facing first home buyers.
Harcourts Cooper and Co manager Martin Cooper told Mike Hosking the Government needs to learn from the past.
"Real estate is like a galloping horse. People on it are enjoying the ride and they want to slow it all down - they should just let the market be the market." 
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The critical part that was missed last week when Nicola Willis so correctly spoke out about the safety or not of Wellington was not the bit about social housing and where it’s located.
In many respects, where social housing is doesn’t matter. It’s what happens in the social housing.
The fact you need so much social housing is the great question.
Why? If the answer is hard times through no fault of your own, you’re dealing with the traditional social welfare type issue. A hand up, not a hand out.
But why is social housing now out of control? Why is the queue at record levels and growing? Why are the houses being built nowhere near the level they need to be.
Why are we paying millions in motel bills, and more importantly, why are those motel bills so high, and are motels charging a premium to be in the social housing game?
The clue came last week in a police raid of a Wellington social house – ironically, the day after Willis spoke out.
The Police found meth and cannabis. Why was meth and cannabis at a social housing unit? Because too many people in these units aren’t in hard times because of bad luck, they are there because of their actions, their attitude, and a government’s lack of desire to hold any one to account.
The violence issue Willis talks of is not the result of poor unemployed people down on their luck. It’s the result of drug addicts, of gang members, of peddlers of illegal activity, basically being bad buggers who know they can get away with it.
The reason the rooms in motels are charged out at the rate they are because there is a premium to deal with the violence and recalcitrance that’s comes with too many of the people in involved.
Not everyone obviously, but too many.
Too many of us have now seen it with our own eyes. Too many shopping precincts are sick of it, too many retailers don’t know what to do about it.
This tragically for too many is a crime issue, not a social issue. Too many of these people are not interested in being better or working harder.
They’re in crime and thuggery and intimidation and they couldn’t care less and they have no intention of changing.
We pay the bill while the government pretends it’s not happening and looks the other way.
When do you think reality strikes, or are we so far down the socialist path now that it is never any ones fault, no one can possibly take responsibility, and the best we can do is keep shelling it the money we don’t have.

There seems to be a subscription service for anything these days.
Food, clothes, grooming products, movie tickets, even toilet paper is available as part of a weekly or monthly subscription.
It is part of a wave of people being able to buy back their time without having to waste theirs on the various trips that you would usually need.
But is this increased wave here to stay?
Retail and marketing expert Juanita Neville-Te Rito told Mike Hosking that people can set these up and forget about it, and just let things come to them. 
She says that the new wave is down to "hyper-personalisation" - things that people didn't know they needed or wanted, but get to discover new things. 
"Not only are you getting your time back, but you're getting these extraordinary products as well."
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