The Mike Hosking Breakfast

New data highlights the hidden costs of lockdown for hospital patients needing non-urgent care.
Data from the District Health Board, shows thousands of patients are waiting longer than the expected four months for specialist treatment, with Auckland hospitals straining to catch up.
Last year, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists reported 430,000 people had an un-met need for hospital care, but they estimate this has grown to about half a million since Covid.
Executive director Sarah Dalton told Mike Hosking the wait times are putting extra strain on people's lives.
"There are patients waiting for treatment who are in significant pain which is effecting their ability to work."
Dalton says this has been an issue for years,  but Covid-19 has exacerbated it. 
She says it doesn't matter where you go in New Zealand mental health workers will say they're tired, stressed and that demand is higher than capacity.
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The global Covid 19 pandemic could be about to worsen, and so could the resulting recession.
Sweden is trying to stem another potential outbreak in its capital Stockholm.
It has followed a policy of not imposing hard lockdowns like most other countries, with a goal of creating herd immunity.
Other countries are again introducing, or considering, tougher restrictions.
CNN analyst Richard Quest told Mike Hosking the ongoing lockdowns could push the world's economies closer to "K-shaped" recoveries.
"What’s really worrying and troubling is the top bit gets richer, and the bottom bit goes down as the jobs still haven;t come back."
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Italians voted to reduce the number of national lawmakers by a third, near-final results showed, as voters turned out in droves to cast ballots despite the coronavirus pandemic and strict hygiene protocols at the polls.
Even though the constitutional referendum to cut the size of parliament had cross-party support, the ruling 5-Star Movement claimed victory in its success, saying it showed voters still responded to the party's anti-establishment, reform-minded ethos.
At the close of two days of voting Monday, turnout nationwide was 53%, including those who voted from home or hospitals because they were quarantining or sick with COVID-19. An army of volunteers, wearing head-to-toe protective equipment, made house calls to ensure that even virus-affected Italians could cast ballots.
Those who went to polling centers had to follow strict protocols on wearing face masks and social distancing, with the elderly given precedence in lines. Hand sanitizer stations were ubiquitous.
"Despite COVID-19, the vote was carried out in full security," Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese said.
Based on two-thirds of the votes counted, 69% of Italians voted “yes" on a constitutional referendum to reduce the number of national lawmakers, the Interior Ministry reported. The proposal, which had passed in parliament but not with the two-thirds margin that would avoid a referendum, cuts lower house lawmakers from 630 to 400 and those in the Senate from 315 to 200.
The 5-Stars had argued that brings Italy's bloated bureaucracy more in line with other European countries and will save tens of millions of euros a year.
“For years we were told politicians were untouchable, that they decided everything for us," said the 5-Star senator, Paola Taverna. “Today, the people decided and won."
But the 5-Star Movement, which has grown from a grassroots campaign into the majority party in parliament, could claim no such victory in elections for governors in seven regions that were being contested: Campania, Le Marche, Liguria, Puglia, Tuscany, Valle d’Aosta and Veneto. There, the races were being decided between Italy's traditional center-right and center-left blocs.
Veneto Gov. Luca Zaia of the right-wing League party won his third mandate after helping Veneto avoid the worst of the pandemic, according to exit polls reported by the ANSA news agency.
Other races tested the strength of the League against the ruling 5-Stars and the Democratic Party. The toughest contest was in Tuscany, where the League hoped to oust the Democratic Party from the left-wing stronghold. Exit polls indicated the center-left candidate there, Eugenio Giani, had held off the League's Susanna Ceccardi.
Mayoral races were also held in 1,000 Italian towns and cities.
The regional elections had been scheduled for the spring but were postponed when Italy became the first country in the West to be struck by the pandemic.
Italy still has the second-highest confirmed virus death toll in Europe after Britain, with over 35,700 deaths. Experts say all figures understate the true impact of the pandemic due to limited testing and missed mild cases, among other factors.

A downward trend in the number of Kiwis using the NZ Covid Tracer app has prompted a fresh appeal for people to keep doing their bit against Covid-19.
Dr Andrew Chen, a researcher at University of Auckland-based Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures, has been observing daily numbers of QR code scans over the latest outbreak.
The day Auckland's community outbreak was announced on August 11, there were some 30,659 scans.
The following Tuesday, with the city under lockdown and the rest of New Zealand at alert level 2, more than 1.1 million scans recorded.
Numbers followed a general upward trend over the next few weeks, reaching 1.7 million the week Auckland dropped down to level 2.5, and hitting a peak of 2,506,745 on September 5.
By September 14, the total had fallen to 1.6 million, before sliding further to 1.5 million on September 20 and 1,049,949 yesterday.
While there are now 2.2 million registered users of the app – with more than 64 million poster scans and three million manual data entries to date – Chen was worried people were becoming complacent again.
"I think what we are seeing is, initially people quickly got on board and started using the app to scan QR codes when it became mandatory, but now they might not necessarily see a direct benefit in scanning."
He said regularly using the app was critical in being able to give contact tracing services a 14-day log of personal movement.
"It's about protecting yourself, because the Ministry of Health can let you know more quickly and easily if you've been exposed to Covid-19."
Just as importantly, it allowed tracers to track down others who might have been exposed to the virus, and having a log also meant they could match up cases, and potential transmission, where check-ins overlapped.
Modeller Professor Shaun Hendy, of Te Punaha Matatini, echoed Chen's message to the public.
"We've been through this second outbreak and it's perfectly understandable that people are starting to relax - but it's important we keep up those scans," he said.
"It's the sort of thing that could prove essential if we have another outbreak, or if this one kicks off again. The more of us who are using it, the better."

No excuses for Jetstar cancelling flights without offering a refund.
The airline cancelled domestic flights just three days after listing them, offering to book customers on other flights, or offer credit.
It pointed to covid restrictions being the cause, but restrictions hadn't changed between when the flights went on sale, and when they were cancelled.
Consumer NZ's head of research Jessica Wilson told Mike Hosking even though Jetstar has a reputation as a cheaper alternative, it still has legal obligations.
"As a company operating in New Zealand, they have to comply with our laws - provide services with reasonable care and skill, and if you muck up - cough up."
Wilson says if the airline is responsible for the cancellation, it needs to provide proper compensation.
She says they think Jetstar knew what it was doing, and those customers should have been offered a refund
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Judith Collins has fired another shot at Jacinda Ardern over border restrictions.
The country's largest strawberry producer is calling for the Government to allow overseas pickers in to fill shortages.
It currently doesn't have the workers needed for next month's season.
The National party leader told Mike Hosking we need to learn to understand that we can bring people in.
"If she can bring in the Australian rugby team, then why the hell not skilled workers and technology students who are going to help our industry."
Judith Collins is continuing to downplay the seriousness of fiscal mistakes in her party's economic plan.
The National Party has admitted making a $4.3 billion miscalculation, because its plan hadn't been updated following Treasury's latest Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update.
It says another $3.9 billion gap isn't a "hole", because it will be covered by reallocating money from fuel taxes and road user charges.
Collins says the $4.3 billion dollar gap isn't significant, as it means debt will reach 36 percent in 2034, rather than 35 percent.
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You've got to hand it to Jacinda Ardern. Having been spanked in the debate, such is the life of a politician in a campaign, you got to get out of bed the next morning and carry on like it never happened.
The irony being this day saw her down on the farm. If there was a single comment on the debate that sunk her, it was the condescending nonsense she dribbled out over farming and how what Judith Collins has said about being proud as a farmer's daughter and how the farmer felt beaten and embattled sounded like farming from another age.
Forgetting, of course, the Labour Party's credentials on farming weren't exactly stellar to start with, and, in fact, this farming from another age is actually keeping the country from going completely bankrupt.
Labour's policy for the farm, as released via a cowshed by the Prime Minister, was to use yet more money we don’t have to help farmers meet compliance. The irony being, why not cut the compliance as opposed to keeping red tape and pretending the cost doesn’t exist by subsidising it?
And the policy doesn’t actually have a plan yet. The first thing they need to do is set up the obligatory group, think-tank, and gab fest session to work out what the rules are so we are all on the same page.
In that is Labour to a tee, announce an idea that hasn’t actually even been formulated.
What Labour have never understood about the rural community is that farmers are business people, and all the ideological crap they want to dump on them isn't actually necessary because  it doesn’t work and  the stuff that does, they were doing anyway due to the fact that farms are businesses and no business person sets out to wreck their business.
Water, waterways, planting, run off, all the stuff that’s being regulated, is already on the radar of your New Zealand farmer.
The pugging, the slope of the paddock nonsense is the stuff only a wonk from Wellington without a set of gumboots could ever dream up. And as such even Damien O'Connor, who passes for a man of the land, but is lonely in his caucus, could see a lot of it was unworkable rubbish so at least acquiesced to some change.
But here's a thought for Labour, indeed all parties who have obvious areas of weakness, identify what you don’t know and aren't good at, and do something about it. Bring in expertise. In Labour's case, get O'Connor some mates in caucus that know one end of a cow from the other.
Look like you care. If you don't, you end like Ardern in a debate writing off an entire industry with your ignorance and disdain.

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Thursday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Good But Not Great/Never Forget the Farmers/Bottom Line Or Not?/Going Negative/Sniffing Positive

There is hope that a precedent-setting Canterbury Earthquake court case will teach the public not to trust what they're being told by insurers.
The Crown's announced it won't appeal a court decision - ordering state-owned insurer Southern Response to pay out a Christchurch couple.
Earlier this month the Court of Appeal found the agency deceived Karl and Alison Dodds - by keeping secret a higher estimate to rebuild their quake-damaged home.
Dodds family lawyer Peter Woods told Mike Hosking private insurers will probably try to distance themselves from the decision.
"It will also open the window on how insurance companies act generally, which will be good for the public to know."
Woods says at the original High Court case there were about 1600 families in a similar position.
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The events and music industries are doing it tough right now, with shows being cancelled and events hamstrung because of gathering numbers.
Now, a 19-year-old music student has decided to take matters into her own hands.
Tayla Alexander has launched the Tayla Made Foundation with Perpetual Guardian and Givealittle, with the first phase all about giving cash grants to support young artists and musicians.
Alexander, who has been signing since she was nine, told Mike Hosking that it can be very expensive 
"It's not always about the big grants of money. Sometimes it's just the ability to pay for travel costs or competition entry fees or a suit to play in."
The first grants is for $25,000 in fees-free grants, targeting classical singers with any range of experience. 
Alexander says one of the goals is to try and stop people from going overseas to have a career. 
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