The Mike Hosking Breakfast

The New Zealand Rowing national championships will go ahead this week after the country aside from Auckland dropped down to alert level one.
The regatta in Twizel, which was originally scheduled to begin on Monday, was put on hold due to the alert level changes made by the Government on Sunday.
It begins today in a condensed format, wrapping up on Saturday.
The event offers Kiwi rowers and more importantly, Olympic hopefuls, a necessary piece of preparation ahead of the Tokyo Games, as New Zealand Rowing does not plan to enter any World Cups or other international regattas this year.
Double Olympic gold medallist Hamish Bond told Mike Hosking he was surprised by the drop to level one, and had one foot on the plane.
"I think that's where the experience plays a part now in being able to switch back on.
"Really pleased for more the club crews who this is their focus and pinnacle of the season, and they get to have that final race and see the season out."

Australian actor Eric Bana's enjoyed an illustrious career in film, starring in the likes of Black Hawk Down (2001), Hulk (2003) and Troy (2004), as well as one of his breakout role in the classic Australian comedy The Castle (1997).
His latest project The Dry - an Australian mystery film based on the novel of the same name.
Bana told Mike Hosking during a global pandemic is tough, but luckily enough, they shot the entire film in 2019.
"I avoided that entirely.
"I haven't worked since then which is about two years, so I haven't been in the thick of it.
"The most difficult thing for us is getting films off the ground in Covid... especially films in the independent space."
Bana read the novel, written by Jane Harper, and "absolutely loved it", and suggested to director Robert Connolly it is something they should work on.
He says it's been a good start to the year for Australian film, and they need to keep up the momentum.
"It's definitely a little upward blip, I think it's a bit early for us to get too ahead of ourselves and call it a boom time. But it's certainly a great start to a year."

The University of Auckland has decided to hold its first semester exams online regardless of Covid-19 alert levels – before the term has even started.
This week, the university had already shifted summer school examinations online, which finished yesterday [Wednesday], due to Auckland being in alert level 3. Semester one begins on March 1, 2020.
In an email to staff last night, seen by NZME, Vice-Chancellor Dawn Freshwater said the decision to put exams online was made because there was still the possibility of disruption from changing alert levels.
"One of the very clear messages we heard from both students and staff last year is that clarity and predictability are vitally important in preparing for examinations and tests," she said.
The university came under fire last September from concerned students when it tried to return to campus for the final weeks of its second 2020 semester.
It ultimately remained on campus after the move was questioned by director general of health Ashley Bloomfield and then also put its exams online last-minute due to a Covid-19 community case in November.
Auckland University Students' Association president Anamika Harirajh said they have been advocating for clarity around "big decisions" since. "We knew that students felt a sense of uncertainty ... it was really disruptive."
But Harirajh was glad to see the university be proactive now. "The fact the call was made early on, well before the semester even started, is definitely going to give students peace of mind and we're able to plan for the semester ahead," she said.
"We told the university from very early on that we needed consistency, that if these big decisions about assessments were going to be made they needed to be made early on.
"And students and staff, in particular, needed to be notified so that courses and lectures can be tailored accordingly."
Harirajh claimed the decision was actually supposed to be announced by the university's senior executive last Friday - before Auckland went into alert level 3 – but was delayed at midnight on Sunday.
"Then it was supposed to be announced on Monday but Auckland went into level 3 so that didn't happen," she said.

There's been applauds for new Italian Prime Minster Mario Draghi following his highly-anticipated maiden speech.
Draghi who was sworn into office on Saturday, has pledged to speed up the country’s coronavirus vaccination programme, describing the virus as everyone's enemy and saying 'unity is not an option, it is a duty'.
The 73-year-old is facing a confidence vote in the upper house of Parliament for his new Government, which he is expected to pass without issue.
Europe corespondent Jo McKenna told Mike Hosking he should have the numbers for sweeping reform.
"It will take a lot to overhaul the Government administration as he's promising, overhaul the judiciary and actually make it function in a way that works."
Ms McKenna says in terms of lockdown in Italy, it is all over the show. There are lighter lockdowns in parts and a redzone in four different locations outside of Milan.
"People are very concerned about the new variants," she adds.
Ms McKenna says Italy's vaccine roll-out was initially delayed, but 1.3 million people have so been fully vaccinated - a number the Government will be wanting to crank up in the next few weeks.

First-home buyers appear to be getting squeezed from the market as investors buy a record share of properties in what is being called the biggest housing boom in 20 years.
Analysts CoreLogic said first-home buyers still managed to buy just over one in five of the homes sold last month, however, it was their lowest share of new purchases in three years.
Investors using home loans to buy, meanwhile, snapped up 30 per cent of all properties sold last month, their highest percentage share on record.It came as New Zealand's January house prices were 19 per cent higher than a year earlier, the highest annual jump since the mid-2000s, economists said.
CoreLogic senior property economist Kelvin Davidson said it seemed some investors had rushed to buy before new rules came into effect next month, forcing them to raise bigger deposits in order to gain access to bank home loans.
It meant signs had emerged "that first-home buyers might finally be starting to struggle harder with ever-rising property values and hence deposit requirements", he said.
The squeeze on first-home buyers and sky-rocketing January prices helped heap more pressure on the Government and other housing figures seeking ways to create a more affordable market.
National median house prices jumped to $730,300 last month, up from $612,000 last January, the Real Estate Institute revealed yesterday.
Auckland prices jumped 15 per cent to $1 million, up from $870,000 in January 2020.
ASB senior economist Mike Jones described the numbers as "jaw-dropping".
"That is a high not seen since 2004, a boom year for the New Zealand economy [when] GDP growth exceeded 6 per cent," he said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was earlier among those promising action on house prices.
"We can't stand by while house prices increase at the unsustainable rates of 2020," she said last month.
The Government has promised to introduce new planning laws to try and tilt the market towards first-home buyers and boost the supply of all kinds of housing from public to affordable housing.
It was also looking at other measures to take heat out of the market.
That has led so-called loan-to-value ratios - which stipulate how much money a home buyer must stump up as a deposit to access a home loan - to be increased.
They were earlier scrapped last April at the height of economic fears over the Covid-19 pandemic in a bid to ensure they didn't interfere with Government stimulus and relief measures.
However, this together with record low interest rates - that made borrowing cheaper than ever - had led many home buyers to rush to buy property, experts said.
Westpac chief economist Dominick Stephens has long pinpointed low interest rates as the biggest driver in recent house price growth.
To curb some of this demand, the Reserve Bank announced last Tuesday tougher LVR rules were set to come in for investors from March 1, requiring most to put together at least a 30 per cent deposit before being granted approval for a home loan.
Then from May they will need to raise a 40 per cent deposit. Most owner-occupier buyers will need a minimum 20 per cent deposit.
CoreLogic's Davidson said the jump in investors buying homes in January added "weight to the Reserve Bank's decision to move back to a 40 per cent deposit for investors sooner rather than later".
He also said he suspected it was the smaller "mum and dad" investors on the hunt for returns, who were likely the biggest group rushing in to buy before the new lending rules came in.
But in a slice of hope for first home buyers, he suspected some of these investors would drop out of the market once the new rules came in.
He also tipped some market easing ahead because prices were stretching beyond the limits of many.
"The growth in property values is also likely to slow (also simply because of the wider affordability pressures in the market), but...

The America's Cup is one of many events in Auckland that is set to be impacted by the city at level 2.
The feud between America's Cup Events and the Challenger of Record Luna Rossa has escalated with the two parties failing to agree on when the Prada Cup final can resume.
COR hope to resume racing tomorrow under alert level two, with Luna Rossa leading Ineos Team UK 4-0 in the best-of-13 race series.
ACE wants to postpone racing a week in the hope level two restrictions will be lifted and has proposed pushing the Cup match back a week to start March 13.
Chair of America's Cup events Tina Symmans told Mike Hosking they want access maximised to everyone beyond just television viewers at home.
"Asking the Challenger of Record to consider, really the Prime Minster's words, to be kind.
"Technically according to the rules they need to finish racing by the 24th and technically yes they can sail, but technically they can changes those rules."
Symmans outlines what they want.
"We will continue our discussions and hope we can reach an agreement in the consensus hopefully today. People are looking for some anticancer, in order to be able to do that we need some flexibility and some understanding."

So, first things first, congratulations to our mate Marcus Lush, who has won himself a seat on the Invercargill City Council.
Obviously, the question is, why on earth would you want to saddle yourself with such a burden? It's beyond me.
But the good news is he won by a comparative landslide. The truth, sadly, is that the turnout was atrocious.
The field was large, so the potential was there for whoever won, to win with little more than three percent of the total number of votes.
13,991 could be bothered. Marcus 7003 of them, so half the turnout ain't bad in a field of nine.
Another truth I think, and this takes nothing away from Marcus, his determination, and passion for his community, not to mention whatever plans he may have, but name recognition in local body politics is the advantage you can't ignore.
Marcus got national coverage for his run, not because he's a local body genius but because he's got a show on Newstalk ZB. Councils up and down the country are littered, and have been for years, with broadcasting names that got there because of recognition, not platform.
But the really important thing here is, what on earth are we going to do about democracy? The reason Invercargill had a by-election is because of a resignation, and the resignation came as a result of dysfunction.
Dysfunction isn't solved by complacency, which is what voters have shown. Complacency, disdain, or both. You get the representation you deserve. You deserve nothing, if you can't be bothered participating.
This is the malaise up and down the country. The infrastructural and political mess can be found north, south, and west. We are over-counciled, and as a result the talent pool is stretched. Too much is at stake for well-meaning amateurs to “have a crack."
Not only doesn’t it work well in most places, we don’t even care. The system is broken, no one wants to tackle it because it's democracy. But look where democracy has got us.
The seed of discontent came of course in Invercargill because of Sir Tim Shadbolt. A classic example of name recognition providing a job for life.
In business when it doesn’t work, we blow it up, and start again or at the very least restructure it. Why not the same, at local body level?

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Thursday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Commiserations, Democracy/Afghanistan All Fixed/Which Saudi Money Is Okay?/TradeMe Trends/Remembering Rush

A health expert has blasted the Government's alert-level responses of the past week, saying people were becoming confused over an inconsistent approach - and distressed at the "political theatre" of the Beehive announcements.
Aucklanders are waking up to more freedom today but the source of the latest outbreak, which now involves six confirmed community cases, remains unknown.
And Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is warning that although the outbreak is contained, there is "every chance" more community cases will be found.
But both she, and Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield, are confident the Auckland outbreak has been "contained".
However, Auckland University medical professor Professor Des Gorman said today the Government was "all over the place" in determining the level of risk.
Asked by Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking whether the move to level 2 was the right call for Auckland, Gorman said: "It really depends upon how you view risk and what risk you're prepared to live with.
"I'd say that over the last week it's been impossible to follow the response of the Government in terms of determining what the level of risk is that they're living with.
"For example, the Ministry of Health on Saturday night decided not to tell the Government for 12 hours - for 12 hours, according to the Prime Minister - that there was an outbreak, which meant that any opportunity she had to shut down the Big Gay Out and America's Cup [on Sunday] had gone.
"You have to say that in that context, we're prepared to live with a lot of risk. And then we went to level three which means we're not prepared to live with any risk at all. And now we've gone to level two, which means we're prepared to live with a modest level of risk.
"I think we're all over the place in terms of our risk acceptance.
"What's the right thing to do, depends entirely on how much risk you're prepared to live with. I don't think we've sorted that basic premise out."
Gorman believed the responses were being driven by optics, not science.
"Certainly, if you take Sunday for example if we need to be in level three - and you and I would say that was a reasonable response to the unknown at the time - then how on earth did they let the Big Gay Out go and the America's Cup go ahead?
"Those public meetings are the very antithesis of managing risk. So it's that inconsistency that makes it very hard for me to look at it to say I can't see what the scientific pattern.
"It makes it very confusing.
"No wonder people are anxious and when you add that political theatre we are seeing in terms of the level announcements. People are becoming quite distressed by all this and part of that is, they simply can't see any predictability to the response.
"It's almost like tonight's winner is level three."
Auckland will stay at this alert level until Monday when Cabinet will make the call as to whether Auckland can move back down to level 1.
Although pleased to be able to move New Zealand's biggest city out of lockdown, Ardern was clearly not wanting to appear complacent. "I will never be comfortable with Covid-19," she said.
"There is an indescribable anxiety which comes with the daily grind of managing a pandemic and I think we all feel it. But you do learn things – you undoubtedly learn things."
She also defended the three-day lockdown against those who said it was a "false alarm".
"I think everyone would agree it was much better to have a 72-hour [lockdown], than make the wrong call and have 72 hours of a community outbreak."
But New Zealand is not completely out of the woods yet.
"There is every chance we will find further cases," Ardern said.
Any of those cases, however, are expected to be linked to the current community group.

The government has done the right thing in adjusting support for business yet again forced to close through no fault of their own.
They sadly - tragically in some cases - are the forgotten story of this latest level adjustment, for it is the same businesses getting smacked each time.
I still don’t think it’s enough support. The government has dropped the criteria or loosened the criteria to a 30 percent hit over seven days as opposed to 14.
What they might have worked out - remembering of course these are not business people , virtually none of them have ever owned  a restaurant or a café or a nail bar or a hair dressers - is that it’s not “just” three days.
Its three days on top of all the other three days that they have had to endure.  This is now cumulative; it’s a constant catch up.
its opening up after last time ,its working hard to make up for lost ground, its selling and promoting and borrowing and hoping hard out, and then bang - another level change.
Even at level 2 the carnage is huge. Level 2 deals to anyone wanting to make a living from crowds, anyone who wants to organise events where the bills get paid by people coming through the gates.
They are not just “one offs” and “oh well never minds”: they’re livelihoods and hopes and aspirations. They’re the culmination of planning and drafting and applications for licences, hireage of product and equipment.
This is how economies run. They’re made up of hundreds of thousands of small parts, all operating with and alongside other parts. Hit one, you hit dozens. Its trickle down, its flow on.
Economies aren’t taps, they’re not turned on or off at will or overnight without damage. And you keep doing it, the damage is worse each time.
Part of the equation is confidence which isn’t really measured in dollars and cents until it becomes so bad there is nothing left to measure because the door never got reopened at all.
The government has a bigger role to play here for those businesses that get hurt through no fault of their own.
It’s more than a number a calculation on paper its livelihoods and the life blood of the economy. This is a nation of small business enterprise.
If you’re seeing this as “just three days”, you don’t get it. I’m not sure the government has ever got it given their lack of experience in the area but the payment adjustment is at least a start.