The Mike Hosking Breakfast

A state-owner earthquake insurer still has to pay out a Christchurch couple, after their lawyer says they were purposefully deceived.
Southern Response has lost its bid to overturn last year's High Court decision against it.
The court found the agency misled and 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 it was straight up subterfuge.
He says it wasn't malicious, but the Dodds relied on the information Southern Response gave them, so they're entitled to receive damages.
Woods says claim misrepresentations made to thousands of other homeowners could cost the agency up to $675-million.
"The case sets a legal precedent that could have a big impact.
“There's an upcoming class action suit with 3000 claims in it - and the Court of Appeal's made it clear Southern Response is liable for this one."
LISTEN ABOVE

A New Zealand twitter bot aimed at targeting hate tweets will have its hands full this election.
Tech start up Areto Labs has launched an AI that recognises hateful tweets towards female election candidates, and posts a positive response.
So far, it's identified about two percent of tweets sent to women running this year, as toxic.
National's Nicola Willis told Mike Hosking there are just some things you come to expect as a woman campaigning online.
"There are gender based words that are used, starting with letters from the beginning of the alphabet that her mother wouldn't like her to repeat on air."
Willis says Twitter is the harshest of all the social media platforms.
She says she tweeted a photo of herself and her female colleagues, and received the reply - "what a team of pigs in wigs wearing lipstick, pig emoji, you all look as hideous as your personality".
LISTEN ABOVE

I asked the Prime Minister about the All Blacks yesterday to hold her to account.
Why? Because they are not proactive, they have not been remotely proactive enough in areas that could genuinely benefit this country as a result of its so-called success against Covid. What's the point in locking the world out and reducing the virus to a handful of cases if you can't then, while under the policy of elimination, take advantage of what we have achieved.
The price, which has been talked of so many times, is economic disaster.
But surely if there is a light, it's events like test rugby. Or as Queensland has found out, the AFL. Or as we have started to dabble in, some film work and the America's Cup.
The headlines generated throughout the media yesterday as a result of our question, I hope place enough pressure on the government that the cancel culture they’ve indulged in so far is coming to an end and a change of attitude will prevail.
But we have to keep the pressure on. The Youth America's Cup is gone, and the Women's Cricket World Cup has been postponed by the International Cricket Council. Why? I have no idea, other than attitude.
Under the the simple heading of, "where there is a will there is a way" these are the sort of events we could have forged on with. Isolation is doable, the bill can be covered, and the organisational expertise is easy.
Once you have these people here and through quarantine it means they are safe, the problem is solved, and we can get on with it.
None of these events requires thousands of people. And as the government keep reminding us, if they actually manage to secure the border and sort the testing, we can resume level 1. Level 1 is crowds and crowds pay the bills, something even the Australians are still limited with.
The welfare blinkers they’ve had on are sending us broke. So, any form of revenue generation should be pursued, pushed, and enacted as quickly and as often as we can. Not to mention the psychological lift of watching our greatest sporting export success ply their trade.
Have we not, given all our sacrifice and the government's endless trumpeting of our Covid success, earned the right to explore the upside of where we find ourselves?
A little entrepreneurial spirit, a willing desire and a can-do attitude is not a lot to ask. Why make it hard when it doesn’t have to be?

National's meth policy isn't revolutionary, but a former drug squad detective says it's a step in the right direction.
On a visit to Napier yesterday, Judith Collins announced the party's plan which will tackle supplies coming into prisons, target organised crime networks, increase drug dogs at airports and establish a $50 million contestable fund for reduction programmes.
It will also use a health response modelled on the successful Matrix programme up in the 1990s in the US to tackle its cocaine epidemic.
Methcon managing director Dale Kirk told Mike Hosking it's not necessarily anything new.
"But it is taking parts of things which work in other areas and reusing them in New Zealand."
He says it shows treatment for methamphetamine and its harm is being made a priority.
LISTEN ABOVE

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern will today unveil a policy aimed at reducing how much money small businesses are forced to pay for contactless payment services.
The Herald understands that part of Labour's plan is aimed at reducing the hundreds of millions of dollars paid in such fees every year.
The policy launch today follows a frenetic day for political parties as the election campaign began yesterday.
National revealed plans to combat methamphetamine and NZ First leader Winston Peters touted for votes at the University of Otago.
Ardern is in Tauranga today to unveil the party's small business policy. It is understood it will include regulating merchant servicing fees, a move expected to be welcomed by the retail sector which has long been calling for change.


Businesses are charged fees for the use of contactless debit and credit card transactions, including mobile wallets and payWave, but there is no such fee for using an eftpos card by inserting or swiping.
The contactless payment fees have been an area of contention in New Zealand, which has much higher payment fees than Australia or the UK, and costs businesses here hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Chief executive of Retail NZ Greg Hartford said because retailers tend to incorporate their bank charges into their overall pricing, there is effectively an "inequitable wealth transfer from less well-off Kiwis to better-off New Zealanders".
Bluntly, he said: "High fee levels are costing the whole economy".
Today's announcement would be welcome news to many small business across the country which had been struggling in the wake of Covid-19, Harford said.
Several months ago, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in New Zealand, debit cardpayWave fees were slashed to zero to encourage contactless payment.
But the fees were reintroduced in July and business began to call for them to be reduced.
Businesses doing it tough
Auckland bar owner Mike Howie, from Freida Margolis in Grey Lynn, told RNZ in August those fees were costing him thousands of dollars during what was already a difficult time.
He said many businesses were doing it tough in the CBD and needed a break or they might go under.
"It's just too tough for some of these businesses. We're lucky at the moment, but if this goes on any longer, again we have to start the same old, 'where can we get a break?'
"For example, are the banks going to do anything for us this time? At the moment, they said they were giving us free payWave [during lockdown] — my bank fees have quadrupled when they turned my payWave on, it was only on debit cards.
"I'm now in the thousands from the bank fees, rather than the hundreds."
According to numbers from economic consultancy Covec, the fees will likely cost businesses $556 million by the end of the year. Without intervention, that would rise to $711m by 2025, Covec's numbers show.
Retail New Zealand has been questioning why the fees are so high and is calling for regulation to see them reduced.
In its 2019 Payments Survey, it pointed out the fees are unregulated in New Zealand, which means they are higher than in other countries.
For example, contactless payment fees in New Zealand are 1.1 per cent per transaction for a debit card.
But that figure is 0.6 per cent in Australia and 0.3 per cent in the UK.
The gap is also wide when it comes to contactless credit card payments — in New Zealand, it's a 1.5 per cent fee compared to 0.8 per cent and 0.6 per cent in Australia and the UK respectively.
Ardern is in Tauranga on the campaign trail today, starting her public appearances at a Papakainga development site just before 10am.
She will then make a small business visit later in the morning, before making her small business announcement at midday.

Heads are expected to be knocked together to resolve the Brexit impasse.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is talking tough with the European Union, saying he'll walk away from the deal unless it's finalised before October 15.
Disagreement over fishing rights is one issue that's delaying things.
Broadcaster Iain Dale told Mike Hosking either France or Germany will intervene because they're already in enough economic difficulties and need a free trade agreement.
"It's what former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott used to do when there was deadlock over free trade agreements.
"He knocked a few heads together and it all came right."
LISTEN ABOVE

Another public holiday could do good things for the tourism sector.
If re-elected, Labour will make Matariki a public holiday by 2022.
Tourism Holding's Grant Webster told Mike Hosking it would fall in early winter, when a lot of the sector is losing money.
He says public holiday weekends can see business quadruple compared to a normal weekend.
Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Chris Roberts also welcomed the decision, noting that Kiwi travel spending jumps 200 to 300 per cent on any long weekend.
"We recognise that there are some costs for employers, but in terms of the overall economic activity it generates we see it as a net positive," he said.
The Green Party, which has supported a Matariki public holiday since at least 2014, welcomed Labour's endorsement.
But the idea was slammed by Act, NZ First and National. National's finance spokesman Paul Goldsmith said Ardern "has shown zero empathy for the tens of thousands of New Zealanders who are struggling right now to keep their businesses afloat and employ Kiwis".
"New Zealand is in the biggest economic crisis in a generation and Labour's answer to this is another public holiday," he said.
"More and more New Zealanders want to celebrate Matariki, but if it is to take the form of a public holiday it should replace an existing one."

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Tuesday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Let's Get it On/How Many Holidays?/Talking Up Telly/No New Nord/Well I Liked It

Andrew Saville and Guy Heveldt join mike Hosking to talk about the latest in sport.
The All Blacks squad for 2020 has been named in the hope of fixtures being sorted. The rumblings suggest there will be a Bledisloe series, and a Rugby Championship is still possible.
Saville believes tests with Australia will go ahead, potentially in Australia.
"Talk of that [the Rugby Championship] seems to be up and down on a daily basis, so I think the Bledisloes will happen."
Heveldt believes it makes the most sense for tests with Australia to be hosted in New Zealand.
"Our Covid response is supposedly the best so why wouldn't have at least one if not all of the games here?"
Saville is not sure if the Government would stop with the All Blacks from playing the election coming up.

Victorians will have to deal with an intense lockdown enforced by Covid-19, for a fair bit longer.
The Australian state were expecting an easing of lockdown restrictions yesterday, but were met the announcement stage four will continue for at least another three weeks.
It came as Victoria recorded five further deaths from the virus. Premier Daniel Andrews has a road map which extends out to the 23rd of November.
Australian correspondent Steve Price told Mike Hosking business in particular is at arms with the Premier.
"Australian retailers association chief executive Paul Zahra says the road-map would permanently wipe out a large number of small businesses, and would see the closure of many Victorian stores."
Mr Price says the state's population are furious, but there is nothing they can do about it.