The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Victoria has recorded its 12th straight day of zero new coronavirus cases on Wednesday.
There is just one case with an unknown source and four active cases across the state.
It comes as Premier Daniel Andrews offered hope to Victorians they can expect clarity on an outline for the rest of the year – to be announced later this month.
“Because so much has been given by so many for so long, on Sunday we were able to remove the 25km rule and the ring of steel, see hospitality venues take a big step forward closer to a COVID normal,” Mr Andrews told parliament on Tuesday.
 “We were also able to foreshadow that there will be further announcements made – subject to the epidemiology of the intervening period – there will be further changes made on November 22.
“We hope to be able to take further steps and outline what the rest of this year – that is the time between November 22 and a COVID-normal Christmas we’ve all worked hard to make possible – we’ll have more to say about what that looks like.”
From 11.59pm on November 22, Victorians can also look forward to having household gatherings of 10 and outdoor gatherings of 50.
Large sporting venues would also be able to be at 25 per cent capacity, while weddings would grow to 100 people and the same limit would apply at funerals.

The creative work of a team of local animators is currently being showcased in 27 countries around the world.
The three-minute short film, telling the tear-jerking story of the bond between a grandmother and granddaughter, was developed by Flux Animation for Disney's annual Christmas advertising campaign.
While Flux has worked with Disney on a number of campaigns over the past few decades, the animation studio's general manager Joshua Forsman says this is the largest-scale piece of work his team has ever worked on for the entertainment juggernaut.
Flux landed the brief for the job in the first week of lockdown and then spent the next six months working on the project around the clock.


Forsman says that given the rapid turnaround, Flux established a 24-hour work cycle that saw contributors working on the project in New Zealand, Europe and even South America.
"The limitations of geography disappeared due to coronavirus," says Forsman.
Having visited Los Angeles a few weeks before New Zealand's lockdown occurred, Forsman said his team realised relatively early that they would have to get accustomed to remote work.
"We saw how things were escalating in the United States and we knew the same was inevitable for New Zealand," he says.
Before production on the Disney campaign started, Flux had already set up the entire team for remote work – meaning everyone was able to transition seamlessly into the strange working conditions.
From the outset, the project posed a number of interesting creative challenges.
Animation director Laban Dickinson says the challenge of making an ad resonate across 27 countries – and their cultures and languages – meant that Flux needed to find a way to tell the story without losing anything in translation.
The creative team felt that the best way to do this was by telling the story without the use of dialogue and letting the expressions on the animated faces do all the talking.
"In advertising, we normally only have around 60 seconds, so we felt quite fortunate to have three minutes to tell this story," says Dickinson.
"We ended up using more of a short-film approach to the idea."
The ad was launched in the UK as Disney's contribution to the Christmas advertising tradition in that country and it has since been rolled out around the globe.This is not the first time work by Flux has appeared on a giant global platform. A 2019 ad by Flux for Ram Trucks appeared on arguably the world's biggest advertising stage – the Super Bowl.
Any time an ad appears in such a competitive space, the pressure is on to develop something that stands out from the crowd.
This challenge of standing out in the cluttered Christmas ad market was already tough, but the stakes were heightened by the pressure of developing something suitable for a company long celebrated for its ability to enthral audiences.
"It was the first time Disney had gone this route, so we really needed it to hold up," says Dickinson.
If the early metrics are anything to go by, the campaign seems to have hit the mark by attracting over 1.8 million views online within the first 24 hours of its launch.
And despite this success along with the recent appearance at the Super Bowl, the Flux team isn't ready to rest on its international laurels quite yet.
"You're only ever as good as your last project," says Forsman.
Text by Damien Venuto

Some 150 million cricket fans in India will now watch NZ cricket through Amazon Prime Video.
The tech giant has bought the exclusive rights to livestream NZ-based Blackcaps and White Ferns matches into India for the next six years, NZ Cricket says.
The deal, which represents Amazon's first foray into live sports in India, will see Prime Video carrying live coverage of all Black Caps and White Ferns internationals across tests, ODIs and T20, starting from the 2021/2022 season.
Amazon stepped up in tough Covid times after a more traditional broadcaster, pay-TV provider Star Sports India (previously owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, now part of Disney) did not renew a deal signed in 2017 for a reported $30m.
"We couldn't agree terms [with Star] within the exclusive negotiation period, and opted to go to the market," NZ Cricket spokesman Richard Boock told the Herald.
Boock declined to put a dollar value on the new deal, or say if it was more or less than Star Sport, but offered, "We're very happy with the result."
Boock says the Indian audience for NZ T20s and ODIs has previously peaked at 150m, while being "a bit lower" for tests.
The deal with Amazon follows NZ Cricket's landmark decision to split local broadcasting rights, with Sky TV most international games but streaming service Spark Sport gaining rights to domestic games, plus all cricket played in England (for those who want to watch both, Spark has recently announced a Spark Sport-Sky Sport bundle, which saves $15 a month over subscribing to each service separately.
Amazon Prime Video is part of the Amazon conglomerate that also includes giant e-tailer Amazon.com and the world's largest cloud computing host, Amazon Web Services.
Like fellow sleeping giants (in sports rights terms), Google and Facebook, the US-based company has so far been nibbling around the edges of various codes.
Amazon paid US$65m to stream Thursday-night NFL games over a two-year period, then recently renewed the deal for an undisclosed but reportedly "significantly higher" fee (US$65m sounds a lot by NZ standards, the Amazon deal only covers a handful of games and is relative chump change to US$3b that CBS, NBC and Fox pay between them, per year, to broadcast the bulk of American football games).
In the UK, Amazon has also tied up exclusive rights to a swathe of top-tier tennis and shares domestic English Premier rights with Sky UK and BT. As last season, Amazon will have two full game weeks in December when every match in only available via its Prime Video streaming service.
Here, there was a degree of buzz around Amazon in 2018 when word emerged that the US giant was sniffing New Zealand rugby - but it turned out it wanted the All Blacks for a six-episode installment of its fly-on-the wall documentary series All Or Nothing, rather than rights to matches.
Amazon could still come after A-list NZ sports rights, but with Spark just starting its six-year cricket deal, and Sky only months into a new five-year rugby deal, new media fans will have to pack a lunch. In cricket's case Boock said it was far too early to speculate.
Meanwhile, across the ditch, there's been another interesting streaming deal.
After Foxtel lost its enthusiasm for rugby, amid the Covid-hit sports calendar and ratings that had been on the wane regardless, Rugby Australia signed a new, three-year, A$90m deal with Nine.
Under the deal, Nine will broadcast every Wallabies test from 2021 onwards and one Super Rugby AU match each weekend on its free-to-air network - but all other rugby content will be delivered through its streaming service, Stan, or at least its newly created off-shoot, Stan Sport.
The deal is described as "groundbreaking." But at A$30m a year, it's also well-shy of Rugby Australia's more traditional Foxtel deal, which The Australian pegged at A$57m per year.

In the midst of tourism being cut at the knees by covid-19, one place is having the opposite problem.
The Chatham Islands has a population of just over 600 people, and usually see about 2000 tourists a year.
But more and more New Zealanders have been looking at the Chathams with a quarantine-free holiday in mind.
Chatham Islands Tourism Manager Jackie Gurden says unless they can get their infrastructure up to scratch, the islands could quickly become overburdened.
"You don't want tourism to negatively impact the community - you want it to be a positive benefit."
Gurden says people who wanted to travel internationally couldn't go, so the islands are the furthest they can get.
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New vaping laws have been a long-time coming, but won't be enforced with a heavy hand.
The changes come into effect today, with more rules on the way next August.
The first phase bans vape sales to minors, stops the advertising of some products and prevents the devices being used in smoke-free areas.
Health Minister Andrew Little told Mike Hosking prohibitions in schools and workplaces are managed by those premises.
He says specialist vaping stores and dairies are restricted to what they can sell anyway - and they'll be somewhat self-policed.
Little says it's important a system is in place to restrict these products from younger people.
He says vaping needs to be regulated because it still carries a number of hazards.
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The Trump administration threw the presidential transition into tumult, with President Donald Trump blocking government officials from cooperating with President-elect Joe Biden’s team and Attorney General William Barr authorising the Justice Department to probe unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud.
Some Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, rallied behind Trump's efforts to fight the election results. Few in the GOP acknowledged Biden's victory or condemned Trump's other concerning move on Monday: his firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
The developments cast doubt on whether the nation would witness the same kind of smooth transition of power that has long anchored its democracy. The Electoral College is slated to formally confirm Biden's victory on Dec. 14, and the Democrat will be sworn into office in late January.
On Monday, Barr authorized U.S. attorneys to probe “substantial” allegations of voter irregularities and election fraud, though no widespread instances of that type of trouble in the 2020 election exist. In fact, election officials from both political parties have publicly stated that voting went well and international observers also confirmed that there were no serious irregularities.
Biden campaign lawyer Bob Bauer said Barr’s memorandum authorizing investigations “will only fuel the ‘specious, speculative, fanciful or far-fetched claims’ he professes to guard against.”
Biden pressed forward with plans to build out his administration, assembling a team of experts to face the surging pandemic. But the federal agency that needs to greenlight the beginnings of the transition of power held off on taking that step. And the White House moved to crack down on those not deemed sufficiently loyal as Trump continued to refuse to concede the race.
Trump remained out of sight at the White House, with conversations ongoing about how the defeated president would spend the coming days and weeks as he challenged the people's verdict. Trump is not expected to formally concede but is likely to grudgingly vacate the White House at the end of his term, according to several people around him.
Also being discussed: the possibility of more campaign-style rallies as he tries to keep his supporters fired up despite his defeat. It was possible they would feature his family and top supporters but not the president himself.
The ouster of Esper, the Pentagon chief, was expected by some aides to be the first of several firings by Trump, now freed from having to face voters again and angry at those in his administration perceived to be insufficiently loyal. Others believed to be vulnerable: FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA head Gina Haspel and infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci.
The president was given cover to keep fighting by McConnell, seen by many in the GOP as the one who may eventually need to nudge Trump to the exit.
“Our institutions are actually built for this,” McConnell said as he opened the Senate on Monday. “We have the system in place to consider concerns and President Trump is 100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options.”
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer countered that the Republicans’ refusal to accept the election results was “extremely dangerous, extremely poisonous to our democracy.”
“Joe Biden won the election fair and square,” Schumer said.
A few other GOP senators sent tepid nods toward a transition. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska offered congratulations to Biden, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine noted the Democrat's “apparent victory.” But many Republican lawmakers were reluctant to speak up about the election, seeing little political incentive to take a firm stance on Trump’s transition from the White House.
Republicans on Capitol Hill have been hesitant to push Trump to concede to Biden, knowing it would anger their base of Trump’s most devoted...

The Reserve Bank is being told it needs to put out the fire in the housing market and light one under the business sector.
The Bank's regular Monetary Policy Statement is due at 2pm this afternoon.
Westpac chief economist Dominick Stephens expects the Official Cash Rate will stay at 0.25 percent.
But he told Mike Hosking the central bank should restrict the Funding for Lending Programme, to businesses.
"It's sparked a house price boom which could threaten financial stability, and even the Reserve Bank's licence to operate monetary policy."
Stephens says through the Funding for Lending Programme, the central bank will probably give banks incentives to lend more to businesses, rather than homeowners.
However, he says there's not a lot of demand out there for business loans at the moment.
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My great hope is that those who have been doing their exams of late, especially the economics-based ones, have been able to, at least, be taught a bit, and tested on, what are truly remarkable times.
I somehow don’t think the curriculum moves at quite the pace the real world is at the moment, which is a shame. To understand what we are currently going through would be invaluable, and today is another important part of that.
The Reserve Bank will be detailing a number of ground breaking ideas and decisions involving negative interest rates and a funding for lending programme for commercial banks.
How it all works is the key. We have never been before on either matter, we have never even been close to being here on either matter. These are the most unconventional of unconventional tools.
And they are controversial. Australia, for example, seem determined not to go down the negative interest rate path, and yet we do.
Why?
The why is important because the consequences are massive.
The funding-for-lending programme is money and discount rates directly from the Reserve Bank to the commercial banks with a view to that money being sent out to keen borrowers to boost the economy. But how and on what?
The "what” is critical because the consequences are critical. The very reason we are here is because we are in serious trouble.
Which is the other part of the equation, the political side. Grant Robertson told us yesterday things are going better than expected, which is smoke and mirrors. What we expected was a guess, nothing more. We thought the house would burn down, turns out it's only two bedrooms, the front room, and the kitchen. So, phew.
The reality is if things were peachy Adrian Orr would have little to do today, except yak about the cash rate. Even that at 0.25 percent, is a story in itself.  And yet here he is, dishing out detail on some of the most draconian fiscal policy we are ever likely to see.
And how many of us understand it properly? How many can explain it? It affects us all, our jobs, our lives, and our futures, but my guess is very few have any real idea at all.
We are in the middle if history, watching it unfold, and yet sadly my guess is too many of us are bystanders, and in no real way participants.
It's a tragedy.

A former medical school dean is proposing a lottery system to ease huge pressure on students who now have to get "genius-level marks" to get into medicine.
Professor Peter Crampton, who led Otago University's medical school from 2011 to 2018, says "incredibly stressful competition" for limited places is "not helpful for anybody".
He wants New Zealand to consider a system like one used until 2018 in the Netherlands, which ran a national lottery for medical school selection that was weighted by students' high-school grades but then chose students by ballot rather than in grade order.
"I think there are better and more humane ways to work with our young people who have aspirations to be health professionals," he said.
Former Otago Medical School dean Peter Crampton developed the Mirror on Society policy which aims to match the demographics of the health workforce to the NZ population. Photo / Supplied
Selection pressure at New Zealand's two medical schools at Otago and Auckland Universities has intensified partly because of preferences for under-represented ethnic and other groups, who this year became a majority of domestic students admitted to second-year medicine at Otago and almost half at Auckland.
That has reduced the places filled by students from the remaining "general" category in Auckland from 175 in 2015 to 130 this year, while general applications have remained at between 450 and 600 each year.
The result has been an increase in the lowest average grade required for general students to get into second-year medicine from 7.25 in 2015 to 8.25 this year, on a scale that runs from zero for marks under 50 per cent up to 9 for marks of 90 per cent or above.
At Otago, the median marks of first-year students admitted to second year medicine under the general category jumped from 83 per cent last year to 95 per cent this year.
Crampton said such high grade averages "don't reflect the qualities that you want in an individual - that's just one predictor".
"Some of the complaints and beliefs about the necessity for genius-level marks in order to study medicine are an artefact of competition. They don't reflect the underlying reality," he said.
An Auckland doctor whose tutoring company works with about a third of the students selected for second-year medicine at Auckland, Dr Justin Sung, said the grade required to get in was now so "absurdly high" that he has become "like a fulltime counsellor".
"I have taken students into hospital because of mental health breakdowns during the year," he said.
"I have had students walk in in tears because of what's happened. It's a very, very unhealthy environment."
He supported Crampton's call to reduce the emphasis on academic grades.
"There should be just a threshold for grades and then they should be ranked on their interview and other assessments such as the UCAT [University Clinical Aptitude Test]. I think that would take a lot of pressure off," he said.
Otago University drew a storm of protest recently when it signalled a review of its "Mirror on Society" selection policy, which aims to "ensure that the make-up of its health professional classes is equivalent to holding a mirror up to society".
This year it gave 145 of its 283 domestic places in second-year medicine to groups that are under-represented in the medical profession: Māori (66 places), Pacific (25), rural areas (41), students from decile 1-3 schools (11) and students from refugee families (2).
Auckland allocated 124 out of 257 domestic places to similar groups: Māori and Pacific (65), rural and regional (51), decile 1-3 schools (5), students with disabilities (2) and refugee families (1).
The lowest grade point averages for first-year students accepted into Auckland's second year were 5 for the Māori and Pacific category and 6.25 for the rural and regional category, compared with 8.25 for the general category.
Those were all...

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