The Mike Hosking Breakfast

The Government and Health Ministry aren't giving up on finding the original source of the current Auckland Covid-19 cluster.
There are now 177 cases making up the cluster, with 55 active.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield told Mike Hosking they're keen to find out where the outbreak started.
He's confident it wasn't a case simmering in the community, and believes it must have come through the border somewhere.
"The question is whether it happened through a casual contact at the airport or port, or whether it happened at a managed isolation facility."
Health authorities are backing Auckland University's Covid-19 modelling.
Jacinda Ardern says modelling for the Ministry of Health suggests around a 25 percent chance of Covid-19 cases moving outside the Auckland region.
Dr Ashley Bloomfield says the percentage will continue to drop, if case numbers decrease in the coming days.
He says the modellers put in a range of assumptions - around travel patterns, the number of cases in Auckland, and different likelihoods of the virus spreading.

The Prime Minister says Australia's taking a risk by hosting this year's Rugby Championship.
The southern hemisphere tournament kicks off on November 7, with the All Blacks, Wallabies and Pumas all competing.
The Springboks haven't decided whether they'll play or not.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today she had spoken to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison last night to ensure the All Blacks' two Bledisloe Cup matches in New Zealand would still go ahead in October.
"I just wanted to make sure that he was aware... I was made aware last night that there were a few little rumblings around the arrangements that we had in place," Ardern told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking.
"Always better to get ahead of these things before they escalate. Given we had a bit of a deal - we go there, they come here, we both benefit. I thought he might want to know there were a few discussions as to whether the Aussies were still going to come."
She believed the Australians were still coming. "There's no reason for them not to."
She said the risk profile for the Australians was different for teams in the wider Rugby Championship - South Africa and Argentina. In the case of the Argentina team, some players had tested positive for Covid.
She said the director general of health had advised that the Australians could start training after three days and the full squad after six days - a relaxation of earlier proposed rules. "Quarantine shouldn't be an issue... here risk is lower."
She denied she had made up the line of "Sanzaar politics" being to blame for the loss of the Rugby Championship - the tournament is now set to be held in Australia.
"Commercial arrangements played a part," she said, without being specific other than to refer to broadcasting arrangements and other money behind the tournament.

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Tuesday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) We Could've Been Flying the Whole Time/Ardern Anger/Previewing the Disaster/Tokens Please/Shut Up and Play

Andrew Saville and Guy Heveldt join Mike Hosking to discuss the latest in sport on this week's Commentary Box.
"What a shambles". That's Saville's take on New Zealand losing the hosting duties of the upcoming Rugby Championship due to the country's strict quarantine procedures.
With teams having in-house medical teams to keep them safe and regularly tested. Saville seems a little perplexed as to why the procedures are so strict. 
"They would have lived in a bubble, remained in a bubble, played in a bubble...I just don't get it"
The Mitre 10 Cup is back and with some more notable names than usual. Heveldt says "we should enjoy it while it lasts" until the All Blacks head in to camp in a couple of weeks.
Politics in Sport? Mike's had enough and Heveldt makes a bold prediction for the NBA finals.
LISTEN ABOVE

Hemp, could it become New Zealand's next billion dollar industry? 
According to a recent report the industry could see a massive leap from $30 million to $2 billion in just 10 years.
New Zealand Hemp Industries Association Chair Richard Barge joined Mike Hosking to talk about hemp's potential growth in NZ, and what effects the outcome of the upcoming cannabis referendum will have on the industry.
LISTEN ABOVE

Are lockdown breakers getting the full brunt of the law?
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters wants members of the Mount Roskill evangelical church to be dealt with for breaking isolation rules, which has been a contributing factor to the extension of level 2.5 in Auckland.
Meanwhile more than a thousand anti-lockdown protestors gathered in Auckland's Aotea Square on Saturday, which was organised by the Advance New Zealand party, where there was little social distancing and mask use.
Police Association president Chris Cahill told Mike Hosking in Melbourne, his colleagues are concerned about the damage to the Police reputation by arresting and fining people.
He says protestors are getting what they want.
"If you get the attention you want... that's also an incentive for further protestors  to go out next weekend."
Elsewhere, Police say a gun register is crucial in halting the rise in illegal firearms.
New figures show firearm seizures have more than doubled in the past decade, with almost two thousand confiscated last year.
Mr Cahill says without a gun register, it is difficult to measure progress.
He says as soon as they take a firearm off a criminal, they seem to be able to get another one.
The Government's gun buyback scheme collected 60 thousand firearms last year, at a cost of 100 million dollars.

The season of political advertising has begun, ahead of next month's General Election.
Labour's first ad features leader and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern sitting at a desk with a vibrant red coat, uttering common lines of 'rebuilding' and 'sticking together'.
National's first shows leader Judith Collins, urging New Zealand to trust their 'team', who can help rebuild communities and futures.
University of Auckland associate professor of marketing Mike Lee revealed to Mike Hosking his analysis.
"[National's message] finishes off with the team, so that's the big message, that's the unique selling proposition at this point, you're getting the team.
"The main reason [they're doing this] is they don't have a star player right now, so they're selling on the idea of the team.
"If you flip over to the Labour ad, the symbolism you've got there is she's already in a seat of power, so she's got that set-up with the desk showing that's she been here doing the work.
"You've got one person instead of a team, so a very different approach. What they're saying there is we've got a star player."
Mr Lee notes this is likely the first time National have injected a 'greener future' message into their campaign, which could show they're willing to join forces with the Greens.

Queenstown mayor Jim Boult is hopeful the area will drop to alert level 1 today and some social distancing measures are scrapped.
New Zealand will find out today whether the current alert level settings will change or remain the same.
There are no known community cases of Covid-19 in the South Island, and Mr Boult told Mike Hosking they have always been ready to move to level 1.
"In particular, we're pushing for social distancing on aircraft to be dropped. The reality is you get on a plane, every time you stand up to get off or getting on a plan you're close to other people.
"I just don't think we're achieving anything by it other than stopping people coming in and spending money in our town."
Mr Boult says businesses in the area are damaged, which is frustrating.
"Last week Queenstown airport corporation told me they were aware of 1500 people who were trying to get from Auckland to Queenstown, but couldn't get a chair on an air plane. That's 1500 people we desperately need at the present time," he adds.
Mr Boult says the decision for the Rugby Championship to go to Australia instead of New Zealand was "gutting", and says they had a well-thought out plan to make it work.

COMMENT:
The only glimmer of light to come out of the Rugby Championship debacle for the government was the bad news was delivered on a Friday. Traditionally, it's the best bad news days for governments on the understanding that people forget stuff over the weekend.
For our show, anyway, no such luck.
The damage, as it turns out is two-fold, and the second bit is directly attributable to the Prime Minister who basically made stuff up. The reason we lost it is as reported, the government wouldn't move on quarantine. Three Ministers were primarily involved, Grant Roberson, Megan Woods, and here perhaps is your clue, Phil Twyford.
The three teams would fly into Queenstown, quarantine, and train. The government would not allow it in numbers larger than 15, which obviously isn't doable. The government had this on their table for three months. In those 3 months they offered one compromise, the 15 could go to 25. It's still not viable.
The Australians having run the AFL and NRL successfully stepped in and offered a solution. And despite the government knowing this was a reality, they did nothing, and they refused to budge.
Which once again leads to the question, what's the point of a decent Covid response if you can't take advantage of it?
The Australians in a similar, or you might even argue numerically slightly worse position than us, are able through agility, positivity, and genuine desire to take advantage of an opportunity worth millions upon millions of dollars. They played us for fearful dithering suckers, and good on them.
But that wasn't the end of it. As gutting as our mistake and shooting of ourselves in the foot was, the Prime Minister blamed SANZAR and SANZAR politics. That was instead of telling the truth, like they wouldn't budge, they are fearful of major events, and they'd rather stay shut.
This was a shock. Because not only were the NZR and SANZAR disappointed, they were now dealing with fiction by way of excuse. Hence you saw a response far greater and stronger than originally was intended from them.
SANZAR said there was no politics, they looked at the deals they called it.
NZR, clearly gobsmacked by the Prime Minister's fairytale, had little option but to come out as well and say there was no politics. It is, as they described it, the government's unwillingness to be flexible around quarantine. We lost the Rugby Championship because the government quarantine system would not accommodate a major sporting event. Beginning, middle, and end.
The Prime Minister is Machiavellian, she invented a blame game, and she invented an excuse. If you want to be blinded by fear, ineptitude, and intransigence at least be honest about it, and own it.
Don't blame others who aren't to blame, that’s just straight up and down dishonesty.

The Government will today announce New Zealand's alert level update, which will give businesses an idea of how soon they can reopen in full.
It will come a day after two new Covid-19 cases were announced, and three new locations were revealed to have been visited by a positive person in the greater Auckland area.
Former Business NZ boss Phil O'Reilly told Mike Hosking he is not confident of a drop today.
He says a difference this time compared to the first lockdown is wage subsides are not being handed out at the same rate, which is good.
"Handing our grandchildren money has just got to stop," he says.
"You'd hope the Government is thinking as much about that as they are about level 2.5."
Mr O'Reilly says an economic and health response need to addressed simultaneously.
"Now we've also got to think about the economic lever as well, and that is about trying to dynamically change the system. For example could we move to level 1.5... could we move to that? Could we think about opening the border a little more to skilled migrants who might be able to come in and help create thousands of jobs. That kind of thinking is not going on, and that's the concern I have."