The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Survivors, families of the dead and first responders will today fill Whakatāne's Mataatua Marae on the one-year anniversary of the White Island/Whakaari eruption.
At 2.11pm on December 9 last year, the volcano, based 52.3km off the coast of Whakatāne, erupted killing 20 tourists and two tour guides.
The dead included teenagers, elderly tourists, a family of four, and two Kiwi tour guides who showed visitors around what was regarded as one of New Zealand's most unique tourism destinations.
Many of those injured or killed were Australians who had been visiting from the Ovation of the Seas cruise ship docked in Tauranga.
Those who survived spent months in intensive care units in New Zealand, Australia and others fighting for their lives and receiving multiple surgeries to treat the extensive burns suffered in the eruption.
On the anniversary today, survivors, victims' families and first responders have been invited to the marae for a commemoration service.
It's is closed to the wider public and Māori Television is the only media present. It will be livestreaming the event to the public and the livestream will also be broadcast on a big screen at Mataatua Reserve from 1pm.
Last week WorkSafe New Zealand confirmed charges had been laid against 13 parties in relation to the eruption.

All Blacks great Richie McCaw has been named World Rugby's player of the decade.
McCaw led to All Blacks to two World Cup triumphs in the decade and was named player of the year in 2010. He retired at the end of the 2015 World Cup.
McCaw played 68 of his 148 test matches for the All Blacks between 2010 and 2019 – he was captain for all but one, against Namibia at the 2015 Rugby World Cup - with a record of 61 wins, two draws and five losses.
Seven All Blacks made the men's team of the decade - Ben Smith, Ma'a Nonu, Carter, Retallick, Sam Whitelock, McCaw and Owen Franks.
Listen to the audio above as Richie McCaw speaks to Mike Yardley

Those wanting to buy a house are being urged not to stress about the latest housing figures.
Stats New Zealand's findings from the 2020 Housing in Aotearoa report show home ownership is at its lowest level in seventy years.
But, One Roof property commentator Ashley Church told Mike Yardley the rates are actually stabilising.
"They have been very stable. The rates of home ownership in this country have been remarkably stable for almost 100 years.'
Stats NZ says the decline hasn't occurred evenly, with greater falls for Maori and Pacific peoples, and the Auckland region hit particularly hard.
And the decline's especially evident for those aged in their 20s and 30s, when compared with home ownership rates in 1991.
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Walking the line between criticism, and hate speech.
The Royal Commission's inquiry into the March 15 terror attack recommends a tougher stance on hate speech to prevent escalation. 
Andrew Little, the Minister coordinating the response to the report, told Mike Yardley there's a difference between prosecuting someone for threatening behaviour, and speaking freely.
“Using language that is threatening and incites violence,  is different to saying something that offends someone else.”
Little says it's an extremely hard balancing act.
"Freedom of speech and expression is fundamental to a democracy like ours.
"But we know there are some things which people can say which goes far beyond that, and become an offensive view."
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THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Wednesday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) The First Casualty/Jabbing Oldies/Hanmer Memories/What We Searched

As complacency takes a grip on Kiwis once again, the Government is hoping the roll-out of Bluetooth close contact tracking will turbo-boost the response in the event of a summer Covid-19 outbreak.
From tomorrow, Kiwis will be able to use the Covid Tracer app on their phones to record other devices they come into close proximity with.
It comes as the rate of QR scanning has plummeted once again, with only 8 per cent of app users actually scanning any codes in the past 24 hours on Monday.
"We need as many people as possible to use the app, so it's incredibly important that New Zealanders know they can trust the app with their personal information," Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said.
The Bluetooth technology becomes far more valuable the more people use it, and is endorsed by the Privacy Commissioner.
"Kiwis deserve a summer break more than ever this year but we cannot take our eye off the ball," Hipkins said.
"The prospect of another outbreak should serve as a rock under our beach towels."
Hipkins also warned Kiwis that the Bluetooth technology was no substitute for scanning QR codes.
"QR codes allow us to create a private record of the places we've been, while Bluetooth creates an anonymised record of the people we've been near.
"It allows app users to receive an alert if they have been near another app user who tests positive for Covid-19."
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins is urging Kiwis not to get complacent and to use the Bluetooth tracking, as well as continuing to scan QR codes. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Public health experts have continued to urge the Government to make greater use of technology in its Covid response, especially as Kiwis have gone through varying levels of complacency in recent months.
There are currently 2.4 million registered users of the Covid Tracer app, 90 per cent of whom have phones compatible with Bluetooth tracing.
But Ministry of Health data shows the number of active users - people who used it in the past 24 hours - has plummeted from almost 1 million at the start of September to only 197,919 on Monday.
That means on Monday only 8 per cent of registered users were considered active users - though this reflects Sunday use, when fewer people are at work or using public transport.
Bluetooth tracing works by generating randomised "keys" and exchanging them with other nearby smartphones.
The keys don't contain any information about who you are or where you were, which means no personal or identifying information is exchanged.
The app will use the Apple/Google Exposure Notification Framework, but neither the Government, Apple or Google will be able to track movements.
When an app user tests positive, they can choose to alert other app users who may have been exposed to the virus. This involves uploading the "keys" that their phone has broadcast since they became infectious.
If your phone has one of the keys in the notification, you'll receive an alert along with advice on what you should do next to keep yourself and your whānau safe.
Bluetooth tracing will not be mandatory and will have to be enabled by the user. Photo / Supplied
The Ministry of Health will not know you have received an alert unless you choose to get in touch for information and advice.
The ministry can still send out push alerts on the app about exposure events to people who have scanned QR codes in places visited by potentially infectious people.
The app will update automatically tomorrow, and can also be manually updated through the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
App users will be asked if they want to enable Bluetooth tracing when they next open the app. It is not mandatory to use it.
It also uses Bluetooth Low Energy, so the impact on phone battery should be minimal.
People who don't have smartphones might be able to use the Covid Card, though Hipkins didn't say when...

You can see why Jenny Salesa was unceremoniously dislodged as Associate Health Minister.  She simply wasn’t up to snuff. Part of her portfolio was to oversee the mission of driving New Zealand to being Smokefree in 2025.
In May 2018, Salesa said she was developing a new action plan. 10 months later, she advised Cabinet it would be locked and loaded by October 2019. However, 14 months on from that deadline, there’s still no plan. Not even a draft.
Diplomatically, Ayesha Verrall says she’s not quite sure why her predecessor never managed to get there.
The problem the government faces is that this 2025 goal has run out of puff. Despite the stonking hikes to tobacco excise, the smoking rate is only ebbing down, year on year, ever so slightly. 13 per cent of Kiwis are still tobacco smokers.  And based on the current trajectory, non-Maori won’t be smokefree until 2038, while Maori will be still smoking until 2061.
The 2025 target is in tatters. So now the government is promising a bold new action plan to accelerate progress, early next year.
I don’t want to sound like a nauseating reformed smoker, but there’s a clear alternative that is far less hazardous to your health – and your wallet.
Vaping. You can still get your nicotine hit, but you won’t be ingesting the tar and cocktail of toxins cigarettes contain.  It’s an easy switch to vaping. No excuses.
I actually would be open to parliament eventually prohibiting the legal sale of tobacco products, given the compelling alternative that vaping provides.
But my growing suspicion is that this government may talk a big game on public health and going smokefree, but they secretly covet the money, a little bit too much. They can’t tear themselves away from it. Last year, they raked in $2.1 billion dollars in tobacco excise and GST alone.
Now maybe they were hoping by legalising cannabis, they’d find a replacement income stream. New Zealand had better ideas. We said no. So what is the government to do, to address this future fiscal hole? Will vapers be in the firing line for a mist emission tax?

It's time to celebrate some Kiwi music.
Raglan born Anna Coddington is well known on the scene with her indies style music with a pop edge.
She's performed with the likes of Fly My Pretties, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.
And she's back with her fourth studio album Beams - which is her first album in four years.
Anna Coddington joined Mike Yardley to give us an update on her career and perform her latest single 'Do I Exist'
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A number of people are at financial risk as New Zealand heads into the last few months of Covid-19 mortgage holidays.
The Commission for Financial Capability has conducted a survey on New Zealanders' financial wellbeing six months after the first lockdown.
It's found blue collar households and those reliant on income from traditionally female dominated jobs such as caring have been hardest hit.
Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan told Mike Yardley about 1.5 per cent of people still are on a mortgage holiday.
He says that's in comparison to a peak of 1.2 per cent following the global financial crisis.
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It's been 40 years since John Lennon was killed, but the man who first broke the news remembers it like it was yesterday.
Former news producer Alan Weiss was in hospital when the music legend was rushed in after being shot.
He told Mike Yardley he called his news editor, and learned there had been an ambulance called to the apartment where Lennon lived.
"That was the third piece of the puzzle. I heard the name, saw Yoko Ono, and then learned about the ambulance call - John Lennon had been shot."
Weiss says he remembers lying in his hospital bed and hearing the name "John Lennon".
He says he then heard crying, turned his head, then saw a woman he's fairly certain was Yoko Ono.
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