The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Is it really an historic wave ?
KEA (Kiwi Expats Association), as we told you yesterday, have done some excellent work on who the expats are that have arrived back, what they bring by way of skills, where they are heading to, how long they are staying, and what they plan to do here when they settle in.
This of course is something the government should have done, but this is not a government to seize opportunity.
We have an MIQ system seemingly unable to expand, a lack of private involvement in getting skills into the country, a lack of coordination on who should be brought in and by who, no idea who those are who are back are, what they’re doing and whether they are staying.
This all seems piece meal, a kind of suck and see approach and we hope it all works out.
The kea numbers look good in terms of investment. Lots will start businesses, any will employ people, a decent number seem to be headed for the regions.
But to call this a wave is an interesting term. Its 60 000. KEA says 250,000 could come home in the next two years and another 250,000 after that
Those numbers we need to be wary of. Why are they returning home? Covid. Will Covid still be an issue in two years. No - if it is we are all buggered.
So is it really a wave, or will it go back to what it has always been.
Expats who have done their time were always coming home anyway, and they are at least in part replaced by the new young things wandering off for their OE.  
Obviously anyone who comes back for good needs to be tapped into. A certain level of coordination is required - the more we know the more we can do.
And skills are always short, so KEA is right in many ways. This is a good news story.
But there is another side and what we should also be watching out for is Australia and the brain drain.
What we know is a certain group of people go where the going is good - that’s why we have so many returning home. We are Covid free, and that beats London, Los Angeles and Madrid right now.
But what we also know is Australia is a magnet, always has been the lights are bright and the money is good.
New Zealand can’t be and will not be an isolated haven forever. Australia is on the verge of re-emergence and will once again be competing for our talent. Whether it’s newly arrived back or already here and just waiting for a green light.
The KEA numbers show we have an opportunity, a rare maybe as they say, once in a lifetime chance
But what are we doing with it? Given the government don’t even have the data on who these people are, do you reckon they’ve even got a plan going forward?
And given they don’t, how long before it’s an opportunity missed?

Danielle Cormack is back in action.
She, of course, is known for her roles on Shortland Street, Underbelly and Wentworth.
But she's also loved the stage and is returning to the theatre, sort of.
She's directing a new play Every Little Thing at the silo theatre in Auckland, but is doing it remotely from Sydney.
Danielle Cormack joins Mike Hosking from Sydney. 
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Sienna Olsen likes to read. The 9-year-old says she can read roughly 100 books a week but now she will have a book that will forever be her favourite.
Sienna's illustration will be on bookshelves across the world this week in JK Rowling's new book, The Ickabog - and she already has a copy with Rowling's signature.
She is one of four children in New Zealand and one of 34 across the globe to have her illustration printed.
"My mum came into the room and told me I had won, and I literally did a jig of happiness," Sienna said.The Ickabog was released, chapter by chapter, earlier this year while the world bunkered into lockdown.
Rowling, who is best known as the author of the Harry Potter franchise, then invited children from around the world to illustrate the book chapter by chapter.'
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What is the typical 8-year-old child in New Zealand like?
They live in an urban area in a two-parent household. Their parents own the home and are both working full-time. They've moved house at least once.
They speak one language, but they'll have a friend at school who can speak two or more.
They go to bed between 8pm and 8.30pm and get just under 10 hours' sleep a night. They don't eat enough fruit and veges and get takeaways once a week. They spend around three hours a day in front of a TV or tablet.
They're probably not allowed to leave the house alone or cross the road without a caregiver at their side.
They enjoy school, though they're likely to have witnessed or experienced bullying firsthand. There will be one or two kids at their school who no longer identify as the gender on their birth certificate.
That's according to the Growing Up in New Zealand study, which has closely tracked more than 6000 children born in 2009 and 2010.
In broad terms, the University of Auckland longitudinal study reaffirmed that a large proportion of New Zealand children were thriving at 8 years old.
"In general it's fair to say that most of our children are doing well," said the study's director, Professor Susan Morton.
Most children had busy, healthy, happy lives and a growing sense of who they were, and were well supported by their parents.
But on the margins, the most disadvantaged 8 year olds remained in hardship and if anything, their situation was getting worse. Poverty was persistent, they were likely to be moving from house to house, their home was likely to be cold and damp, and their mental wellbeing was suffering.
"Inequalities are emerging in those early years, particularly for Māori and Pacific children," Morton said.
Professor Susan Morton said the gap between thriving and disadvantaged New Zealand children had not closed between ages 6 and 8, and could be growing. Photo / Supplied
"The gap is not closing. That is the worry - that we'd like to see more of our children thriving and doing well."
And there are also emerging issues for those in what is known as "middle childhood", including bullying, obesity and mental wellbeing.
BULLYING
Throughout the study, mothers had reported relatively high rates of bullying - around one in three kids faced bullying behaviour.
"We were really shocked by that, firstly," Morton said. "But also we were asking ourselves 'Is this just the mums reporting that?'"
Researchers were interested to hear from the children themselves for the first time.
"We asked in a number of ways. It's not just 'Are you bullied?' It's getting at what bullying is in many ways.
"And still, shockingly, we are seeing 35 per cent of the children themselves reporting regular bullying at 8. So that figure we are seeing from their mums is probably not an anomaly.
"And it does suggest that bullying is much more prevalent in early childhood and middle childhood than we would ideally want it to be."
Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft said Unicef's most recent report into bullying ranked New Zealand as among the worst in the world. The Growing Up in NZ study was even worse, he said.
"That is both perplexing and shameful. And we need to redouble our efforts, both to work with people who bully and those who are bullied.
"There are complex forces at play, that are often to do with intergenerational violence, of family modelling, and in New Zealand, I think, of a rather too lax view about the insidious nature of bullying and what it does to children and young people."
Becroft and Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon last year called for mandatory reporting of bullying in schools. He is now working with the Ministry of Education to analyse schools with low bullying rates to see if there are commonalities which could be applied across the country.
HOUSING
Another finding which continues to...

Boris Johnson’s famous charm worked wonders on Donald Trump, but he faces a tougher audience in Joe Biden.
Britain's prime minister promised Sunday to work with the U.S. president-elect to spread democracy, defend human rights and combat climate change, as he sought to woo a leader who sees the world very differently to the outgoing American leader.
In an interview with The Associated Press in 10 Downing St.. Johnson stressed the strength of trans-Atlantic ties, saying the two countries’ “common global perspective” would be vital to shore up a rules-based global order that is under threat.
“The United States is our closest and most important ally,” said Johnson, who hasn't yet spoken to Biden since he became president-elect. “And that’s been the case under president after president, prime minister after prime minister. It won’t change.”
It won’t change, but it may be strained. Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, a cause Johnson championed, and Trump’s election happened within a few months of each other in 2016. Ever since, many have seen the two events as twin eruptions of populism.
Conservative Party leader Johnson is widely seen as an ally — and to critics, a copy — of the “America First” Trump, who has referred to Johnson approvingly as “Britain Trump.” Johnson has praised Trump’s handling of the U.S. economy and his deal-making skills.
Biden has called the British leader a “clone” of Trump, and has warned that Brexit will leave Britain’s status “diminished.”
Johnson on Sunday stressed his commitment to internationalism, particularly in the fight against climate change, an issue where he and Biden share a common view. While Trump has dismissed the threats posed by a changing climate and pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord — a decision Biden says he will reverse — Johnson aims to reduce U.K. carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.
Britain is due to host the COP26 global climate summit in 2021, a year later than planned due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I think now with President Biden in the White House in Washington, we have the real prospect of American global leadership in tackling climate change,” said Johnson, in an implicit criticism of Trump.
Since World War II, the trans-Atlantic “special relationship” has been sustained by a common language, shared interests, military cooperation and cultural affection. Sometimes that has been bolstered by close personal bonds, such as the friendship between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, or between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton in the 1990s.
It has endured even when leaders' relations were less cordial, as when British Prime Minister Harold Wilson refused to join the Vietnam War in the 1960s.
“There is far more that unites the government of this country and government in Washington any time, any stage, than divides us,” Johnson said.
“We have common values. We have common interests. We have a common global perspective. There’s a huge amount of work we need to do together to protect those values: a belief in democracy, in free speech around the world, in human rights, in free trade, in the rules-based international order.”
Brexit may test those bonds. The U.S. still values Britain’s role as a European economic and military power and a member of the intelligence-sharing “Five Eyes” alliance. But Biden has made clear that he intends to rebuild bridges with the EU, a frequent target of Trump’s ire. That suggests Berlin, Brussels and Paris, rather than London, will be uppermost in his thoughts.
Britain had been hoping to secure a quick trade agreement with the U.S. after its official departure from the EU in January. The change in administration in Washington leaves prospects of a deal uncertain.
Biden, who is fiercely proud of his Irish roots, has warned there will be no deal if contentious Brexit-related legislation planned by Johnson’s government undermines Northern...

News that Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine strongly protects people against infection is good news for other vaccines being developed against the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci said today.
Pfizer said its candidate vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing infection in volunteers. It uses a never-before-approved technology called messenger RNA, or mRNA, to produce an immune response in people who are vaccinated.
"This shows that the mRNA platform actually does work. And there's another vaccine candidate, Moderna, that's using the same platform," Fauci told CNN in a telephone interview.
Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is working with Moderna and other companies to test their experimental vaccines.
The US federal government has invested $1.95 billion in Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine but is not directly working to help its development.
The mRNA vaccine approach uses genetic material called mRNA to trick cells into producing bits of protein that look like pieces of the virus. The immune system learns to recognize and attack those bits and, in theory, would react fast to any actual infection.
"Really encouraged to see this exciting announcement. Assuming it's supported by the data then this not only represents a potential breakthrough for Pfizer/BioNTech, but also for vaccines in general," vaccine expert Robin Shattock, whose team at Imperial College London is working on an mRNA vaccine against coronavirus, said in a statement.
"It also demonstrates the speed and utility of RNA vaccines technology," Shattock added.
"This announcement certainly gives a boost to our own self-amplifying RNA vaccine program. Not yet the end game, but hopefully the beginning of global efforts to control this pandemic. A significant light at the end of the tunnel."
There's a second reason the Pfizer results are good news for other vaccines. They show that using spike protein as a target was the right call, Fauci said.
"The other good thing about it is that an actual immune response to the spike protein is a protective response," Fauci said.
The virus has a structure called the spike protein to grapple the cells it attacks. The mRNA vaccines make the body produce little copies of just that structure.
"Remember -- people were not sure that if you made an immune response against the spike protein that that's the best and most appropriate target for an actual vaccine," Fauci added.
"The good news is that this is the spike protein target and virtually every one of the other vaccines that are being tested also use the spike protein as a target, whether it's expressed in mRNA or it's a soluble protein. The spike protein is used in all of them, which bodes well for all the other vaccines."
Four coronavirus vaccines are in advanced, Phase 3 trials in the US now. They are made by Pfizer, as well as Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. Plus Maryland-based Novavax is expected to start a US-based Phase 3 trial later this month. It has a trial underway in Britain.
Pfizer got such a quick indication that its coronavirus vaccine is highly protective against infection in part because the pandemic is so bad, Fauci said.
The data was revealed as part of what's called an interim analysis. These are pre-planned peeks at the data.
In this case, Pfizer had planned to have a look as soon as 62 people in its 44,000 volunteer trial developed Covid-19 infections. But before the company could even finish discussing its plans with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, it said, 94 people had become infected within a week of getting their second dose of either vaccine or placebo.
Pfizer's Data and Safety Monitoring Board -- an outside team of experts who watch the trial with a neutral eye -- unblinded the data and saw that more than 90% of those cases were in people who had gotten placebo, or dummy shots.
That's a reflection of both the large size...

Tourism operators are pinning all their hopes on a Covid-19 travel bubble jump-starting the Cook Islands economy.
New Zealand officials are travelling to the Cooks on Saturday to work on progressing a travel arrangement.
Cook Islands Chamber of Commerce head Fletcher Melvin told Mike Hosking border systems and hotels are good to go.
"We are currently running on reserves, as there's no income coming into the economy. It's time that we kick-started the economy back into action."
Melvin told Mike Hosking a new scanner has been added to PPE gear and contact tracing, to beef up the Cooks' systems for border arrivals.
He says any gaps will be plugged quickly.
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Issues coordinating with the airlines are complicating bookings for managed isolation.
A surge in demand ahead of Christmas caused spaces in quarantine hotels to dry up, but an extra 100 rooms a day have now been found between December 13 and 23.
Head of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Air Commodore Darryn Webb told Mike Hosking every time an airline changes its schedule it disrupts links with managed isolation vouchers.
"We're working closely with the airlines, but can't compel them to do things. Every effort is being made to get New Zealanders home."
Webb says he appreciates the fact people want to get home.
"They'll get here - although it might not be on exactly the dates they'd prefer - but there'll certainly be space over the period right throughout the Christmas break."
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It is, of course, the slippery slope. It's the fate of all new governments, those with an agenda and an idea.
This week's money grab comes to us from no fewer than 40 groups all ganged up together looking to boost benefit money. The Salvation Army, Action Against Poverty, Child Poverty Action, those are two separate groups by the way, but both clearly want action. This does lead you to question just how many groups are there looking out for the poor and deprived.
Clearly in this instance it's at least 40. This might also lead one to suggest, fewer groups might mean a more dedicated, efficient, and laser focused approach to what is clearly an overarching commonality.
Anyway, in time for Christmas they argue, if the government could just see their way clear to upping the old benefits.
The old benefits have, of course, had a pretty good run of it of late. Even going back to the last National Government, they used money from the rockstar economy and an actual surplus to boost benefits in a way that hadn't been done in decades. It was a budget masterstroke and whipped the rug and argument out from under Labour.
But Labour are back and at the start of Covid they handed out $8 billion by way of wage support. That would grow to $13 billion but of the original $8 billion, $3 billion was for benefits. They didn’t have the money, we were sinking into the red, and as it turns out at a rate higher than any other country in the OECD bar Hong Kong.
And now having got two boosts, more is wanted. That is your slippery slope, once you start there is no end. The pressure coming from support groups who have no realistic economic outlook or understanding. They are simply driven by good intentions, but good intentions and other people's money.
One group reckoned $150 a week should do it. I did some back of the envelope stuff, as of the end of last year, we had 314,000 on benefits, so it'll be way worse now. But stat delivery is not a strong point of this country so those were the latest official figures I could find.
That, by the way, is over 10 percent of the working age population. Give them $150 a week and that’s $47 million a week. That's $2.5 billion a year. So you can see the delusion of the thinking.
And in return for what? Nothing more is produced or sold, productivity isn't up, nothing changes, so we didn’t make more, we just spent more.
The redistribution train has already left the station, it's building a head of steam, and these sorts of people are shovelling coal as fast as they can.
When you're already breaking records for debt, I pray someone in charge of something in Wellington recognises the dangers of the behaviour and is frantically working out where the hell the break is.

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Tuesday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Worrying Numbers/Once In a Lifetime Opportunity/Getting In the Vaccine Queue/McD's Finally Catching Up/Greenstown