The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Labour and National are at odds about whether $100 million should be spent on upgrading more than 300 marae around the country.
On Friday, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones is tipped to announce the policy, which is expected to create three thousand jobs.
Labour's Stuart Nash told Mike Hosking a number of marae are important community facilities but are in a state of disrepair.
He says it's a fantastic way to create jobs and get a lot of young Maori working.
However, National's Mark Mitchell told Mike Hosking surf clubs in his electorate provide a critical service, and $100 million dollars would go a long way to upgrading facilities, creating jobs and saving lives.
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The long-awaited Joseph Parker-Junior Fa heavyweight bout is confirmed for December 11 at Spark Arena in Auckland.
The fight has been mooted for some time, and resurfaced with sporadic mentions throughout the Covid-hit year to tease sports fans.
The event, presented by Stonewood Homes, will be globally televised and pit New Zealand's top heavyweights against each other in one of the country's biggest fights in history.
The tussle will present Parker with a golden opportunity to boost his hopes of returning to the heights of heavyweight boxing; a place he fell from quickly following consecutive losses to Brits Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte in 2018.
For Fa, this will be his biggest career fight to date, and could set him on course for a shot at a title fight with some of the world's best. He has the expertise of one of boxing's stars to bank off as well – Deontay Wilder, a former WBC Champion, is his sparring partner.
Fa's WBO Oriental Interim Heavyweight belt will go on the line against Parker.

Joseph Parker (left) and Junior Fa face off during a boxing press conference confirming their heavyweight fight. Photo / Photosport
Parker's manager and Duco Events founder David Higgins says it's great to get the fight confirmed during a pandemic.
"Getting this fight over the line is absolutely huge, and we are grateful to our partners Matchroom for their backing to make this happen," he says. "With both boxers inside the WBO top 10 world rankings and in their prime, this is undeniably New Zealand's fight of the century."
Lou DiBella, President of Fa's promoter DiBella Entertainment, says it presents a great opportunity for Fa.
"I've always believed that Junior Fa had the ability to become a world champion and, on December 11, he'll have the opportunity to prove that against a former heavyweight champion and amateur rival, in countryman Joseph Parker."
New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME), the owner and operator of the New Zealand Herald, has joined forces with Duco Events and Spark Sport in a three-way partnership to help deliver the event.
Parker joins Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking this morning to discuss all there is to know.

Still sickened by COVID-19, President Donald Trump plunged back into playing down the disease that hospitalised him for three days and has so far killed more than 210,000 Americans. He compared it anew to the seasonal flu and signaled he plans to return soon to the campaign trail.
Back at the White House after a dramatic helicopter return from the military hospital where he was receiving an unprecedented level of care for COVID-19, Trump's attitude alarmed infectious disease experts. And it suggested his own illness had not caused him to rethink his often-cavalier attitude toward the disease, which has also infected the first lady and more than a dozen White House aides and associates.
Anxious to project strength just four weeks from Election Day, Trump, who is still contagious with the virus, tweeted Tuesday morning that he is planning to attend next week’s debate with Democrat Joe Biden in Miami. “It will be great!” he said.
In a letter, Trump's doctor, Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, said Trump had a "restful" night at the White House and that on Tuesday “he reports no symptoms.” On Monday afternoon, shortly before his departure from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Conley offered that the president would not be fully “out of the woods” for another week.
The scale of the outbreak at the highest levels of the U.S. government was still being uncovered. On Tuesday, the nation's top military leaders including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, and the vice chairman, Gen. John Hyten, were in quarantine after exposure to Adm. Charles W. Ray, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard.
It was not known how Ray contracted the virus, but he attended an event for military families at the White House on Sept. 27. The Coast Guard said in a statement that Ray felt mild symptoms over the weekend and was tested on Monday.
Trump returned to the White House Monday night aboard Marine One, gingerly climbing the South Portico steps before removing his mask and giving a double thumbs-up from the terrace, where aides had arranged American flags for the sunset occasion. He entered the White House, where aides were visible milling about the Blue Room, without wearing a face covering.
In a video released later, Trump offered a nonchalant take on the virus, contravening the public health warnings of his own administration that Americans take the threat seriously and to take precautions to avoid contracting and spreading the disease as cases continue to spike across the country
“Don’t be afraid of it,” Trump said. “You’re going to beat it. We have the best medical equipment, we have the best medicines.” His remarks were strong, but he was taking deeper breaths than usual as he delivered them.
Left unsaid was that the president's experience with the disease has been far from typical, as his doctors rushed him onto experimental antiviral drugs and prescribed an aggressive course of steroids that would be unavailable to the average patient. While most must cope with their symptoms — and fear of whether they’ll take a turn for the worse — at home and alone, Trump had been staying in the presidential suite of one of the nation’s best hospitals, and he's now at the White House, where there is a team of doctors on call with 24-hour monitoring.
On Tuesday, Trump also returned to his previous comparisons of COVID-19 to the seasonal flu.
“Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu,” he tweeted. “Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!”
In fact, COVID-19 has already proven to be a more potent killer, particularly among older populations, than seasonal flu, and has shown indications of having long-term impacts on the health of younger people it infects. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...

In all honesty I had to look Denise Lee up. She is one of the 20, or so, percent of politicians in the previous Parliament I had literally never heard of.
For a person like me who has a pretty solid interest and understanding of the political game and who is playing it at an influential level, I was surprised when I did the exercise some months back, just how many of them in there i had literally never heard of.
Denise Lee was one of them. Isn't it always the way that the ones who seemingly make the least contribution, are the biggest problem makers behind the scenes?
For it Ms Lee, who has whined publicly about her leader Judith Collins coming on this show on the Leaders Breakfast on Monday, and announcing the review into the Auckland Council and the CCOs like Watercare and Auckland Transport. She moaned she hadn't been consulted, which is sort of ironic, given all the stuff she has been consulted on she clearly never did anything of note with, given I had never heard of her.
She was, her bio exposes, a former Auckland councillor. I had never heard of her in that life either as it turns out, but I suspect it is a clue as to why she might be miffed at the policy. Not only wasn’t she told about it, it insinuates she was part of some of the ineptness Judith Collins wants to review.
Anyway, because Ms Lee has clearly very little loyalty and discipline, she's now made life difficult for a party that has over the past several weeks gained some very serious momentum.
Collins made what she calls a leader's call. And here's the important point, does anyone in their right mind really think it's bad policy?
Auckland is a mess run by buffoons and Collins wants it sorted. The engine room of the country's economy is short on cylinders, the mechanics are amateurs, and she wants to fix it. Surely, that’s the bit we should be interested in, not whether some nobody three years into their time in National is a bit miffed the boss didn’t call.
Collins is right to dismiss her whinging, and Collins to right to have received the apology because the fact this race is actually a race now is down to the work of Collins, not Ms lee, her misery, and lack of positive contribution.
It's one of the downsides of the political equation, you can't sack the hopeless ones.

Jacinda Ardern accused Judith Collins of putting New Zealand's "clean, green" brand at stake during a fiery leaders' debate in Christchurch last night.
But Collins has dismissed this as a "silly" line, adding that National's promise to boost the tech sector - including science and engineering - would mean that agriculture could boom while still meeting climate targets.
The Labour and National leaders vied for votes during The Press leaders' debate at the Town Hall, with memorable exchanges over the price of milk, respect for Samoa and pokes at each others' fiscal plans.
But there was a particularly intense exchange over climate change and farming, where Collins praised the agriculture sector's importance to the export economy.
"Understand this: there is no free lunch for us in this world. We are a little country that has to fight for every trade deal," Collins said.
"We need to wake up ... we have to pay for health, we have to pay for education."
Ardern retorted that farmers were already playing their part in the climate change conversation, making New Zealand a world-leader despite the country's relatively tiny contribution to global emissions.
"Unless we move on this, we will be left behind and we will lose our brand. Dairying is doing well ... as we work on these environment issues together.
"It is a sad day when give up on our reputation of being clean and green.
"We have the potential to export green energy. The opportunity here is enormous for us."
Ardern repeatedly asked Collins what National's plan was on climate change, and Collins said the tech sector was the single biggest game-changer.
"I don't know how data centres are going to help climate change," Ardern said.
Collins: "You don't understand technology if you think it's a data centre. I should take her to some tech places."
Collins put an emphasis on growing the economy through on a number of policies including National's temporary tax cuts - described by Ardern as "an unaffordable sugar hit".
Ardern's opening and closing statements centred on the Covid response to sway voters to pick stability, adding that change could upset the gains New Zealand had already won.
She said her often-used line of going hard and early, prompting a reply from Collins that Samoa had gone a month earlier than New Zealand.
When Ardern said that wasn't correct, Collins said: "Actually, don't disrespect Samoa."
Collins said Ardern was being "ridiculous" during an exchange over lockdowns, saying the second lockdown would have been avoided if border-facing staff were being tested as they should have been.
"I'm not going to have Ms Ardern stand there and just reinvent history," Collins said.
When Ardern said there was no evidence that the outbreak came from the border, Collins said: "Where did it come from? A rock in your garden?"
Ardern then pressed Collins on the $800 million for new spending in its first year budget, which she said was simply not enough to cover what a Covid-world might throw up.
"What will it [National] cut?" Ardern said repeatedly, to which Collins answered that nothing would be cut.
When they were asked questions from viewers, Collins wouldn't say if National would ban gay conversion therapy, which is Labour's policy, while Ardern wouldn't say how she voted on legalising cannabis, which Collins is against.
Collins defined "wokeness" as a "lot of nonsense", while Ardern said it meant "huge self-awareness".
They were then asked about the cost of living and the price of ordinary goods. Both were spot on for the cost of Netflix, but wide of the mark when it came to the price of two litres of milk and two kilos of lamb.
Both leaders agreed that it was too soon to move to a republic when the Queen dies, though Ardern said she thought it might happen within her lifetime.
Before the debate, Collins had been on the back foot following a leaked...

The Regional Development Minister Shane Jones is understood to be planning his biggest spend yet from the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF).
The New Zealand First Minister will announce a spend of around a hundred million dollars in Kaikohe, the heart of the electorate he's standing in, for the upgrading of marae around the country.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will be campaigning in the area when the announcement is made but won't be there even though the money has been signed off by her Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford.
The money will be spent on more than 300 marae that have applied for it to upgrade facilities.


It is believed that the work will create 3000 jobs.
This will be the last handout from the PGF before the election.
The PGF was another area where the Coalition Government clashed while on the campaign trail.
Labour leader Ardern and Economic Development spokesman Phil Twyford said in September they would axe the PGF if re-elected.
At the time, Deputy Prime Minister and NZ First leader Winston Peters accused Labour of abandoning the regions by discontinuing the PGF.
The proposed replacement regional fund was a "straight cop-out" and a "sad commentary on Labour's priorities when they are by themselves", he said.
Ardern disagreed, saying the PGF was only ever designed to be a $3 billion project over three years.
Labour said that if it is re-elected existing PGF projects will be progressed over the next term, with unallocated PGF sector funding to be considered for redistribution to new regionally developed plans.

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Wednesday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Who the Hell Is Denise?/Someone Drank the Regeneron/What Hosk's Watching/Next Nobel/Thanks, Donald

Aucklanders have been doing their bit for the rest of the country, now it's time to return the love.
Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development's new campaign ‘Dear NZ, Love Auckland’ hopes to draw the travel market towards the City of Sails.
Chief executive Steve Armitage says visitors are key to getting the city back up and running.
He says because Aucklanders have showed their love to the rest of the country, it's time some of that is returned.
“The campaign… Dear New Zealand, Love Auckland is certainly focused on that domestic audience and specifically visiting friends and family.”

I was in downtown Auckland on Saturday, and it's a shocking mess.
I'm downtown most days, but the part I was in is not as big a mess as where I was Saturday.
The part I am in most days is just sad.
Post level four, it has never come back, the people have gone, not all of them but enough of them to make my trip home faster which is no bad thing, but enough of them to know its got a ghost town feel about it and if I was trying to turn a dollar, it is nothing like it was.
No, the bit of Saturday was next level.
It was the heart of the chaos, and when I say chaos, not people, no there were hardly any people, people have long since given up trying to navigate the mess we encountered.
The only reason we persisted with the trip at all, having looked up the map to get the best directions and see nothing but red lines on the google maps, was because the shop was the only branch that had what we wanted.
It's hard to know what was worse, the reduction of lanes, the detours, the cones, the lights that aren't synchronised with the lay out, the road closures, the no parking signs, the tow away threats, there were a handful of walkers, not shoppers, no real bags but people I assumed lived in the area out on a lovely spring day.
We passed the Elliot Street restaurants currently pleading for survival over rent, I wasn’t surprised who's going there, clearly no one.
I also assume one day the authorities would tell you it will all be wonderful and world class , or will it?
Which is why National's promise of an inquiry into Auckland Council and its so desperately over due.
The key of course is terms of reference , who is doing the looking and what actually they will do by way of fixing it , and how much push back comes from the council who must be humiliated by the call.
But look at the evidence, a bridge on the verge of a wind gust, lack of water with no real plans to boost infrastructure for years.
A public transport net work that is constantly delayed, broken, late, on strike, dysfunctional.
An ideology around bike lanes that don’t work, aren't used and yet keep getting built, projects like CRL at best an ordinary idea, in reality late, getting later and billions over budget.
And all the while they call it a world class liveable city, their greatest achievement is saying that without bursting out laughing.
The Herald headlines over the weekend city of fails, and now a potential govt inquiry.
A broken town with failed leaders and arrogant agencies.
If an inquiry can bring the madness to heel and fingers  crossed address the carnage, we will owe them a spectacular debt of gratitude, good luck.

We all know the name Stan Walker.
The Kiwi singer has made waves ever since winning Australian Idol in 2009 - and has gone on to have countless platinum albums and singles.
Now he's told his story in his first book Impossible: My Story, which tells some horrific stories from his childhood.
Stan Walker joined Mike Hosking in studio to talk about his book.
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