The Mike Hosking Breakfast

You might have seen Don Brash wandered into Tauranga on Friday, aka "the lions' den" and have a word about Maori Wards at local council level.
There was the usual bickering, a bit of singing by way of protest at the back of the room, and I strongly suspect no one changed their mind.
To be fair to Brash he is consistent in his message. And I am pleased there are people like him who are prepared in this woke, old day and age full of angst and cancel culture to still speak their mind.
Rupert Murdoch was right last week when he talked of the dangers of this current society. And our seeming inability anymore to be allowed to express a view without the group think brigade launching a campaign to cancel you, fire you, rubbish you, or dismiss you.
Jerry Seinfeld, by the way, is worth looking up. He's done a couple of podcasts recently. One of them with Kevin Hart where he talks of the need to ignore this current fashion for stamping out anyone not woke. He talks of society, culture, and the current culture is dangerous. But it will pass because culture is fluid.
Keep working, keep believing, and keep turning up is his message, and he's right.
Meantime, Don Brash flies the flag for increasingly rare amounts of common sense.
Increasing numbers of councils are voting for Maori Wards and increasing numbers of councils are then voting to not have a referendum on those wards thus, until the government changes the law, forcing the community to raise signature by way of petition, to force a vote.
Tauranga got their required five percent and will now have the community decide. And like previous votes around the country, the majority will vote no. That will leave the council out of step with the people who elected them.
This country, especially given its freedom and open democracy, does not move forward by being increasingly separatist. Anyone can stand for council, a board, a seat, a party, a government. There are no barriers.
And in such a system to slice off a chunk of access for race, or indeed for age, gender, or any other particular fascination you may have, is artificial, needless, divisive, and counter-productive.
Right here, right now that view is losing the battle. But as Jerry Seinfeld says culture is fluid, and we will eventually see sense.
And Don Brash will have been shown to be right all along.

Zespri appears nervous about jumping into a partnership with rogue growers in China to regain control of its gold Kiwifruit business.
The co-op wants to work with the Chinese industry to manage at least four thousand hectares planted in stolen SunGold vines.
Chief growing officer Carol Ward told Mike Hosking the Chinese government supports the idea.
"Zespri needs to have confidence this will be a two-way win for us, so that's why there's a trial before a commercial deal."
Kiwi growers have voiced concern about the risks.
Ward says a trial working with the Chinese government and industry is the best way forward to managing the spread.
A Chinese grower ordered to pay Zespri $15 million in damages for removing vines from New Zealand, is appealing the case.

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Tuesday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) What You May Have Heard and What You Didn't/Not the Last Holden/No Laces Sounds Great

American Magic helmsman Dean Barker says Team New Zealand have got all the ingredients to defend the America's Cup but the big question is whether they will be race-ready come March 6.
Barker and his American Magic team were knocked out of the Prada Cup semifinals following a 4-0 defeat to Luna Rossa.
The Italian syndicate will now race British entity Ineos Team UK for a spot in the America's Cup against Team New Zealand.
Barker told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking Breakfast that it would be a 'stab in the dark' to pick the America's Cup winner but said a lack of racing would pose a problem for the defenders.
"Team New Zealand was clearly the strongest in the Christmas Cup across the wind race. And they are clearly very fast and very good sailors. Got all the ingredients. The difficult thing is whether they will be race-ready when they turn up in March," he said.
Barker initially thought that the path being travelled by Team Ineos UK, who skipped into the Prada Cup final, was the way to go. But he had changed tack, seeing how important the actual racing was to develop during the regatta.
So Barker suggested it was now advantage Luna Rossa, because they had been actively racing.
"You learn more than you do in a day's training," he said.
American Magic struggled to recover from a capsize in the Prada Cup round robin action after impressing in the World Series regatta in December where they defeated Team New Zealand on the opening day.
"We underestimated losing those sailing days as our progression," Barker told the Mike Hosking Breakfast.
"It was only five days but it's amazing what that does for the progression of the boat.
"The back of your mind you know there is a risk. These boats are temperamental and need to be maintained at a high standard. The guys did an amazing job. Pretty much re-wired the boat.
"The boat was incredibly good, considering the circumstances. I don't blame the boat for the end result," he said.
His priority now is to invest some quality time with his wife Mandy and their four children, after the intense three-year campaign. But there was a hint that the door remains open.
"I still love the racing, love the competition," said Barker. "I'm going to enjoy a bit of downtime now to reflect and decide what the future holds. It's been a long time in the game and who knows what happens. I've got a lot more grey hairs than when I first started, but I would like to be able to continue if I can."

If you happen to be in a part of New Zealand enjoying a regional holiday, Happy Anniversary Day.
For Aucklanders, AT has injected themselves into your anniversary weekend with quite the gift-wrapped lemon.
AT’s latest gift to Auckland is their plan to kick cars off Queen Street. The transport agency has grand designs to radically rehash the city’s signature street into a sanctuary for buses and pedestrians.
Just how much of Queen Street will be declared a no-car zone remains to be seen. But AT is gagging to axe through traffic within six months. A pocket park will rise up from Fort Street and fence road traffic off.
There will be no end to end drive throughs on the city centre’s last remaining two way north south thoroughfare. Bus only sections look set to rule the roost.
To me, Queen Street is to Auckland what Fifth Avenue is to New York. It’s Sydney’s George Street or Melbourne’s Collins Street. And cars currently drive through all of these retail golden miles.
But ever since lockdown, Queen Street has been molested by AT’s pedestrianisation pilot. The vast and cluttered pollution of plastic pylons and concrete blocks, hijacking the street’s kerbside lanes for walkers. Let’s be honest – it’s a dishevelled farcical mess.  
AT’s mangling of Queen Street is representative of their wider impact on the city’s roading network. AT is turning Auckland roads into an ever-growing and never-ending construction site. The city is the obstacle course from hell.
And isn’t that the problem? Why can’t AT finish a project, get the job done before they unleash fresh and far-reaching upheaval somewhere else, even right next door?
There’s already a colossal cluster looming for Queen Street traffic very shortly, with the closure of Victoria Street for the CRL.
Surely AT can hold its horses, and stop messing around with Queen Street anymore, until some of their other major disruptive works have actually been completed. Commuters, retailers, shoppers and businesses are under the pump, constantly wrestling with road closures, diversions and AT-inflicted gridlock. 
Give the city a break.

Friday’s fiasco over the chartered cruise ship, Le Laperouse, has caused a hell of a stink. And another bodyblow for the travel industry.
It raises renewed concerns about how hostile our vast layers of bureaucracy can be, when ideally, they should be enablers – not obstructers to enterprising endeavours.
The Immigration Minister’s performance on Heather’s show on Friday was a shocker. He was headstrong, immovable and pre-programmed, belting out his talking points like a robotic broken record. The usually likeable Chris Faafoi morphed into a human billboard for “Computer says no.”
I think Immigration New Zealand has fundamentally failed to appreciate the complexities of fully-crewing this boutique cruise ship on a brief chartered visit to New Zealand.
Every crew member, including the onboard hotel and hospitality staff, must be conversant and trained in maritime safety.  This ship was only coming here for a couple of months. And the entire overseas crew and staff seeking visa approval were maritime trained and fully acquainted with the ship. They knew it inside out.
Immigration’s demand that the ship simply recruits a local bunch of idle cooks, housekeepers and waiting staff, and plonk them onboard for a few weeks work, was ludicrous.
So millions of dollars of domestic tourism revenue has been shredded by the heavy hand of bureaucracy. And you’ve got to feel sorry for the Kiwi who chartered the fully-crewed vessel from Ponant. Aaron Russ is no slouch. He’s also involved in his family company, Heritage Expeditions.
And this highly acclaimed company ran aground with the regulators just a few weeks ago. They had planned two Antarctica cruises for Kiwis over summer. After months of planning, they got approval from Immigration, Customs and Maritime New Zealand. But then, at the eleventh hour, the Ministry of Health torpedoed their plans.
Yes, these are unusual times and unchartered waters. But is bureaucracy really doing its best to be business-friendly, pragmatic and solution focused? Or would they rather pick holes and create a problem. Power-tripping for the sake of it is not serving New Zealand’s interest.

It's been 40 years to the day since New Zealand took the field at the Melbourne Cricket Ground to take on a fierce Australian side lead by Greg Chappell.
By the end of the night they had finished playing in one of the most infamous cricket matches in history, the underarm game.
Speaking to The Alternative Commentary Collective's BYC cricket podcast, New Zealand Cricket chairman and participant in the underarm game Martin Snedden opens up on that fateful day, his famous disallowed catch of Greg Chappell and the reaction post match.
As a fresh faced 21-year-old, it was Snedden's first tour. He was part of the controversy early after a spectacular diving catch of Greg Chappell was disallowed after the umpires claimed to be 'watching the batsmen for one short' rather than the ball.
"It was a shambles," Snedden told the BYC podcast. "The umpires are in charge of the game … this lousy excuse that they were watching the batsman tap down when running between the wickets doesn't really cut it."
To add to the disappointment, that summer Toyota had put a brand new vehicle up for the best catch of the summer. Snedden, a university student at the time, felt he would have won had the catch been allowed.
Listen along as Mike Lane, Jeremy Wells and Matt Heath relive THAT over:
It was one of many controversial decisions to be made that game, with in the last over Richard Hadlee was dismissed via a suspect lbw decision, having just hit Trevor Chappell down the ground for four the ball before.
"It was frantic at the end," stated Snedden, talking about the chaos that happened before the final ball.
"This underarm happened and Mark Burgess was standing there, he had been drinking a cup of tea or coffee and had an enamel cup in his hand and he stood up and threw, full force throw from the boundary, at the wall three meters away and this cup disintegrated into not just two or three bits but two or three thousand bits."
The drama continued as Geoff Howarth rushed on the field to argue the legality of the underarm but "They took about as much notice of it as they did of my catch," explained Snedden.
Despite the Kiwis giving the Australian team getting an earful as they entered the changing rooms opposite, New Zealand still decided to join the opposition for a traditional post-match beer.
"We realised pretty quickly we had made a mistake, in a sense that it wasn't that we were unwelcome. It was just that they were in a more 'stunned mullet' state then we were.
"Greg was in a dark place," said Snedden on the sight of Chappell, who had been subject to a grueling tour schedule that particular summer.
Even though there was a lot of frustration initially, 40 years on Snedden looks upon the event with some fondness.
"You know that was the moment cricket took off and in those days tennis and golf were still really popular, New Zealand Opens and Davis Cups and all that sort of stuff.
"Cricket just leapt ahead from there."

The Climate Change Minister says there could be economic benefits for farmers, under new climate change recommendations. The Climate Commission has released it's draft advice on how to tackle the climate crisis.
It says we must slash livestock numbers by around 15 per cent by 2030.
James Shaw told Mike Yardley research into agriculture shows that farms that focus on profitability, also reduce emissions dramatically.
"I would argue that people feel that they are being penalised, there is a real economic opportunity here for them.
Other parts of the report state that the coal mining and oil and gas industries would lose up to more than a thousand jobs by 2035.
Shaw says many technologies and skills in those sectors will be transferable to other zero carbon fuels.
"Thats why this report and the idea of having a 15-year forward view is so important, so that the businesses in that industry can start to map out how to shift their investments."
LISTEN ABOVE

The trade export industry is welcoming news of the UK's decision to join the CPTPP deal.
The United Kingdom will formally request to join the 11 nation free trade agreement today.
The pact includes New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Japan and Singapore.
Export New Zealand Executive Director Catherine Beard told Mike Yardley there are many benefits for New Zealand to reap from the UK joining.
"The United Kingdom is a very big economy and a very wealthy economy, and that's a lot of good consumers who want to be high quality, high value goods, so they'd be very welcome."
She says it's good news for everyone involved.
"With the UK onboard, then it's increasingly looking like a group that you wouldn't not want to belong with.
"It gives New Zealand a bit of negotiating strength."
LISTEN ABOVE

Tourism operators say they are facing increasing compliance costs as they struggle to keep their heads above water with no international visitors.
The industry has previously said it cannot fill a multi-billion dollar hole left while borders remain closed.
Wings and Water Te Anau operations manager and co-owner Ivan Krippner said his insurance alone had gone up dramatically.
It previously cost about $7000 to insure their float plane - flying or not, he said.
"Last year the insurance company said 'we're sorry about this but we're having to increase your insurance to $17,000 a year whether you fly the aircraft or not'. This year they've come back and said it was $32,000 a year to insure your aircraft, flying or not."
When customers asked about his prices, he had an answer that was part joking and part fact, he said.

A Wings and Water plane. Photo / Wings and Water Te Anau
"I say 'well, half of this price goes to taxes, governmental departments and the Department of Conservation', which actually isn't too far away from the truth. So half of what you're paying we don't even get to see before we run the company."
Krippner would like the Government to consider lowering compliance costs until borders start to reopen.
Fox Glacier Guiding chief executive Rob Jewell said staying open was increasing with the cost of insurance, civil aviation authority and adventure activities regulation fees.
"I mean every bit of compliance costs we can't just soak up as a business. We have done so in the past for the majority of them but eventually you just get to the point that you have to pass that on in your pricing to the customer if you just want to keep your head above water basically," Jewell said.
It was hard to cover the increasing compliance costs after the hit on the revenue from border closures, he said.
"So when we first started doing our three-yearly certification, it'd cost us around $2000 to $2500. Well, now they're in the vicinity of $10,000 plus and we've got our next major one coming up in June of this year so that's going to hurt especially when we're in a Covid year."
text by RNZ