The Mike Hosking Breakfast

You may have noticed that Greta’s New Zealand brethren are taking aim at Tarras Airport. This is the long-range proposal to solve the inevitable capacity problems servicing Central Otago’s air traffic needs.
This week, Schools Strike for Climate laid it on the line at the Central Otago District Council. Councillors were warned, that to support this airport project would be quite “an act of evil.” One snotty student barked, “It has been left to my generation to lecture people in power on their foolish and selfish plans.“
Last week, it was Extinction Rebellion’s turn. They staged a mass die-in on the debating chamber floor of the Christchurch Council, collapsing and writhing on the floor, like they did a few weeks earlier, dressed up as bumble bees choking on gly-pho-sate. Grown adults, turning council meetings into kindergarten floor shows. Now this crowd of doom merchants is demanding the end of global air travel. And they are delusional.
International tourism, in time, will resume, rebound and remain a major foreign-exchange earner for New Zealand. And Stuart Nash is right our brand should be pitched at the high-value visitor. But Queenstown Airport’s future doesn’t look bright. The capacity constraints cannot be solved on the land that the airport sits on. They’ve tried three times. It’s hemmed in. And the airport is sitting on a real estate goldmine for the Queenstown council coffers. The value of that land would generate revenue far beyond the return they pocket from their airport company shareholding.
Which is why I’m on board the vision for Tarras Airport, not just to service Queenstown, but Wanaka, Cromwell and beyond. It’s a regional solution through a national lens. Investing in the future for the lower South Island. A purpose-built international airport for the 2030s, when new aircraft and new fuels will play a key role in powering a more sustainable aviation future. Queenstown Airport is safe for now. Probably a decade, at least.  No on is expecting action anytime soon across those quiet Tarras fields. But this long-term vision is a sound one. To demonise it as an act of evil is the typical melodramatic end-of-days drivel Greta inspires.
 

The chance to build on a national cricketing record beckons for the New Zealand test cricketers in the second test against the West Indies today in Wellington.
The Black Caps have extended their unbeaten home test streak to 14 matches, dating back to a March 2017 loss to South Africa.
The record overtakes the previous equal best of 13 between March 2012 and February 2016, and from March 1987 to January 1992.
Black Caps bowler Neil Wagner joins Mike Yardley to preview the test, along with playing his 50th match for the team.
LISTEN ABOVE

A quarantine-free transtasman bubble before Christmas is off the cards and unlikely to be implemented before February at the earliest, the Herald understands.
That will disappoint tourism and hospitality operators hoping for an influx of Australian tourists to boost their businesses over the holiday period.
They will still see a boost from Kiwis taking a summer break, however, and the Government will soon release how it would handle a new Covid-19 outbreak complicated by people on holiday travelling around the country.
It comes as leading epidemiologists on both sides of the Tasman have questioned why we haven't got a transtasman bubble already, which would also free up about 40 per cent of places in managed isolation facilities.
"Tourist operators in Te Anau must be scratching their heads in bewilderment that they can welcome Aucklanders who were locked down by Covid eight weeks ago, but not people from Western Australia who haven't seen a case of the virus for seven months," Act leader David Seymour said.
But the issue is not the relative Covid-free status of Australia, but what happens if Covid suddenly pops up again.
One sticking point, which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has talked about in recent weeks, is the definition of a Covid hotspot which would trigger a regional travel ban in Australia.
It is currently 30 cases across three consecutive days, a threshold that Ardern has called too risky. It would mean Melbourne could suffer nine cases a day of a new outbreak and Melburnians could still fly to New Zealand without having to quarantine.
New Zealand could - and might - draw its own line in the sand for when we would reinstate quarantine for travellers from Australia.
"It means we have to do a bit more planning and be ready for the fact that we might have to shut [the border] again, or change the requirements," Ardern said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says one of the issues with a transtasman bubble is that Australia's risk tolerance for Covid cases is much higher than hers. Photo / Mark Mitchell
She wouldn't say how many cases across how many days is tolerable.
A transtasman bubble would also see more overseas arrivals from countries with more Covid than Australia, increasing the risk of the virus leaking from a managed isolation facility into the community.
That would require more MIQ staff - nurses, in particular - and the workforce shortage is as much of an obstacle to the bubble as reaching agreement on the Covid hotspot criteria, the Herald has been told.
Another issue is stranded travellers. What should happen if a Kiwi flew to a part of Australia that suddenly shut down because of an outbreak? Could they return to New Zealand into MIQ, and if so, would they have to pay MIQ costs?
Other complexities include the safety assurances Australia can provide, following the two recent arrivals from Germany who were meant to be quarantined but managed to travel from Sydney to Melbourne.
And another is how the bubble might accommodate another country outside the Pacific region.
All these issues mean that a transtasman bubble is unlikely before February at the earliest, the Herald understands.
The Government has also been busy finalising its summer resurgence plan - to be revealed on Tuesday - which will include specific scenarios so people will have an idea of what to expect if Covid suddenly emerges in the community again.
The key issue will be the ability for DHBs and public health units to set up testing stations quickly in any part of the country, especially in summer holiday pressure points such as the Coromandel, or travel-heavy spots such as Picton.
On Sunday the Government will launch its summer Covid campaign - a heavy dose of communications about what people should do while on holiday, aimed at reducing complacency and increasing the chances of quick and effective contact-tracing.
That includes ongoing...

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Friday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Cones Are the Cause/Enough of Your Pointless Protests/Birdhouse VS Bourbon/Don't Feed the Ducks

There is more startling proof that Kiwi students are not keeping pace with the world on core education achievement.
You may recall the OECD’s last assessment programme, PISA, had our 15 year olds recording their lowest scores ever. Maths, reading and science.
And now that’s been backed up by another sobering global assessment, the Trends in International Maths and Science Study. This performance ranks nine year olds and 13 year olds across 64 countries.  And New Zealand has just recorded our worst ever results, particularly with our Year 9s. 
The Education Ministry’s Chief Science Adviser is expressing surprise and is calling for more specialist teaching at the primary level.
We have bombed big time in biology, statistics, algebra and chemistry. But the primary school indicators are a huge concern too. Our Year 5s are ranked 40th in the world in maths and 32nd in science.  At the Year 9 level, it’s the magnitude of our plunge down the performance rankings that should be alarming educators.
Meanwhile, Singapore swept the pool, across all subjects and age groups.
Just as a point of comparison, as to how far we have dropped off the pace, here’s one example.
In science, only eight percent of our Year 9 students reached the advanced benchmark. In Singapore, 48 percent of students cracked that benchmark of excellence.
But this international test has also exposed some obvious home truths. Yes, a child’s family environment had the biggest impact on achievement across all countries.
But Kiwi students who attended schools that emphasised academic success over the vast array of feel good follies performed considerably better. 
Please tell me that no one is genuinely surprised by that?
Our sub-standard rankings are clearly not helped by the ongoing supply shortage of specialist maths and science teachers. Learning online is absolutely no replacement for in-person learning.
But is there the political will to walk the talk on the importance of academic achievement? 
For all the talk about educational well-being, academic achievement is the only real measure that really counts. That’s if we want to stop hobbling our pursuit of higher living standards.

Jon Toogood is one of Kiwi music's greatest products.
He's most well known for being the frontman for Shihad - one of New Zealand's most successful bands.
Now, he's back in the country to perform a live album with an array of other Kiwi artists.
It's the come together shows - and Jon is performing hits from the Beatle's famous Abbey Road and Neil Young's Live Rust.
Jon Toogood joins Mike Yardley to talk about his music.
LISTEN ABOVE

A serious mismatch between what the Government's identified as urgent environmental issues, and its research investments.
A report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment shows $500 million dollars is spent every year on environmental research, but it doesn't match up with pressing issues.
Waikato University environmental scientist Troy Baisden told Mike Yardley the research needs to be more focused on our effects on the environment, like climate change.
“We do a very poor job monitoring of monitoring the things which are changing, that includes climate change.”
LISTEN ABOVE

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson flew to Brussels for a dinner with the head of the European Union executive that could pave the way to a post-Brexit trade deal — or tip the two sides toward a chaotic economic rupture at the end of the month.
Johnson was welcomed at the bloc's headquarters by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who gently prompted the British leader to put his face mask back on after a photo call.
The dinner menu was dominated by fish — fittingly, since EU boats’ desire for continued access to U.K. waters is one of the main roadblocks in the talks. The leaders had scallops to start and a main course of turbot, a species that’s plentiful in British waters but more often caught by Spanish trawlers.
The two leaders hope to inject political momentum into trade talks that have become hopelessly deadlocked on fishing and other key aspects of the future relationship. But Britain and the EU gave ominously opposing views of the main sticking points — and each insisted the other must move to reach agreement.
“A good deal is still there to be done," Johnson insisted. But he told lawmakers in the House of Commons that the bloc's demands that the U.K. continue to adhere to its standards or face retaliation were not "terms that any prime minister of this country should accept.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said “there is still the chance of an agreement,” but stressed that the EU would not compromise on its core principles. Merkel told the German parliament that the bloc would "take a path without an … agreement if there are conditions from the British side that we can’t accept.”
The U.K. left the EU on Jan. 31 after 47 years of membership, but remains within the bloc’s tariff-free single market and customs union until the end of the year. Reaching a trade deal by then would ensure there are no tariffs or quotas on trade in goods on Jan. 1, although there would still be new costs and red tape for businesses.
When Johnson was crossing over the English Channel to Brussels, down below the impact of Brexit was already visible with extra long tailbacks in France's Calais where truckers were trying to meet the demands of U.K. companies which want to lay in extra stock ahead of potential disruption on Jan. 1.
“For about the last three weeks we’ve seen an increase in the flow of traffic toward Great Britain due to stockpiling. The platforms, whether it’s the port and the (Euro)tunnel, don’t have capacity to absorb this increase in traffic," said Sebastien Rivera, Secretary General of France's National Federation of Road Transport.
“Right now, it takes (truckers) easily three or four more hours to cross the English Channel. So it is easily 240 or 300 euros of financial costs to the company, that’s for nothing more than the additional time it takes," Rivera told the Associated Press.
Failure to secure a trade deal would cause much greater disruption, bringing tariffs and other barriers that would hurt both sides, although most economists think the British economy would take a greater hit because the U.K. does almost half of its trade with the bloc.
Months of trade talks have failed to bridge the gaps on three issues — fishing rights, fair-competition rules and the governance of future disputes.
While both sides want a deal, they have fundamentally different views of what it entails. The EU fears Britain will slash social and environmental standards and pump state money into U.K. industries, becoming a low-regulation economic rival on the bloc’s doorstep — hence the demand for strict “level playing field” guarantees in exchange for access to its markets.
Merkel said “the integrity of the single market must be preserved.”
“We must have a level playing field not just for today, but we must have one for tomorrow or the day after, and to do this we must have agreements on how one can react if the other changes their legal situation,” Merkel...

Twenty-five years after it first dominated the global pop charts, Kiwi classic How Bizarre is back and winning a new generation of fans, with Pauly Fuemana's widow labelling the success a "validation" of her late husband's hard work and talent.
Ōtara Millionaires Club's massive smash hit number one in 1995, in New Zealand and around the world, propelling Pauly Fuemana, a young man from South Auckland, into the global spotlight.
Now the perfect power pop of How Bizarre is trending on video app TikTok, with videos featuring the sound racking up a whopping two billion views.
Tik Tok users are sharing the song alongside videos that show scenes where one party is seen to be more knowledgeable about a seeming coincidence than someone else, usually ending with the protagonist giving the camera a cheeky look and delivering the song's classic line.
Fuemana's widow Kirstine told the New Zealand Herald that her 10-year-old son Santos , who was born shortly after his father's death in 2010, was a huge fan of TikTok and it was a "bit weird" that he was now seeing the song trending.
The song's renewed success comes in the same week as its 25-year-anniversary and Fuemana said her late husband would be "rapt" to see a new generation of fans embrace his music.
She said the industry had undergone massive change since his whirlwind success in the 90s, noting that when he hit big he had to travel the world to promote the song, spending long hours away from his family.
Kirstine said her husband was thrown out as a "lamb to the slaughter" by some in the music industry in the wake of his success because the industry in New Zealand wasn't prepared for dealing with that level of fame and popularity, crediting Universal/Polygram at the time for always doing right by him, but noting that others were "looking for their own success off it, sadly".
"He was the pioneer that had to learn the hard way," she said.
TikTok has been a boon to other Kiwi artists in 2020, with Benee and Jawsh685 both rocketed to the top of the charts after their music appeared on the app, and Kirstine said she had been encouraged by Jawsh's success in particular.
"I'm glad to see Jawsh is another young Polynesian male, it's really nice to see that because I think it's so much harder when you're a young Polynesian male because our industry still does not recognise that. I still don't think we look after them enough.
"Lorde and Benee are amazing and they have done phenomenally well, but it's a very different climate for a young white woman with good family backing to a young Polynesian male, with or without good family backing. Jawsh has got the family backing, obviously, Paul was in a slightly different boat".
She said she had spoken with Jawsh at the recent Aotearoa Music Awards and congratulated him on his success, saying it was "good to see" another Southside success story.

Kirstene said her family had been "really blessed" by the ongoing popularity of the song and they weren't obsessing over the details of its fresh explosion but were taking it as validation of her husband's hard work and talent.
"Paul worked so hard," she said. "He never wanted that fame, he wanted to be just with family, that was probably more important to him.
She said that after he stepped out of the limelight, the family had to deal with "trash" rumours about his health before his tragic death in 2010 aged just 40, after a long battle with ill health.
Kirstine Fuemana with her children Imogen, Santos and Salvador in 2014. Photo / Doug Sherring
"I've got six incredible children he gave me and I had a good marriage so I'm just happy for him.
"It's felt different this time. Back in the past, you were always thinking about numbers but now I just feel happy for him.
"It's more the validation," Fuemana said, adding that she felt he still didn't receive his due respect from some sectors of the industry despite...

The company behind a controversial $100,000 promotional cash-drop event in Auckland could face charges of up to $400,000 if it is found to have acted unfairly.
Greenback Ecommerce Ltd, trading as The Safety Warehouse, is now being investigated by the Commerce Commission after Saturday's cash drop event, where some of the money turned out to be vouchers for its online store, printed to look like $5 notes.
Police investigated complaints but transferred the matter to the Commerce Commission.
Consumer New Zealand chief executive Jon Duffy told Newstalk ZB's Mike Yardley that the company may have breached Section 17 of the Fair Trading Act.
"The way this was promoted, created an expectation that the company could never live up to," Duffy said today.
"Whether you argue the expectations of the people attending were reasonable or not, it's hard to deny that people turned up and were confused as to what was going on, and the company needs to take responsibility for that."
Safety Warehouse insists $100,000 in real money was used, and $40,000 worth of vouchers, but Duffy said the inquiry would establish exactly how much cash was on offer, how it was distributed to the crowd, and the intentions behind the stunt.
"They have to intend to follow through on the promotion that they've created - and if they haven't, they could be committing a criminal offence."
Duffy said unfair practices might not be the only potential charge.
"There is still the question around how closely the vouchers resemble a genuine $5 note so they could still be in some trouble there."
Surprise turned to anger in Aotea Square as the crowd of up to 1000 people realised they weren't picking up real cash. Bottles were thrown at a Safety Warehouse vehicle, and a staff member was taken to hospital after glass from the shattered rear window went into his eyes.
People travelled from out of town in the hopes of grabbing some extra money, and others have started a petition to change the vouchers into real cash.
Duffy said the Commerce Commission usually wouldn't respond this quickly to the four complaints already laid, but this was a situation with high public interest.
"Particularly with a lot of people struggling at the moment at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum and this promotional type of material being targeted at those groups that are more vulnerable - that's probably spurred the commission to act quicker."
Safety Warehouse managing director Andrew Thorn has said in a statement the event had been "unfairly characterised" as an event with fake money, when real funds were given away as anticipated.
Thorn said the company had "no intent to deprive, mislead or embarrass" anyone.
The lookalike vouchers were used at a Hamilton bar over the weekend.
After reviewing the event, Auckland City Police Inspector Scott Gemmell said no evidence of criminal offending has been identified from the information received. Gemmell said they have forwarded the complaints to the Commerce Commission for further review.
A Reserve Bank spokesperson says publishing a genuine banknote or coin which could be mistaken for the real thing may breach the law, and anyone presenting a counterfeit note is committing an offence.
Retailers who accept counterfeits should lay a police complaint and hand over the accepted fakes and any video evidence. They lose out unless awarded reparations from the criminal through a legal process.