The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Top fashion designer Dame Trelise Cooper is devastated after thieves broke into her Auckland head office and stole about $500,000 worth of clothing.
The thieves entered the company's premises in Epsom sometime after 4pm on Saturday at the weekend and stripped the racks of her entire 2021 spring and summer samples.
"One lonely hanger is all that's left," Cooper posted on social media.
"Over the weekend our styling room was burgled and our entire Spring '21 and Summer '21 sample collections for Trelise Cooper, Cooper, Coop and Curate were stolen - along with a number of our unique couture pieces. 1800 samples gone.
"All of our hard work through covid lockdowns and 2020 - gone!", she posted.
Speaking to the Herald tonight, Cooper said the thieves broke into the styling room through a vent in an electrical room. They then emptied suitcases of shoes and left them strewn across the floor to use the suitcases to take the clothes.
"I feel violated. I feel bad for my staff. We have kind of taken it as a kick in the guts," she said.
Cooper said one of the saving graces is she is working on a new collection and of the two stolen collections, the Spring one was being delivered to retailers and the Summer one is being manufactured.
Nevertheless, the two collections are a "working tool for us" and used for charity parades, events like the Melbourne Cup and Riccarton races, and magazine shoots.
"These garments are going to be difficult for someone to onsell. They are all size 8 and that is a lot of size 8 to flood a market," said Cooper, saying the clothes do not have 'care' labels and not in stores yet, which makes them easily identifiable.
Cooper said it was the first time her head office in Epsom had been burgled in 25 years, although someone unsuccessfully tried to break into the building 14 years ago.
The building did not have CCTV cameras, but is getting them installed. The building was alarmed and is monitored by security guards.


Cooper said 2020 had been stressful and challenging for all kind of reasons and the burglary was "another 2020 blow", but she remained optimistic.


She made a plea to the thieves to "please bring back our garments".
"They can just bring them to our front door step and drive away before we put cameras in," she said.
A police spokesman said they received a report relating to a burglary at a commercial premise on Lion Place, Epsom, over the weekend.
The exact time of the burglary isn't known at this stage.
The store was broken into and a significant amount of clothing and shoes were reported stolen.
Police have been making inquiries and a forensic examination of the scene has taken place.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact Police on 105 quoting file number 201019/3913 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

No coalition? No problem, thinks a former Green Party MP.
Some polling going into the election showed support for a Labour-Green coalition, but Labour's win is so big, it can govern alone.
The latest comments from Jacinda Ardern suggest a formal agreement between the two parties is unlikely.
And former Green MP Catherine Delahunty says that might not be a bad thing.
She told Mike Hosking the Green' party's results show it's capable of being an independent voice in parliament.
Delahunty says maybe it's the time for them to sit in opposition and pull the Government towards what environment and social justice advocates want.
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Personally, I don’t mind if the Greens are part of the government, because if they are, they won't be a significant part.
Talks allegedly wrap up next week.
A good indicator of where Labour are at with the Greens is when, last term, Eugenie Sage torpedoed Waihi Mine's expansion plans for no good reason, and she was eventually overruled by Grant Robertson and David Parker.
The clue there is the Labour Party like the Greens, but not the dangerous ideological end of them. So, whatever the Greens get, and they will get something, it won't be the stuff that scares the horses.
They will get a deal, for as far as I can work out, two reasons. One, Jacinda Ardern is a consensus politician. Two, there seems to be a view that you don’t want to be attacked from both sides.
National and ACT will go at them over delivery, so they don’t need the Greens being a pain over pumped hydro, national parks, and clean air.
But that second reason is, in fact, wrong. MMP isn't about coalitions or it doesn’t have to be. We haven't adapted our thinking to Saturday's result.
MMP is a voting mechanism, not necessarily a government mechanism. National did business with the Maori Party when they didn’t have to, Labour can do the same with the Greens, but they're not beholden. A mandate is a mandate, if you don’t need votes why buy them?
In that is the problem for the Greens, they're not needed. And not only are they not needed; they’ve wedded themselves to Labour so what are they going to do without a deal? Bring Labour down? I don't think so.
Are they going to carp from outside the tent? Probably. But carp about what? Labour, I am sure, back themselves as a greenish type party. They back their environmental credentials. They're greens without the nuttiness.
That's the stuff the Greens would bark on about. Stuff so mad most of the rest of us would be grateful it's not the insanity that’s holding a Cabinet portfolio.
In other words, anyone can whinge, but if the whinge is the whinge of the crazy it's not effective. And not only that if you're mainstream, you're grateful you’ve got nothing to do with it.
All of this reinforces the Labour power base. It's enormous, they’ve got the numbers, got the mandate, so there's no reason to do anything with anyone.
Just because MMP produced deals historically doesn’t mean it has to. The last government was a coalition of necessity, and it wasn’t that flash.
When you’ve got the keys to the car all to yourself, who wants passengers?

Labour has no excuse not to deliver this parliamentary term.
Politicians have gathered at Parliament this week for caucus meetings, farewelling some MPs and welcoming others.
Labour MP Stuart Nash told Mike Hosking the party has a clear mandate and has to deliver on its promises.
“It’s quite humbling New Zealand trusts the party to deliver for them.”
National MP Mark Mitchell says National has to be strong in opposition, and make sure Labour delivers.
‘We have some big challenges ahead, it’s important that Labour starts to deliver.
"National will be supportive when good is done ... but will hold the government to account when it starts to fail.”
Mitchell has one recommendation, he'd like to see Kris Faafoi stay on as Immigration Minister.
He says Faafoi's good to work with and very practical,  and the role will be very important in ensuring New Zealand sustains a labour force.
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THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Wednesday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Weird Thing to Moan About/What Can the Greens Do for Labour Now?/Big Tech Is Laughing/Where's Winston?/Crabby Undies

The trouble with trouble is you can easily over analysis it.  
National gathered today for what will be a forlorn old caucus meeting. They’ll have picked over the entrails as to just what went wrong.
And the risk they run right now is to fail to grasp, although some things unquestionably went wrong, the stuff that did go wrong wasn’t responsible for a Labour landslide.
It’s safe-ish to say, even if things went really right, Labour most likely still would have won.
Why? Because Covid is a pandemic, and the government of the day didn’t cock it up and in such matters and it doesn’t have to be a pandemic but in times of trouble, we have a flight to safety, we are adverse to risk.
That’s why presidents become popular in wars. Look at Churchill or Bush Senior. History is full of examples.
History also shows us, first term governments by in large get a second term.
So the trick, if you’re on the losing side, is not to over react, not to change for the sake of changing, and to step back and see the big picture.
Life whether political or otherwise, has seasons. Labour got lucky with Covid, it saved them. No Covid, you would have had a real race.
Labour was polling poorly, delivery was an issue, and the economy was slowing. Post Covid, all that stuff got tossed out the window, Saint Jacinda arrived, and we loved it - game over.
The bits National can do better on are internal. They seem self-absorbed, the leaking is pathetic, the self-interest is obvious, the factionalism is a problem. If they’d sorted that, Act would not have polled so well for example.
But 2002 for National is a lesson, and a reminder, that bad days, bad seasons, bad periods are part of political life, but they don’t last.
Tumult is part of the equation. Labour was brilliant in 1984, by 1990 they were a mess. The Clark government of ‘99 was not the Clark of 05 and so it goes.
Mitigating circumstances, things beyond your control, are always present. It rarely, if ever, is a simple battle of ideas.
It’s a third party in MMP, it’s a GFC or an earthquake or this time a pandemic.
A lot of the time, the deck is stacked either for you or against you.
The trick if you’re looking for blame or blood-letting or renewal or change or rebuilding is to deal realistically with what you can fix and what in all reality was beyond your control.
Jamie Whincup over the weekend at Bathurst, one of the greatest of drivers, made a split second mistake early in the race and hit the wall. It doesn’t make him a bad driver, doesn’t mean he couldn’t have won it, doesn’t mean the team needs to sack anyone.
A bad day is hardly ever the end, perspective is a skill. Sometimes shit happens.

There are calls for the new government to cough up more money for construction.
Some commercial construction companies are sharing concerns that shovel-ready funding is going into roads - when it should be going into buildings.
Brosnan Construction managing director Phil Brosnan told Mike Hosking high rises are where the jobs are.
"We do want to do what we need, but there is an opportunity to create buildings that might promote building to, particularly down in Christchurch." 
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The Fonterra Shareholders Council is reshaping itself to send farmers' message to the board - rather than the other way around.
This is on the back of reports showing how it can dust off the yes-man tag and hold the dairy giant's board to account.
Chairman James Barron told Mike Hosking this isn't about blame, but about the way forward.
He says the council hasn't been a lapdog and vague terms like that aren't helpful.
Barron says over time, the board's strategy moved away from what farmers wanted.
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France's interior minister said Monday that police operations are underway into dozens of people who allegedly issued messages of support for the attacker after the beheading of a history teacher near Paris.
Gerald Darmanin said on French radio Europe 1 that at least 80 cases of hate speech have been reported since Friday’s attack.
Samuel Paty was beheaded in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, northwest of Paris, by a 18-year-old Moscow-born Chechen refugee, who was later shot dead by police. Police officials said Paty had discussed caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad with his class, leading to threats.
French President Emmanuel Macron held a defense council on Sunday at the Elysee presidential palace. The government will reinforce security at schools when classes resume on Nov. 2 after two weeks of holidays, Macron's office said.
French President Emmanuel Macron met with Paty's family on Monday morning, the French presidency said.
Macron will also meet with the members of France's leading Muslim organization, the French Muslim Council, or CFCM, later in the day.
A national homage is to be held for Paty on Wednesday.
Players, coaches and referees at high-level soccer matches this weekend will wear a black armband in a tribute to Paty. The French league said in a statement Monday that a minute of silence will be observed before kick-off at all professional matches in leagues 1 and 2.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered on Sunday across France in support of freedom of speech and in memory of the slain 47-year-old teacher.
French authorities said they detained 11 people following the killing.
Darmanin said they include the father of a student and an Islamist activist who both “obviously launched a fatwa," or religious ruling, against the teacher.
A man who said he was the father of a student had posted a video on social media asserting that Paty had shown an image of a naked man and told students it was “the prophet of the Muslims.” He called on other angry parents to contact him, and relay the message.
Darmanin said authorities were also looking into about 50 associations suspected of encouraging hate speech. Some will be dissolved, he said.
The president of the Conference of imams in France, Hassen Chalghoumi, said “we are hurt, we are condemning this barbaric act," on French news broadcaster BFM TV. “Samuel is a martyr of freedom.”
“Barbarism has no place in schools nor elsewhere in France,” he said.
Chalghoumi, who is an imam in Drancy, a suburb northeast of Paris, said he had received death threats and insults on social media from radical Islamists in recent days.
Justice authorities opened an investigation for murder with a suspected terrorist motive. At least four of those detained are family members of the attacker, who had been granted 10-year residency in France as a refugee in March. He was armed with a knife and an airsoft gun, which fires plastic pellets.
Anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said a text claiming responsibility and a photograph of the victim were found on the attacker's phone.

Arsène Wenger is arguably one of the greatest football minds of all time.
He made his name as Arsenal manager from 1996 until 2018, taking home three Premier League and seven FA Cups.
And not to mention countless awards and accolades.
Now he's told the story of his life in football in his new book 'My Life in Red and White.'
Arsène Wenger joined Mike Hosking to talk about his remarkable career.
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