The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Lawmakers from French President Emmanuel Macron's party will rewrite the most criticized article of a proposed security law, involving a measure aimed at banning the publication of images of police officers with intent to cause them harm.
The move comes after tens of thousands of protesters marched Saturday in Paris and across the country to reject the draft law.
In an apparent effort to quell criticism, the head of Macron's party at the National Assembly, Christophe Castaner, said Monday "there is a need to clarify the measure."
"We are going to propose a new, complete rewrite of the article 24," he added.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin refused to simply withdraw the controversial Article 24, saying that events haven't changed his position.
"I don't have a fetish for numbers ... but I do have a fetish for protecting police and gendarmes," Darmanin said Monday before a parliamentary commission. Police on special operations "are not protected enough ... We must absolutely keep it."
For him, the controversial article isn't a hindrance to the media.
"Protecting the police and protecting the press are not in competition," said the interior minister, who is responsible for the measure. "There is no victory of one without the other."
In its current version, the article of the proposed law criminalizes the publishing of images of police officers with the intent of harming their "physical or psychological integrity." Anyone found guilty could be sentenced to up to a year in jail and fined 45,000 euros ($53,000).
The bill, championed by Macron's party, was first voted on at the National Assembly last week. It is expected to be debated in the Senate early next year.
The government said the measure is needed to better protect police officers from online calls from violence.
Critics fear that if enacted, the law would impinge on freedom of information and media rights. They also say that it could restrict the public from filming police in cases that could be considered abuse or police brutality.

New research has shown Covid-19 has reduced our emotional connection to sport.
It's partially because players and teams have been out of sight and out of mind, and people haven't been able to play themselves.
The research is Australian, but did include Kiwis. And with recent All Black tests not selling out, it seems a similar trend can be found here.
True North research did the study, and Director Georgie Maynard told Mike Hosking there are a range of factors which have resulted in the lack of interest.
"When you're not visible and athletes are training in bubbles and you can't see them train in your local community, they all impact how we connect with grassroots and elite sports."
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Black Friday sales have turned the table on 2020 spending.
The annual Black Friday shopping festival was strong for 2020, despite Covid19.
Spending is up 25 per cent for the month of November,  and 3 per cent for the year.
However Retail NZ Chief Executive Greg Harford says the surge isn't evenly spread.
“There are some businesses that are doing very well but some that are continuing to struggle and are increasingly marginal."
Harford says spending in November is well up on last year by about 25 per cent.
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If there was a rockstar of the art world in New Zealand, Dick Frizzell would be it.
His works have been showcased in galleries around the world.
Now, he's got his latest book out, where takes on this history of Western art by repainting it.
It's titled Me, According to the History of Art.
Dick Frizzell joined Mike Hosking in studio to talk about his new book.
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The Electoral commission has released its writ for the 2020 election, officially ending the election process.
It reveals a jump in voting numbers across the board - with the biggest increase among 30-to-34 year olds.
Voters aged 18 to 24 rose 18 percent.
18 year old William Wood was National's Palmerston North candidate.
He told Mike Hosking the increase is a sign of the times.
"What we've seen is reflective of the fact that we had an unifying issue. Covid-19 impacted everyone, so people went out and voted."
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Global consumer goods giant Unilever is to trial a four-day working week in its New Zealand arm ahead of a potential roll-out to its more than 165,000 workers.
Nick Bangs, chief executive of Unilever New Zealand, said from Monday its 81 staff would begin working four days a week while being paid for five - and no, that won't mean its workers will be doing 10-hour days.
"The whole premise is not to do 40 hours in four days."
Bangs said the business would not be shutting down as a whole for the fifth day but workers would be staggered and take either a whole day or two half days off a week.


"From a practical standpoint it doesn't work literally turning the lights off for a particular day. So what we have got is very much a staggered approach.
"This is about the ultimate form of flexibility. We want to work through it with each individual and say, 'What is going to work best for you to enable you to be at your best?'"
Part-time workers will have the same opportunity to work 80 per cent of their hours for 100 per cent of their pay.
Bangs said it would trial the change for 12 months - enough time to allow it to get through the initial "honeymoon phase".
"We have got very big business ambitions that don't go away at all. And we need to find a way of being able to juggle the obvious benefits that this brings from an employee wellbeing perspective but also fundamentally change the way we work."
Bangs said that meant its focus was changing to output rather than number of hours worked and it will team up the University of Technology in Sydney to get an independent measure of the impact on its productivity and staff wellbeing.
Bangs said the decision to try a four-day week was influenced by entrepreneur Andrew Barnes, who trialled the four-day working week in his Kiwi trustee business Perpetual Guardian in 2018, before going on to become a global promoter of it.
"He has had a huge influence on us. He talks about this as being a mechanism to get people to think, work and act differently."
Bangs said Unilever had several reasons for deciding to trial the change.
"This year has probably taught us that the way we worked in the past is really not going to be fit for purpose for the way we work in the future. We were thrust into this new way of operating and I think we have all, and I have certainly, learned a lot this year about what is possible."Bangs said the company had been working on the idea for a couple of months but only told staff about the change last Wednesday.
"We've had every single response, from some people saying, 'This is not possible', and others saying, 'This is the best gift I've ever had'. So we are now in the process of working through individually and by team to work out how to make it work."
Bangs said he personally hoped to use his fifth day to spend more time with his young family.
"I have got three young kids who would love to see a lot more of me. This is going to be fantastic for me to be able to on that day drop them at school, pick them up from school. I will be able to really put some energy and time into myself throughout the course of the day and just recharge."
Barnes, who is currently in Britain, said it was humbling to see such a large company take up the idea and trial it in New Zealand.
He said the challenge for a large organisation was the temptation to overthink it but what it needed was staff to drive it through better ways of working.
Barnes said the four-day week could help improve mental health and the environment by reducing the need to commute.
He said one of his greatest disappointments was that the New Zealand Government, while it had made supportive statements, had yet to take the idea on board.
He hoped that by seeing one of the largest companies in the world try it out the Government would also sit up and take action.

Could it just be we are a bit of a myth? Or our sense of our place in the world is a bit invented?
One of the more interesting reports has arrived this week. It's done by NZIER for the Productivity Commission. It's looked into our policies around attracting highly productive and top shelf migrants. The highly skilled, and the very entrepreneurial.
It's widely accepted that our productivity rate has been hopeless. We don't work smarter, we just make more stuff, using more money.
The call last week from the Helen Clark Foundation was a classic example. It muddled the idea of paying people to do more via a boosted minimum wage, thus improving our productivity. Productivity is not automatically the result of more grunt.
Robots are an example of more productivity. They're better at some stuff than humans. You produce the same thing, just more effectively.
When it comes to migration, we've failed, according to this report, abysmally.
We've brought people in, we all know that. In fact, for some it's been an issue. "They've come in and stolen our jobs, they’ve bought all the houses. These damn foreigners."
Now that they're not here, all of a sudden, the corn doesn’t get picked in the field, and there is an almighty scrap on between the farmers and the government over how to resolve this.
But what that scrap and those numbers actually show, is the picture of our immigration story is we import labour, not brains.
The ones we wanted never arrived. Why? They didn’t want to. So, the idea in our heads that we are the greatest place on Earth, sadly, isn't true. They didn’t want to come, because it's too far away from basically everything.
Our Global Impact Visas created just 114 jobs over 3 years. Just 16 of the recipients raised capital. Two of them more than $5 million, five of them under $10,000.
We have three main sources of low paid labour. Holiday makers, students, and RSE workers. Hardly a stellar programme, is it?
Clearly a complete reset is required. We have deluded ourselves that we are a magnet, a Silicon Valley of the south. We are no such thing, the world isn't gripped by us, and when the truly clever can choose where they want to go, they don’t come here.
It's a tough reality to swallow, but swallow it we must, and reset.
The trick to success is learning from your mistakes. One our bigger ones is thinking we were more than we actually are.

Some families who lost loved ones in the Whakaari/White Island eruption have welcomed news of charges being laid over the tragedy.
However, one family believe their loved one would have been "hugely disappointed" by the prosecutions.
WorkSafe NZ has laid criminal charges against 10 organisations and three individuals following the eruption that claimed 22 lives on December 9 last year.
The prosecutions now pit government agencies against each other — and last night a defiant GNS Science said: "We stand by our people and our science." GNS, which monitors volcanic activity, had raised the alert level for White Island in the weeks leading up to the eruption.
WorkSafe chief executive Phil Parkes said the charges concluded the most extensive and complex investigation it had ever undertaken.



"This deeply tragic event was unexpected, but that does not mean it was unforeseeable," he said.
The investigation did not include the rescue and recovery operation — the focus was on the events leading up to the eruption.
"The victims — both workers and visitors — all had a reasonable expectation that they could go to the island knowing that those organisations involved had done all they were required to do to look after their health and safety. But had they? That's the question WorkSafe was mandated to investigate."
While Parkes wouldn't name those charged, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said two government agencies, GNS Science and the National Emergency Management Agency (Nema), were among the 10 organisations.
She said it was an independent decision taken by WorkSafe.
Her message to the families affected was that all Kiwis' thoughts were with those who experienced loss or injury.
Mark Inman said the charges were not what his brother, tour guide Hayden Marshall-Inman, whose body was never found, would have wished. His employer, White Island Tours, is one of the companies charged.
"He would be hugely disappointed in the fact that potentially some of his friends have been charged. They all did the best of their ability and ran a professional outfit at Whakaari/White Island and for him to find that out he would be hugely disappointed," Inman told TVNZ.
But the charges have provided "some relief" to Meredith Dallow, whose twin, Gavin Dallow, died with his 15-year-old stepdaughter, Zoe Hosking. His wife, Lisa, 48 was critically injured, suffering burns to almost 60 per cent of her body.
"I'm not surprised there have been charges laid and I'm actually quite pleased to be honest," said Meredith.
She was only guessing who had been charged at this stage, but the maximum fine of $1.5 million for each group was "better than nothing".
"I'm glad the WorkSafe investigation went ahead and there is an outcome but it doesn't really put closure to things," she said from Adelaide.
She believed closure wouldn't come until the court cases and coronial inquest were over, but she was thankful the WorkSafe findings were released now rather than next week, around the anniversary of the eruption. "It does give us some relief, especially as we come close to the 12-month anniversary.
The Whakaari/White Island eruption on December 9 last year claimed 22 lives. Photo / Michael Schade
The three people charged as directors or individuals, who were required to exercise due diligence to ensure the company meets its health and safety obligations, face maximum fines of $300,000.
Gavin's father, Brian Dallow, says he can't understand why the three individuals can only be fined $300,000 — if they were that neglectful to health and safety standards a jail sentence would be appropriate.
Steve Milbank, whose son Jake Milbank, 19, will need treatment for the rest of his life after suffering burns to 80 per cent of his body, said news of the charges didn't reveal much.
WorkSafe wouldn't identify the 13 parties, saying they needed an opportunity to go...

Britain has it has secured 2 million more doses of a promising coronavirus vaccine as it gears up to launch within days the country's most ambitious inoculation program in decades.
The U.K. has had Europe’s deadliest coronavirus outbreak, with more than 58,000 confirmed virus-related deaths. It now hopes to hit a more positive milestone by becoming one of the first countries in the world to start vaccinating its population against COVID-19.
The U.K. government has agreed to buy more than 350 million doses of vaccines from seven different producers, should they prove effective, as it prepares to vaccinate as many of the country’s 67 million people as possible.
The Department of Health said Sunday it had increased its order for a vaccine developed by U.S. firm Moderna from 5 million to 7 million doses, enough for 3.5 million people.
The Moderna vaccine is expected to be referred soon to the U.K.'s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, to see if it is safe and effective. Two other vaccines — one developed by Pfizer and German firm BioNTech, the other by Oxford University and AstraZeneca — are already being assessed by the regulator, the final stage before being rolled out.
Britain has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 100 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.
Hospitals in England have been told they could receive the first doses of the Pfizer shot as early as the week of Dec. 7 if it receives approval, the Guardian and Financial Times reported. The U.S. vaccination program also hopes to begin inoculating some Americans in December.
The government says frontline health care workers and nursing home residents will be the first to be vaccinated, followed by older people, starting with those over 80. The plan is to work down the age and risk groups until everyone 18 and over has been inoculated.
Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, said he “wouldn’t be too surprised if an announcement would be made within the next two weeks, possibly even as early as next week.”
Non-medical staff including volunteer first-aiders are already being trained to give the shots, which will be administered at around 1,000 community vaccination centers and 40 to 50 large-scale facilities in stadiums and conference venues, according to a government planning document.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said officials hope to vaccinate “the vast majority of the people who need the most protection by Easter.”
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Johnson said the roll-out of a vaccine could be “just days away.” But he said there would not be a quick end to the onerous restrictions on business and everyday life that have been imposed to curb the spread of the virus.
“There are still long weeks and months ahead before we can be completely confident that we can vaccinate enough people in the country, and thereby remove enough targets for the virus, in order to beat the disease,” he wrote.
A four-week national lockdown in England is due to end Wednesday, and will be replaced by a three-tiered system of regional measures. The vast majority of the country is being put into the upper two tiers, meaning most people will be barred from meeting up with friends indoors, pubs and restaurants still face restrictions and everything from large weddings to choir practices are being banned.
Pfizer and BioNTech say their vaccine is 95% effective, according to preliminary data. It must be stored at ultra-cold temperatures of around minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit). The Moderna vaccine, which also needs to be stored at freezer temperatures, was also about 95% effective in clinical trials, the company said.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine can be stored at conventional refrigerator temperatures, making its distribution much simpler, and is also cheaper than its main rivals. But some scientists have questioned gaps...

A health and safety lawyer thinks adventure tourism will continue after the Worksafe Whakaari White Island court case.
Worksafe is charging 13 parties in relation to the eruption last December that claimed 22 lives.
A court date is set for December 15.
Duncan Cotterill partner Olivia Lund told Mike Hosking a guilty verdict wouldn't necessarily impact the entire adventure tourism sector.
“There's a sweet spot of perceived risk being high - but actual risk being low.
“That does depend on having good safety standards and effective risk management in place.”
Lund says it will be a detailed hearing, with the parties facing different charges.
She says it will take significant time.
"It will be interesting to see how the court handles it - because there are so many parties involved."
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